ISIS

A close aide of killed Daesh group leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has been caught in Istanbul, police said Sunday. The Afghan national, only identified by the codename Basim, was detained in the Atasehir district on the city’s Asian side on Wednesday, according to an Istanbul police statement. News reports of …

British security services knew that the brother of Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi possessed extremist material two years before the deadly 2017 attack that killed 22 people. Ishmale Abedi was stopped at Heathrow Airport in September of 2015 while returning home from a honeymoon. It has emerged that MI5 …

Three men have been arrested for masterminding the kidnapping of two Italians who were held captive in Syria for three years, Italian police said Tuesday. Over the course of 2016, the three who were arrested — all from the northern Brescia province — had convinced two businessmen from the area …

An Indonesian cathedral was rocked by a suicide bombing on Sunday with body parts littering the chaotic scene as Christians inside celebrated the start of Holy Week. The powerful blast at the church in Makassar city on Sulawesi island happened around 10:30 am local time (0330 GMT) and left at …

In Mosul, adjacent to the Biblical city of Nineveh, four churches representing different denominations occupy a small square surrounded by low-rise houses, testament to the role Iraq’s once flourishing Christian community played. Today, all four churches are either damaged or destroyed after Islamic State militants occupied the city from 2014-2017, …

The Daesh group has claimed responsibility for the February 3 killing of four soldiers in a rugged region of central Tunisia, SITE Intelligence Group reported. The US monitor of militant groups said late Thursday that the soldiers were killed in three blasts ignited by its fighters near Mount Mghila and …

U.N. rights experts urged 57 states on Monday to repatriate nearly 10,000 of their citizens – women and children associated with Islamic State fighters – held in camps in northeast Syria in “sub-human” conditions without legal process. Under international law, these states have a duty to repatriate their citizens and, …

Lebanon’s army said on Monday it had arrested 18 people, some Lebanese and others Syrian, with links to Islamic State. The arrests came in “field operations” that took place over the past two weeks in the border town of Arsal in the north, an army statement said. The individuals arrested …

Iraqi security forces have killed Abu Yaser al-Issawi, an Islamic State commander who had claimed to be the leader of the group in Iraq and its “deputy caliph”, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi said on Thursday. “Our heroic armed forces have eliminated Daesh commander Abu Yaser Al-Issawi as part of an …

Daesh terrorists killed at least eight regime loyalists in eastern Syria on Monday, the latest in a series of deadly extremist attacks, a Britain-based war monitor reported. Five Syrian soldiers and three pro-regime militia fighters were among those killed in the Daesh attack on one of their positions in a …

Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on Sunday that killed 11 miners from Pakistan’s minority Shi’ite Hazaras in Baluchistan province. The attack took place early on Sunday morning in the Mach area of Bolan district around 100 kms southeast of Baluchistan’s capital Quetta, killing the miners who were in …

At least nine Syrian army soldiers were killed on Sunday in an ambush on their bus on a main highway in the central Syrian desert in the second such incident in less than a week by suspected Islamic State militants, residents and defectors said. Syrian state media earlier said six …

Twenty-eight people were killed in an attack on a bus along a main highway in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province that borders Iraq, Syrian state media said on Wednesday, an incident that residents and defectors say was an ambush on an army vehicle. There were no more details of the incident …

A series of explosions hit the Afghan capital on Saturday morning, killing at least four people including two police officers, officials said. The deaths were caused by a sticky bomb attached to a police vehicle detonated in western Kabul, police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz said. The explosion wounded two civilians. Two …

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Sunday said he was “relieved” that a “humanitarian” recovery operation had brought home 18 children and five “Islamic State” (IS) brides from Kurdish-run internment camps in northeastern Syria. One of three German women brought back, identified in reports as Leonore M., 21, from Saxony-Anhalt state, was arrested a day …

The New York Times has returned a prize awarded for its podcast “Caliphate” in 2018 after an internal investigation found that “crucial portions did not meet its standards for accuracy.” The newspaper returned the prestigious Peabody Award after saying that it “no longer stood behind the reporting” featured on the …

Last month, Iraqi authorities gave families displaced by the war against Islamic State just 48 hours to pack up and leave the Al-Ishaki camp before it was closed. When the deadline expired, pick-up trucks and military vehicles arrived to take about 200 people back to their hometown. Taama al-Owaisi and …

Two wells in a small oilfield in northern Iraq were set ablaze by explosives on Wednesday in a “terrorist attack” but overall production from the field was not affected, the Oil Ministry and officials said Wednesday. The Oil Ministry gave no details about the assailants behind the explosive devices that …

A rocket hit a small oil refinery in northern Iraq on Sunday, causing a fire at a fuel storage tank and forcing a complete shutdown of operations after the blaze spread to a nearby pipeline network, two refinery officials said. Islamic State claimed responsibility for attacking the Siniya refinery, in …

Uzbekistan plans to repatriate another group of its citizens, mostly women and children, from Syria where they are staying at crowded camps with other families of Islamic State fighters, an Uzbek government source told Reuters on Friday. A government delegation from Tashkent has visited the Al-Hol and Roj camps in …

Young volunteers have been clearing dust and debris from St. Thomas church in Mosul, as the Iraqi city occupied by Islamic State militants seeks to sweep away the horrors of a brutal three-year rule and welcome back members of minority faiths. The Syriac Catholic church, dating from the mid-1800s, was …

