Category Archives: Islamic State

‘You are next’: online posts show Islamic State interest in attacks on US ahead of election

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Internet chatter and Oklahoma arrest of alleged would-be IS attacker indicate terror group’s planning

After the FBI arrested an Afghan man in Oklahoma planning an election day shooting on behalf of the Islamic State, the terrorist organization re-entered what has become one of the most chaotic news cycles leading up to a November vote.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, of Oklahoma City admitted to investigators he and a co-conspirator expected to die as IS martyrs as they opened fire on crowds on election day, according to charging documents.

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Man who lit Melbourne bushfires and embraced ‘depraved ideology’ of Islamic State jailed for eight years

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Judge says offending by Aran Sherani, who pledged allegiance to terrorist organisation, ‘must be denounced’

A convicted terrorist has been jailed for eight years after he filmed himself pledging allegiance to Islamic State.

A supreme court jury in 2023 found Aran Sherani, 22, guilty of preparing for a terrorist act over the 2021 video.

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Yazidi woman kidnapped by IS freed from Gaza after decade in captivity

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Officials say US, Israel, Jordan and Iraq involved in rescue of 21-year-old who had been captured in Iraq

A 21-year-old woman kidnapped by Islamic State militants in Iraq more than a decade ago has been freed from Gaza in an operation led by the US.

The operation this week also involved Israel, Jordan and Iraq, according to officials.

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German border plan to stop ‘irregular migration’ unacceptable, says Tusk

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Polish PM calls for urgent consultations with European neighbours over controls he says will break European law

The Polish government is accusing Germany of acting unilaterally and unfairly over its “unacceptable” plans to introduce temporary controls into in the passport-free Schengen zone at all the country’s nine land borders, in what Warsaw says is a contravention of European law.

Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said Germany had introduced a “de facto suspension of the Schengen agreement on a large scale” after the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, announced Berlin’s decision to confront what she called “irregular migration” by introducing spot controls along Germany’s 2,300-mile (3,700km) frontier after a recent spate of suspected Islamist attacks.

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Pakistani man in Canada charged with planned mass shooting of Jewish New Yorkers

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Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, arrested near US border after allegedly planning attack with undercover agents

A Pakistani man living in Canada is facing federal criminal charges for allegedly planning to carry out a mass shooting in New York against Jewish people on the anniversary of the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, the US justice department announced on Friday.

Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, was arrested Wednesday in Canada and charged with attempting to provide material support as well as resources to a foreign terrorist organization – in this case, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.

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US and Iraq launch joint raid killing 15 Islamic State militants

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Seven American troops injured during battle in Anbar desert, says central command

The US military and Iraq launched a joint raid targeting suspected Islamic State group militants in the Iraqi western desert that killed at least 15 people while seven American troops were hurt, officials said on Saturday.

The US military’s central command said the militants were armed with weapons, grenades and explosive belts during the battle on Thursday, which Iraqi forces said happened in the Anbar desert.

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German chancellor pledges tougher weapons laws in wake of Solingen attack

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Olaf Scholz also promises swifter enforcement of deportation rules after three killed in last week’s rampage

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has promised tougher weapons laws and swifter enforcement of deportation rules in response to the deadly mass stabbing in the western city of Solingen, as the far right seized on public outrage in the run-up to key state elections.

Scholz laid a single white rose at the scene of Friday night’s rampage claimed by the Islamic State group in which a Syrian asylum seeker is alleged to have killed three and injured eight people attending a street festival marking the city’s 650th anniversary.

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Solingen stabbing attack: suspect shares Islamic State ideology, say prosecutors

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Issa Al H, a 26-year-old Syrian, appears before a judge in Karlsruhe after attack in which three people died

Solingen stabbings: what we know so far

Prosecutors have said the suspect arrested over a stabbing rampage in the western German city of Solingen shares the ideology of the Islamic State group and was acting on those beliefs when he attacked.

The 26-year-old Syrian, who had turned himself in, was identified by federal prosecutors as Issa Al H, with his last name omitted in line with German privacy laws.

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Russian special forces free hostages taken by four men linked to Islamic State

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Prisoners who carried out attack that left several guards dead at high-security jail ‘liquidated’, says national guard

Russian special forces have freed hostages taken by four men linked to the Islamic State who carried out an attack at a high-security prison in the southern Volgograd region, resulting in the deaths of several prison guards.

Russia’s national guard announced in a statement that special forces snipers “liquidated” all four hostage-takers before the colony was stormed and the hostages were freed.

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Third teenager arrested over foiled Taylor Swift concert attack in Vienna

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Iraqi man, 18, said to be an associate of main 19-year-old suspect in terror plot that has led to cancellation of shows

A third suspect has been arrested in connection with a foiled terror attack on Taylor Swift’s now-cancelled concerts in Vienna, the Austrian interior minister has said.

The 18-year-old Iraqi man is understood to have been an associate of the main 19-year-old suspect, identified as Beran A, an Austrian with North Macedonian roots.

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Taylor Swift concert plot: Austrian police find bomb chemicals in suspect’s home

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Austrian, 19, arrested alongside 17-year-old for allegedly planning Islamist attack at Vienna venue

The 19-year-old prime suspect in an alleged plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert that led to the cancellation of the singer’s three-night run in Vienna had collected chemicals with the intention of building a bomb, senior Austrian security officials have said.

