Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Africa Subsaharan

Boko Haram, ISWAP clash on Borno water after failed reconciliation

2025-02-18

[MSN] A fresh wave of ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful festivities has erupted between Boko Haram

... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
, and its breakaway faction, the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
Islamic State

West Africa Province (ISWAP), two weeks after a failed reconciliation attempt. The fighting took place in Abadam Local Government Area, Borno State, a region known for its history of ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful confrontations between the two turban groups.

According to Zagazola Makama, a counterinsurgency expert in the North-East, the most recent battle occurred on Friday, February 14, 2025, near ISWAP camps in the villages of Toumbun Gini and Toumbun Ali, located in the Lake Chad Basin. Makama reported that ISWAP suffered significant casualties in the clash, which took place on water. He also warned that the violence could spread to Kukawa Local Government Area, where Boko Haram fighters have continued their operations against ISWAP.

The ongoing rivalry between Boko Haram and ISWAP dates back to 2016, when ISWAP split from Boko Haram and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The split was driven by deep ideological differences, particularly surrounding the leadership of Abubakar Shekau
....the lunatic leader of Boko Haram who was reported dead at least eleven times, pledged his body and soul to ISIS, told his fighters to hang it up once or twice, and been fired by the Caliph and refused to step down. Last seen in 2017, sneaking into Cameroon while wearing a burka. Eventually the got him, or so they say....
, the former leader of Boko Haram, who had previously sworn allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. However,
a woman is only as old as she admits...
some senior members of Boko Haram, including Habib Yusuf, the son of the group's founder Mohammed Yusuf, broke away from Shekau's leadership, leading to the formation of ISWAP.

Since the split, both groups have engaged in ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful confrontations, particularly in the Lake Chad Basin region.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

US Passed Secret Intelligence To AQ-Linked Rulers Of Syria: WaPo

2025-01-26

[ZeroHedge] Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which rules Syria from Damascus under Jolani, is still a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization under US law. The only change which happened at the end of the Biden administration was that the US $10 million bounty on Jolani's head was removed, at a moment Western officials have engaged the new regime in Damascus on a diplomatic level.

But The Washington Post has just revealed that American intelligence officials met with HTS representatives and passed them classified intelligence information. This happened during the tail-end of the Biden White House.

The Washington Post report begins, "In the chaotic days after the fall of [Bashar] al-Assad, the Biden administration began to engage cautiously with HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani."

"The intelligence exchange with HTS has occurred in direct encounters between US intelligence officials and representatives of HTS, rather than via third parties." The Post continues.

The report adds that this "has involved exchanges between the two sides, in Syria and a third country. It began roughly two weeks after HTS came to power on Dec. 8."

This is being presented by US officials as to combat threats being presented by a resurgent ISIS. For example, there have been recent reported plots against a key Shia religious pilgrimage site on the outskirts of Damascus, the Sayyidah Zaynab Mosque.

"In at least one case, the U.S. intelligence helped thwart an ISIS plot to attack a religious shrine outside Damascus earlier this month, according to the officials," the WaPo report says.

The serious contradiction in all of this is that American companies and citizens are still unable to do business or any interactions with Syrian entities under US counterterrorism laws and due to the long-existent sanctions. And yet, US intelligence is passing on classified information to Syrian leaders despite the terror designation and ongoing sanctions.
To an ongoing intelligence collection effort, a "contradiction" is simply an opportunity.
The other glaring contradiction is that the separation between HTS and ISIS ideology is thin and slim. Jolani himself was once the personal emissary of ISIS chief pf Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the early days of the anti-Assad war for regime change.

We've documented previously that in some cases ISIS fighters have simply changed out their black flag patch for a HTS logo: Watch: Syrian 'Moderate Rebel' Removes ISIS Patch At Prompting Of American Journalist.

Foreign fighters have also continued to thrive in post-Assad Syria, with reports of global jihadists terrorizing and pressuring Christians, Alawites, and Druze - most often in the countryside and far away from international media cameras. The US State Department in the early years of the Syrian war acknowledged that tens of thousands of foreign jihadists poured across the borders of Iraq, Jordan, and Iraq to fight Assad forces.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

'The Army of Tatars and Mongols.' Ghosts of the Distant Past Return to Syria

2024-12-15

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

by Artemy Sharapov
After the immediate collapse of the Syrian Arab Republic, ruled by the Assad dynasty, the country, which was stitched together in the 20th century from a multitude of ethnic, clan-territorial and religious “patches”, began to fall into the past. And not only into the pre-Assad past, but also into the era before the Turkish invasion of the 16th century.

Before the Ottomans brought their Levantine vilayets (provinces) into submission with an iron fist, this part of the eastern Mediterranean and northern Mesopotamia was the scene of a war of all against all. And interesting ghosts have begun to emerge from that past.

Many observers have noticed that when the so-called "independent" Syrian militants now threaten war against their "colleagues" who are directly supported by Turkey, they use the word "Mongol", which is offensive to any Arab, meaning "irreconcilable enemy" and "stranger". The phrase from the press release of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* militants during the capture of Aleppo, when the victors immediately began civil strife, looked completely unexpected: "You are an army of Tatars and Mongols, we will not spare any of you."

For a person even well acquainted with the history of the Middle Ages, the invasion of the Tatar-Mongols is associated first of all with the Battle of Kalka and the enslavement of Russia, with the devastation of Central Asia by the hordes of Genghis Khan, at most - with the Battle of Liegnitz, when the Polish knights, Templars and Hospitallers stopped the rush of the noyons - the "generals" of the Great Khan "to the last sea". But the Middle East?

However, it is here that the "almkol" - the Mongols - left perhaps a greater and more tenacious memory than in Russia and the Eurasian steppe. To understand many of the events currently taking place in the disintegrated Syria, we should recall the events of 800 years ago.

Yellow Crusade to the West
By the end of 1224 AD, or 621 AH according to the Islamic calendar, the Mongols had completed their conquest of Central Asia. Having caused terrible devastation and destroyed dozens of cities, many of which were never rebuilt, Genghis Khan created a new ulus on the captured lands and returned to the steppes. Genghis's successors temporarily halted their expansion to the west, concentrating on the final subjugation of Rus', the countries of Southeast Asia, and the Indian kingdoms.

In 1253, a kurultai was held at the headquarters of the Great Khan, where the grandson and successor of the great Genghis Khan, Mongke, gave orders to his younger brother Hulagu : to prepare a campaign to Persia and further - to Jerusalem itself. Hulagu was given a large-scale task: to subjugate the Arab states and all the territories lying between Persia and the Mediterranean Sea to the Horde. But it is interesting that part of the Mongolian army also had religious motives for the campaign to the West.

By the middle of the 13th century, most Mongols still retained their ancestors' faith in the Eternal Sky - Tengri and the spirits subordinate to him and, despite all their religious tolerance, were distrustful of the preaching of Islam among their own. However, part of the horde had professed Nestorian Christianity since ancient times.

The teaching itself, named after its founder, Archbishop Nestorius of Constantinople, was banned in Byzantium by the Second Ecumenical Council back in 431. However, followers of Nestorianism settled outside the empire - in the Middle East, Armenia, Iran, and reached modern China and Mongolia. One of the main companions of Genghis Khan, Wang Khan, the leader of the Kerait tribe, belonged to the Nestorian faith. In subsequent years, the Nestorians played an important role in the politics of the Horde.

