Category Archives: Islamic State

Four men go on trial over Strasbourg terror attack in 2018

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One accused of terrorism and three of helping Chérif Chekatt procure weapons for deadly assault at Christmas market

Four menhave gone on trial today accused of involvement in the 2018 terrorist attack on Strasbourg’s Christmas market, in which a gunman killed five people and injured 11 others in an assault that was later claimed by Islamic State.

Chérif Chekatt, 29, who was born and raised in the city, opened fire with a 19th-century revolver on 11 December in the historic centre.

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Yazidi woman held by IS for 10 years freed by Kurdish fighters in Syria

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Iraqi, 24, rescued with her children from al-Hawl camp after being abducted then raped and forced into marriage

US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria have liberated a Yazidi woman who had been held for a decade by Islamic State (IS), where she was raped and forced to marry extremists.

The 24-year-old woman was rescued with her son and daughter during a security operation by Kurdish fighters in Syria’s al-Hawl camp, which houses tens of thousands of people, mostly the wives and children of Islamic State fighters, the Syrian Democratic Forces said on Monday.

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Islamic State claims responsibility for Iran bombings that killed at least 84

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Afghan affiliate of IS claims responsibility for blasts in memorial crowd as Tehran tightens security on its eastern borders

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on a crowd in southern Iran marking the anniversary of the death of the senior Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Suleimani.

At least 84 people died when two blasts ripped through the crowd near Suleimani’s tomb in the city of Kerman, four years after he was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad. Suleimani had been a staunch enemy of IS, which resents the damage he did to its cause in Iraq and Syria.

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Nobel laureate sues French concrete maker Lafarge over alleged Islamic State support

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Nadia Murad and 430 US citizens of Yazidi background suing conglomerate over payments it made to terrorist group

About 430 Americans of Yazidi background and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad accused French conglomerate Lafarge of supporting brutal attacks on the population through a conspiracy with the Islamic State, according to a complaint reviewed by AFP.

The civil suit, filed in a New York court by attorneys that include human rights lawyer Amal Clooney references a $778m US Department of Justice fine and guilty criminal plea in October 2022 by Lafarge, which was acquired by Swiss company Holcim in 2015.

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Britain to repatriate woman and five children from Syrian camps

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However, human rights group says UK lagging behind other western nations in repatriating families who lived under IS

Britain has agreed to repatriate a woman and five children from camps in Syria, the second time the UK has allowed an adult to return since the end of the ground war against Islamic State more than four years ago.

The release was announced by the Kurdish administration that controls north-east Syria – but a human rights group and a former minister accused the UK of lagging behind other western nations in allowing families who lived under IS to return.

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Bombing of Catholic mass in southern Philippines leaves four dead

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Police say explosion at Mindanao State University gymnasium in Marawi could be revenge by pro-Islamic State militants

Philippine forces were on high alert after a bomb killed four people and wounded many more during a Catholic mass in a university gymnasium in the south of the country, an attack the authorities called Islamist terrorism.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the senseless and most heinous acts perpetrated by foreign terrorists,” said the president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. “Extremists who wield violence against the innocent will always be regarded as enemies to our society.”

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Australia has no legal obligation to repatriate 31 women and children held in Syrian camp, court rules

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Most of the Australians have been held in the Roj detention camp in north-east Syria for four years

The federal government does not have a legal obligation to repatriate 31 Australian women and children who have been forcibly held in a Syrian detention camp for four years, a court has ruled.

The Australians are the wives, widows and children of slain or jailed Islamic State fighters. Most have been held in the squalid Roj detention camp in north-east Syria for four years. None have been charged with a crime or currently face a warrant for arrest.

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Shamima Begum a victim of trafficking when she left Britain for Syria, court told

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Lawyers argue Home Office failed to properly consider whether Begum had been groomed before stripping her of UK citizenship

Shamima Begum’s lawyers argued before the court of appeal on Tuesday that it was unlawful to deprive her of British citizenship because she was a victim of trafficking when she left the UK for Islamic State territory in Syria at 15.

Samantha Knights KC, her barrister, told the start of a three-day hearing that the Home Office and a lower court had failed to properly consider whether she was groomed – and called for the decision to be overturned.

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

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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.

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

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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.”

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Attacks across Europe put Islamist extremism back in spotlight

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Even before the war in Gaza, authorities have been warning of rise in Islamist terrorism on the continent

For months now, authorities charged with keeping Europe safe from Islamist extremist violence have been sounding the alarm. In May, Dutch security services warned that the terrorist threat from Islamic State to Europe had increased. The same month, the French interior minister said the risk of Islamist terrorism was rising again and that his own country was being targeted, as well as its neighbours.

In recent days, these pessimistic forecasts appear to have been vindicated. France is deploying 7,000 extra troops on to its streets after a teacher was fatally stabbed on Friday in an attack that Emmanuel Macron condemned as “barbaric Islamic terrorism”. The suspected attacker swore an oath of allegiance to IS in an audio recording on his phone shortly before the killing, prosecutors have said.

