[Khaama Press] The loyalists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group may develop a regional power base in northwestern Afghanistan, the Institute for the Study of War has said in a report, citing the recent activities by the terror group northern parts of the country.
The institute particularly pointed towards the recent killing of ICRC workers and abduction of some of their workers in northern Jawzjan province.
According to ISW, the loyalists of the terror group may particularly use the opportunity provided to them with the absence of the Junbish-e-Millie fighters led by the Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum.
"ISIS’s expansion in the region comes as First Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, who maintains significant influence in the North through his Junbish Militia, remains confined to his home surrounded by his militia in Kabul City following a scandal involving the alleged assault of former Jowzjan Provincial Governor Ahmad Eschi in November 2016 by his bodyguards," the US-based think tank said in a report. The report further added that "The lack of reported Junbish militia action to combat ISIS-linked militants in Northern Afghanistan may represent the absence of Junbish militias. Alternatively, Dostum may be sanctioning the expansion of ISIS in the region in order to demonstrate his significance to Afghan security in an attempt to relieve the political pressure to prosecute him for the alleged assault."
Meanwhile, the ANSF is currently undergoing a U.S.-led force regeneration process during their 2016-2017 winter campaign. The Afghan National Unity Government has historically relied on a joint force of ANSF units and Junbish militiamen to provide security in northwestern Afghanistan. The lessened presence of Dostum’s militia while the ANSF rests and refits units may be granting ISIS-linked militants increased freedom of movement in the region," the report added.
This comes as the Afghan officials have long been expressing concerns regarding the attempts being made by the ISIS loyalists to expand in northern parts of the country as they look to infiltrate further into the Central Asian States.null
Posted by: Besoeker ||
02/25/2017 01:47 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11129 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] A holy warrior affiliated with the loyalists of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group was killed before attacking the Afghan forces in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province.
The provincial police commandment said the incident took place in Abdul Khel area of Achin district as the Afghan forces were busy checking the traffic in a check post.
The ISIS holy warrior attempted to open fire on the security forces after coming out of a vehicle but was rubbed out by the security forces, the local officials said.
The anti-government armed holy warrior groups including the loyalists of ISIS terrorist group have not commented regarding the report so far.
This comes as the Afghan forces are busy conducting the Shaheen-25 clearance operations to root out the presence of the loyalists of the terror group from the restive Nangarhar province.
The local officials said Thursday at least 18 foreign turbans belonging to ISIS terrorist group were killed in a series of air and ground operations in this province in the past 24 hours.
The operations against the terror group was launched amid concerns that attempts are being to turn the province into a regional operational base to expand their activities and insurgency in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Someone a little slow on target uptake, maybe a little slow on the trigger?
An officail says three Somali aid workers with Save the Children charity were ‘abducted’ by suspected Al shabaab gunmen near Beledweyne town, central Somalia on Thursday. Reports said the aid workers of the Save the Children charity have been kidnapped while delivering humanitarian assistance to drought-hit families at Hajub area near Beledweyne.
It is yet unclear the motive behind the abduction of the aid workers, but local residents point the finger of the blame on Al shabaab who banned the aid agencies in their strongholds.
Golly. Who'd point the finger at them?
Save the Children charity, however has yet to comment on the kidnapping of the three Somali aid workers in Hiiraan region of central Somalia.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/25/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11122 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
[Dhaka Tribune] Hundreds of supporters of hardliner Hefajat-e-Islam ...a madrassa-based false nose and mustache of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, formed in 2010 to protest against secular education. In 2011 demonstrated violentyly against women's rights and in 2013 held large rallies demanding capital punishment of Shahbag Square protesters and banning women working outside the home... staged protests on Friday in Dhaka, Chittagong and Narayanganj, calling for the statue of a Greek goddess installed at the Supreme Court to be destroyed or removed.
This is a part of their ongoing protest demanding the removal of the Lady Justice statue from the Supreme Court premises.
Earlier on February 14, they had submitted memorandums to the prime minister and the chief justice. They stated the "idol" was anti-Islamic and threatened to stage demonstrations and bring out processions if their demand went unheeded.
Hefajat-e-Islam activists chant slogans as they take part in a protest in Dhaka on February 24, 2017. Hundreds of supporters of the hardliner Islamist group staged protests on February 24 calling for the statue of a Greek goddess installed at the Supreme Court to be destroyed or removed. The sculpture of Themis, the blindfolded deity of justice and order, has ruffled feathers in the Moslem-majority nation since it was unveiled late last year on the premises of the country’s top court Photo: AFP
Court officials, however, defended the statue as "a symbol of justice." The image of Greek goddess Themis, depicted with her eyes shielded and holding the scales of justice, represents fairness, law and custom across the world.