This is most likely where the legend that has long been current in Europe comes from, that in the east, beyond the lands of the “wicked Hagarenes” – Muslims, there is a Christian kingdom of the sovereign-presbyter John, who is ready to come to the aid of his brothers in Christ.

Although Hulagu, who was entrusted with leading the campaign to the Middle East, was not a Christian, his wife, Van Khan's granddaughter Dokuz Khatun, and many of his confidants adhered to this religion. The future ruler of the empire patronized the Nestorians and made rich donations to churches and monasteries. The Christian part of the horde was in favor of going to the Holy Land and, no more and no less, liberating the Holy Sepulcher from the hands of the Arabs. When speaking about the Mongol conquest of the Middle East, a number of historians often use the term "Yellow Crusade".

Hulagu and Dokuz Khatun. Manuscript of Jami at-tawarikh, 14th century
The legend of Prester John probably had a direct reason. According to a number of sources, before the start of the campaign, the Mongols entered into an agreement with the King of France Louis IX, who was preparing the Seventh Crusade at that time to recapture Jerusalem. The rulers of Georgia and Armenia and representatives of other Christian communities also joined Hulagu's army. A huge army of several tens of thousands of people set out from Mongolia to the west, but it only reached the borders of Persia in 1256.

It is also interesting that the campaign that destroyed Persia and the Middle East began… partly at the request of Middle Eastern rulers. And also partly for religious reasons.

Assassins Creed
The Baghdad Caliphs, the rulers of the Abbasid dynasty, traditionally considered Persia and Central Asia to be part of the great Caliphate. But by the 12th–13th centuries, the Abbasid Empire, a state of scholars and artists, celebrated in the tales of the Thousand and One Nights, was in decline. Present-day Syria, Iraq, the lands of the Kurds and Turks were a conglomerate of warring emirates that had yet to dislodge the “Franks” — the Crusaders — who held Palestine.

And in the east, in Iran, a new threat was brewing. Here, a new radical Shiite movement was gaining popularity: the Ismaili Nizari. Back in 1090, the sheikh of one of the Nizari sects, Hasan ibn Sabbah, with a group of fanatically devoted followers, captured the mountain fortress of Alamut in northern Iran.

It is believed that Ibn Sabbah, nicknamed the Old Man of the Mountain, reinforced his sermons by distributing a narcotic potion based on hashish to his students, making them more suggestible. This is where the name "hashishins" - hashish smokers - came from. This word entered European culture in a slightly altered form - "assassins". The order of assassins from the Alamut castle is still remembered today - it is enough to recall the popular series of games Assassin's Creed - "Assassin's Creed". And for a political murder or terrorist act in English there is still a learned word - assassination.

The credo of the followers of the Mountain Elder consisted of renouncing their personality for the sake of a higher goal, unquestioning obedience to the sheikh - and, as a consequence, a willingness to participate in “targeted liquidations” of those whom the Elder called the enemy of the teaching.

The heirs of Ibn Sabbah who ruled in Alamut captured another dozen fortresses in today's Iran, Iraq and Syria, mostly in hard-to-reach mountain valleys. The network of fortified castles became a stronghold of the sect. And the feuding Middle Eastern rulers did not skimp on offerings to the rulers of Alamut in order to eliminate their competitors - who could always be visited by a ruthless fanatical "liquidator". Thus the shadow of the "elders of the mountain" covered the entire Middle East.

The Assassins, who had settled in the mountains around the modern Iranian city of Qazvin, were harassing the new Persian subjects of the Horde with their raids. And then the ruler of Qazvin turned to Khan Mongke with a request to send troops to protect against - as they would say today - terrorist threats.

Baghdad was told not to joke about war
By the time of the Yellow Crusade, the golden age of the Assassins had long since passed. The Mongols were not particularly intimidated by the sinister reputation of the sect, they guarded their commanders zealously, and they did not stand on ceremony with the mountain fortresses of the Assassins - they consistently and effectively razed them to the ground. The sinister castle of Alamut was no exception, of which only the foundation remained, excavated by archaeologists.

The road to Baghdad was open to Hulagu. And – as with the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and their attempts to “enter” Syria in the 2010s – the fight against terrorism was just a cover for plans to establish dominance in the Middle East.

Moreover, the chaos that reigned there made the task easier. The Arab caliphs submitted to the power of the Turkish Seljuks and Egyptian Mamelukes, but for now they retained the nominal title of leaders of the Muslim world. The capital of the caliphate, Baghdad, remained the center of sciences and arts. The Abbasids still, albeit nominally, claimed supreme power in a huge region from Tibet to Spain. Which categorically did not suit the Mongols, who believed that the only source of power was the Great Khan.

Having finished destroying Alamut, Hulagu founded a new ulus on the captured lands, after which he addressed a message to the Caliph of Baghdad, al-Mustazim, demanding that he recognize the authority of the Horde. According to legend, the commander of the faithful responded arrogantly to the message of the Mongols, believing that hordes of infidel nomads from somewhere on the edge of the world could not give orders to the descendant of the Prophet. Of course, this was a fatal mistake.

From conquered Persia, the Mongol army moved south and reached Baghdad in 1258. Hulagu decided to split the army and sent some warriors across the Tigris River to besiege Baghdad from both sides at the same time. The Caliph's troops managed to inflict several defeats on the army that had crossed, but then the Mongols used a military trick: they lured the enemy into a narrow valley, after which they opened one of the dams on the Tigris. The Arab army was washed away by the raging stream of water and destroyed. Baghdad was left without protection.

Chinese technology decided the fate of the caliphate
By the end of January 1258, Chinese military advisers and "technical specialists" in Hulagu's army had completed the construction of siege engines, after which the Mongols launched an assault. Gradually, the conquerors managed to capture several city towers, after which the caliph decided to surrender the city. The capitulation, however, did not save the Abbasid capital.

On Hulagu's orders, the city was subjected to brutal devastation. Arab and Persian historians testify to hundreds of thousands killed and enslaved. The Mongols burned famous libraries and educational institutions, so that the Tigris River was "black with washed-off ink and red with the blood of murdered scholars." Palaces and mosques were razed to the ground, city fortifications were razed, and the surviving inhabitants were enslaved. However, the greatest damage was done to the region's economy.

The Fall of Baghdad. Illustration to Rashid ad-Din's Jami' at-tawarikh
The Mongols swept across Mesopotamia, destroying the unique canal system that had been built over thousands of years. The territory of modern Iraq was turned into a desert unsuitable for agriculture. The conquest of Baghdad ended the imperial Arab state.

But despite the successes achieved, the main goal of the Yellow Crusade was never achieved.

Having destroyed Baghdad and rolled through Mesopotamia, burning everything in its path, Hulagu's horde reached the northern borders of modern Israel. Here the Mongols learned of the collapse of the Seventh Crusade and the capture of the French King Louis. Without the help of Western allies, the march on Jerusalem could have turned into a disaster for the Mongol army, which had already broken away far from its "rear". As a result, the conquerors returned to the conquered Persian lands, where one of the uluses of the Great Horde existed for a long time under the rule of Hulagu's descendants.

