Terrorism

Legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh is challenging the Trump administration’s version of events surrounding the April 4 “chemical weapons attack” on the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun – though Hersh had to find a publisher in Germany to get his information out. In the Sunday edition of Die Welt, Hersh reports that his …

On June 20, the US central command announced the death of the Islamic State ideologue Turki Mubarak Binali which the extremist group’s official networks also confirmed. Binali’s death is a significant victory in the ideological war against IS. Who is Turki Mubarak Binali? The Islamic State is reeling under its …

A federal judge halted late on Monday the deportation of all Iraqi nationals detained during immigration sweeps across the United States this month until at least July 10, expanding a stay he imposed last week. The stay had initially only protected 114 detainees from the Detroit area. U.S. District Judge Mark …

President Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday dismissed calls for Turkey to close a military base in Qatar and said a wider list of demands issued by four Arab states was an unlawful intervention against the Gulf emirate’s sovereignty. In his strongest statement of support for Qatar in the nearly three-week-old crisis …

Faced with a sweeping set of demands, Qatar insisted Friday it can indefinitely survive the economic and diplomatic steps its neighbors have taken to try to pressure it into compliance, even as a top Emirati official warned the tiny country to brace for a long-term economic squeeze. Given 10 days …

A terror plot to attack the Grand Mosque in Mecca has been foiled by security forces, the Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry announced on Friday, Al Arabiya TV and state television Al-Ekhbariya report. According to the spokesman, the attack was planned by three terror groups, two based in Mecca and the …

The Supreme Court handed a setback to the Trump administration on Thursday by making it harder for the government to strip immigrants of U.S. citizenship in a case involving an ethnic Serb woman who lied about her husband’s military service after Yugoslavia’s collapse. The justices ruled 9-0 that a naturalized …

Asked to respond to the shootdown of a Syrian fighter jet over Syria, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the United States will protect its interests in Syria and will “do what we can” to keep open lines of communication with Russia and Syria. “And so we’ve gotta do …

The Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Supo) raised its threat level on Wednesday, saying it had become aware of more serious terrorism-related projects and plans in Finland. “The most significant terrorist threat in Finland is still posed by individual actors or small groups motivated by radical Islamist propaganda or terrorist organizations …

By Mirwais Harooni and Josh Smith | KABUL for REUTERS –  A powerful bomb exploded in the morning rush hour in the center of Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least 80 people, wounding hundreds and sending clouds of black smoke into the sky above the presidential palace and foreign embassies. …

Exclusive for THE LEVANT NEWS – By General(ret) Elias Farhat* —     Executive summary i-There is much talk about terrorism, but little action. Some of the measures taken have not been sufficient , while others either raise suspicions as to their real aims or are clearly supportive of terrorist …

By Emad El-Din Aysha, PhD — Nobody’s interested in what happened in Egypt, internationally, the suicide attacks that targeted the churches in Tanta and Alexandria on Palm Sunday last week. A foreign academic explained this to me. It wasn’t high on the priorities of international readers. This is tragic, not …

By Philip Pullella | VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis condemned a deadly blast at a church in Egypt and said at a Palm Sunday Mass that the world was suffering from wars, terrorism and “interests that are armed and ready to strike”. Francis, who has not made any direct public comment …

By Daniel Bates For Dailymail.com — Smouldering with flames after being stuck by a hijacked  passenger plane, these newly released images show the Pentagon right after the 9/11 attacks. The photos, which were made public by the FBI, were taken in the hours and days after al Qaeda terrorists unleashed hell …

By Michael Martina and Ben Blanchard for Reuters| BEIJING – Vowing to plant their flag in China and that blood will “flow in rivers”, a video released this week purportedly by the Islamic State group shows ethnic Uighur fighters training in Iraq, underscoring what Beijing sees as a serious threat. …

The Levant News — Syria’s army and allied forces advanced inside Palmyra on Thursday after ISIS pulled most of its forces back from positions inside the ancient desert city, a war monitor reported. The Syrian army, backed by Russia’s air force and Shi’ite militias supported by Iran, is attempting to …

The Levant News — ISIS fighters from China’s Uighur ethnic minority have vowed to return home and “shed blood like rivers” in what security experts said marked the first such threat against Chinese targets. The threat came in a half-hour video released Monday by a division of Islamic State of …

by Dr. Haytham Mouzahem — In the space of three months, Syria’s rebel factions have lost their stronghold in Aleppo, fled to Idlib and witnessed the election of a new US president who’s as reluctant to help them as the outgoing one – if not more so. So what better …

A convoy carrying the prime minister of Libya’s U.N.-backed government and the two leaders of an allied parliament and presidential guard came under fire in Tripoli on Monday, but none of the three men were harmed, officials said. A spokesman for the U.N.-backed government, Ashraf Tulty, said the motorcade had …

By Rao Komar, Christian Borys and Eric Woods, Foreign Policy: Heavily armed and expertly kitted with body armor and ballistic helmets, the men can be seen defending bunkers, storming buildings, and even posing by whiteboards giving tactical lessons. Though the titles of these YouTube videos are written in Russian Cyrillic, …

By Richard Spencer for THE TIMES — Saudi Arabia has expelled 39,000 Pakistanis in the past four months amid what it says is a crackdown on terrorism, according to the Saudi Gazette. Most deportations were for standard visa violations, reported the English-language daily newspaper, published in Jedda. However, officials were …

The Levant News — “The Islamic State” group (ISIS)claimed responsibility Tuesday for a truck attack at a Christmas market in Berlin that killed 12 people and injured 48 others. German police are still hunting for the driver of the truck. “The executor of the operation … in Berlin is a …