The Austrian suspect was arrested along with a 17-year-old who recently started working for a services company providing support for the concerts, on suspicion of planning an Islamist attack. A third person, 15, was taken into custody late on Wednesday in connection with the investigation.

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Iraq’s Yazidis gather to remember the dead and missing, 10 years on from Islamic State genocide

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A decade after thousands were killed or displaced, many in the remaining community are still living in refugee camps

Saturday marked exactly 10 years since Islamic State (IS) entered Iraq’s Sinjar province, displacing, killing and enslaving hundreds of thousands of Yazidis. On Saturday morning, crowds gathered for a ceremony to remember victims of the genocide at the “grave of the mothers”, where 111 elderly women were shot dead or buried alive after being separated from their family members.

The ceremony at the mass grave near the Yazidi genocide memorial in Solagh began at 10am, when a minute’s silence was observed across the country. Traditional Yazidi songs were sung, and poems and witness testimonies were recited on the stage.

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Girls as young as nine gang-raped by paramilitaries in Sudan – report

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Human Rights Watch accuses RSF militia of ‘countless’ cases of rape and torture in Khartoum in 15-month civil war

Gunmen from a notorious militia roamed Sudan’s capital gang-raping “countless” women and girls, some as young as nine, according to an investigation documenting the shocking prevalence of sexual violence in Khartoum during the country’s civil war.

Some of the attacks by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were so brutal that women and girls died “due to the violence associated with the act of rape”, according to the research by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

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Three suspected IS members charged in Belgium over terrorism plot

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Police searched houses across country on eve of Olympic opening ceremony in neighbouring France

Three suspected members of Islamic State’s Afghan branch, Islamic State Khorasan, have been charged in Belgium with planning a terrorist attack.

Police released four other people who had also been detained during searches of houses across the country on Thursday, three of them after being questioned by an investigative judge, the state prosecutor’s office said.

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Gaza conflict could fuel IS and al-Qaida revival, security experts warn

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Officials and analysts warn of evidence of increased Islamic State and al-Qaida militant activity across Middle East

Security services across the Middle East fear the conflict in Gaza will allow Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaida to rebuild across the region, leading to a wave of terrorist plots in coming months and years.

Officials and analysts say there is already evidence of increased Islamic militant extremism in many places, although multiple factors are combining to cause the surge.

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Widow of Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi given death sentence by Iraqi court

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Judgement deems one of Baghdadi’s widows complicit in crimes against Yazidi women

An Iraqi court has issued a death sentence against one of the widows of the late Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, alleging that she was complicit in crimes committed against Yazidi women captured by the militant group.

The ruling comes weeks before the 10-year mark since IS launched a series of attacks against the Yazidi religious minority in the northern Iraqi region of Sinjar in early August 2014, killing and capturing thousands – including women and girls who were subjected to human trafficking and sexual abuse. The UN said the campaign against the Yazidis amounted to genocide.

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Dagestan attack highlights Russia’s Islamist terror threat as forces are engaged in Ukraine

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Attacks by gunmen in two cities appeared to catch local security officials by surprise

Sunday’s terrorist attack in Dagestan that left at least 19 people dead has highlighted Russia’s growing difficulties in managing a tide of Islamist terror at home as its security forces are engaged in the war in Ukraine.

The attack, which was carried out by four gunmen in the capital, Makhachkala, and two in the seaside city of Derbent, appeared to catch Dagestani officials by surprise. At least 15 police officers were among those killed, and the attackers also burned down a synagogue and set fire to a church in acts that Russian officials are clearly concerned could lead to a tide of inter-ethnic violence at home.

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Yazidi survivors of Sinjar massacre alarmed by Iraq’s move to close camps

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A decade after tens of thousands of Yazidis escaped an Islamic State attack many fear return to a home in ruins

The Iraqi government has been accused of making the survivors of the Sinjar massacre fear for their future once more, almost a decade after the murderous Islamic State campaign that forced tens of thousands of people to flee from their homes.

In January, the Iraqi council of ministers set a deadline of 30 July to close 23 displacement camps in Iraqi Kurdistan. The camps are home to about 155,000 internally displaced people (IDP), mostly Yazidis, who were slaughtered, kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery in their thousands at the height of the violence in northern Iraq in 2014.

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Government could repatriate Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps if it had ‘political will’, court says

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The federal court dismissed the case brought by Save the Children and ruled that the government had no legal obligation to bring them home

If the federal government had “the political will” to repatriate Australian women and children from Syrian detention camps “it would be a relatively straightforward exercise”, the full bench of the federal court has said in a judgment.

But there is no legal obligation on the government to bring its citizens back to Australia, the court ruled.

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Russian special forces kill Islamic State-linked hostage-takers

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Men linked to militant group took two guards hostage at facility in southern city of Rostov

Russian special forces have freed two guards and killed six men linked to Islamic State who had taken them hostage at a detention centre in the southern city of Rostov, the prison service said.

State media said that some of the men had been convicted of terrorism offences and were accused of affiliation with IS, which claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall in March.

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