Elder Hasan and his disciples
For the Arab world, this campaign of the Turco-Mongol army had almost the same consequences as the invasion of Batu for Rus'. Since then, the "army of the Tatars and Mongols" has become a synonym for barbarism.

The Arabs who survived the invasion were subjugated by the Turks, once again reverting to the tribal system. Therefore, when the Arabs call someone a Mongol, they are talking about an eternal enemy with whom it is impossible to negotiate - only to fight.

With Syria's current collapse into archaism, this attitude towards armed "political opponents" will only increase.

And the war zone that the former Syrian Arab Republic has become, alas, could become a breeding ground for terrorism, a phenomenon that appeared in the East long before the Muslim Brotherhood* and, even more so, Al-Qaeda*. Osama bin Laden or the ISIS* “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were merely good students of Hassan ibn Sabbah.

Related: All Things Medieval: Medieval Islam:Origins by Ruth Johnston

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syria’s rebel leader Golani: From radical jihadist to ostensible pragmatist

2024-12-08

[IsraelTimes] Since breaking ties with al-Qaeda in 2016, the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader; whether that is true remains up for debate

Abu Mohammed al-Golani,

…that’s his nom de guerre, also spelt Abu Mohammad al-Julani. His real name is Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a and the CIA considers him a Specially Designated Global Terrorist….

leader of the Islamist rebel alliance that has captured swaths of Syria in a lightning offensive, is an murderous Moslem who has adopted a more moderate posture to try to achieve his goals.

At the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
(HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda, Golani says the goal of his offensive is to overthrow President Bashir al-Assad’s rule.

"When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal," Golani told CNN
...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
in an interview aired on Friday.

Golani for years operated from the shadows. Now, he is in the limelight, giving interviews to the international media and appearing on the ground in Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo after wresting it from government control for the first time in the country’s civil war.

He has over the years stopped sporting the turban worn by jihadists, often favouring military fatigues instead.

On Wednesday, he wore a khaki shirt and trousers to visit Aleppo’s citadel, standing at the door of his white vehicle as he waved and moved through the crowds.

Since breaking ties with al-Qaeda in 2016, Golani has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader.

But he is yet to quell suspicions among analysts and Western governments that still classify HTS as a terrorist organization.

"He is a pragmatic radical," Thomas Pierret, a specialist in political Islam, told AFP.

"In 2014, he was at the height of his radicalism," Pierret said, referring to the period of the war when he sought to compete with the jihadist Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group. "Since then, he has moderated his rhetoric."

Born in 1982, Golani was raised in Mazzeh, an upscale district of Damascus. He stems from a well-to-do family and was a good student.

During the offensive he launched on November 27, he started signing his statements under his real name — Ahmed al-Sharaa.

In 2021, he told US broadcaster PBS that his nom de guerre was a reference to his family roots in the Golan Heights, claiming that his grandfather had been forced to flee after Israel’s takeover of the area in 1967 during the Six Day War.

According to the Middle East Eye news website, it was after the September 11, 2001 attacks that Golani was first drawn to jihadist thinking.

"It was as a result of this admiration for the 9/11 attackers that the first signs of jihadism began to surface in Golani’s life, as he began attending secretive sermons and panel discussions in marginalized suburbs of Damascus," the website said.

Following the US-led invasion of Iraq, he left Syria to take part in the fight. He joined al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and was subsequently detained for five years, preventing him from rising through the ranks of the jihadist organization.

In March 2011, when the revolt against Assad’s rule erupted in Syria, he returned home and founded the 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, Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda.

In 2013, he refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would go on to become the emir of the Islamic State group, and instead pledged his loyalty to al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri
...Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as the real brains of the outfit. Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area assuming he's not dead like Mullah Omar. He lost major face when he ordered the nascent Islamic State to cease and desist and merge with the orthodox al-Qaeda spring, al-Nusra...>
.

A realist in his partisans’ eyes, an opportunist to his adversaries, Golani said in May 2015 that he, unlike IS, had no intention of launching attacks against the West.

He also proclaimed that should Assad be defeated, there would be no Dire Revenge attacks against the Alawite minority that the president’s clan stems from.

He cut ties with al-Qaeda, claiming to do so in order to deprive the West of reasons to attack his organization.

According to Pierret, he has since sought to chart a path towards becoming a credible statesman.

In January 2017, Golani imposed a merger with HTS on rival Islamist groups in northwest Syria, thereby claiming control of swaths of Idlib province that had fallen out of government hands.

In areas under its grip, HTS developed a civilian government and established a semblance of a state in Idlib province, while crushing its rebel rivals. Throughout this process, HTS faced accusations from residents and rights groups of brutal abuses against those who dared dissent, which the UN has classed as war crimes.

Aware perhaps of the fear and hatred his group has sparked, Golani has addressed residents of Aleppo, home to a sizeable Christian minority, in a bid to assure them that they would face no harm under his new regime. He also called on his fighters to preserve security in the areas they had "liberated" from Assad’s rule.

"I think it’s primarily just good politics," said Aron Lund, a fellow of the Century International think tank.

"The less local and international panic you have and the more Golani seems like a responsible actor instead of a toxic jihadi murderous Moslem, the easier his job will become. Is it totally sincere? Surely not," he said.

"But it’s the smart thing to say and do right now."

Who are the rebels battering Syria’s regime, and do they pose a risk to Israel?
[IsraelTimes] The two groups leading the assault, HTS and the SNA, are now focused on their common foe, Bashar Assad. Where might they turn their attention in the future?

Link

Terror Networks

Pocket terrorists of the CIA and MOSSAD

2024-12-03

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Text taken from the Telegram channel of Study of Intelligence channel @RHVDIIS
[ColonelCassad] CIA and MOSSAD pocket terrorists Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) open a new front against Russia

The leader of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist organization, led byAbu Muhammad al-Jawlani,

…we had an unconfirmed report here two days ago that the Russians had killed him, so perhaps he is no longer leading the group. And a note from the Times of Israel that the Americans believe his name is Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a. But given the complexities of Arab tribal names, possibly both this and the al-Wahidi name below are true parts of the whole, like the blind philosophers describing the elephant…

has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Jawlani, who was raised in Camp Bucca during the Iraq War, has featured prominently in American documentaries, including the PBS series Frontline.

HTS leader Jawlani, whose real name is Osama al-Abbasi al-Wahidi, was born in Daraa in northern Syria. His biographies describe him as a CIA recruit. According to open sources, he joined al-Qaeda in Iraq during the invasion of Iraq and quickly rose through the ranks. He was close to Zarqawi, the leader of the organization until his death in 2006 following an airstrike.

Jevlani, who fled Iraq, was captured and spent two years “training” in a camp in Bucca, where the US allegedly created ISIS, before being released without cause. After leaving Bucca, he began working with ISIS leader Baghdadi, who sent Jevlani to Syria in 2011.

After his release, he worked with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and later received support from Hamza bin Laden in 2015. During this time, he gave frequent speeches as ISIS’s power in Syria began to wane. In his speech, he said that the region to target should be Latakia, where Russia is strong. He also called on Muslims living in Russia to attack civilians in the country.

HTS has recently made attempts to distance itself from its ties to al-Qaeda. Recently, for the first time in more than a decade, a long-closed church in Idlib province was hosted by Jawlani.