The Dhaka procession began from Baitul Mukarram National Mosque.
Hundreds of Hefazat supporters rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud and wielded placards with phrases such as "Demolish the statue on the court premises and replace it with the Qur’an," states a report from AFP.
Hefazat’s Central Committee Joint Secretary General Junaid Al Habib said the "idol" had to be removed by any means.
In a country with a 92% Moslem population, people would not tolerate any "idol" in the country’s apex court premises, Habib added.
Conservative Bangladesh has seen increasing tension between hardliners and secularists in recent years: A spate of killings of atheist bloggers, religious minorities and foreigners combined with a series of changes in school textbooks, which are overwhelmingly secular, to reflect Moslem traditions.
According to sources, several leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami ...The Islamic Society, founded in 1941 in Lahore by Maulana Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, aka The Great Apostosizer. The Jamaat opposed the independence of Bangladesh but has operated an independent branch there since 1975. It maintains close ties with international Mohammedan groups such as the Moslem Brotherhood. the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. The Jamaat's objectives are the establishment of a pure Islamic state, governed by Sharia law. It is distinguished by its xenophobia, and its opposition to Westernization, capitalism, socialism, secularism, and liberalist social mores... , a BNP ally which has been absent from recent street demonstrations, and members of its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir ... the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh... are supportive of the recent radical Islamist moves to remove the Supreme Court statue of Lady Justice, avenge the persecution of Rohingya Moslems and make changes in school textbooks.
Sources also said all paper materials and information for these movements are supplied by Jamaat-Shibir to the other parties, including Hefazat.
Security has been increased in the area around Baitul Mukarram, according to local police official Rafiqul Islam.
He added that at least 1,000 people had joined the rally there and a similar rally had also been held at Chittagong.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The ISISTakfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed... group carried out an attack on an Iraqi border guard position near Jordan on Friday, killing at least 15 guards, officials said.
"ISIS launched an attack with a suicide boom-mobile and gunnies on the 2nd border guard regiment near Trebil," an officer in the border guard told AFP, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.
"The attack came from several directions and killed 15 border guards, including two officers," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity ... for fear of being murdered... . Local officials confirmed the attack and corpse count.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] Elite Iraqi forces on Friday entered a west djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... neighborhood for the first time since the start four months ago of an operation to retake the city, a commander said.
Sami al-Aridhi, a lieutenant general in the Counter-Terrorism Service, said his men had retaken a military base and a village southwest of Mosul and entered a residential neighborhood of the city.
"We have attacked and fully control Ghazlani base, we have also taken Tal al-Rayyan... and we’re attacking al-Maamun neighborhood," he told AFP.
Iraqi forces secured the east side of Mosul a month ago and on Sunday launched a fresh push on the west side of the Tigris River that divides the city.
They have since retaken several outlying villages and desert areas near the city. On Friday, commanders confirmed that government forces had full control of the airport that lies on the southern edge of the city.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[AA.TR] Iraqi warplanes have struck a number of sites associated with the ISIS terrorist group inside Syrian territory, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Friday.
"We ordered our air force to strike terrorist targets in Husaybah [in Iraq’s western Anbar province] and in Abu Kamal inside Syria," al-Abadi said in a statement broadcast on state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
Located on the Euphrates River near the Iraqi border, the city of Abu Kamal is in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province.
According to al-Abadi, the targeted sites -- both in Iraq and Syria -- had served as "staging areas" for recent terrorist attacks in Baghdad.
"These sites were the staging areas for the recent terrorist bombings in the capital," the prime minister asserted.
Last week, ISISgrabbed credit for a massive boom-mobile that killed dozens of people in Baghdad’s eastern al-Bayaa district.
Iraqi warplanes had struck their targets "with great success", al-Abadi said without elaborating.
In a statement issued Friday morning, the Iraqi army’s Joint Operations Command confirmed that Iraqi F-16s had struck several ISIS targets inside Syrian territory.
It is the first time for Iraqi military aircraft to target ISIS positions outside of Iraq since the terrorist group overran vast swathes of territory in both Iraq and Syria in mid-2014.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
Al-RootersMilitants attacked two Syrian security offices in the western city of Homs on Saturday with guns and suicide bombers, killing at least 42 people including a senior officer, a war monitor said.
The attackers killed the head of military security and 29 others at one of its headquarters in the city and 12 more people at a branch of state security in attacks that began early in the morning, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Home of the Tiny Telescope™
Syrian state television reported that clashes had rocked the districts of al-Ghouta and al-Mohata, where the two targets were located, before three suicide bombers detonated their explosives at each place.
