Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, an al Qaeda linked terror outfit operating in the Kashmir region, released an audio message last week featuring its chief and former Hizbul Mujahideen commander, Zakir Musa. Musa uses the message to paint a picture for the future of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind’s jihad in the Kashmir–a jihad without ties to Pakistani guidance, with fighters sourced from throughout the region, and focused on the implementation of Sharia, or Islamic law, in Kashmir through terror. He also eulogizes the death of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind’s deputy commander Rehan Khan.
‘AL-FATH’ MEANS ‘VICTORY’: The peace talks with the United States may have only emboldened the Taliban to believe it can cut a deal to end the 18-year war that leaves it in a position to control the country and dismiss the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
The United States is pressing its Kurdish allies in Syria to ease their resistance to allowing Turkish forces to deploy on their side of the Turkish-Syrian border, well-informed sources told Al-Monitor. The Turkish forces would be a part of the proposed safe zone in northeastern Syria.
The Libyan Interior Ministry of the Presidential Council said Monday it had arrested an ISIS terrorist in Tajoura, Tripoli, saying he is the second to be apprehended in ten days.
The representative of the Lebanese Hezbollah in Iran says a significant number of young Lebanese are currently in Iran, helping relief operations for the flood-stricken people.
Turkey “expects” the Trump administration to grant it waivers from the US related to its purchases of Iranian oil and Russian air defences, a top aide to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.
Iran’s lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill labeling U.S. forces in the Middle East as terrorist, a day after the U.S. terrorism designation for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard formally took effect, state TV reported.
The National Congress Party (NCP) in Sudan is the successor organization to the Brotherhood-affiliated National Islamic Front (NIF). Long steeped in controversy, the NCP and its precursors have associated themselves with such notorious terrorists as Osama bin Laden and a variety of extremist groups including al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Although formally registered as a political party, NCP precursors have at times embraced genocidal violence against the country’s non-Muslims to advance their Islamist agenda. Former Sudanese President and NCP chairman Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir currently stands accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide for his violence against religious and ethnic groups throughout Sudan. Sudanese military forces deposed Bashir on April 11, 2019, and reportedly disbanded the NCP.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week described a powerful Iranian military commander as a “terrorist,” while discussing options the U.S. government could have to further punish Iran for its destabilizing activities in the Middle East.
On April 8, Islamic State started what it called “the Campaign of Vengeance for the blessed al-Sham Province,” claiming attacks by its affiliates around the world under this banner.
Addressing last year’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, then US defense secretary Jim Mattis dismissed fears first voiced in 1997 by Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of America’s greatest 20th century strategists who advised US presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Jimmy Carter, that long-term US interests would be most threatened by a “grand coalition” of China and Russia “united not by ideology but by complimentary grievances.”
China has built the world’s first armed amphibious drone boat which military analysts said could be used in land assault operations and is capable of forming a combat triad with aerial drones and other drone ships.
Libya’s UN-backed government says its military has shot down a fighter jet belonging to the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), led by strongman Khalifa Haftar, whose forces are fighting for the control of the capital Tripoli.
Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah says he will boycott a planned meeting of nearly 2,500 Afghan politicians and tribal, ethnic, and religious leaders aimed at discussing negotiations with the Taliban.
France reported yesterday that its forces completed a nearly three-week long security operation in central Mali’s Gourma region alongside the Malian military. The campaign targeted constituent groups of al Qaeda’s Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) and reportedly left at least 30 jihadists dead.
Benjamin Netanyahu — “Bibi” to both friends and enemies — will undoubtedly succeed himself as Israel’s prime minister after his recent electoral success and, in July, surpass David Ben-Gurion as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. But, unlike most genuinely successful leaders of democracies, his first priority will have to be avoiding indictment for corruption and going to prison (the fate of his immediate predecessor, Ehud Olmert). The attorney-general has already indicated that his indictment within a year is highly probable.
Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism force targeted ISIS holdouts Thursday in the northern region of Hamreen, including a media center, more than a year after the country declared ISIS vanquished, Agence France Presse reported.
The President Donald Trump administration announced its plan this week to officially designate Iran’s military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), effective April 15.
L’Irak a proposé aux pays membres de la coalition internationale antijihadistes de juger leurs ressortissants soupçonnés d’avoir rejoint le groupe État islamique (EI), en échange d’au moins deux milliards de dollars.
The Moroccan Interior Ministry announced on Wednesday the busting of terror cell made up of four suspects and led by a former fighter in Syria and Iraq.
The rumors that Libyan General Khalifa Haftar has Kremlin support are as consistent as his advance on the country’s capital. In Syria, Russia has flexed its military muscles — but it isn’t showing its cards on Libya yet.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah raised the prospect of retaliation by Iran and its allies over U.S. sanctions, saying on Wednesday that all options were on the table were Washington to take steps that “threaten our nation”.
President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton has warned nations seen as obstacles to U.S. plans for Latin America that they must leave Venezuela and stop defending the socialist government opposed by the Trump administration.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Russian air-defense missile systems could be delivered earlier than initially planned, standing by a purchase that has put the NATO member at odds with Washington.
Iran’s leaders have responded angrily to US President Donald Trump’s designation of its elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organisation.
President Trump’s declaration that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a foreign terrorist organization is the first time the United States government has designated a part of another country’s military as that type of threat. In doing so, Mr. Trump took broad aim at a pillar of the Iranian state, which exerts enormous influence in politics and the economy as well as in Iran’s internal and external military policies.
The Islamic State (IS) might have lost all its territory in Iraq and Syria, but its ideology has not been defeated. Al-Qaeda may be able to exploit this situation and stage a comeback, taking advantage of its local roots along the Iraqi-Syrian border.
The U.S., Britain and Norway demanded Tuesday that Sudanese authorities deliver a “credible plan for political transition” as deadly demonstrations seeking the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir continued for a fourth day.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani denounced the United States Tuesday as the actual “head of global terrorism,” one day after the U.S. designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization.
The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to Japan of up to fifty-six (56) Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IB missiles for an estimated cost of $1.150 billion. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale today.
Any US plan to sanction allies of Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri over his longstanding ties with Hezbollah and Iran would backfire, sources close to the veteran politician have said, reacting to The National’s report that Washington was considering such a move.
By the end of the year, Turkey will have either F-35 advanced fighter aircraft on its soil or a Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile defense system. It will not have both.
The US State Department announced today that it intends to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on Iraq to demand U.S. troops leave “as soon as possible”, warning that Washington is plotting to remove the Iraqi government.
