A US drone killed four Al-Qaeda suspects in Yemen Thursday, a security official said, the third such strike in five days as the Yemeni president prepared for White House talks. …read more
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New Zealand knows of Al-Qaeda-trained activists within the country who need to be monitored, Prime Minister John Key said Thursday amid debate on the need for stronger spy laws. …read more
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Jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda have taken hostage around 200 Kurdish civilians after violent clashes with Kurdish fighters in two villages of eastern Syria, a monitoring group said. …read more
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By Dave Robbins
That the Netanyahu government took a wrong turn in its policy of non-intervention in the Syrian conflict was manifested by the warning coming from the IDF’s military intelligence (AMAN) chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi Tuesday night, July 23, when he said that Syria had become a global battleground for al Qaeda. Read More: IDF faces oncoming […]
The post IDF faces oncoming Al Qaeda tide on three Israeli borders: Golan, Lebanon, Sinai appeared first on Endtime Ministries | End Of The Age | Irvin Baxter.
Source: Endtime Ministries
Yemeni authorities on Tuesday released a journalist who had been detained for three years on charges of promoting Al-Qaeda, the state news agency Saba reported. …read more
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At least two of four Islamists killed by security forces in a raid southeast of Algeria’s capital were members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), press reports said on Sunday. …read more
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French hostage Philippe Verdon, who was kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Mali in 2011 and found dead several weeks ago, was executed with a shot to the head, prosecutors said Thursday.
“After the return of the body to France, the autopsy… was able to establish that Philippe Verdon was murdered by being shot in the head,” the Paris prosecutors’ office said.
The body of Verdon, who suffered from an ulcer and tachycardia, an abnormally fast heartbeat, was flown back to Paris on Wednesday.
The possibility had previously been raised that he had died from his ailments and that his killing had been staged.
The 53-year-old was taken from a hotel in northeastern Mali in November 2011, together with Serge Lazarevic, another French national.
The pair were on a business trip for a cement project, according to relatives, who have denied that they had any ties with secret service or mercenaries.
Verdon’s captors announced in March they had killed him in revenge for France’s military intervention in the country.
But Paris had never confirmed this until his body was discovered in the country’s north and identified this month.
Pascal Lupart, head of a support committee for Verdon, said the confirmation that he had been executed only added to his family’s pain.
“This murder, which adds to the pain of a family already in mourning,” shows that “these dogs are able to carry out their threats and to carry out a cold-blooded killing,” he said.
Lupart said he believed Verdon “was certainly executed because he was weak.”
French forces intervened in Mali in January to help the weak Malian military drive out Islamist rebels who had seized control of the country’s north, angering extremists.
At least seven French citizens remain captive in Africa, with another two in Syria.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
By The Huffington Post News Editors
Liz Cheney will challenge Mike Enzi for his Senate seat, though it’ll be hard to establish Wyoming residency from a bunker in an undisclosed location. Febreze sales skyrocketed as concerned liberals endured a heatwave in their solidarity hoodies. And bears are running amok because sequestration cut funding for park rangers, endangering campers and threatening our nation’s pic-a-nic basket supply. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, July 16th, 2013:
WYOMING: LIZ CHENEY TO CHALLENGE MIKE ENZI – What on Earth is left to be said when running to the right of Mike Enzi? (“In 2010 Mike Enzi SAID he loves America, but Mike Enzi supports compound adjectives, which have well-established Al-Qaeda ties. Mike Enzi: Bad for business, Bad for Wyoming.”) AP: “Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz Cheney will run against Wyoming’s senior U.S. senator in next year’s Republican primary, her campaign said Tuesday. Cheney, 46, is the elder of Dick Cheney’s two daughters. Her announcement is a political challenge unlike anything Wyoming has seen for years, maybe decades – Republicans in the state rarely challenge incumbents in national office. All three members of the state’s congressional delegation and all statewide elected officials are Republican. Yet Cheney’s interest in the seat has been an open secret for months. Last year, Cheney and her husband bought a home in the posh northwest Wyoming community of Jackson Hole. She has been in the public eye in recent years as a Fox News political commentator…US Sen. Mike Enzi also announced Tuesday he was planning to seek a fourth term, making clear he was seeking re-election bid more than six months earlier than he has in the past.” [HuffPost]
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
Pakistani Taliban commanders Tuesday rejected suggestions they were sending fighters to Syria, saying some have gone there independently but the movement’s focus remained in Pakistan.