James Jeffrey, the former US special representative for Syria, called HTS a “valuable tool” in the US strategy in Idlib. Jeffrey acknowledged that HTS is primarily focused on fighting Assad and does not pose an international threat. While arguing that it was an “unfair and political decision” for the US to designate itself as terrorists, Jawlani himself used the following statements:

“The current Assad regime deserves to be included on the terrorist list. We have not posed a threat to Western society in any way. We call on these countries to reconsider their policies. We criticize Western policies in the AMI region, but we have never talked about starting a war against the US.”

Abu Ahmed Zekkour, known as HTS's financial director, published a letter on December 14, 2023, severing ties with the organization and accusing Jawlani of being a US agent. Zekkour claimed that Jawlani met with US and British intelligence officials at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing.

Tasnim, the Iranian News Agency, reported in a report on September 17, 2024, that HTS has also received support in training and producing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from Ukrainian military instructors. A group of 250 Ukrainian instructors are training HTS fighters in Idlib on the operation, production, and upgrading of UAVs. The instructors have been deployed at various production facilities in Idlib city and the Jisir al-Shughur area.

The Syrian government is still struggling to restore sovereignty over the entire territory of the country in the fight against Takfiri groups run by the CIA and Mossad.

Those nefarious Joooooos are everywhere, donchaknow, and have their thumbs in all the interesting pies. Ask Iran, whose IRGC anti-Mossad unit was a special Mossad project for a while. And then there are the spy squirrels and spy herons…

With Russia's advance on the Ukrainian front, it has become known that the United States is heading from Ukraine to Syria in an attempt to distract Russia and open a new front in the region. The Syrian newspaper Al-Watan reported that Kirill Budanov was in regular contact with the leader of the Tahrir al-Sham delegation.

The Institute for the Study of Intelligence channel @RHVDIIS

Link

Terror Networks

Nasrallah's death should be a lesson to the United States

2024-09-29

[IsraelNationalNews] An Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah bunker has killed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

His death caps an impressive ten-day campaign that began with the simultaneous detonation of Hezbollah pagers, continued to take out senior military leaders, and now has decapitated the organization itself.

Diplomats and human rights activists might hand wring, but what Israel did was not only right and wise, but should also be a lesson for a new generation of U.S. and European policymakers.

No organization should have ever granted Nasrallah an iota of legitimacy, especially after his 2002 statement, "If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."

There is a tendency among diplomats either to exaggerate the benefits of dialogue or to declare its inevitability. In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for example, spoke about the need to talk with the Taliban. "The starting premise is you don’t make peace with your friends," she remarked at a conference in London. "You have to be willing to engage with your enemies...."

She was wrong. Some enemies are so odious, absolute defeat must be the goal. That was the driving belief during World War II, for example, in both the European and Pacific theaters. It was the right decision: Today, both Germany and Japan are reliable defenders of the post-World War II, rules-based liberal order.

Imposing terms on Japan did not spark reactionary violence; rather, it gave Japanese a new start. The Japanese themselves showed that they were ready to move on from absolute fealty to the emperor, despite the beliefs of Japanese studies academics at the time.

Europe thrived because no diplomat acting with a naïve belief in his own sophistication snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by believing that they should enter into talks with Karl Dönitz, who briefly succeeded Hitler after his suicide.

Other regimes ended with the killing or military ouster of their leader. Uganda rebounded after a Tanzanian invasion drove out brutal dictator Idi Amin, who then spent his retirement years in Saudi Arabia. The Khmer Rouge regime came crashing down after Vietnam invaded and drove Pol Pot into hiding.

The 18-year terror of the Baader—Meinhof Gang ended in that group’s ideological defeat, not in its co-option.

The Islamic State ended not with a diplomatic deal, but rather with the death of its self-declared caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Perhaps had the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations not legitimized the Taliban and sought instead their absolute defeat, Afghanistan’s women would neither be prisoners in their own homes nor the country itself a safe-haven from which to plot new global terror.

Perhaps the lesson of Nasrallah’s apparent demise should be an indictment of what Western and UN diplomacy has become.

No organization should have ever granted Nasrallah an iota of legitimacy, especially after his 2002 statement, "If they [Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide."

Officials from George W. Bush-era Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to UN Secretary António Guterres who pushed ceasefire calls over the decades did the world wrong.

As Hezbollah collapses due to Israel’s ten days of hell, the terror group likely has greater support in Morningside Heights than in Lebanon. Not only could the decapitation of Hezbollah avert a wider war between Israel and Lebanon, but it could also bring freedom to the Lebanese people whom Hezbollah has for too long held hostage and whose aspirations for a Western-oriented state Hezbollah has blocked.

The lesson for Washington, however, is broader. Diplomacy and compromise empowered Hezbollah and Hamas. They also empowered the Taliban and North Korea to the tune of billions of dollars and the Islamic Republic of Iran to an exponentially larger amount. Rather than continue such engagement, the United States should map out its opponents’ command-and-control and enemy regimes’ vulnerabilities and exploit them with a goal of bringing each regime to its knees.

If Nasrallah’s death collapses Hezbollah, what might Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s sudden death mean for Iran? Or, Qods Force Chief Esmail Qaani’s demise? Or every Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ general or admiral?

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demonstrated, terrorist groups and radical ideologies need not be permanent fixtures on the world stage; instead, Western leaders should view them as enemies to eliminate.

Link

Britain

The Legacy of Five Governments: Why Britain Drowned in Pogroms

2024-08-06

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov

[REGNUM] The Labour government faces its first major challenge since being elected as the country has been engulfed in unrest for almost a week following the high-profile murder of three children in Southport.

British citizen Axel Rudakubana, whose parents moved to the country from Rwanda, has stirred up society with his attack and once again brought to the forefront issues that the gentlemen of Downing Street preferred not to mention.

ROOTS OF DISCONTENT
This is not the first time that Foggy Albion has faced such unrest. In modern British history, there have been at least ten major episodes when interethnic and interfaith disputes first spilled over into street confrontations and then into pogroms.

True, almost all of them occurred during the era of Conservative prime ministers – with the possible exception of incidents in Manchester (2001) and Birmingham (2005), which had to be resolved by the Labour Party's Tony Blair. However, these conflict situations were then viewed as a "legacy" of the social policy miscalculations of the Conservative John Major.

Now the government led by Keir Starmer has received its own “inheritance” – and for five predecessors at once. The unrest in Southport, fuelled by anti-immigrant and Islamophobic rumours, quickly spread to other major cities, including London.

The far-right English Defence League has been rightly blamed for organising these disturbances – its members (the vast majority of whom are young) have been the driving force behind any protests even indirectly related to migration since 2009. In addition, it was members of the League who helped to fuel the unrest in Southport by spreading a rumour that the attack was carried out by an illegal migrant.

British tabloids routinely hint at the presence of a “Russian connection.” However, this time they did not ignore the Conservatives, who allegedly receive direct benefits from the failures of the Labor government and themselves push anti-migrant forces to continue the unrest.

Meanwhile, the roots of discontent should be sought somewhat deeper.

Following the migrant crisis triggered by the conflict in Syria in the mid-2010s, Britain faced an influx of refugees from the Middle East. Their arrival was seized upon by radical propagandists, including Pakistani-born British lawyer Anjem Choudary.

