Category Archives: Al-Qaida

Al-Qaida and IS call on followers to strike Israeli, US and Jewish targets

Posted on by

Israeli military offensive in Gaza offers opportunity to extremist groups in west and Middle East, experts say

Al-Qaida and Islamic State (IS) have called on their followers to strike Israeli, US and Jewish targets, raising the prospect of new terrorist violence in the Middle East or the west.

In a series of statements over the past two weeks, affiliates of al-Qaida congratulated Hamas on its “invasion of Israel”, a reference to the terrorist attacks that killed 1,400 people, mainly civilians, on 7 October.

Continue reading...

Joe Biden’s warning to Israel is a nod to US failures in the ‘war on terror’

Posted on by

The US response to 9/11 was dogged by a threat posed by an ill-defined enemy, which led to human rights abuses associated with Guantánamo

When Joe Biden, the US president, spoke to Israelis during his brief visit this week, he said he and “many Americans” understood “their shock, pain and rage”.

Then he added a warning. “Justice must be done. But I caution this – while you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”

Continue reading...

Mali jihadists kill dozens in twin attacks amid growing Islamist threat

Posted on by

Group affiliated with al-Qaida target army base and Timbuktu river boat as violence surges in region

Al-Qaida-linked militants have killed at least 64 people in twin attacks on an army base and a crowded passenger boat on the Niger River in northern Mali.

Extremists from the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) appear to have targeted the Timbuktu boat on the river and an army position at Bamba, in the northern Gao region, with “a provisional toll of 49 civilians and 15 soldiers killed”, according to a government statement.

Continue reading...

Ken Elliott: kidnapped Australian surgeon says he had scurvy and was close to death during seven years in Africa

Posted on by

The missionary, who was taken by an al-Qaida-linked group in Burkina Faso in 2016, tells how God and meditating on scripture sustained him

An Australian surgeon who was held captive by militants in Africa for more than seven years has spoken publicly about the toll of the ordeal, saying he became so malnourished he got scurvy and was close to death.

Ken Elliott and his wife, Jocelyn, were in their 80s when they were kidnapped by an al-Qaida-linked group in Burkina Faso, a landlocked country in the Sahel region that is experiencing increasing unrest.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Nine people killed in attack by al-Shabaab in Somali capital Mogadishu

Posted on by

Islamist militants claim responsibility for blast at popular restaurant on Friday night that injured 20 people

Nine people were killed in an attack claimed by al-Shabaab Islamist militants at an upmarket restaurant in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Friday night, police have said.

Those killed at the popular Pearl restaurant were six civilians and three soldiers, police said in a statement.

Continue reading...

Guantánamo detainee accuses UK agencies of complicity in his torture

Posted on by

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri wants to bring case examining alleged role of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ in his mistreatment by CIA

A Guantánamo Bay prisoner tortured by the CIA has accused British intelligence agencies of complicity in his mistreatment in a new case before one of UK’s most secretive courts.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is alleged by the US to have plotted al-Qaida’s bombing of an American naval ship, is seeking to persuade the court to consider his complaint against MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

Continue reading...

Kidnapped Australian Dr Ken Elliott released by al-Qaida in Africa after seven-year fight for freedom

Posted on by

Penny Wong says the 88-year-old Perth man, who was kidnapped in Burkina Faso in 2016, has been reunited with his family

Dr Ken Elliott, the Australian who was kidnapped by an al-Qaida-linked group in Africa in 2016, has been released.

Elliott and his wife, Jocelyn, were in their 80s when they were kidnapped by extremists in Burkina Faso. The Perth couple had lived in the country since 1972 and had built a medical clinic in the northern town of Djibo.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Guantánamo detainee who was tortured by CIA released to Belize

Posted on by

Al-Qaida courier turned informant Majid Khan to be permanently resettled after being held in US custody for nearly 20 years

The US has released Majid Khan, an al-Qaida courier turned informant who was tortured in secret CIA prisons and held in custody for nearly 20 years, marking the first time a “high-value detainee” has been freed from Guantánamo Bay.

Khan, a 42-year-old Pakistani born in Saudi Arabia, completed his jail term last March and landed in Belize on Thursday, where he is to be permanently resettled.

Continue reading...

Blair asked Bush during first phone call if he could call him by first name

Posted on by

Archives reveal PM’s early attempts to establish personal relationship with president after 2000 US election

Tony Blair moved swiftly to place his relationship with George W Bush on a personal footing after the Republican won the 2000 US presidential election, asking him “early on” in their first telephone call if he could call him by his first name.

“Bush warmly assented (but stuck himself with addressing the prime minister as ‘Sir’),” according to a note of their call, which is among government files released to the National Archives. Blair was the first foreign leader to call to congratulate the president-elect. Michael Tatham, a British diplomat, noted that the eight-minute conversation had established “as good a rapport as one could hope for” from such a short call.

Continue reading...

German aid worker freed after kidnapping in Niger four years ago

Posted on by

63-year-old Joerg Lange’s employer, humanitarian organisation Help, did not say how release secured

A 63-year-old German aid worker, Joerg Lange, has been freed more than four years after he was kidnapped in western Niger near the Malian border, his employer, humanitarian organisation Help, said in a statement on Saturday.

Armed men on motorcycles kidnapped Lange in April 2018 near the Nigerien town of Inates in borderlands where militant groups, some with links to al-Qaida and Islamic State, have carried out frequent attacks for years.