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi | AMMAN – Reuters — Four Jordanian policemen were killed in clashes with Islamist militants near the southern city of Karak on Tuesday as the authorities hunted militants who killed 10 people on Sunday, security officials said. Two days earlier police tackled gunmen holed up inside a …

By Lizzie Dearden @lizziedearden for The Independent — Isis is developing its own arsenal of military grade weapons and ammunition including rockets, mortar rounds and bombs as it continues battling to defend territory across Syria and Iraq, a report has found. Facilities abandoned during the Mosul offensive have revealed manufacturing …

By Alistair Bell and Ginger Gibson for Reuters | WASHINGTON | One day before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s first meeting with a foreign leader, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japanese officials said they had not finalized when or where in New York it would take place, who would be invited, …

The Levant News — At least two U.S. military trainers were shot dead in Jordan on Friday when the car they were in failed to stop at the gate of a military base and was fired on by Jordanian security forces, a Jordanian military source said. “There was an exchange …

The Levant News — U.S. intelligence officials have warned local authorities in New York, Texas and Virginia about possible attacks by al Qaeda on Monday, a day before the U.S. presidential election, CBS News reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources. No specific locations were mentioned, but U.S. intelligence officials alerted …

By Babak Dehghanpisheh and Michael Georgy  for REUTERS| ZARQA/SHURA, IRAQ —After ISIS conquered villages in northern Iraq, it spelled out in minute detail the rules of its self-proclaimed caliphate, from beard length to alms to guidelines for taking women as sex slaves. Islamic State documents and posters, obtained in villages …

The Levant News — Russia on Wednesday told anti-government rebels holed up in Syria’s Aleppo to leave by Friday evening, signaling it would extend a moratorium on air strikes against targets inside the city. The Russian Defence Ministry, which is helping forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad try to retake …

The Levant News — Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday it was the duty of the U.S.-led coalition to prevent Islamic State militants from escaping into nearby Syria from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The coalition is providing air and ground support to Iraqi government and Kurdish …

By Warren Strobel, Yara Bayoumy and Jonathan Landay for REUTERS | WASHINGTON – Iraq and the United States have launched a crucial battle to liberate the city of Mosul without determining how its volatile region will be governed once Islamic State militants are ejected, U.S. and other officials said. U.S. …

By Angus McDowall and Tom Perry for Reuters | BEIRUT — Pro-Turkey’s Syrian rebels said they captured the village of Dabiq from Islamic State on Sunday, forcing the jihadist group from a stronghold where it had promised to fight a final, apocalyptic battle with the West. Its defeat at Dabiq, …

By Babak Dehghanpisheh and Maher Chmaytelli for Reuters | BAGHDAD — Iraqi government forces, with air and ground support from the U.S.-led coalition, launched an offensive on Monday to drive Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul, the militants’ last major stronghold in the country. Helicopters released flares overhead …

By Ahmed Rasheed FOR REUTERS | BAGHDAD – ISIS has crushed a rebellion plot in Mosul, led by one of the group’s commanders who aimed to switch sides and help deliver the caliphate’s Iraqi capital to government forces, residents and Iraqi security officials said. Islamic State (IS) executed 58 people …

The Levant News Exclusive – By Sarah Safa* — We live in a world of horror and violence where blood shedding, torture and genocide became not only normal but an important feature of what is called today “Hard Power”. Governments, if democracy is truly practiced when people should be asked …

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Kurdish wedding in Syria’s northeastern city of Hasakah on Monday, killing at least 31 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Islamic has claimed responsibility for the attack targeting the wedding ceremony of a member of the Syrian Democratic Forces …

Fake News and False Flags: How the Pentagon paid a British PR firm $500 million for top secret Iraq propaganda By Crofton Black and Abigail Fielding-Smith — The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda programme in Iraq, the …

MOSCOW — Russia pursues only one goal in Syria and it is countering international terrorism, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday. “In Syria, Russia is pursuing only one specific goal, it has been determined and announced — it is the fight against the international terrorism,” Zakharova …

The Levant News — Here is an interview with Dr. Haytham Mouzahem, President of Beirut Center For Middle East Studies, regarding the Uighur fighters in Syria: Q- Is there now clear and undisputed evidence emerging from Syria of a significant Uighur presence? What is their number? I have seen everything …

By Gerry Shih for The Associated Press – BEIJING — They have been praised by the leader of al Qaeda and wooed by the head of the Islamic State group. They have distinguished themselves on battlefields in Syria and are accused of carrying out a devastating bombing in Thailand. In …

By Olga Dzyubenko for Reuters – A suicide bomb attack on the Chinese embassy in the Kyrgyz capital last week was ordered by Uighur militants active in Syria and carried out by a member of the East Turkestan Islamic movement, Kyrgyzstan’s state security service said on Tuesday. The suicide bomber, …

By Francesca Cicardi for EFE — Dr. Haytham Mouzahem, is the president of Beirut Center for Middle East Studies. He is specialized in Islamic and Middle East Affairs, and Islamic and Jihadi movements. EFE interviewed him on the impact of the death of Baghdadi on ISIS. How can Al Adnani’s …

Emma Louise Briant. 2015. Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global Change. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 304 pages. ISBN 978 0 7190 9105 6 hardback. The Levant News — This book offers a unique account of British and United States government’s attempts to adapt their propaganda strategies to global terrorist threats …

WASHINGTON — The White House said on Thursday its assessment of the Syrian Islamist rebel group Nusra Front has not changed, despite news that the group was cutting its ties with al Qaeda. “There continues to be increasing concern about Nusra Front’s growing capacity for external operations that could threaten …