The latter not only welcomed the appearance of “Sharia patrols” in London, but also supported the activities of jihadists in Syria and Iraq in every possible way, “blessed” supporters of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to commit crimes, and helped terrorist recruiters illegally enter the country.

The fact that Choudary was only given a life sentence in 2021 (he had previously been jailed for just five years, despite having been a radical for at least 20 years) continues to be used to illustrate the shortcomings of British policy on sensitive issues such as illegal immigration and terrorism. The situation has changed little over the years.

Another serious blow to Britain’s resilience to the threat of mass migration was its exit from the European Union (the so-called Brexit). After the 2016 referendum, London gradually began to withdraw from pan-European control mechanisms, and migration rates inevitably soared.

In the first quarter of 2024 alone, almost 5,000 people entered the country illegally, adding to the more than 56,000 who had already arrived in the past year. London has also, at various times, accepted refugees not only from the Middle East but also from Asia and Africa, increasing tensions between communities and the native population.

As expected, the interests of the working class (the main electorate of the Labor Party) suffered from the influx of guests from abroad, since migrants took over some positions in the labor market, displacing the native population. Each year, the percentage of those displaced steadily increased, and the government preferred to remain silent once again, which only exacerbated the problem.

At the same time, the conservatives' attempts to maneuver between dissatisfied groups - for example, by promoting the idea of deporting captured illegal immigrants to third countries - ended in nothing. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which none of the previous prime ministers dared to withdraw from, prevented this.

HOW WILL DOWNING STREET RESPOND?
Since the first days of the riots, Labour has sought to demonstrate the toughness of its position. In his address to the nation, Prime Minister Starmer promised that the rioters would “regret taking part in mass riots,” and he even dubbed what is happening in British cities “far-right thuggery.”

At the instigation of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Internal Affairs promptly increased security in Muslim neighborhoods and religious sites to prevent armed attacks. Additional steps were taken by other departments as well.

At the same time, the work of the Labour Party is currently aimed exclusively at quelling popular unrest: the Starmer government does not have a clear plan on how to solve the problem of illegal migration and relieve social tension. Moreover, they do not plan to withdraw from the ECHR, as the Conservatives previously proposed.

Moreover, given the fact that the attack was carried out by a British citizen (albeit an ethnic Rwandan), the crackdown on migrants and ethnic communities looks dubious and is likely to be seen as an attempt to appease xenophobic groups.

On the other hand, blaming the English Defence League exclusively (while ignoring other hidden actors) also seems like a losing proposition. It guarantees a repeat of the crisis in the future – on an even larger scale.

The Labour Party has not yet developed a “middle” approach, and the time to “name the culprit” has already been lost.

Also, against the backdrop of the miscalculations of Starmer and his team, right-wing populists have become more active, in particular the Reform Party, which had previously built its election campaign on criticism of the Conservatives’ “migration laissez-faire.” Now the “reformers” have switched to Labour, which, in their opinion, is repeating the same mistakes as their predecessors.

Of course, the current protests are unlikely to cost Starmer his premiership – or his party its governing status – but, as with the Conservatives, they cast some doubt on the feasibility of the promises made during the election campaign.

And this could play a cruel joke on the Labour Party in the next electoral cycle.

Link

Britain

Another ‘austere religious scholar' makes headlines as he raises money for land along the ~~US border~~ a ~~Scottish isle~~ somewhere else for a Sharia domain, complete with jihad training camps

2024-08-01

[AmericanThinker] While journalists at The Washington Post might call Sheikh Yasser al-Habib an “austere religious scholar” (the descriptor so affectionately used to eulogize Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after he detonated himself and his own children a tunnel to evade capture by U.S. forces), others night label the Muslim cleric a terrorist, or even just a devout Islamist, while a report at the Daily Mail describes al-Habib

… Sheikh Yasser al-Habib, 45, is the soft-spoken yet fiery heretical Shiite preacher who keeps collecting lotsa money from his followers for a variety of projects, including a separate island homeland for his followers to establish a base for living and training, where they can show those other so-called Moslems how to do it right. As part of their outreach they have Al-Muhassin mosque and a £2 million compound – also known as the Minor Land of Fadak — in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire, the Fadak satellite TV station, a scattering of military training camps, and a former charity known as the Mahdi Servants Union (formerly the Khoddam Al-Mahdi Organisation). Sometimes even busy hands are the Devil’s playground…

as a “vile Muslim extremist”; after the massacres in the kibbutzim on October 7th, al-Habib reportedly said he and his followers were “buoyed” by the slaughter, and rhetorically asked, “Who among us does not enjoy retaliation of the Zionist enemy?”

A traditional Moslem outlook in certain circles, but then the sheikh was traditionally educated, back before he developed his own innovative ideas…

Anyway, al-Habib has a substantial following, complete with his own “army” of jihadis, and he’s apparently eyeing small islands across the West—some even along the U.S. border—for purchase, in order to establish Sharia law domains, and he’s just about succeeded in buying a small uninhabited Scottish island called Torsa. As you can expect, the Western governments are radio silent on al-Habib’s ambitions.

Sheikh Yasser al-Habib, 45, claimed asylum from Kuwait in Britain 20 years ago. He repays us by wanting to set a Sharia Law island at isle of Torsa, in the west coast of Scotland.

Link

Terror Networks

Terrorist attacks in Dagestan: battered ISIS returns to the Caucasus

2024-06-26

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kirill Semenov

[REGNUM] The terrorist attacks in Dagestan, where synagogues and a church were targeted and Russian Orthodox Church priest Nikolai Kotelnikov was brutally murdered, may have been part of ISIS's global strategy to attack civilians, primarily Christians.

Thus, since the beginning of June in Africa (in the Congo, as well as in Mozambique), numerous terrorist attacks have been carried out against local Catholics and Protestants, when ISIS militants broke into Christian villages and carried out massacres of civilians there, and terrorist information resources such as “ Al-Naba” covered these crimes widely.

After the attacks in Dagestan, the ISIS-Velayat Khorasan* media center Al-Azaim also published a message praising the “Caucasian brothers.” Although ISIS has not directly claimed responsibility, such a statement could serve as evidence of the terrorist organization's involvement.

Attacking churches is also a characteristic feature of the ISIS-Caucasus Velayat terrorists*. This group was disbanded at the end of 2017 by the “central command of ISIS” after almost all of its cells were destroyed by federal forces. Nevertheless, in the future, individual ISIS adherents continued terrorist activity in the North Caucasus.

So, in February 2018, on Forgiveness Sunday, there was an attack on a church in Kizlyar. Then the terrorist Khalil Khalilov killed 5 parishioners and was himself liquidated. ISIS Central Command claimed responsibility for the attack, calling Khalil ad-Dagestani a “soldier of the caliphate.”

But after the terrorist attacks at Crocus City Hall in April of this year, there were signs of a revival of ISIS in the Russian Caucasus. Although the first signals sounded even a little earlier, after a group of six terrorists was eliminated in the Ingush Karabulak. However, at that time no direct connection was established between them and ISIS, or at least such evidence was not voiced.

In April, information appeared that ISIS - Velayat Caucasus (Ingushetia sector) published an audio message about the situation of the group. It indicated that this terrorist organization was becoming stronger, larger and more active and was going to choose a “new emir” (the last one was eliminated in 2021).