They said some militants, mainly Arabs and Central Asians, had gone to fight the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, but a senior Taliban leader dismissed reports of them setting up camps in Syria.
The lawless tribal areas of northwest Pakistan along the Afghan border have long been a magnet for militants from across the Muslim world eager to fight US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan.
But since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, foreign jihadists have flocked to Syria, where disparate rebel groups are seeking his downfall.
Some media reports in recent days have claimed scores or even hundreds of Pakistani Taliban are among them and that they have set up camps in Syria.
A senior commander who sits on the shura or ruling council of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) told AFP there was no tactical shift and no decision had been made to send forces to Syria.
“There is no reality in these reports, we have far better targets in the region, NATO troops headed by the Americans are present in Afghanistan,” he said on condition of anonymity.
“We are already in a war with Pakistani troops. We support the mujahideen’s struggle in Syria but in our opinion, we have a lot more to do here in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
The TTP is an umbrella group for numerous factions trying to bring down the Pakistani state and impose sharia law. It has ties to the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
“The great evil (America) is here in Afghanistan, troops from 30 kafir (non-believer) countries are attacking innocent people in Afghanistan, so Bashar al-Assad is not that important for us,” the TTP commander said.
“Obama is the big evil, Americans are a much bigger evil for us. The Taliban shura has never discussed sending mujahideen to Syria.”
Another mid-ranking TTP commander in Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan tribal district which is a hotbed of Taliban and Al-Qaeda activity, said some fighters had gone to Syria “in a personal capacity”.
A third senior TTP cadre said those who had gone were mostly Arabs, Uzbeks and Chechens.
More than 100,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad erupted, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Analyst Rahimullah Yusufzai dismissed claims of the TTP setting up camps in Syria as “a publicity campaign” by some of the militants.
“But we cannot deny the fact that they are quite ambitious and want to send a clear message to the world that they are still very strong and have strong linkages with other local and international groups,” he said.
Ismail, an Arab fighter from Al-Qaeda, told AFP in northwest Pakistan that he planned to join the fight against Assad.
“I am going to Syria in the next few days, my family will stay here,” he said.
“Our mujahideen are going not only to Syria but also to Lebanon, Egypt and other Arab countries.”
Saifullah Khan Mahsud, the executive director of the FATA Research Centre …read more
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One of the favourites to win Mali’s presidential elections took his campaign to the northern Tuareg rebel bastion of Kidal on Monday, several sources told AFP, with two weeks to go until voting begins.
“Presidential candidate Ibrahim Boubacar Keita arrived Monday in Kidal for the election campaign,” said an African source from the United Nations peacekeeping mission, while Keita’s campaign chief confirmed he had spent “a few hours” in the town.
Keita, a former prime minister, is among the front-runners in the July 28 election, seen as crucial to reuniting Mali after an 18-month political crisis that saw French forces intervene to push out Islamist rebels who had seized the country’s north.
Soumaila Cisse, a former president of the Commission of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, is also expected in Kidal “very soon”, according to his campaign team.
Mali’s Foreign Minister Tieman Coulibaly vowed on Saturday that the country would push ahead with a “credible and transparent” vote despite widespread scepticism about the country’s ability to stage the election.
Much of the concern is focused on Kidal, which remains tense despite a peace deal with Tuareg separatists that allowed the Malian army to enter the town.
Supporters and opponents of the Malian army have staged frequent demonstrations in recent days, with at least two UN peacekeepers and a French soldier injured by stones thrown during one protest.
Most local government has been absent for more than a year since the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and allied armed factions linked to Al-Qaeda seized key towns in Mali’s vast arid north.
The town’s governor returned to the area on Monday, however, after initially attempting to retake his post last week but being forced to retreat back to Bamako amid tension in Kidal.
Malian military officers staged a coup in March last year after being overpowered by an MNLA rebellion that seized key northern cities before being sidelined by its Islamist allies who imposed a harsh form of sharia law in towns under their control.
A French-led intervention launched in January drove out the Islamists but the MNLA took control of Kidal, 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) from the capital, which they consider the heart of the desert territory they call Azawad.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
President Francois Hollande said Monday there is a “very strong” chance that a body found in northern Mali is that of a French hostage and vowed the killing would not go unpunished.
Philippe Verdon, who was kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) from a hotel while on business in northeastern Mali in November 2011, was already believed to be dead.
His captors announced in March that the 53-year-old had been executed in response to France’s military intervention in Mali.
