Terrorism

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Tuesday designated three “Hizbullah-linked financial facilitators and their Lebanon-based travel company,” the Treasury said in a statement. Specifically, OFAC designated Adel Diab, Ali Mohamad Daoun, Jihad Salem Alame, and their company, Dar Al Salam for Travel & …

Iran on Saturday imposed sanctions on dozens more Americans, many of them from the U.S. military, over the 2020 killing of General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike. Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the 51 Americans had been targeted for what it called “terrorism” and human rights violations. The step lets …

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said on Friday that initial results of an investigation an accident during the Dakar car rally, which left one French contestant injured last week, showed no criminal suspicions. The Kingdom is liaising with the concerned French authorities to share available evidence related to the accident, the …

French prosecutors said on Tuesday they had opened a terrorism investigation into an explosion that went off under a French vehicle involved in the Dakar rally in Saudi Arabia. The blast, which seriously injured one of the rally competitors, hit a support vehicle belonging to the French team Sodicars soon …

A special Customs and Border Protection unit used sensitive government databases intended to track terrorists to investigate as many as 20 US-based journalists, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter, according to a federal watchdog. Yahoo News, which published an extensive report on the investigation, also found that the unit, …

KSA and UAE urged Lebanon, in a joint statement, “to make political and economical reforms and to limit the possession of arms to the legitimate state institutions.” “Lebanon shouldn’t be an incubator for organizations and groups that target the security and stability of the region, such as terrorist Hizbullah,” the …

France and the rest of Europe can learn from Saudi Arabia’s approach to combating the financing of terrorism, a leading French politician and foreign affairs expert has told Arab News. Nathalie Goulet, a member of the Senate of France and the country’s commission on foreign affairs and defense, said: “Saudi …

A Taliban military commander was killed when his men responded to a Daesh suicide bomb and gun attack on a hospital in the Afghan capital, officials said Wednesday. The Taliban spent 20 years waging an insurgency against the ousted US-backed government before seizing control of Kabul in August. Now they …

At least 19 people were killed and 50 others wounded in an attack on a military hospital in Kabul on Tuesday, the latest assault to rock Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power. The attack got under way when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near the entrance of the sprawling …

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said Sunday that an explosion in the capital Kampala that killed one and injured five was “a terrorist act” and vowed to hunt down those responsible. “It seems to be a terrorist act but we shall get the perpetrators,” Museveni said in a Twitter post about …

A senior al-Qaida leader was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Syria, the Pentagon said. The strike comes two days after a base in southern Syria, used by the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, was assaulted. “A U.S. airstrike today in northwest Syria killed senior al-Qaida leader Abdul Hamid …

A convicted white-supremacist terrorist who shared bomb-making instructions online and celebrated the Christchurch mosque massacre has had 18 months added to his jail term by appeal-court judges in London. Michael Nugent, 38, shared on the Telegram messaging app manuals that showed how to create homemade bombs and firearms, and described …

Saudi Arabia supports all efforts aimed at achieving stability in Libya, the Kingdom’s foreign minister said on Thursday. During the Libya Stabilization Conference, Prince Faisal bin Farhan praised efforts made by the new unified authority in Libya to meet the aspirations and hopes of the Libyan people towards achieving a …

Suicide bombers assaulted a Shiite mosque in southern Afghanistan that was packed with worshippers attending weekly Friday prayers, killing at least 37 people and wounding more than 70, according to a hospital official and an eyewitness. The attack on the Imam Barga mosque came a week after a bombing claimed …

A car bomb targeting the governor’s convoy shook Yemen’s southern port city of Aden on Sunday killing at least six people and wounding seven, the information minister said on Twitter. Governor Ahmed Lamlas and agriculture minister Salem al-Suqatri, both members of a southern separatist group, survived a “terrorist assassination attempt”, …

The United States said on Sunday the first face-to-face meeting between senior U.S. and Taliban officials since the hardline group retook power in Afghanistan was “candid and professional” and that the U.S. side reiterated that the Taliban would be judged on their actions, not just their words. State Department spokesman …

A suicide bomb attack on a mosque in the Afghan city of Kunduz has killed at least 50 people, officials say, in the deadliest assault since US forces left. Bodies were seen scattered inside the Said Abad mosque, used by the minority Shia Muslim community. More than 100 people were …

Four suspected Islamic State-linked militants and one Sudanese security forces member were killed during clashes in a raid in Sudan’s capital Khartoum on Monday, state news agency SUNA reported. Sudanese security forces clashed with militants in southern Khartoum on Monday, state TV and witnesses said, days after a raid on …

The diplomatic discord between Algeria and France deepened Sunday after Algiers banned French military planes from its airspace, its latest response to a row over visas and critical comments from President Emmanuel Macron. France’s jets regularly fly over the former French colony to reach the Sahel region of western Africa, …

A suicide bomber who targeted Chinese nationals in the Pakistani port city of Gwadar last month came from Iran, counterterrorism police in the southwestern Balochistan province said on Friday, adding that the mastermind behind the attack was a resident of Chahbahar in the neighboring country. Earlier in August, Pakistan’s Interior …

A car bomb exploded at a checkpoint near Somalia’s presidential palace Saturday, killing eight people and was claimed by the Al-Shabaab jihadist group, police said. “We have confirmed that eight people most of them civilians died and seven others wounded in the car bomb blast”, district police chief Mucawiye Ahmed …

