Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US envoy for peace in Afghanistan, says agreement would reduce violence and allow ‘intra-Afghan’ talks
US and Taliban negotiators are close to an agreement that would reduce fighting and allow full peace talks among Afghans, a top US official said on Sunday, a day after insurgent forces stormed the strategic northern city of Kunduz.
But only hours after Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born US diplomat overseeing negotiations for Washington, spoke the Taliban attacked a second Afghan city, Puli Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, an official said.
Multiple attacks in region suggest drone warfare could extend to distant battlefields
A spate of drone attacks in Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and now Lebanon has raised the spectre of a new era of conflict in the region, due to the ability of stealth-like weapons to penetrate distant battlefields and hit closely guarded targets.
Drone warfare has become an instrumental factor in the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, now being fought over both sides of the Israeli border and in skies across the region.
National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre confirmed, via a tweet, that he spoke with President Trump today about gun laws, and called him a “strong” president.
The Atlantic reported earlier this afternoon that Trump had called LaPierre to reassure him that any background check legislation was now off the table.
I spoke to the president today. We discussed the best ways to prevent these types of tragedies. @realDonaldTrump is a strong #2A President and supports our Right to Keep and Bear Arms! – Wayne LaPierre
Donald Trump said on Tuesday evening that he is postponing a scheduled meeting with the Danish prime minister over her comments on his proposal for the US to buy the island.
Denmark owns Greenland, and the country has said the island is not for sale. Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, said on Sunday: “Greenland is not for sale. Greenland is not Danish. Greenland belongs to Greenland. I strongly hope that this is not meant seriously.”
....The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!
As the US and Taliban negotiate peace, Isis sees a chance to sow fresh chaos in Afghanistan
Even by the bloody standards of Afghanistan, it was a brutal attack: a suicide bomber at a wedding celebration, detonating his device as children danced and the happy couple completed their marriage rituals. In an instant more than 60 of the 1,000 guests were dead, hundreds injured.
Canada accuses UK of ‘offloading responsibilities’ over dual-national Isis recruit
Jack Letts, who left his home in Oxfordshire to join Isis five years ago, has been stripped of his British citizenship while being held in a Syrian prison.
The move sparked a diplomatic row as Canada – where Letts qualifies for a passport through his father – accused the UK government of “offloading its responsibilities”.
Muslim convert, 24, has had his British citizenship revoked, according to the Mail on Sunday
The Muslim convert Jack Letts, who is suspected of leaving Britain to join the Islamic State, has been stripped of his British citizenship, it has been reported.
Jack Letts was 18 when he left his Oxfordshire home in 2014 before marrying in Iraq and moving to Raqqa in Syria. Captured by Kurdish forces as he attempted to flee to Turkey in May 2017, the 24-year-old, dubbed “Jihadi Jack”, has since been held in jail in northern Syria.
Citizenship appeal for UK Isis teenager being ‘deliberately delayed’
Shamima Begum’s attempt to overturn the decision to revoke her UK citizenship is being deliberately delayed, according to her lawyers, to give police time to charge the former Islamic State member with a terrorism offence.
Almost six months have passed since Begum lodged an appeal against the decision, by the former home secretary, Sajid Javid. Yet the 19-year-old, who joined Isis aged 15 and remains in Syria, is still waiting for a date to be set with the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), which adjudicates on cases where the home secretary has revoked someone’s nationality on grounds of national security.
UN report warns threat from Islamist extremist groups remains high
The United Nations has warned that a recent pause in international terrorist violence may soon end, with a new wave of attacks possible before the end of the year.
In a report, specialist monitors at the UN security council paint a worrying picture of a global Islamist extremist movement that continues to pose a significant threat despite recent setbacks.
Osama bin Laden’s son was being groomed to be new leader of group responsible for 9/11
For most of the decade that followed the 9/11 attacks in 2001, hardly a day passed without news about al-Qaida. In the last year, by contrast, the Guardian has mentioned the group 11 times.
The event that has put it back in the spotlight is not a terrorist strike against the “Crusader-Zionist alliance” or the “hypocrite, apostate regimes” of the Middle East but the death of a high-profile member.
Three Isis supporters who killed two Scandinavian women given death sentence
Three men have been sentenced to death in Morocco for the Isis-inspired murder of two Scandinavian hikers in the Atlas mountains last December.
The two victims, Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, from Denmark, and Maren Ueland, 28, from Norway, were beheaded by a group of men who wanted to impress Islamic State. The three men confessed to their murder at a court in Salé, near Rabat.
Officials say local affiliate Abu Sayyaf was likely behind blast that targeted elite army unit
Five people including three soldiers were killed in a bombing targeting an elite army unit in the Philippines’s restive south, which Islamic State claimed was a suicide attack, authorities and experts said.