“We found a body 10 days ago in northern Mali, we are doing everything possible to confirm that this could be, alas, the body of Philippe Verdon,” Hollande said at Mali’s embassy to Paris, where he was awarded the highest rank in the country’s National Order.
“We will then determine the cause of death and nothing will go unpunished,” Hollande said.
AQIM is currently holding hostage eight Europeans, including five French nationals.
French forces intervened in Mali in January to help the weak Malian military drive out Islamist rebels who had seized control of the country’s north.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
A Mauritanian court on Sunday freed a Canadian jailed for attempting to join an Al-Qaeda training camp in neighbouring Mali, a judicial source said.
Aaron Yoon was serving two years in Nouakchott after being convicted in July last year when he was 24, but his sentence was reduced in an appeal brought by the prosecution who were asking for the term to be extended to 10 years, the source said.
“The Canadian Aaron Yoon was sentenced by an appeals court on Sunday to a year and a half in prison but he has already spent this time in jail and must therefore leave the penitentiary immediately,” the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Yoon, who is of Korean descent, was arrested in December 2011 when he tried to visit the camps of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Mali, according to the indictment against him.
He denied any link to terrorism, saying he had come to Mauritania from Morocco to study the Koran and learn Arabic, but the authorities maintained he had “strong links with AQIM terrorists and his plan to join the movement is indisputable”.
“We cannot say how and when but he must leave the prison and will probably be removed from the country,” the judicial source said.
Mauritania shares over 2,200 kilometres (1,350 miles) of border with Mali, where a French-led military operation was launched against armed Islamist groups in January, driving them out of cities in the country’s vast desert north.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
The body of a French hostage who was announced killed by his Al-Qaeda captors in March appears to have been found in Mali, a member of the investigating team said on Sunday.
Tests are currently being done to verify that the body found in early July is that of Philippe Verdon, said the source on condition of anonymity.
Verdon was kidnapped by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) from a hotel while on business in northeastern Mali in November 2011. AQIM announced in March that it had killed him, but French authorities have yet to confirm this.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Somalia’s semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland has suspended long-awaited local elections, its government said Sunday, saying the risk of violence was too great to hold them.
“Puntland hereby suspends the local council elections” due to held Monday, a government statement read, warning of what it called “domestic spoilers and external manipulators funding and organising instability and election violence”.
It gave no further details on who it feared would cause the violence.
However, United Nations special envoy to Somalia Nicholas Kay called the suspension “wise” and urged restraint from all sides “following violent clashes”.
Puntland, which forms the very tip of the Horn of Africa along the Indian Ocean coast and the Gulf of Aden, recognises the central government in Mogadishu, but wants autonomy within a federation of states.
Clashes have broken out in political rallies in the region — including in the town of Galkayo earlier this month in which five people were killed — although other demonstrations passed off peacefully.
While relatively stable compared to war-torn southern Somalia, it also hosts pirate gangs on its coastline as well as multiple militia forces, while Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab fighters have set up bases in its rugged Golis mountains.
Tensions have risen ahead of the elections, with the Puntland government clamping down on press freedom, including ordering shut three private radio stations.
Some opposition groups are accused by the government of operating their own militia forces.
No date has been set for the elections, with the Puntland government saying only they would be held “when it is appropriate”.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
A US drone strike in Pakistan’s troubled northwestern tribal belt late Saturday killed two militants on a motorcycle and damaged nearby houses, officials said.
The attack took place in the Mir Ali area, some 35 kilometres (21 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan tribal district, a stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants along the Afghan border.
Local security officials said both the militants were believed to be from Turkmenistan but their exact nationalities are yet to be ascertained.
“The target of the drone was the militants on (the) motorcycle, some nearby houses were also damaged,” a local security official told AFP in Miranshah.
Another security official in Miranshah added they were “verifying the reports that both the militants” were from Turkmenistan.
Attacks by unmanned American aircraft are deeply unpopular in Pakistan, but Washington views them as a vital tool in the fight against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in the lawless tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan has repeatedly protested against these strikes and has also summoned US diplomats in Islamabad to condemn the drone strikes, which it says are a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
A suicide bombing ripped through a Shiite funeral tent in Iraq on Saturday, the second such attack in days, killing five mourners and six others died in violence elsewhere, police and medics said.
The bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle near a funeral tent in the village of Zahra, north of Baghdad, where family members of a deceased Shiite man were receiving condolences.
Five people were killed and 10 wounded, two days after a copycat attack in nearby Muqdadiyah killed 10 mourners.
