President ordered strike on Kabul safe house last month during a high-level meeting, administration says
A US drone strike in Afghanistan has killed the top al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Joe Biden announced on Monday.
The US president described the death of Zawahiri, who was Osama bin Laden’s deputy and successor, as a major blow to the terrorist network behind the September 11 2001 attacks.
Continue reading...Suicide bombings threatened after ‘slandering’ comments made by Hindu Bharatiya Janata party
Al-Qaida in the Indian subcontinent has said it plans to carry out suicide bombings in revenge for the “insulting and slandering” remarks made by leaders of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party about the prophet Muhammad and his wife, Aisha.
The Indian news agency ANI has reported that in a letter dated 6 June, AQIS – the regional branch of al-Qaida – warned that Hindu nationalist “terrorists should now await their end in Delhi and Bombay and in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat”.
Continue reading...Intelligence report raises fears country could again become base for international terrorists
Al-Qaida has a haven in Afghanistan under the Taliban and “increased freedom of action” with the potential of launching new long-distance attacks in coming years, a UN report based on intelligence supplied by member states says.
The assessment, by the UN committee charged with enforcing sanctions on the Taliban and others that may threaten the security of Afghanistan, will raise concerns that the country could once again become a base for international terrorist attacks after the withdrawal of US and Nato troops last year.
Continue reading...Mohammad Ahmad al-Qahtani was accused of attempting to enter the US to hijack planes in the September 11 attack
A man accused of attempting to join hijackers in carrying out the September 11 attacks has been repatriated to his home country of Saudi Arabia for mental health treatment after two decades detained at Guantánamo Bay, the US Department of Defense said on Monday.
Mohammad Ahmad al-Qahtani was flown back to Saudi Arabia, to a treatment facility, from the US base in Cuba after a review board including military and intelligence officials concluded he no longer represented a significant threat to US national security, and could be safely released after 20 years in custody.
Continue reading...Joe Biden says military has removed Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi from the battlefield
Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of Islamic State and one of the world’s most wanted men, has been killed during an overnight raid by US special forces in north-west Syria.
The pre-dawn attack on a house in the village of Atme, just south of the Turkish border, led to up to 13 casualties, among them women and children. It also resulted in the destruction of a US helicopter, which had been used to carry special forces troops from Erbil in Iraq.
Continue reading...NGOs call for aid exemption to EU-backed sanctions imposed after election postponement and arrival of Russian paramilitary
More than a dozen aid organisations have called for humanitarian exemptions to heavy sanctions imposed on Mali after the military leadership postponed planned February elections.
The EU has announced support for the sanctions imposed earlier this month by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which include closing borders and a trade embargo.
Continue reading...The killings come amid escalating violence in the region, where a four-year Islamist insurgency has resulted in thousands of deaths
Authorities in Burkina Faso have declared a two-day period of mourning after suspected militants killed at least 41 members of a government-backed civilian militia in the country’s desert north this week.
A column of civilian fighters from the homeland defence volunteers (VDP), a group the government funds and trains to contain Islamist insurgents, was ambushed on Thursday as it swept a remote area in the northern Loroum province, authorities said on Saturday.
Continue reading...Insurgents shoot villagers going to a market on the same day UN peacekeeping convoy attacked, killing one person
Militants have killed at least 31 people in central Mali when they fired upon a bus ferrying people to a local market and attacked a UN convoy in the north of the country in a region racked by a violent insurgency.
The bus was attacked on Friday by unidentified gunmen as it travelled its twice-weekly route from the village of Songho to a market in Bandiagara six miles (10km) away, said Moulaye Guindo, the mayor of the nearby town of Bankass.
Continue reading...• Order responds to call by victims’ families suing Riyadh
• Full record to be released over six months after review
Joe Biden has announced the wholesale review and declassification of files from the investigation into the 9/11 attack, in response to intense pressure from Congress and victims’ families currently suing Saudi Arabia.
Related: ‘A horn blew when human remains were found’: Wim Wenders’ six hours in the hell of Ground Zero
Continue reading...Analysis: Experts are divided over whether events in Afghanistan will significantly increase risk of attacks
In three days in earlier this month Islamist militants killed more than 120 civilians in a series of attacks in the Sahel, a belt of increasingly anarchic and violent territory across Africa, where such groups have gone from strength to strength in recent years. Thousand of miles to the east, fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabaab stormed a military base in the centre of Somalia.
