Category Archives: Islamic State

Revealed: how fake passports allow IS members to enter Europe and US

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Seller whose passports have been used by those who illegally crossed Syrian border says: ‘it is not my job to see who is bad’

A booming online industry specialising in fake passports with official visas and travel stamps is offering people with links to Islamic State the opportunity to leave Syria and travel onwards to the UK, EU, Canada and the US, a Guardian investigation has found.

One such network, run by an Uzbek with extremist links living in Turkey, is now selling high-quality fake passports for up to $15,000 (£11,132) purporting to be from various countries. In at least 10 cases the Guardian is aware of, people who illegally crossed the Syrian border into Turkey have used his products to depart through Istanbul airport.

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Libya elite told to end ‘game of musical chairs and focus on elections’

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UN special adviser Stephanie Williams warns of resurgence of Islamic State if country is divided

Libya’s political class should stop conducting musical chairs to stay in power and focus instead on preparing for nationwide elections to be held by June, the special adviser to the UN secretary general has said.

Stephanie Williams also warned of a possible resurgence of Islamic State if Libya were to fall back into total division.

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Former Irish soldier was prepared to die for Islamic State, court hears

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Lisa Smith ‘enveloped’ herself in the ‘black flag of IS’ in Syria, prosecutor says

A former Irish soldier accused of joining Islamic State was prepared to die a martyr, a court in Dublin has heard.

Lisa Smith, 39, from Dundalk, County Louth, has pleaded not guilty to being a member of the terrorist organisation between October 2015 and December 2019.

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Hundreds of boys ‘human shields’ in Islamic State prison breakout

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Siege in Kurdish-run prison in Syria ‘deeply distressing’, says Save the Children

The fate of more than 700 boys and teenage detainees has become central to the siege of a Kurdish-run prison in Syria that was overrun on Friday by jihadists, who are accused of using the boys as human shields.

As the siege around the Ghwayran prison in the Kurdish-run northern city of Hasakah entered a fifth day, Islamic State prisoners inside moved into a dormitory housing the boys, some of whom are as young as 12, in an attempt to prevent an assault by Kurdish forces stationed outside.

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Islamic State attacks prison in Syria and military base in Iraq

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‘Dozens of IS fighters’ were freed from the jail and the attacks raise fears of the terror group’s resurgence

Islamic State has attacked a Syrian prison housing its suspected members and a military base in Iraq in near-simultaneous deadly operations that have revived fears of the terror group’s resurgence.

IS has yet to comment on the attacks and there is no indication that these were coordinated, but according to analysts they strongly suggest IS is trying to boost its ranks and arsenal in an attempt to reorganise across both countries.

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Vulnerable Malians could ‘pay the price’ of heavy sanctions, warn aid groups

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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.

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UK accused of ‘targeted killing’ after drone strike on arms dealer to IS

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Rights charity Reprieve seeks answers from MoD over death of Abu Hamza al-Shuhail in Syria in October

Britain has been accused of reviving a policy of “targeted killing” after it emerged that the RAF had killed an arms dealer linked to Islamic State in a precision drone strike in Syria at the end of October.

Reprieve, a human rights charity, asked “what are the criteria” used to justify who can be targeted in a “track and kill” drone strike, and called on ministers to tell the Commons why this strike was deemed necessary.

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Burkina Faso declares two days of mourning after 41 militia members killed

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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.

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‘If you run, you will die’: fear stalks Nigerian state as jihadists gain foothold

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Niger state has been wracked by banditry for years. Now jihadists have moved in to communities just a few hundred miles from the capital, Abuja

“They ordered everyone to come around, saying if you run, if you cry, you will die,” said Bala Pada, recalling the moment in April when jihadists rounded up people at a market in his home town of Kaure to witness the execution of two alleged vigilantes.

Hundreds of jihadists have settled over the past year in Kaure and other remote communities in Niger state in Nigeria, according to displaced residents and local government officials. They began to arrive in November 2020, hoisting flags and declaring the communities under their control.

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Police treated us like criminals, say families of girls trafficked to Islamic State in Syria

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British authorities accused of interrogating parents who came seeking help when their daughters went missing

Details of how police attempted to criminalise British families whose children were trafficked to Islamic State (IS) in Syria are revealed in a series of testimonies that show how grieving parents were initially treated as suspects and then abandoned by the authorities.

One described being “treated like a criminal” and later realising that police were only interested in acquiring intelligence on IS instead of trying to help find their loved one. Another told how their home had been raided after they approached police for help to track down a missing relative.

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Mali: militants fire on bus, killing at least 31 people

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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.