The man widely believed to be the new leader of Daesh was once an informant for the US, according to a new report from the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC), a research body at the US military academy of West Point in New York. “Stepping Out from the Shadows: The Interrogation of …

The United States on Monday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on foreign militants fighting with groups like Islamic State because it did not address repatriation, an issue that has long pitted Washington against its European allies. The other 14 council members voted in favor of the resolution drafted by …

Islamic State (IS) said the coronavirus pandemic was divine punishment for its enemies, according to an audio broadcast on Thursday, where the jihadists also vowed more attacks. The person on the tape, which was posted on one of the militants’ websites but could not be verified by Reuters, identified himself …

Islamic State said on Monday it was behind a blast in a small town in southern Libya on Saturday, the militant group’s first attack in the country for at least a year. The blast targeted a security point at the entrance to Taraghin, 780 km (590 miles) south of Tripoli, …

The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants said its troops opened fire on Wednesday at a checkpoint in northeast Syria after they came under small arms fire. The coalition said in a statement the situation had calmed down and the patrol had returned to the base. “After coalition troops issued …

A Malaysian minister warned on Wednesday that the Islamic State militant group may shift its base of operations to Southeast Asia after the death of its leader, according to a media report. Authorities in the region have said it will be a long battle to thwart the jihadist group’s ideology, …

The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on four companies and two people operating in Syria, Turkey, the Gulf and Europe for providing financial and logistical support to Islamic State. The targets were blacklisted under an executive order that imposes sanctions on terrorists and those who have provided assistance or …

The CSIS isn’t optimistic about the end of Islamic radicalism with the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—and his replacement by Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurash.  They note, “What factors have contributed to the resurgence of jihadist violence? And what are the implications following the death of al-Baghdadi? In answering these questions, …

Turkey has captured a wife of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, more than a week after the Islamic State leader killed himself during a raid by U.S. special forces in northern Syria. “The United States said Baghdadi killed himself in a tunnel. They started a communication …

Somalia’s Islamic State affiliate, one of the most important outposts of the militant group, swore allegiance in a statement on Sunday to the new leader named by the organization following the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Somalia’s Province posted pictures on Telegram of around a dozen fighters standing among trees, …

Islamic State confirmed on Thursday that its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a weekend raid by U.S. special forces in northwestern Syria, and vowed revenge against the United States. The Iraqi rose from obscurity to lead the ultra-hardline group and declare himself “caliph” of all Muslims, holding sway …

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, in a letter to police prefects seen by Reuters, called on Sunday for increased vigilance to prevent possible revenge attacks following the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “… The possible intensification of jihadist propaganda following this death, which could possibly call for …

Iran said on Sunday the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will not mean the end of the group and its ideology, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei tweeted. “The killing of Baghdadi will not end Daesh (the Islamic State) and its ideology … which was created and flourished …

President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that fugitive Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died in a raid by U.S. special forces in northwest Syria, in a major blow to the jihadist group. Baghdadi killed himself during the raid by detonating a suicide vest, Trump said in a televised address …

Dr. Haytham Mouzahem, head of Beirut Centre for Middle East Studies talks to International Affairs Review on the current situation in Syria and the Turkish military operations and the implications for the region.   Please walk us through what is happening right now in north east Syria. Turkey has been invading areas …

Everybody Betraying Everybody in Syria Graham E. Fuller (grahamefuller.com) 16 October 2019 Just what have we witnessed in the recent events in Syria? It’s hard to know, given the avalanche of superficial and over-the-top headlines in most US media: betrayal of the Kurds, handing Syria over to Russia, caving to …

Turkey intensified its air and artillery strikes in northeast Syria on Friday in an offensive against Kurdish militia that has raised the prospect of a humanitarian disaster and questions about U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy in the region. The Kurds, who recaptured swathes of northeastern Syria from Islamic State with …

A senior Chinese official said on Tuesday that there was a danger of Islamic State militants re-emerging in Syria and called for progress in the political process between the Damascus government and the opposition to end the war. “There is now a danger of terrorist organizations like ISIS being revived, …

At least seven members of Iraq’s security forces were killed and 16 wounded overnight in two separate attacks by Islamic State militants, police said on Thursday. Three members of the paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) and two policemen were killed in an attack in the Sayed Gharib area north of …

U.S. forces have quietly sent at least 30 suspected foreign Islamic State fighters captured in Syria last year and in late 2017 to stand trial in Iraq, interviews with the men, Iraqi sources and court documents show. FILE PHOTO: Islamic state fighters and their families walk as they surrender in …

By Elias Farhat* In the aftermath of the 9,11 attacks, the US under president George W. Bush announced the Global war on terror. This terror was recognized as al-Qaeda and its offshoot Taliban.  Al Qaeda owned the ideology, the mobilization and sleeper cells all around the world, while Taliban owned …

Islamic State remains a potent threat around the world despite reduced capabilities, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday, adding its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had made his latest video appearance in a “remote area”. Abdul Mahdi did not say which country that area was in. A video …

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) formally announced the destruction of Islamic State’s control of land in eastern Syria on Saturday but said it would continue its military and security campaigns against jihadist sleeper cells. At a televised ceremony, its general command called on the Syrian government, which has sworn to …