It said that the attacks had killed 32 people including General Hassan Daaboul, the head of the military security branch.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/25/2017 09:29 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11132 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The Syrian Army units operating in the eastern countryside of Homs established control over new areas in the eastern part of al-Bayarat and in the direction of the strategic mountain of al-Hayal in the western countryside of Tadmur (Palmyra) city.
SANA news hound in Homs said that army units, in cooperation with supporting forces, destroyed the last gatherings of ISIS in the gas pipelines area to the east of al-Bayarat area.
To the south of al-Bayarat, army units continued their operations in the direction of the strategic mountain of al-Hayal, achieving large advance towards the western versants of the mountain, killing and injuring a number of bandidosbandidos Death Eaters while the rest of them fled away eastwards.
The news hound added that a number of ISISbad boyz were potted during the army’s intensive operations to the north of al-Bayarat area in which army restored control over the Aviation Towers area.
The news hound pointed out that members of the army’s engineering units dismantled, during the past few hours, hundreds of mines and bombs that were planted earlier by ISISbandidosbandidos Death Eaters before they got killed or fled away due to the army’s strikes.
He added that heavy smoke billowed from the direction of Jazal oil field as a result of burning a number of wells and pipelines in the area by ISIS.
Daraa
Army and Armed Forces units thwarted attacks launched by bandidosbandidos Death Eaters from al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... Front on al-Manshia neighborhood in Daraa al-Balad area in Daraa city, according to a military source.
The source added that army units inflicted heavy losses upon al-Nusra bandidosbandidos Death Eaters and destroyed a number of their vehicles and boom-mobiles.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[AA.TR] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... -backed Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... forces have taken control of all neighborhoods in Syria’s al-Bab, Turkish military said Friday.
In a statement, the Turkish Chief of General Staff said a sweep operation was ongoing to clear the northern strategic town of mines and explosives planted by ISIS terrorists.
A total of 230 residential areas and 1,925 square kilometers of land have been freed from the ISIS terror group in northern Syria since the onset last August of the Turkey-backed military operation in the region, it added.
Operation Euphrates Shield aims to provide security, support U.S.-led coalition forces and eliminate the terrorist presence along Syria’s northern border with Turkey.
The operation, which began on Aug. 24, relies heavily on Free Syrian Army fighters backed by Turkish artillery and air supports.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
Two Turkish soldiers have been killed in an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) suicide attack in Syria’s al-Bab, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said on Feb. 24.
Yıldırım said the suicide attack targeted Turkish soldiers who were conducting road checks at the entrance of al-Bab. Two soldiers were killed in the attack while there were also wounded soldiers, he said.
Yıldırım also added that clean-up works in al-Bab were continuing with the utmost caution to prevent casualties due to the presence of hand-made explosives and bomb set-ups in the city.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/25/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] ISISTakfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed... s are forcing children and disabled people into explosives-laden trucks and making them drive at Iraqi security forces in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , a general from the US-led coalition has said.
The barbaric tactic, coupled with other increasingly desperate battlefield measures, is a sign the ISIS group knows defeat is inevitable, officials say.
The holy warriors have used exploding trucks, known in military circles as VBIEDs -- vehicle-borne improvised bombs -- and pronounced "Vee-Bids," to devastating effect in numerous engagements during the Mosul offensive and elsewhere in Iraq.
Speaking to AFP and other news hounds in Baghdad this week, US Air Force Brigadier General Matt Isler said the ISIS group had adopted coercive new techniques in its use of suicide boom-mobiles because the Takfiris appear to be running out of willing drivers.
"We saw people being led to a VBIED, being put in (it) and being chained in the VBIED," he said.
"We’ve seen children put in VBIEDs as drivers, people that aren’t able to walk... I don’t know if they signed up for this service."
The coalition has often seen VBIEDs depart on missions, only for their drivers to veer off course and attempt to hide behind structures.
"We see a VBIED going to its attack, going off and hiding," Isler said.
We see a party going to find the AWOL VBIED driver, we see (IS) command and control trying to figure out where their VBIED driver’s gone, we’ve seen multiple VBIED drivers going AWOL."
The coalition first saw drivers being chained into trucks when Iraqi security forces approached the Tigris river as they cleared eastern Mosul, Isler said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/25/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Dhaka Tribune] Hundreds of supporters of hardliner 
[AA.TR] Iraqi warplanes have struck a number of sites associated with the 
Militants attacked two Syrian security offices in the western city of Homs on Saturday with guns and suicide bombers, killing at least 42 people including a senior officer, a war monitor said.
[ENGLISH.ALMANAR.LB] The Syrian Army units operating in the eastern countryside of Homs established control over new areas in the eastern part of al-Bayarat and in the direction of the strategic mountain of al-Hayal in the western countryside of Tadmur (Palmyra) city.
