Fifth Column |
Violent Anti-Semitism As a Campus Recruiting Tool |
2024-12-22 |
Normally I would just shove the link into the weekly roundup, but Commentary senior editor Seth Mandel makes a point I completely missed. [Commentary] In October, I asked what the next mutation of campus anti-Semitism was going to be, warning against the classic mistake of "fighting the last war." Well, we have our answer: terrorism.A freshman at George Mason University in Virginia has been arrested and charged with plotting to bomb the Israeli consulate in New York. By all accounts, the suspect, Abdullah Hassan of Egypt, …more fully in the Rantburg archives as Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, 18, who is being held without bail as he awaits trial and deportation… was serious about his mission."Hassan floated different options such as assault rifles, a boom jacket or a backpack stuffed with a homemade acetone-peroxide bomb …the extremely touchy Mother of Satan (TATP) formula that the glossy magazine of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula once wrote up as suitable for easy mixing up in the bathtub of your mom, which is why beauty supply shops are required to report large purchases of acetone to the authorities… — for which he sent the informant a detailed instructional video stamped with the Islamic State![]() Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... logo, according to charging documents," the Washington Post reports. Hassan went through the relative merits of explosives vs. shooting sprees. Lest anyone try to argue this was some kind of purely political act of anti-Zionism and not anti-Semitism, Hassan had explained that he was targeting New York City because of how easy it was there to find targets who were "Yahud"—Arabic for "Jews." He was immersed in the intricacies of the plan, "micromanag[ing] details such as the size of ball bearings to be used as shrapnel for a bomb." Hassan had been interviewed but not charged by the FBI two years ago for spreading ISIS propaganda, so we can say he was on their radar, as officials often admit when someone escalates their threat to society. Thus far it hasn’t been reported that Mr. Hassan was executing a an ISIS plot, or even that he had spontaneously pledged to one of the formal jihadi organizations. It appears that he just absorbed ideas from the general jihadi swamp. It has not been GMU’s strongest semester. In November, the president of the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Paleostine and her sister were barred from campus. A day earlier, police had searched their home and found guns, ammunition, anti-Semitic literature, and "death to Jews" paraphernalia. This was in connection with an investigation into an act of anti-Semitic vandalism on campus. Jena and Noor Chanaa are the students. Their elder brother, Mohammad Chanaa, a GMU alumnus, turned in his own handgun, ammunition, and concealed carry permit the next day, accused of complicity in the project. The worst part is that these two cases are not connected. We’re not dealing with a specific, extreme student group or a particular clique of activists under the influence of a radical professor or network. We’re just seeing an atmosphere on campus conducive to That does not, however, disconnect it from the on-campus radicalization that has been going on for a long time but which massively increased after Oct. 7, 2023. This is the next step in a process that nurtures both kinds of extremism. Post-Oct. 7, faculty and students teamed up to turn college campuses into mob sites. Tentifada encampments were set up to prevent Jewish students from accessing public parts of campus, and professors began not only joining the protests but reducing the necessity of going to class by rewarding anti-Zionist activism and participation at sit-ins. The administrations almost universally incentivized this behavior by bowing to activists and their outside patrons. Students were rarely punished and district attorneys dropped charges out of political sympathy with the tentifada. That meant that in future years, already-radicalized students would seek to join these campuses, knowing they’d be well at home there. Which is exactly what appears to have happened with Hassan. Which means Hassan is unlikely to be much of an outlier. We can’t know how many people with After the Hassan news hit social media, an absolutely chilling detail emerged. Adam Mossoff, a Jewish professor at the university’s law school, posted: "For the past year, a permanent police presence has been assigned to the faculty suite of offices where I & [Professor David Bernstein] work. I have greater clarity now why this had to be done. It’s shameful that GMU has fostered an environment where this is needed for its profs." The school seems to have good reason for taking extra measures to protect its Jewish professors. That it needs to do so—and it clearly needs to do so—is more proof that the American system of higher education is becoming a place that puts Jews in escalating physical danger. Related: George Mason University: 2024-12-20 Virginia man charged with planning 'mass casualty' attack at NYC Israeli consulate George Mason University: 2024-12-15 Jew-hate at American universities round-up: 12/2-12/14 George Mason University: 2024-11-25 Biden admin exec order allowing US to sanction Americans undermining West Bank 'stability' prompts lawsuit Related: Mother of Satan 11/01/2024 Germany: Manhunt After Explosives Left At Berlin Station Mother of Satan 10/16/2024 Tel Aviv suicide bombing attempt in August was overseen by Hamas in Turkey – police Mother of Satan 12/10/2022 Iranian-American Man Pleads Guilty to Texas School Bombing Plan |