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Uganda police kill five men after suicide bombings, including Muslim cleric

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Authorities accuse the five of having ties with the extremist group blamed for bomb blasts in the capital Kampala

Ugandan authorities have killed at least five people, including a Muslim cleric, accused of having ties to the extremist group responsible for Tuesday’s suicide bombings in the capital.

Four men were killed in a shootout in a frontier town near the western border with Congo as they tried to cross back into Uganda, police said on Thursday. A fifth man, a cleric named Muhammad Kirevu, was killed in “a violent confrontation” when security forces raided his home outside Kampala, police spokesperson Fred Enanga said.

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‘Honest mistake’: US strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians was legal, says Pentagon

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US investigation finds civilian deaths did not violate law of war as strike attempted to target Islamic State

A US drone strike in Kabul in August that killed 10 Afghan civilians was a tragic mistake but did not violate any laws, a Pentagon inspector general said after an investigation.

Three adults, including a man who worked for a US aid group, and seven children were killed in the 29 August operation, with the target believed to have been a home and a vehicle occupied by Islamic State militants.

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Islamic State in Afghanistan could have capacity to strike US next year

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Pentagon says Afghan-based group and al-Qaida have intention to attack US and Taliban’s ability to fight them is ‘to be determined’

The US intelligence community has assessed that Islamic State in Afghanistan could have the capability of attacking the United States in as little as six months – and has the intention to do so, a senior Pentagon official has told Congress.

Colin Kahl, under secretary of defense for policy, also said it was still “to be determined” whether the Taliban – which is an enemy of Islamic State – has the ability to fight Islamic State effectively following the US withdrawal in August.

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‘A lull not a loss’: Islamic State is rebuilding in Syria, say Kurdish forces

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Those who fought the so-called caliphate fear a US withdrawal could help the terrorist group to rise again

On a blazing afternoon in Syria’s eastern desert this month, a Kurdish commander was hot under the collar. An American raid had just taken place against remnants of Islamic State (IS), and Lukman Khalil, the region’s most senior military leader, had known nothing about it.

The US forces had flown across the wasteland of the terrorist group’s last redoubt. Three years ago it was teeming with diehard IS members, but when thousands of holdouts emerged from the decimated town of Baghuz, the war against the so-called caliphate was won, or so it seemed.

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UK ‘colluding in torture’ by leaving women and children in Syria camps

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Rights watchdog accuses Britain of turning a blind eye to degrading treatment of those who lived under IS

Britain is colluding in torture and degrading treatment by refusing to repatriate women and children held in indefinite detention in Syrian prison camps, according to a report from a human rights watchdog.

The assessment by Rights and Security International (RSI) accuses the UK and others of turning a blind eye to lawless and squalid conditions in two camps that contain 60,000 women and children, many held since the collapse of Islamic State.

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Canada drops charges against man who claimed to be IS executioner

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Shehroze Chaudhry, who featured in New York Times podcast, had been charged under terrorism hoax laws

Canadian prosecutors have dropped charges against a man who claimed to be an Islamic State executioner after he admitted fabricating his tales of violence.

In September 2020, Shehroze Chaudhry was charged under Canada’s rarely used terrorism hoax laws, which carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Prosecutors withdrew those charges on Friday, after Chaudhry admitted that his account of travelling to Syria was fictitious. His trial was due to begin in February.

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Civilians killed in deadliest Kabul attack since US withdrawal

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Islamic State suspected of carrying out bombing outside mosque in Afghan capital

At least five civilians have been killed in a bomb blast at the entrance to a Kabul mosque on Sunday, a Taliban official said, the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since US forces left at the end of August.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion fell on Islamic State extremists, who have stepped up attacks on the Taliban in recent weeks, particularly in the IS stronghold in eastern Afghanistan.

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‘Living in a cave is no life’: Pakistani villagers trapped by Taliban and poverty

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Seven years after fleeing army clashes with militants, 100 families eking out an existence on a hillside near the Afghan border are unable to return home

“Don’t talk to me about the government. They don’t help.”

Ninety-year-old Shah Mast is angry. He has been living in the cave he calls home for seven years, ever since an offensive by the Pakistan army against the Islamist militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) destroyed his home.

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Three killed in explosions in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan

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Initial reports suggest a Taliban convoy may have been targeted in the ISKP’s stronghold region

At least three people have been killed and more than 18 people injured in three explosions in Jalalabad in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province.

It is reported that the intended target may have been a passing convoy of the Taliban in the provincial capital. It is the first attack in the province since the Taliban came into power in mid-August.

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