None of these attacks received much attention – nor did the recent arrest of IS sympathisers in Australia, the attempted murder of a moderate politician in the Maldives or a court case against militants who attacked LGBT activists in Bangladesh.
Continue reading...Death toll from the assault near northern town of Gorgadji leaves 59 civilians dead, along with six militiamen and 15 military police
Burkina Faso’s president has declared three days of national mourning after suspected jihadists killed 80 people, including 59 civilians, in an attack in the north of the country.
The attack was the latest bloodshed in an area with high levels of Islamist violence.
Continue reading...UK defence secretary is worried that ‘al-Qaida will probably come back’ – but it is already there
As the Taliban prepare to rule Afghanistan after sweeping across the country in less than a week, an obvious question is what does this mean for the future of al-Qaida and other extremist Islamist groups committed to waging a global jihad.
There is no doubt that the astonishing rapidity of the Taliban’s victory will deliver a tremendous boost to Islamist extremists everywhere – whether al-Qaida, Islamic State, fighters in Mozambique or Syria, or jihadi fanboys in bedsits in Birmingham or Manila.
Continue reading...Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for suicide attack on convoy of senior police official in Somali capital
A suicide car bomb targeting a government convoy exploded at a busy junction in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing at least nine people and injuring eight others, a health official said.
The convoy was carrying a senior police official, Farhan Mohamud, who survived the attack on Saturday, the government news agency reported.
Continue reading...Artillery fired from government-controlled area kills eight civilians and injures others in Idlib province
Artillery fire from government-controlled territory and airstrikes killed at least eight civilians in Syria’s last rebel enclave on Saturday, most of them children, rescue workers and a war monitor said.
The shelling in Ibleen, a village in the southern Idlib province, hit the home of Subhi al-Assi, killing him, his wife and three of his children in their sleep, according to the rescue service known as White Helmets and Idlib’s health directorate. Al-Assi was an administrator in a local health centre.
Continue reading...Military victories combined with new alliances and shifts in strategy reinforce militants’ position across much of continent
Islamic State’s affiliates in Africa are set for major expansion after a series of significant victories, new alliances and shifts in strategy reinforced their position across much of the continent.
Following recent gains in Nigeria, the Sahel, in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Isis propaganda published by the group’s leadership in its heartland in the Middle East is increasingly stressing sub-Saharan Africa as a new front which may compensate the group for significant setbacks elsewhere.
Continue reading...Starvation, al-Shabaab and postponed elections have made the country a ready gun. If the trigger is pulled, global trade is at risk
Frantz Fanon once quipped: “Africa is shaped like a revolver, and Congo is the trigger.”
More than 60 years later, I think the French philosopher’s assessment is only half true. It leaves out Somalia – which once held the crown as the “Switzerland of Africa”, but is now again on the verge of political disintegration.
Continue reading...Report says pandemic gives Isis and al-Qaida opportunity to undermine governments in conflict zones
Islamic extremists are planning a possible “rash of pre-planned attacks” when restrictions on movement imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic are lifted, the United Nations has warned.
A report based on intelligence received from member countries over the last six months says Islamic State will seek to “end its marginalisation from the news” with a wave of violence and notes that the group recently urged supporters to spend less time on social media to free up time to launch operations against its enemies.
Continue reading...Attacks on two villages were launched just as first-round results were announced in presidential election
“Terrorists” have killed around 100 people in two villages in western Niger, the latest in a string of civilian massacres that have rocked the jihadist-plagued Tillaberi region, a local mayor has said.
The attacks on the villages of Tchoma Bangou and Zaroumadareye occurred on Saturday just as first-round presidential election results were announced.
Continue reading...Suspected bomb maker Zulkarnaen arrested in a raid at a house on Sumatra island
Indonesian police have arrested a man believed to be the military leader of the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah network who has eluded capture since 2003, and is suspected of being involved in the 2002 Bali bombings, authorities said Saturday.
Aris Sumarsono, known as Zulkarnaen, was arrested late Thursday by counterterrorism police without resistance in a raid at a house in East Lampung district on Sumatra island, said national police spokesperson Ahmad Ramadhan.
Continue reading...Abu Muhammad al-Masri was gunned down in Tehran more than three months ago, says New York Times
Al-Qaida’s second-in-command was killed in Iran in August by Israeli operatives acting at the behest of the United States, the New York Times has reported, citing intelligence officials.
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle in Tehran, the NYT reported. He was accused of helping to mastermind the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.
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