Sunni militants including those linked to Al-Qaeda frequently target members of the Shiite majority, whom they regard as apostates.
Iraq has been hit by a surge in violence that has killed more than 2,500 people have been killed this year, including over 310 this month alone.
Analysts point to widespread discontent among Iraq’s minority Sunni community, and the Shiite authorities’ failure to address their grievances, as the main factors driving the increase in violence.
Also on Saturday, a roadside bomb in a Shiite area of Muqdadiyah killed two people and wounded five, while another exploded when people gathered at the scene, wounding four more.
In Baquba, north of the capital, gunmen killed a shop owner, while others shot dead an army officer in the northern city of Mosul.
And gunmen killed a soldier and wounded another in Kirkuk, also in northern Iraq.
Gunmen also crossed into western Iraq from Syria on Saturday and clashed with border police, leaving one dead and five wounded.
Iraq has sought to publicly avoid taking sides in the civil war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and rebels seeking his ouster, but the conflict has spilled over the border on several occasions.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Somali insurgents killed at least five people Friday in multiple attacks in the capital Mogadishu, with a suicide bomber ramming an African Union convoy while later a grenade was thrown into a hotel.
Police official Ahmed Muktar said that three people were killed when a car laden with explosives smashed into the armoured AU convoy, the latest in a string of explosions in the dangerous capital.
Al-Qaeda linked Shebab fighters claimed members of their suicide brigade carried out the attack, calling it “a martyrdom operation targeting a convoy of crusaders”.
The hardline fighters boasted it would be “one of many that will make the kuffar (unbeliever) relinquish all hope in Mogadishu,” they said in a statement.
In previous years, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan — which began this week — has seen a surge in Shebab attacks, with gunmen urged on by extremist preachers.
“I saw a car speeding towards the convoy, then it was a huge explosion, buildings all around were rocked by the blast,” said Hussein Gure, a witness who was driving nearby when the car exploded.
Witnesses said that a mass of roadside shacks near the blast site had been reduced to rubble.
The AU mission confirmed a car packed with explosives “attempted to hit” one of their armoured troop transport vehicles along one of Mogadishu’s main central highways, but that none of its troops were killed in the blast.
The Shebab have carried out a series of bombings and killings aimed at overthrowing the internationally-backed government.
Later on Friday, unknown insurgents hurled a grenade into the Barwaqo hotel in central Mogadishu, killing two people and wounding at least 10.
“There was a loud explosion, people were wounded, two people were killed,” said Ahmed Yasin Ibrahim, who was near the hotel during the attack.
Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon called the attacks “acts of terrorism” but vowed that they “will not derail the progress made in Mogadishu and across Somalia.”
In the past year, the Shebab have lost a string of towns to the 17,700-strong AU troops, which fights alongside government soldiers.
“The enemies of peace show their true colours to the world,” Shirdon added. “Muslims killing Muslims in the holy month of Ramadan.”
Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab also claimed responsibility for a bomb beneath a fuel tanker belonging to the AU force in the town of Afgoye, northwest of Mogadishu.
That attack could not be immediately confirmed.
Despite recent infighting inside the Shebab — including the recent killing of top leaders in a bloody purge — analysts warn the extremist group is far from defeated.
Last month Shebab suicide commandos carried out a brazen daylight attack on a fortified United Nations compound.
Key Shebab strongholds remaining include rural southern and central Somalia, while another faction has dug into remote and rugged mountains in the northern, semi-autonomous Puntland region.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
A Saudi court has sentenced 11 people including foreigners to jail on charges including weapons training, bomb-making and ties to Al-Qaeda, the SPA state news agency reported Friday.
The prison terms handed down by the special court ranged from 18 months to 15 years, it said, without specifying the number or nationalities of foreigners convicted.
Some were convicted of “declaring that it was the duty of young people to go abroad to fight, and permitting suicide attacks, while some had links to people of the deviant doctrine,” a term used to refer to Al-Qaeda, SPA said.
Some were found guilty of “weapons training and training in bomb-making at Al-Qaeda bases,” it said, adding that “some defendants had links to someone involved in organising the travel of youth to fight abroad”.
Convictions also included “supporting Al-Qaeda attacks in the kingdom and abroad… calling the government a supporter of infidels, and allowing the killing of members of the military”.
SPA said that the 11 were part of a group of 15 people on trial, but it did not mention any verdict on the other four.
Both the defendants and the prosecution have decided to appeal the verdicts, it added.