On April 22, militants possibly linked to ISIS attacked a police patrol in Karachaevsk in Karachay-Cherkessia, killing two law enforcement officers and wounding a third, and seizing their service weapons.

On April 28, suspected ISIS militants attacked a police post in the village of Mara-Ayagy of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. The terrorists drove up to the post, threw explosives and opened fire, killing 2 police officers and injuring at least 4 people. All attackers were eliminated.

The current terrorist attacks in Dagestan can serve as confirmation that the group has begun to restore its positions in the Caucasus. And here we need to pay attention to the history and specifics of the Caucasian wing of ISIS and its appearance on Russian territory.

FROM “ICHKERIA” TO “CAUCASUS EMIRATE”
The roots of the emergence of ISIS as a global terrorist project should be sought in the arrival in Iraq of a group of al-Qaeda jihadists from Afghanistan led by Abu Musab Az-Zarqawi, who began to implement his own concept of jihadism, entering into increasing disputes with the leaders of this structure, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. And in the Caucasus, the prologue to the emergence of ISIS in this part of the Russian Federation was the arrival of foreign jihadist fighters in the region, primarily from Arab countries.

The first jihadist to go to Chechnya was Ali Fathi al-Shishani, a veteran of the war against the USSR in Afghanistan, an ethnic Chechen from Jordan. This happened even before the first Chechen war, in 1993. Then Fathi, having arrived in Ichkeria, created a “Salafi Islamic jamaat”, consisting of young indigenous Chechens and some Chechens of Jordanian origin. In essence, this is where the spread of Wahhabism in the most radical version of Salafi jihadism in the Russian Caucasus begins.

After the outbreak of war in December 1994, Ali Fathi played an important role in facilitating the recruitment of Arab fighters from Afghanistan. Among those he personally invited was Samir Salih Abdallah al-Suwailim, better known as Khattab, who soon became the leader of all foreign jihadist fighters in Chechnya. But then it was too early to talk about Ichkeria joining the global jihadist project led by Al-Qaeda*, although there were, of course, connections between them.

Although Khattab denied any contact with bin Laden, stating that "there are no relations between them due to the great distance and difficulties of communication," both sides did maintain dialogue through their representatives in the 1990s and early 2000s years.

There was also correspondence between them, which resulted in a heated discussion about strategy, as Khattab and bin Laden had completely different worldviews, and each tried to convince the other of the superiority of their approaches to “jihad.” It was also characterized by personal rivalry between them, especially due to Khattab's growing authority within the jihadist community.

Bin Laden was obsessed with fighting the "Judeo-Christian alliance" and focused his strategy on attacking the "distant enemy", primarily the US and Israel. Khattab, on the contrary, sought to establish an Islamic system in Chechnya and then use it as a base for violent expansion into the neighboring territories of the Russian North Caucasus. Until his death in 2002, Khattab never threatened the United States.

After Khattab was eliminated, his successor as commander of foreign jihadists in Chechnya was Abu al-Walid al-Ghamdi, just like Khattab, a citizen of Saudi Arabia. Al-Walid's approach to the ideas of "jihad" was even more radical. It was he who began to openly call for the use of suicide bombers and justify the recruitment of women to carry out suicide bombings. Al-Walid was killed by fighters of the Vostok battalion in Chechnya on April 16, 2004.

Abu Hafs al-Urduni, who replaced al-Walid, was a Jordanian and finally brought foreign Salafi jihadists in the Caucasus into the service of al-Qaeda, and its most radical wing led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who became the “founder” of ISIS.

In particular, Abu Hafs was mentioned in the report of US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the UN Security Council back in 2003. He was stated to be part of an alleged international network led by al-Zarqawi, from which ISIS emerged.

On November 26, 2006, Abu Hafs al-Urduni was killed in a shootout with Russian special forces in Khasavyurt. And the last commander of the “Arab Muhajirs” in Chechnya was Melfi al-Hussaini al-Harbi, known as Muhannad, who replaced al-Urduni.

Mukhannad began his activities in the Caucasus in 1999 in the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia, populated mainly by ethnic Chechens - Kists. Muhannad lectured on the history of Islam, actively introducing the ideology of Wahabism in the region and preaching the principles of Salafi jihadism. In which, it should be noted, he succeeded, since subsequently many people from this gorge became significant figures among foreign jihadists in Syria and, above all, in the structures of ISIS.

In October 2006, the head of the separatist entity “Ichkeria” (CRI), Doku Umarov, appointed Mukhannad as one of the three deputies of Magomet “Magas” Yevloev, who headed the Ingush sector of the separatists.

After Umarov in September 2007 proclaimed the formation of a new militant organization in the North Caucasus called the Caucasus Emirate in place of the ChRI, Mukhannad was declared his naib, or deputy. This was evidence of the strengthening of the position of Salafi jihadists in the Caucasus, who have become the mainstream of Chechen separatists.

This also emphasizes the role of Muhannad himself, who gained much more influence on the decision-making of the Imarat than his predecessors during the times of Ichkeria. On April 21, 2011, Ramzan Kadyrov told reporters about the destruction of Mukhannad as a result of a special operation that took place on the same day in the Chechen Republic.

FROM “CAUCASUS EMIRATE” TO “ISIS – CAUCASUS VELAYAT”
The Caucasus Emirate tried to distance itself from international terrorist networks, declaring itself as an independent center of world “jihadism,” although it was not against receiving help from the same Al-Qaeda and accepting its emissaries.

But after the liquidation of Doku Umarov, starting in November 2014, the leaders of the so-called. The “jamaats” of the “Caucasus Emirate”, one after another, began to swear allegiance to ISIS (which, since 2013, has been able to carry out widespread expansion in Syria and Iraq) and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

First, the so-called “Chechen jamaat”, whose leaders swore allegiance to ISIS, their example was followed by Dagestan “jamaats”. And then they were joined by the Ingush, whose leader, although he did not directly swear allegiance to Al-Baghdadi, nevertheless declared support for ISIS. Ultimately, the then head of the Caucasus Emirate, Abu Muhammad (Aliashab Kebekov), found himself isolated and was soon eliminated by Russian security forces.

Thus, the regionalist jihadist project in the Caucasus was replaced by a global jihadist project under the banner of ISIS.

“Central” ISIS announced the creation of the group “ISIS - Velayat Kakaz” on June 23, 2015 and appointed its leader Rustam Asildarov. Thus, ISIS-Caucasus has become part of a wider terrorist network.

This could largely be due to funding issues, since, on the one hand, Western curators were losing interest in the Imaratu, and, on the other, Al-Qaeda, which had previously supported Caucasian terrorists, was plunging into an increasingly deeper crisis.

The participation of jihadists from the Caucasus in the Syrian conflict and their joining the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq created a connection between the “caliphate” and Caucasian militants, including financial ones. This predetermined the flight of field commanders from the Caucasus Emirate to the banners of ISIS. Moreover, many of them understood that their time in the Caucasus had expired, and if they did not try to leave it, finding something to do in other branches of ISIS, they would soon be liquidated by federal forces.

On December 4, 2016, Russian intelligence services reported that they had killed Asildarov and four of his accomplices during a raid in Makhachkala. Aslan Batyukaev became the new leader of ISIS in the North Caucasus.