Continue reading...

International troops quit Mali as violence and Moscow’s influence grow

Posted on by

Germany latest to end peacekeeping mission as operations prove unable to stop Islamic extremist insurgency

Thousands of international troops are withdrawing from Mali amid surging violence, growing Russian influence and an acute humanitarian crisis.

On Wednesday Germany became the latest country to end its participation in the UN peacekeeping mission in the unstable west African country. Earlier this week, British officials said that 300 British soldiers sent in 2020 to join the United Nations force would be returning earlier than planned.

Continue reading...

UN says 50 civilians killed in April by Mali’s army

Posted on by

Alleged massacre took place on market day in Hombori after military convoy hit explosive device

At least 50 civilians were killed during a military operation conducted by Mali’s army and “foreign troops” on 19 April, according to a report by the UN.

The UN has repeatedly accused Malian soldiers of summarily executing civilians and suspected militants during their decade-long fight against groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State.

Continue reading...

‘Why does the school hate me?’: how former MI6 spy’s Scottish dream turned sour

Posted on by

At security debriefings, Aimen Dean and his family fell in love with the Highlands. Three years later, they feel rejected

Aimen Dean remembers the moment he and his wife, Saadia, decided to make their home in Scotland. They had toured the Highlands and were standing on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle, looking out over the city’s skyline.

Dean already knew Scotland: as one of the UK’s key spies, operating in the highest levels of al-Qaida, he had visited the country in secret six times before, to be debriefed by MI6 officers at safe houses deep in the Highlands or, on one occasion, a hotel on the island of Iona.

Continue reading...

Father who spied on al-Qaida accuses Edinburgh school of discrimination

Posted on by

Inquiry opens into St George’s after Aimen Dean claims it singled out his daughter over fears he was a security risk

One of the UK’s leading private schools is under investigation after being accused of discrimination against the daughter of one of the west’s most important spies, a former al-Qaida bomb-maker credited with saving thousands of lives.

Aimen Dean, who spied for British intelligence inside the terrorist network for eight years, has made a formal complaint against St George’s School in Edinburgh, claiming it singled out his five-year-old daughter because other parents feared he was a security risk.

Continue reading...

Bali bomb maker Umar Patek could be released early from Indonesian jail

Posted on by

Early release of ex-member of terror group linked to al-Qaida will cause distress for bereaved, says Australian PM

Umar Patek, the bomb maker who helped assemble the devices used in the 2002 bombing in Bali, could walk free early from prison this year.

The Indonesian ministry of law and human rights regional office in East Java has proposed the early release after the ex-member of Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian terror group linked to al-Qaida, completed two-thirds of his sentence, plus remissions.

Continue reading...

Al-Qaida chief’s killing comes as group gains ground in African conflict zones

Posted on by

UN says terror organisation, whose affiliate recently attacked Mali’s most important military base, ‘is once again the leader of global jihad’

It was one of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s last victories. Just over a week before the al-Qaida leader was killed in Kabul by missiles fired from a US drone, militants from the organisation’s biggest affiliate in sub-Saharan Africa attacked the most important military base in Mali.

The tactics of the attack were familiar – suicide bombers blowing a gap in defences to allow gunmen to reached stunned defenders – but the operation marked a major escalation.

Continue reading...

Hey, that’s my house: US aid worker realises Zawahiri villa is his old home

Posted on by

The Kabul property hit by a US drone was familiar. It turned out Dan Smock had something in common with al-Qaida’s leader

The balcony in Kabul where the head of al-Qaida was killed was a spot Dan Smock knew well. It used to be his – when he worked in Afghanistan on a US government aid project – and the views were spectacular.

Smock enjoyed starting the day looking out at the Afghan capital, as did the world’s most wanted terrorist, from the villa they both called home, several years apart.

Continue reading...

Nancy Pelosi tells President Tsai US will not abandon Taiwan – as it happened

Posted on by

This blog is now closed

Another area of tension lies between the US and Russia, which Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has ratcheted up again this morning.

On his daily call with the media, Peskov said any talks on a possible prisoner exchange involving US basketball star Brittney Griner needed to be discreet, and that “megaphone diplomacy” would not achieve results, Reuters reports.

Continue reading...

Biden echoes Obama as White House releases photo of briefing on strike

Posted on by

Picture bore striking similarities to 1 May 2011 image, when US special forces killed Osama bin Laden

The White House on Tuesday released a picture of Joe Biden being briefed on the CIA drone strike which killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida and a chief planner of the 9/11 attacks, in Kabul last weekend.

The move came amid widespread celebration of the killing in the United States and the apparently successful attack provides a welcome fillip to Biden, whose popularity has plunged during 2022 as the nation gears up for crucial midterm election in November.

Continue reading...

Zawahiri’s killing unlikely to weaken al-Qaida significantly

Posted on by

Analysis: The terrorist leader had been ill and key tasks are likely to have been handled by others for several years

Ayman al-Zawahiri was a low-key but effective leader of al-Qaida whose death will cause the terrorist organisation some short-term turbulence but is unlikely to cause any major long-term problems.

A decade ago, killing Zawahiri would have made a major difference. Now, though the nature of his death demonstrates the US’s continuing ability to strike individual enemies even in hostile environments and raises questions about the Taliban’s relationship with extremist groups, it is unlikely to weaken al-Qaida significantly.

Continue reading...