Earlier this month, a court sentenced 18 men, again including foreigners, to between seven months and 15 years in jail for fighting in foreign conflicts on behalf of Sunni Muslim extremist groups.
Saudi officials have issued increasingly stern warnings against volunteers from the conservative Sunni Muslim kingdom going to fight alongside the mainly Sunni rebels battling to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
But diplomats say hundreds of Saudis, perhaps even several thousand, have gone anyway.
The involvement of Saudis in jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria has stoked concerns in Riyadh of a resurgence of the wave of deadly Al-Qaeda attacks that rocked the kingdom between 2003 and 2006.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Attacks mainly targeting security forces killed nine people on Friday in Iraq, including a police brigadier general, a day after 56 people died in bombings and shootings, police and doctors said.
The latest violence came amid a surge of deadly unrest across the country where more than 2,500 people have been killed this year, including more than 260 this month alone.
Analysts point to widespread discontent among Iraq’s minority Sunni community, and the Shiite authorities’ failure to address their grievances, as the main factors driving the increase in violence.
Gunmen shot dead Brigadier General Sabri Abed Issa on his way to a mosque near Sharqat, northwest of Baghdad, while others killed a retired policeman in front of his home in Muqdadiyah, northeast of the capital.
In the northern city of Mosul, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle at a police checkpoint, killing four policemen and wounding two others.
A magnetic “sticky bomb” also killed a civilian in Mosul, while a roadside bomb south of the city killed a policeman and wounded another.
And a “sticky bomb” killed an anti-Al-Qaeda militiaman and wounded another person near Baquba, also north of Baghdad.
The attacks came a day after a wave of violence killed 56 people, 31 of them members of the Iraqi security forces.
Violence in Iraq has declined from its peak at the height of the sectarian conflict in 2006 and 2007, but the number of deaths in attacks have been on the rise since the beginning of 2013.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Al Jazeera is under scrutiny for subversion in Egypt, and facing a mutiny from its own reporters over supporting the Muslim Brotherhood there. But The Washington Post assures us in a story that the channel’s official launch in the United States is on August 20, and its coverage will be different.
Philip Seib, author of The Al Jazeera Effect, is quoted as saying, “I don’t think you’ll see al-Jazeera America touting the Muslim Brotherhood. It will be more like CNN.”
But the foreign owners in Qatar will remain the same, and that is part of the problem. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey has said that Al Jazeera’s purchase of Al Gore’s Current TV should be the subject of a congressional inquiry because of the channel’s foreign sponsorship.
As Accuracy in Media has been reporting for over six years, the anti-American channel works hand-in-glove with the Muslim Brotherhood and its associated terrorist groups, including al Qaeda and Hamas. Nothing has changed. In fact, Al Jazeera has become more open about its work as a foreign policy instrument of Qatar, including the promotion of al Qaeda-linked terrorist groups in Syria.
It is apparent that the Egyptian military and its supporters in the pro-democracy movement didn’t want Egypt to become another Syria.
The Muslim Brotherhood website still carries a story referring to Al Jazeera as “the greatest Arab media organization.” The channel originally made a name for itself by airing al-Qaeda videos, and one of its correspondents was convicted of being an agent of the terrorist group that carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The hit movie “Zero Dark Thirty,” based on the killing of bin Laden, notes that the al-Qaeda leader was tracked down in part by locating a nearby Al Jazeera office that received and aired terrorist videos.
In response to the jailing of Al Jazeera journalists in Cairo after the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi, the channel proclaimed, “Regardless of political views, the Egyptian people expect media freedoms to be respected and upheld.”
Broadcaster Jerry Kenney, a leading critic of the Qatar-funded propaganda network, said, “This is hilarious. Media freedoms? Why don’t they allow it in Qatar?” Qatar, which sponsors and funds Al Jazeera, is a dictatorship that jails independent journalists and even poets critical of the regime.
But that doesn’t seem to bother Soledad O’Brien or the other Americans who are going to work for Al Jazeera America. “If you look at what they’re doing at Al Jazeera English: High quality journalism,” she says, oblivious to the fact that while its slant has been watered down somewhat, the channel still has a bias in favor of global jihad.
To cite one example, note our report on Al Jazeera English airing sympathetic coverage about, and running “exclusive” interviews with, terrorist leaders from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), whose symbol is an AK-47 rifle and a black flag rising from the globe.
One Al Jazeera story, headlined “Mali: The ‘gentle’ face of al-Qaeda,” was picked up by The Huffington Post, one of the most-read online news sites in the …read more