However, after his appointment in 2017, he was forced to leave the Russian Caucasus to save his life, hiding abroad. At the same time, ISIS - Caucasus Velayat was apparently dissolved by the ISIS Central Command as having ceased to exist. Although terrorist attacks on behalf of ISIS continued in the Caucasus, they were carried out either by lone terrorists or by autonomous cells not associated with the central command.

But at the very beginning of 2021, an attempt was made to restore ISIS - Caucasus Velayat. Then Batyukaev returned to Russia. This attempt seemed unsuccessful, since he was killed along with his group of five militants as a result of a special operation by the forces of the police regiment. A. A. Kadyrov on the outskirts of the village of Katyr-Yurt.

However, it is possible that this was not the only group that penetrated the territory of the Russian Federation, and it was from that time that ISIS sleeper cells that were activated in Dagestan began to be restored in the Russian Caucasus. It also cannot be ruled out that the current terrorist activity in the Russian southern regions is supported by “third forces” with which Russia is waging war in Ukraine.

Actually, the unexpected appearance of Batyukaev in the Russian Caucasus at the beginning of 2021 after his disappearance could have been supervised by external actors who were already trying to restore the terrorist network in order to open a second front if necessary. And this moment has come.

Link

Home Front: WoT

US federal appeals court upholds 2022 conviction of Islamic State ‘Beatle’

2024-06-08

[IsraelTimes] Judges reject claim by El Shafee Elsheikh, part of UK-born terror cell that beheaded abducted journalists on video, that US interrogators didn’t properly notify him of his rights

A federal United States appeals court on Friday upheld the conviction of a Brit for his role in a hostage-taking scheme by the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group that took roughly two dozen Westerners captive a decade ago.

El Shafee Elsheikh

...“George” from the London ‘hood. He was born in Sudan, and he is not at all a nice man — the rest is only vicious detail. The British government stripped him both of British citizenship and protections when they cast him on the bosom of American law, asking only that he not get the death penalty. He’s not actually in the Florence Supermax prison, last we heard, but next door in USP Florence among the general population. Elsheikh claims his arrest is a case of mistaken identity…

was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2022 in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. His jury trial established that he was one of the notorious "Beatles," Islamic State captors nicknamed for their British accents and known for torturing and beating prisoners.

Elsheikh appealed his conviction, arguing that confessions he had given in media interviews after his capture in 2018 should have been tossed out of court. He alleged that the Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces tortured him and forced him to conduct the interviews.

Elsheikh’s lawyers also argued that the FBI had violated his constitutional rights by interviewing him while he was in foreign custody. Elsheikh said he was confused by the process, in which he was initially interrogated by Sherlocks from the US Department of Defense who were using him to gather intelligence and did not read him his rights as required by US law.

Elsheikh was later questioned by FBI agents who did read him his rights and told him that anything he said from that point on could be used against him in court.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond rejected both of Elsheikh’s arguments. The judges said the evidence did not support Elsheikh’s contention that he had been beaten or tortured. The court also ruled that Elsheikh’s interrogators had followed proper procedures in their two-step interrogation process to inform him of his rights.

Elsheikh was one of two "Beatles" brought to the US to face trial. The United Kingdom agreed to the extradition and provided intelligence and evidence to assist with the prosecution after the US promised it would not seek the death penalty

The other Beatle who faced trial, Alexanda Kotey, pleaded guilty under a deal that provided a possibility he could, after 15 years, serve the remainder of his life sentence in the UK.

Elsheikh’s convictions were related to the deaths of four American hostages: James Foley, Peter Kassig, Kayla Mueller and Steven Sotloff. All but Mueller were executed in videotaped beheadings that were circulated online. Mueller was forced into slavery and raped multiple times by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before she was killed.

They were among 26 people whom the Islamic State kidnapped between 2012 and 2015, when it controlled large swaths of Iraq and Syria.

Link

Afghanistan

'The people who control the country.' How Afghanistan has changed under the Taliban

2024-05-31

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kirill Semeov

Russia is determined to normalize relations, and will say anything to do so. Count up the fictions as you read, dearReader.

[REGNUM] The problems of Afghanistan are known, but the real power there lies with the Taliban movement and this cannot be ignored, Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the press following his visit to Uzbekistan on May 28.

“There are problems in Afghanistan, they are undeniable, everyone is well aware of them. The question of how to build relationships with the current government is another question. But we have to build it somehow, these are the people who control the country, control the territory of the country. They are the power in Afghanistan today,” the Russian President said.

A day earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also made it clear that Russia is going to remove the Taliban from the list of terrorists, on which it is still included.

“Kazakhstan recently made a decision, which we are also going to make, to remove them from the list of terrorist organizations. Moreover, the UN Security Council did not declare the Taliban as a terrorist organization.

It only takes one veto, or the threat of one.

There are, in my opinion, 12–15 specific characters on the list of terrorists,” Lavrov told reporters.

Initially, the Taliban came under international sanctions and were included in terrorist lists not so much because of their own actions, but because of their support for other terrorist organizations. For example, Al-Qaeda, whose representatives received asylum in Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda is still there, as are all their little buddies. And ISIS-K is one of the leading exporters of jihad among the ISIS franchises. Some of these have connections, and have been causing trouble, in Russia.

Of course, the Taliban was and remains a fundamentalist movement, but both now and during the period of the first Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA - the Taliban state) distanced itself from obvious terrorist activities.

The Taliban, unlike Al-Qaeda and ISIS, have never advocated the dismantling of the world order and “global jihad.”

But they support — and intermarry with — those who do. Tomaytoes, tomahtoes.

During their first statehood in the 1990s, they maintained diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan. Neighboring Turkmenistan was then close to recognizing them.

At the moment, it has also become obvious that all concerns about the hypothetical expansion of the Taliban into neighboring countries have remained at the level of speculation and speculation. The Taliban movement has demonstrated in practice that it intends to build good neighborly relations with all its neighbors.

They’e still at the consolidation phase, and can’t afford external wars as well as the internal ones.

For Moscow, of course, the positive attitude of the Afghan authorities towards Russia itself and its approaches to international affairs also plays a role.

As political scientist and orientalist Mir-Ali Askerov, who recently returned from Afghanistan, told IA Regnum, “there has never been a situation in which, when you say that you are from Russia, it causes some kind of negativity, that is, it either causes at least something neutral, positive, or strictly positive attitude. The Afghans express their gratitude for the fact that you visited their country and, in general, offer their help there in every possible way.”

I assume Mr. Askerov is male.

Askerov emphasized that Afghans look with hope at the confrontation between Russia and the collective West, with the hope that Russia “will be able to withstand this onslaught, this pressure and will be able to achieve a revision of this monopolar world order.”

No doubt.

YOU CAN WALK AT NIGHT
As Russian officials have rightly noted, the Taliban are making good progress in nation-building.

Although the country has serious economic problems and terrorist groups continue to operate, the risk of political and economic collapse is assessed as minimal, and the country has also managed to overcome crime and make the lives of citizens safer.

According to Askerov, the crime situation has become much better than during the reign of Ashraf Ghani and the Americans, and during that period he also had the opportunity to visit Afghanistan.

“ You can now walk around Kabul at night, during the day, at any time of the day and in any area, it is absolutely safe. The only problem is pickpockets, but this is only a problem of large markets,” said the orientalist.