Cooperation and solidarity is the world’s “only choice” in the fight against global terrorism, Iraqi President Barham Salih said. Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Salih told fellow world leaders that his country had been dogged by wars and genocides over the past 40 years. “We have known mass graves, …

Former Obama CIA Director Michael Morell said Sunday that President Biden’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan and subsequent Taliban takeover “absolutely inspired” jihadists and emboldened terrorists across the globe. Morell, who twice served as acting director of the CIA under the Obama-Biden administration and was considered a frontrunner to then-President-elect Joe Biden’s for …

Saudi Arabia welcomed on Wednesday the release of classified documents relating to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. Its U.S. embassy said in a statement that “any allegation that Saudi Arabia is complicit in the September 11 attacks is categorically false”. U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday …

The West still faces the threat of large-scale terror attacks by radical Islamist groups, but this time using bio-terrorism, Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair has warned. He made the comments in a speech marking two decades since the 9/11 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the US. …

President Joe Biden on Friday directed the declassification of certain documents related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a supportive gesture to victims’ families who have long sought the records in hopes of implicating the Saudi government. The order, coming little more than a week before the 20th anniversary of the …

A suicide bomber attacked a checkpoint into the Libyan town of Zella on Sunday, killing himself but causing no other casualties, a spokesman for the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA), which controls that area, said. Libya has endured a decade of violence and chaos since the 2011 uprising against Muammar …

Taliban insurgents captured the key eastern Afghanistan city of Jalalabad without a fight on Sunday, leaving the territory controlled by the crumbling government to little more than the capital Kabul. The United States started evacuating its diplomats and was sending more troops to help secure Kabul airport and the embassy …

Family members of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks are opposing U.S. President Joe Biden’s participation in memorial e Family members of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks are opposing U.S. President Joe Biden’s participation in memorial events unless he declassifies government documents that they contend will show Saudi Arabian …

At least three people were killed on Sunday in an ambush on Shi’ite mourners in a town south of Beirut, a day after a revenge killing of a member of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, security sources and a senior source in the group said. The three were shot in the town …

Turkish authorities are seeking up to 15 years in prison for the licence holder of ByLock, an encrypted messaging app Ankara says was used by the group it blames for an attempted military coup in 2016, state-owned Anadolu news agency said on Wednesday. Ankara has cracked down on the network …

A counterterrorism organization formed by some of the biggest US tech companies including Facebook and Microsoft is significantly expanding the types of extremist content shared between firms in a key database, aiming to crack down on material from white supremacists and far-right militias, the group told Reuters. Until now, the …

An explosion ripped through a busy market in the Iraqi capital Monday killing at least 35 people, according to medical sources, in an apparent suicide bombing ahead of Eid holiday celebrations. In one of the worst attacks in Baghdad in recent years, body parts of victims lay scattered across the …

Soldiers from Afghanistan’s special forces paused for a short prayer late on Sunday night on a deserted stretch of highway in the southern province of Kandahar. They do so each time they prepare to face Taliban militants in battle. The highly trained troops had been called in to flush out …

Two Yemeni men held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba since 2004 have been cleared for transfer to another country, a U.S. review board determined last week, bringing the prison back into the spotlight. Abd al-Salam al-Hilah and Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj were both cleared for transfer as …

Tentative plans for a movie that recounts the response of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to a gunman’s slaughter of Muslim worshippers drew criticism in New Zealand on Friday for not focusing on the victims of the attacks. Hollywood news outlet Deadline reported that Australian actor Rose Byrne was set to …

Two members of Libya’s security forces were killed and five others wounded Sunday evening in a car bomb blast at a checkpoint in the country’s south, a police source said. “A car bomb exploded as it was crossing a roadblock set up by the security forces” in the city of …

A young German army officer went on trial on Thursday accused of planning to attack one or more politicians while posing as an Syrian asylum seeker to try to whip up anger against migrants. In a case that rattled the government in Berlin when it first came to light, the …

A suicide bomber killed six police officers in front of a district police station in the Somali capital Mogadishu late on Sunday, police said, in an attack they blamed on the Al Shabaab militant group. “Six police officers including the commander of the Waberi (district) police were confirmed dead and …

Pakistan is ready to share its “vast and valuable experience” with the Philippines in its war against terror to strengthen ties between the two nations, particularly in security and cultural diplomacy, Pakistani Ambassador to the Philippines Imtiaz Kazi said in an exclusive interview with Arab News. “Pakistan can rightly claim …

Four people were killed and 20 wounded in a car bomb attack on Thursday in the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad, Iraqi police and medical workers said. The car was parked at a busy second-hand equipment market in the mainly Shi’ite Muslim district, police said. An Iraqi military statement said …

Washington’s ability to collect intelligence and act on threats will diminish when U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, CIA Director William Burns said on Wednesday ahead of an expected announcement of a pullout by President Joe Biden. Burns’ testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee underscored a key risk inherent in Biden’s decision …

President Joe Biden has decided to withdraw the remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, 20 years to the day after al Qaeda’s attacks triggered America’s longest war, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are expected to …

Turkey’s latest arrest wave targeting former admirals who signed a critical night-time declaration has stirred debate over whether the crackdown is a result of the country’s “Eurasianist shift.” On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused 104 former navy commanders of trying to stage a “political coup” through an open …