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Brussels on high alert as two Swedes killed in shooting and suspect remains at large

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Residents told to stay at home after attack that prosecutors said was inspired by Islamic State

Brussels is on its highest level of security alert after two Swedes were shot dead in the centre of the city by a gunman who federal prosecutors said claimed to be inspired by Islamic State.

The Swedish national football team were in the middle of a match against Belgium at King Baudouin Stadium, about 5km away, but the match was abandoned at half-time and the crowd was instructed to stay inside the stadium.

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Twin suicide attacks underline the depth of Pakistan’s crisis

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Escalating violence comes at a time when the economy is in tatters and the caretaker government powerless

The scenes of horror pictured on Friday have become all too familiar in Pakistan. This time it was a twin attack. A procession to mark the birthday of the prophet Muhammad and a police station were both targeted by suicide bombers, killing almost 60 people and injuring hundreds more.

No one has yet claimed responsibility, but suspicion among officials and analysts was directed towards Islamic State – Khorasan (IS-K), which has recently regrouped and revived its militant activities in Pakistan to devastating effect, and with little sign of being contained. Alongside a recent resurgence of its rival, the Pakistan Taliban, which has been behind dozens of deadly attacks over the past few months, the country’s security situation continues to deteriorate to its worst in years.

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Birmingham PhD student guilty of using 3D printer to build ‘kamikaze’ drone

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Mohamad al-Bared used technology at Coventry home to make drone designed to deliver a warhead or chemical weapon for IS

A Birmingham University PhD student has been found guilty of using a 3D printer at home to build a “kamikaze” drone designed to deliver an explosive warhead or chemical weapon for Islamic State (IS) terrorists.

Mechanical engineering graduate Mohamad al-Bared, 27, was found guilty of using a 3D printer to make the drone at his Coventry home while sending weekly updates to IS.

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Eight men sentenced over 2016 Brussels bombings, ending Belgium’s largest-ever criminal trial

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Terms ranged up to life in prison and included high-profile culprits Salah Abdeslam and Mohamed Abrini

A Belgian court has handed out sentences of up to life in jail to eight men for the 2016 jihadist bombing attacks in Brussels, bringing to an end the country’s largest-ever criminal trial.

The suicide bombings on 22 March 2016 at Brussels’ main airport and on the metro system killed 32 people and were claimed by the Islamic State group.

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‘We need food and shelter’: farmers flee for their lives as terrorists attack villages in Mali

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Civilians who have been displaced by raids want to return home but say there is no protection for them there

There was no warning. The raiders came late in the night, shouting and shooting. The unarmed farmers of Bujo had no chance to defend themselves, and those who were too slow to flee died. By the morning, the villagers’ homes had been burned, livestock stolen and stores looted. They buried 17 victims in the communal graveyard and then walked the 15km to the nearby town of Bandiagara, where they remain.

The attack in mid-August was one of more than a dozen assaults last month on similar villages in a small area of central Mali that have killed at least 100 people and displaced tens of thousands.

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FBI agents reportedly search for Uzbeks helped into US by smuggler with IS ties

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Episode reported by CNN required emergency memo to senior officials and suggests agency does not know migrants’ location

Federal agents are reportedly trailing a group of more than a dozen Uzbek nationals who entered the US as asylum seekers aided by a smuggler with ties to Isis.

The extraordinary episode, which multiple US officials confirmed to CNN on Tuesday, was considered so serious that it required an emergency intelligence report to senior Biden administration figures.

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UK must stop funding detention of children in Syria, says David Davis

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Ex-cabinet minister calls on foreign secretary to reveal how many British minors are being held in camps

The UK must urgently end its policy of funding the illegal detention of children in north-east Syria, and disclose how many British minors are being held in camps run by Syrian Kurds on behalf of the west, the former cabinet minister David Davis has said in a letter to the foreign secretary, James Cleverly.

The letter comes after it was revealed that Yusuf Zahab, a 19-year-old Australian citizen locked up in Syria since he was 14 and presumed killed in a July 2022 Islamic State (IS) attack on a prison in the city of Hasakah, may be alive after all. A year-old video of him speaking and dated after the IS attack was released on Tuesday.

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Australian teenager Yusuf Zahab ‘alive’ in Syrian prison months after reports he was killed in IS strike

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Family ‘overwhelmed with joy’ after video emerges of teenager, believed to be Zahab, looking healthy and speaking into a camera

An Australian teenager believed killed in an Islamic State airstrike in Syria more than a year ago is believed to have been found alive. His family say they are “overwhelmed with joy”.

Yusuf Zahab was just 11 when he was taken into Syria by his family nearly a decade ago: his older brothers were IS fighters and recruiters.

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Islamic State says it carried out Pakistan suicide bombing that killed 54

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Blast took place at political rally for a pro-Taliban party as country faces a rising tide of militant attacks

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 54 people in Pakistan, as the country battles a rising tide of militant attacks.

The bombing took place at a rally for a pro-Taliban party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province bordering Afghanistan that has faced a rapidly declining security situation due to attacks from militant groups including the Pakistan Taliban and Islamic State’s regional affiliate.

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