Category Archives: Islamic State

With Kabul wedding attack, Isis aims to erode Taliban supremacy

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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.

Few events are so joyous and optimistic as a wedding. So why would a terrorist group – even one as brutal as Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility – want to attack one?

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Jack Letts stripped of British citizenship

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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”.

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Isis suspect Jack Letts stripped of British citizenship – report

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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.

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Begum lawyer says legal ploy could stop her return to Britain

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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.

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New wave of terrorist attacks possible before end of year, UN says

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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.

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Hamza bin Laden: the end of a dynasty, but not al-Qaida

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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.

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Moroccan court orders death penalty for jihadists who beheaded tourists

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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.

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Philippines: Isis claims bombing that killed five on Jolo island

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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.

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In a world full of wars, why are so many of them ignored? | Simon Tisdall

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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”.

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Britain should take back children of Isis fighters, says Mordaunt

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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.

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Dutch hostage killed in Philippines during gun battle

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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.

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Isis wife reveals role in helping CIA hunt for Baghdadi

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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.

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France opposes death penalty for French Isis fighters in Iraq

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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.

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Iraq sentences three French citizens to death for joining Isis

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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.

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Sajid Javid condemned for ‘criminalising’ fighters against Isis

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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.

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US repatriates family from Syrian detention camp for Isis suspects

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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.

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No increased Iran threat in Syria or Iraq, top British officer says, contradicting US

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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.

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Shamima Begum would face death penalty in Bangladesh, says minister

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Family lawyer says chances of Begum being sent to country are ‘vanishingly remote’

Shamima Begum could face the death penalty for involvement in terrorism if she goes to Bangladesh, the country’s foreign minister has said.

However, her family’s lawyer said the chances of her being sent to her parents’ country of origin were “vanishingly remote”.

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Isis leader Baghdadi appears in video for first time in five years

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Video comes weeks after Islamic State was ousted from last stronghold in Syria

The fugitive Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has appeared in a propaganda video for the first time in five years, in which he acknowledges the terrorist group’s defeat in the Syrian town of Baghuz.

The appearance is only Baghdadi’s second on video, and comes weeks after the remnants of Isis were ousted from their last organised stronghold in the eastern Syrian desert. Looking heavier than when he proclaimed the existence of the now-collapsed caliphate in mid-2014, Baghdadi blames its demise on the “savagery” of Christians.

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Death toll in Sri Lanka bombings revised down to 253

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Official cites difficulty of identifying victims as reason for revision

Sri Lankan authorities have revised the death toll from Easter Sunday’s string of bombings down to 253 people from the previous estimate of 359.

The country’s director general for health services issued the correction on Thursday, citing the difficulty of identifying victims due to the nature of the bombings, some of which took place in closely confined spaces and left some bodies in pieces.

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