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Caribbean-Latin America |
3 Lebanese, Syrian nationals arrested in Buenos Aires airport over alleged terror plot |
2024-01-04 |
Houthis or Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula piling on, or perhaps Iran’s IRGC is getting overly clever... [IsraelTimes] Suspects linked to suspicious package from Yemen...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... , as security forces said to be on high alert due to Maccabi games in Argentine capital. Argentinian federal police arrested three men at the Jorge Newbery Airport in downtown Buenos Aires on Tuesday for suspected links to terrorist activities. According to Clarin, an Argentine newspaper, security personnel detained the three after receiving intelligence about Syrian and Lebanese nationals entering Argentina ...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita... and the shipment of a parcel from Yemen whose contents are unclear. Clarin reported that the parcel, weighing some 35 kilograms, was sent to the home where the three suspects intended to stay. The newspaper added that Argentine security forces were alarmed by the information, due to the fact that the Pan American Maccabi games are currently being held in Buenos Aires. The games, which are held every four years, are hosting some 4,200 Jewish athletes from 22 countries. This year, the games took on special significance in light of the Hamas ![]() ’s brutal October 7 onslaught, which saw some 3,000 snuffies invade Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and take over 240 people hostage, while weaponizing sexual violence on a mass scale. Recently elected Argentine President Javier Milei, a right-wing, pro-Israel firebrand ... firebrandsare noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments... who has publicly mulled conversion to Judaism, spoke at the Pan-American games’ opening ceremony on December 28, saluting the athletes in Hebrew while reaffirming his "unalterable commitment to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people in their fight against Islamic terrorism, for peace and freedom." About 10,000 people attended the ceremony, including the US and Israeli ambassadors to Argentina, as well as local dignitaries. Over the past few decades, the Jewish community in Argentina, which numbers some 200,000, has been the target of multiple terror plots, often with Iranian involvement. In 1994, a boom-mobile exploded at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing over 80 people and injuring more than 300. In 2006, Argentine authorities charged Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word Iranis a cognate form of Aryan.The abbreviation IRGCis the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either Duceor Führeror maybe both. They hate and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah with the bombing, which remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentine history. Federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was Jewish, investigated the attacks, and was said to have found evidence that the Iranian involvement was covered up by Argentinian authorities at the time, including Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, who went on to serve as president of Argentina from 2007 to 2015. On the eve of a scheduled appearance before the Argentine congress to discuss the allegations, Nisman was found dead in his home. His death was later determined to be a homicide. The left-wing Kirchner, a polarizing character in the Argentinian Jewish community who made some antisemitic comments during her time in office, was charged with treason in 2017 for her role in the alleged cover-up. The charges against her were dropped in 2021. |
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Arabia | |
Al Qaeda announces death of former Bin Laden associate | |
2022-01-21 | |
![]() Rita Katz, director of SITE which monitors militants groups online, said the militant group did not mention any date or location for the death of Salih bin Salim bin Ubayd ’Abolan (aka ,, 'Umayr al-Hadhrami) who was also a former associate of Al Qaeda's leader Osama Bin Laden. Katz pointed to Twitter reports of a US airstrike that killed 3 AQAP militants on Nov. 14.