Again, Mr. Askerov is not female.

At the same time, security is ensured in a much “softer” way than during the American occupation.

“Of course, there are many guards and checkpoints in the city, but they do not create the impression of a police state, as during the American presence with rough searches and searches of everyone. On the streets you can also see employees of the ministry of “commanding what is good and prohibiting what is bad” (morality police), but they act unobtrusively, politely and rather try to explain or explain something rather than prohibit and detain, so this does not cause any rejection or conflicts,” Askerov noted.

No, no, perish the thought.

At the same time, he said, some problems remain, despite the optimism of Afghans:

“The population perceives current changes positively and looks to the future with hope. But, of course, Afghans live poorly, and even the wealthiest live very modestly by our standards; economic problems have not gone away.”

Nevertheless, the Taliban still managed to somewhat stabilize the economy.

Afghanistan's foreign trade fell after they seized power. However, despite the decline in imports, most of the country's income now comes from taxes.

As experts note, the Afghan economy is no longer in a state of free fall and appears to be frozen in a precarious balance, albeit at the lowest level.

Modest positive trends include lower inflation, exchange rate stability, some recovery in imports, a more than doubling of exports,

…opium and heroin, right?

stable or slightly increased labor demand and continued wage levels.

Of course, the problem of Afghan drug trafficking remains.

Opium and heroin, yes.

However, it arose long before the Taliban came to power and was “chronic” for this country.

The Taliban took control of it during their first tenure, and never let go.

Nevertheless, the IEA leadership is making efforts to limit the production of opiates.

Thus, according to a 2023 UN report, poppy cultivation in southern Afghanistan fell by more than 80% as a result of Taliban campaigns to stop its use in opium production. For example, the decline in poppy cultivation in Helmand province has dropped by 99%.

In November 2023, a UN report found that throughout Afghanistan, poppy cultivation had fallen by more than 95%, depriving the country of its status as the world's largest opium producer.

The warehouses were full to bursting. No point in producing more until that supply is used up and the price increases.

Although Iran does not agree with such optimistic assessments, since, according to Iranian officials, supplies of opium and heroin from Afghanistan to their country continued in large volumes.

See?

The Taliban have also made progress in dialogue and taking into account the interests of ethno-confessional minorities living in the country, primarily the Shiite Hazaras, who were able to gain access to some leadership positions, which may indicate the movement’s readiness to follow the path of forming an inclusive government.

Tokens to shut up the rubes.

However, problems remain with the Uzbek and Tajik minorities, who are dissatisfied with the fact that their representatives, not associated with the Taliban, are still not represented in the IEA power structures.

"RED TROOPS"
An important factor in recognizing the Taliban and removing terrorist labels from the movement is its success in suppressing the activity and presence of international terrorist organizations such as ISIS and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

It is significant that the Americans, who spent 20 years trying to eradicate the brainchild of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, were forced to recognize this success. But as soon as they left, the Taliban themselves solved this problem.

In particular, as Christy Abizaid, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, stated on September 11, 2023, "al-Qaeda is in its historic decline in Afghanistan and Pakistan and its resurgence is unlikely."

She also cited declassified data that the group had "lost access to targets, leadership talent, group cohesion, grassroots commitment, and supportive local environment." She said the terrorist organization's ability to threaten from Afghanistan " is at its lowest level" since it moved there in 1998.

The Taliban were also able to suppress the activity of ISIS and its local affiliate ISIS-K in Afghanistan.

Within Afghanistan, anyway. Or perhaps just reports of their activities. But not abroad.

After a significant increase in their activity, due to the security vacuum created in some parts of the country after the US withdrawal, the Taliban changed this dynamic, depriving the terrorists of control over certain territories that they were able to acquire by following the Americans fleeing the country.

Their activities were dealt a blow, and activity over the past year has decreased significantly, which was noted in the relevant reports of international structures.

It is noted that the Taliban were able to conduct a successful campaign against ISIS-X and eliminated most of the sleeper cells that were ready to continue terrorist attacks in Afghan cities. After a surge in the number of terrorist attacks in the first months after the Taliban came to power, their number begins to decline as a result of counter-terrorism measures by the IEA security structures.

In particular, in 2022–2023. the number of terrorist attacks and other attacks by ISIS-X has decreased significantly. If in the first year of Taliban rule (2021-2022) there were 314 attacks and assaults, then in 2022-2023. only 69 - that is, less than during any period of activity of the group in Afghanistan since its inception.

The Taliban’s fight against ISIS is systematic and consistent; for this purpose, special counter-terrorism forces have been created in Afghanistan that can effectively counter it.

This counter-terrorism unit is called "Red Squad", or "Sara Kheta" in Pashto.

... also known as Red Unit, Red Brigade, Blood Unit, Danger Group, and Taliban Special Forces Unit. The Taliban’s special forces/shock troops unit was first deployed in Sangin town in Helmand province in 2016, then claimed a victory against ISIS-Khurasan in 2018. They were most active in Kunduz, Baghlan, and Faryab Provinces.

It is divided into several battalions of 300–350 men, selected by field commanders from among the fighters based on their discipline, dedication and skills. Each battalion operates in a separate province, but within the Red Squad there is also a battalion-sized group of the most trained elite forces known as Badri 313.

The Badri 313 Battalion was trained by the Haqqani network and based at Salahaddin Ayyubi Military Operations Academy. There is evidence it was at one point al Qaeda's military arm in Pakistan, with members gleaned from the Taliban and Pakistan’s pet jihadi groups including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Jundallah, used for nasty attacks on the Pakistani army under the leadership of Ilyas Kashmiri (until 2011) followed by Shah Sahib.

In emergency situations, units work together to cover a multi-province area.

It was the “Red Detachments” that defeated the ISIS in the province of Nangarhar, which was a stronghold of terrorists. After which part of the “Red Detachment” battalions was transferred to the province of Kunar, which was soon also cleared of ISIS militants.

Of course, it is too early to talk about a complete victory over ISIS in Afghanistan.

But a significant decrease in terrorist activity allows the Taliban movement to establish economic ties with foreign partners and organize business trips to this country.

Therefore, Russia, acting proactively, can economically enter Afghanistan before others, officially recognizing the Taliban movement as the legitimate Afghan government.

Before this, there were many factors that forced our entrepreneurs to act with caution in Afghanistan, including the fear of persecution for justifying and financing terrorism.

By removing the Taliban from the terrorist lists, Moscow can speed up the implementation of economic projects in Afghanistan and begin absolutely legal, not “gray” investments.

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

Trump to send US special forces hit squads to Mexico to assassinate drug cartel leaders in second term, according to sources

2024-05-09

[Mail] Donald Trump is considering sending special operations teams into Mexico to kill the heads of drug cartels if he retakes the White House in November, according to a new report citing three sources familiar with his thinking.

Back when he was president the first time, he considered a lot, too. It was dreadfully amusing to watch the hysterics that stirred up.

During his four years in office he pondered whether it would be possible to launch missile strikes on cartel operations.

See?

And, with the threat of drugs smuggled across the southern border only increasing since then, he is now publicly campaigning on a platform that includes using covert means to hurt the gangs responsible.

Trump is said to be modeling his thinking on the the successful 2019 military raid that he ordered to kill ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

But the approach would come with the risks of angering the Mexican government.

Link

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