The military said the kidnap-for-ransom group and Isis-affiliate Abu Sayyaf was likely behind the midday blast on the island of Jolo on Friday, which also left nine other soldiers wounded.
Instability across central Africa has resulted in a humanitarian crisis. There needs to be greater focus on conflict resolution
Cameroon, a central African state of 24 million people on the Gulf of Guinea, is rarely in the news – which is surprising, given the awful things happening there. In a warring world full of conflict, the country’s troubles barely rate a mention. That’s short-sighted. As Yemen shows, today’s local difficulties have a habit of becoming tomorrow’s international crises.
Long-running tensions between Cameroon’s French and English-speaking communities came to a head last week with the arrest of at least 350 members of the main opposition party, whose leader has been jailed since January. Human Rights Watch accused security forces of using “excessive and indiscriminate force”.
Defence secretary says UK has ‘an obligation to innocents’ as Syrian civil war subsides
Britain has an obligation to take back “innocent” children born to Islamic State fighters in Syria, the defence secretary has said, arguing that the UK needs to resolve its failure to repatriate minors caught up in the Syrian civil war.
Penny Mordaunt said she wanted to “build up a very clear picture” of where children have been taken into camps as Syria’s violent conflict has subsided and be prepared to allow them to come to the UK.
Birdwatcher Ewold Horn, kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf in 2012, dies as army fights militants
A Dutch birdwatcher held by Islamic State-linked militants was killed on Friday during a firefight between his kidnappers and soldiers in the southern Philippines, according to the military, which said he was shot by his captors as he tried to escape.
Ewold Horn, held hostage since 2012 by Abu Sayyaf, was fatally wounded as soldiers fought a 90-minute gun battle with the jihadists in Sulu province on their stronghold, Jolo island.
Umm Sayyaf, sentenced to death in Iraq, tells how she exposed fugitive’s secrets
The most senior female Islamic State captive has played a central role in the hunt for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, helping identify safe houses used by the fugitive terrorist leader and in one case pinpointing his location in Mosul, the Guardian can reveal.
The Isis woman, Nisrine Assad Ibrahim, better known by her nom de guerre, Umm Sayyaf, has helped the CIA and Kurdish intelligence officers build a detailed portrait of Baghdadi’s movements, hideouts and networks, investigators have disclosed. The claims have been confirmed by Umm Sayyaf in her first interview since being captured in a Delta Force raid in Syria four years ago that killed her husband, the then Isis oil minister.
Foreign ministry says it is opposed to the death penalty ‘at all times and in all places’
France has confirmed it will take “the necessary steps” to try to prevent Iraq carrying out the death penalty against French citizens convicted of fighting with Islamic State.
“France is opposed in principle to the death penalty at all times and in all places,” the French foreign ministry said on Monday, as an Iraqi court sentenced a fourth French citizen to death, a day after handing capital punishment sentences to three others.
Human rights groups have criticised the country’s trials of fighters captured in Syria
An Iraqi court has sentenced three French citizens to death after they were found guilty of joining Islamic State, a court official said.
Captured in Syria by a US-backed force fighting the jihadists, they are the first French Isis members to receive death sentences in Iraq, where they were transferred for trial.
Families of those killed say the home secretary must distinguish between jihadists and others fighting with Kurdish forces
More than 40 international volunteers – a third of them British – who fought in Syria against the Islamic State terror group have written to the home secretary, Sajid Javid, to condemn his plans to prosecute UK citizens who remain in the country.
Four British families whose sons or daughters were killed fighting Isis have also signed the letter, raising concerns that Javid is “criminalising” those who risked their lives supporting the US-led coalition which two months ago defeated the IS caliphate.
Exclusive: removal of four people could put pressure on other countries to follow suit
A US family have been removed from a Syrian detention centre for suspected members of Islamic State and returned to the US. The move could have implications for hundreds of children born to non-Syrians who have been in legal limbo since the disintegration of the terror group.
The family of four were taken from al-Roj camp in the country’s north-east over the weekend, sources inside the camp have confirmed to the Guardian. They are believed to be US citizens of Cambodian ancestry and to include children born under Isis rule.
Deputy commander of anti-Isis coalition rebuts White House justification for sending troops
The top British general in the US-led coalition against Isis has said there is no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq or Syria, directly contradicting US assertions used to justify a military buildup in the region.
Hours later however, his assessment was disowned by US Central Command in an extraordinary rebuke of an allied senior officer. A spokesman insisted that the troops in Iraq and Syria were on a high level of alert due to the alleged Iranian threat. The conflicting versions of the reality on the ground added to the confusion and mixed signals in a tense part of the Middle East.