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Home Front: WoT | |||
ISIS-inspired Queens women plead guilty to NYC bomb plot | |||
2019-08-25 | |||
![]() ‐ including one who carried around the late Osama bin Laden ...... who is now neither a strong horse nor a weak horse, but a dead horse...... ’s photo ‐ copped to bomb-building charges Friday that could land them in prison for up to 20 years. Noelle Velentzas, 31, and Asia Siddiqui, 35, could wind up in prison for 20 years after pleading guilty in Brooklyn federal court to attempting to build a weapon of mass destruction. Between 2013 and 2015, the pair plotted to set off explosives in New York. They researched how to make boom-mobiles and visited Home Depot in Queens to browse for bomb-building materials with a woman they knew as "Mel" ‐ who was actually an undercover agent who caught them on tape talking about their murderous fantasies. "Noelle, Mel and I discussed the need to prepare for jihad," Siddiqui told Brooklyn federal Judge Sterling Johnson Jr., reading from a prepared written statement. The two women taught each other chemistry and electrical skills that could be used to build bombs ‐ drawing inspiration from terror attacks launched on US soil like the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. In a December 27, 2014, meeting, the women also discussed the possibility of attacking the funeral for NYPD officer Rafael Ramos, who was fatally shot alongside partner Wenjian Liu while they sat in their patrol car in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The two would-be bombers were blatant about their support for terrorist groups abroad, court papers state, gleefully watching online videos of a suicide kaboom and of ISIS fighters beheading Syrian soldiers. "Why we can’t be some real bad bitches?" Velentzas said in one meeting as she took a knife from her bra and showed Siddiqui and the informant how to stab someone. On one occasion, Velentzas showed the informant her phone, which had a photo of Osama bin Laden ‐ who she called one of her heroes ‐ set as her screen pic. Siddiqui, meanwhile, had been in repeated contact with members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, according to court papers, and was close with a prominent figure within the group.
Siddiqui and Velentzas are due back in court in December for sentencing. Related: 1993 World Trade Center bombing: 2019-07-08 Linda Sarsour: 'Jesus Was Palestinian Of Nazareth', but DNA data says not possible 1993 World Trade Center bombing: 2019-05-13 FBI Discovers Homegrown Islamic Terror Compound In Alabama 1993 World Trade Center bombing: 2019-03-15 Federal Grand Jury Returns Superseding Indictment against Five Amalia, New Mexico Compound Defendants Related: 1995 Oklahoma City bombing: 2018-10-25 Could the bombs that targeted Democrats win them the midterm elections? 1995 Oklahoma City bombing: 2010-04-17 Clinton concerned about angry anti-government rhetoric 1995 Oklahoma City bombing: 2009-04-30 Okla. Bomber Sues Prison For Constipation Related: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: 2017-06-23 Counterterrorism Director: Al Qaeda Remains No. 1 Terrorism Concern to U.S. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: 2017-05-24 Yemeni tribal fighters kill US troops in Ma’rib Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: 2017-03-03 General Mattis livid at reports disputing value of Yemen raid Related: William Sweeney: 2018-06-19 Klingon Jailed on Child Porn Now Charged with Leaking TS Information to WikiLeaks William Sweeney: 2018-01-10 NY Assemblywoman Stole Sandy Money from FEMA, Tried to Cover it Up: Prosecutors William Sweeney: 2017-09-28 Will the FBI's college basketball probe eventually expand to football? | |||
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U.S. drone shot down over Yemen - officials |
2019-08-22 |
![]() A Houthi military spokesman had earlier said that air defences had brought down a U.S. drone. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the drone was shot down late on Tuesday. This is not the first time a U.S. drone has been shot down in Yemen. In June, the U.S. military said that Houthi rebels had shot down a U.S. government-operated drone with assistance from Iran. U.S. forces have occasionally launched drone and air strikes against Yemen’s al Qaeda branch, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The group has taken advantage of a four-year-old war between the Houthi movement and President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s Saudi-backed government to try to strengthen its position in the impoverished country. Related: MQ-9: 2019-06-16 Drone Wars Over Yemen And Gulf Of Oman Revealed MQ-9: 2019-06-15 Iranian boat fired missile at US drone prior to tanker attack, US official says MQ-9: 2019-06-08 Houthi forces shoot down US-made drone in western Yemen Related: Houthi: 2019-08-20 Iran says it has warned US against seizing oil tanker Houthi: 2019-08-20 Afghanistan vows to crush Islamic State havens after attack Houthi: 2019-08-19 Yemen Huthi rebels appoint ‘ambassador’ in Tehran Related: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: 2019-06-08 French trial for support team of Charlie Hebdo, Hyper Cacher terror attacks finally scheduled Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: 2019-01-04 Wife of jihadist charged with terrorist crimes in France Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: 2018-01-21 Former Guantanamo detainee warns against spilling secrets Related: Abd-Rabbu Mansour: 2019-08-11 Yemen's southern separatists agree to Saudi call for ceasefire in Aden after capturing gov’t military camps Abd-Rabbu Mansour: 2019-06-14 Saudi air defence intercepts five Houthi drones Abd-Rabbu Mansour: 2019-02-25 Yemen's Houthis to quit two ports Monday under peace deal: Sources |
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French trial for support team of Charlie Hebdo, Hyper Cacher terror attacks finally scheduled | |||||
2019-06-08 | |||||
![]() Suspects linked to the deadly jihadist attacks that struck the Gay Paree region in January 2015, killing 17 people over a three-day period, will stand trial from April to July next year, a legal source said on Friday. A special Gay Paree criminal court will hear the case against 14 people accused of helping the attackers, providing them with logistical support and the weapons to carry out the attacks. The victims included 12 people killed at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo ... ![]() by Cherif Kouachi and his brother Said
Over the following two days the third gunman, Amedy Coulibaly,
He then killed four people at Hyper Cacher, a kosher supermarket during a hostage standoff with police. All three button men were killed by police.
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Europe | |
Wife of jihadist charged with terrorist crimes in France | |
2019-01-04 | |
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Soulef A, who was arrested along with Cherif in Djibouti in mid-December, has been charged with criminal association with terrorists and financing a terrorist enterprise and held pending a hearing on 7 January. Cherif, 36, who was returned to France in late December and detained, is considered a potential source of valuable information by western intelligence agencies. French authorities have been seeking him since he disappeared in 2011 on the final day of his trial in Paris for fighting in Iraq alongside Al-Qaida in 2004. | |
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Terror Networks | |
Former Guantanamo detainee warns against spilling secrets | |
2018-01-21 | |
![]() Ibrahim al Qosi, a former Guantanamo detainee, lectures about the importance of “preserving secrets” in an Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) video that was released earlier this week. The 36-minute video, titled “Secrets, its Dangers and the Departure of the Best of Us,” focuses on the US drone campaign against the group. Interviews with alleged spies who have helped the US hunt down jihadist commanders are spliced together with scenes of Qosi and other AQAP leaders decrying the spies’ actions, as well as the jihadists’ own loose lips and poor tradecraft. The problems posed by cell phones and social media are addressed. Indeed, the video culminates in a stern prohibition against using any devices that fuel the American-led intelligence war against AQAP. AQAP is clearly concerned that more mid-level and senior management figures could be taken out in the coming months. The US has targeted AQAP leaders in Yemen for years, but the number of airstrikes increased dramatically in 2017. Qosi is both the first and the last senior AQAP leader to speak in the production. He begins by claiming that the practice of guarding secrets has been important since the time of the Prophet Mohammed. “The Arabs regard the one who does not keep a secret to be lacking honor,” Qosi claims. A “secret among the best of people is concealed,” Qosi says. He then brags about his own ability to stay quiet. “A secret with me is a closed house. Its keys are lost and doors sealed.” Qosi warns those who reveal the jihadists’ secrets, inadvertently or otherwise. “To every Muslim who transgresses with his tongue, may he seek forgiveness from Allah, and know that there are Angels who record each and every word he utters.” Hellfire awaits those who transgress, al Qosi claims. At the end of the video, the former Guantanamo detainee addresses those who have migrated to Yemen hoping to achieve martyrdom. Do “not let your tongue or your phone be a reason [for] revealing the secrets of your brothers and lead to their imprisonment and killing and allow the enemy to rejoice in our misfortune,” Qosi says. Qosi served Osama bin Laden in a variety of roles prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 hijackings. He was captured by the Pakistanis while fleeing the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in Dec. 2001. The group he fled with in late 2001 was dubbed the “Dirty 30” by US officials, as Qosi’s comrades included former bin Laden bodyguards and others who served the al Qaeda chieftain. Qosi was among the first detainees transferred to Guantanamo in Jan. 2002. In July 2010, he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and material support for terrorism before a military commission. His plea was part of a deal in which he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors during his remaining time in US custody. Qosi was transferred to his home country of Sudan two years later, in July 2012. By 2014, Qosi had rejoined al Qaeda in Yemen. Qosi was first re-introduced as a senior al Qaeda figure in Dec. 2015 and he has been featured in the group’s propaganda repeatedly since then. Qasim al Raymi (AQAP’s emir) says the jihadists are an “open book” Qasim al Raymi, AQAP’s emir, argues that the jihadists’ have no bigger problem than their inability to keep secrets. “Our problem today is the exposure of Muslim secrets,” al Raymi claims. “That’s it! We are an open book; our way of thinking is exposed for the enemy to benefit from.” Al-Raymi (seen above) is an al Qaeda veteran who has served as AQAP’s top leader since 2015. In the new video, he raises several problems the jihadists face. He complains that some “brothers” cannot “hide a secret even from their” wives. “Then the woman gets on the phone and spreads information that so and so is in a particular place. Brothers have been killed by such irresponsible actions of such a woman,” al Raymi claims. In reality, the men are worse — divulging AQAP’s secrets as they peck away on websites. “Who is the one exposing the secrets of the Mujahidin? They are the Mujahideen themselves,” al Raymi laments. “When you see what is going on in the web forums you will be surprised. The transgression against the work of the Mujahidin that goes on is unbelievable. They expose [a] Mujahidin’s visions and plans, and then go on to…open debate in a chat room…what is (the aim of) this debate?” Then there are cell phones. One of the “spies” interviewed in the video claims that he marked the location of various AQAP figures by leaving behind cell phones with chips implanted in them. The “mobile phone” is “a different source of getting information,” one that is “much more dangerous than the one before,” al Raymi says. “Today we consider the mobile phones in our hands as a form of spy agent. An agent that is always with us.” AQAP’s head honcho makes a remark that deserves additional attention. “We believe that over that last period, especially after our withdraw[al], that most of the drone strikes were due to cell phones.” Al Raymi means that the US has tracked targets who were either careless with their mobile communications, or were marked by one of the “spies.” It is not clear if the withdrawal he is referring to is the one that occurred in 2016, when AQAP decided to fall back from Mukalla and other points in southern Yemen as a UAE-led coalition approached, or an earlier withdrawal forced by Yemeni forces in 2012. After the earlier retreat in 2012, al Raymi explains, AQAP “found documents from the national security that forbid striking three particular brothers.” Nasir al Wuhayshi, al Raymi’s predecessor as AQAP emir, had al Raymi inform the trio on the list. “Why [was] it that it was forbidden to strike them, while they are amongst the best of [the] brothers?” al Raymi asks. It was because they were collating “news” from across AQAP’s operations and the jihadists’ enemies found it useful to monitor their communications. Al Raymi doesn’t name the men, but says “two of them have been killed and one remains” alive.
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Arabia |
Yemeni troops fighting Al Qeada |
2017-08-04 |
ADEN/DUBAI: Yemeni troops, backed by the United States and the United Arab Emirates, conducted raids against the local affiliate of Al-Qaeda in Shabwa province on Thursday, the Emirati state news agency WAM said. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has taken advantage of a civil war pitting the Houthi movement against the Saudi-backed government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to try to widen its control and influence in Yemen. “Since early morning on Thursday, Yemeni troops and Hadrami (from Hadramout province) Elite Forces, with US and UAE backing, moved to smash elements of the terrorist organizations, especially AQAP,” WAM reported. WAM did not say what kind of support the UAE and US militaries had provided or give details on the outcome of the raids. The raids came a day after a suspected Al-Qaeda suicide bomber blew up his vehicle next to a military position recently set up by the Yemeni force in Shabwa province, killing six soldiers of a new anti-terrorist force set up by the UAE. A Yemeni military official said two vehicles belonging to the anti-terrorist force were destroyed in the attack, which left an undetermined number wounded while other soldiers were abducted by Al-Qaeda members supporting the suicide bomber. Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, confirmed the operation against the terrorists in a statement issued later Thursday. “Yemeni government armed forces launched a major operation against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) militants in the Shabwah Governorate of Yemen. The operation is being closely supported by a combined UAE and US enabling force,” he said. Otaiba gave no details of the support provided by UAE and US forces. Air strikes by US drones and manned aircraft against the militant group are frequent. But large-scale ground operations by regional troops have been rare since 2015, when the group was driven out of the mini-state it had established in the port city of Mukalla. Shabwa, one of the key southern Yemeni provinces, is where the US military carried out an air strike in June that killed Abu Khattab al Awlaqi, one of the emirs of AQAP, along with two other militants. It is also the site of Yemen’s only gas terminal, in the province’s port of Belhaf, and the pipeline feeding the terminal has been targeted several times by AQAP, Al-Qaeda’s most active branch. The terminal stopped operating after foreign experts were evacuated in 2015. Operations against the militants are complicated by the Yemeni civil war. A Saudi-led coalition is fighting Houthi rebels backed by Iran and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in a campaign to restore the internationally recognized government of President Hadi. The forces are largely stalemated but the fighting has plunged millions into poverty, displaced millions of others and killed more than 10,000 people. |
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Arabia |
2 al-Qaeda operatives die in drone strike in Yemen |
2017-07-04 |
YEMEN: Two suspected Al-Qaeda militants were killed in a drone strike while traveling on a motorbike in southern Yemen late on Saturday, residents said. The men died on the outskirts of Al-Wadei town in Abyan province, said residents who identified one of them as a local leader for the militant group called Ibrahim Al-Adani. There was no immediate statement from the militants or from US forces who have repeatedly launched drone and air strikes on Yemen’s Al-Qaeda branch, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). US officials say they are trying to wear down the group’s ability to coordinate attacks abroad. Another suspected US drone strike killed two men believed to be Al-Qaeda militants in southern Yemen late on Friday, residents and local sources said. In June, a drone strike killed two suspected Al-Qaeda militants traveling in a vehicle in Al-Naqba area of Shabwa province. AQAP operates in several provinces in south and eastern Yemen, including in Abyan, Shabwa and Al-Bayda. |
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China-Japan-Koreas |
China's First Overseas Military Base Nearing Completion |
2017-03-15 |
[Defensetech] The U.S. has increasing security concerns about China’s first overseas military base close to the hub of operations for U.S. Africa Command in Djibouti, a U.S. commander told Congress Thursday. Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of AfriCom, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he expected the Chinese base on the Horn of Africa to be operational later this summer. Without getting specific, Waldhauser said he recently met with Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh "and expressed our concerns about some of the things that are important to us about what the Chinese should not do at that location." The Chinese base would be about four miles from the U.S. base at Camp Lemonnier, one of the Pentagon’s largest and most important foreign military installations, where about 3,000 U.S. military personnel and contractors are assigned to Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. Camp Lemonnier is also home to Special Operations Command (Forward) ‐ East Africa, which has carried out operations against Al Shabab militants in Somalia and the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula group in Yemen. |
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