Free Syrian Army
Arab Islamist fighters eager to join Syria rebels
Monthly Archives: August 2012
Bulgaria
Authorities arrested two wanted terrorists as they tried to enter Bulgaria from Romania. Mohmad Gadamouri, a Chechen linked to a terror attack in Ingushetia in 2003, was carrying a document from Germany certifying his refugee status. The other man, a Turk named Erkan Polater, had similar documentation from the Netherlands.
Pakistan
Pakistan gets $1.1 bn CSF money from US
Israel
Israel Prepares Plans to Neutralize Syrian Chemical Weapons
Al Qaeda
FBI official: Hasan should have been interviewed on e-mails with radical cleric
United States
President Obama signed a secret order earlier this year authorizing the CIA and other US agencies to provide support for the rebels in Syria. The US is collaborating with Turkey and its allies in the operation of a command center near the Syrian border. The US has allocated $25 million in nonlethal support for the […]
United States
Drone warfare: a new generation of deadly unmanned weapons
Free Syrian Army
Syrian rebels accused of executions, other abuses
Syria
Analysis: Syrian army faces tough battle in Aleppo
Syria
Analysis: Syria crisis feeds Iraq violence, al Qaeda revival
Iran
Iran, Israel waging silent war
Afghanistan
Security forces killed five Haqqani Network fighters in Kabul and 24 other Taliban fighters in raids nationwide. A police commander killed 11 civilians in Uruzgan. The Taliban killed five civilians in Logar. Twenty-eight Taliban fighters reconciled with the government in Ghor.
Iraq
A court has blocked the extradition of Ali Mussa Daqduq, a senior Hezbollah operative who was transferred from US custody to Iraqi custody at the end of 2011. Daqduq helped Iran establish Shia terror groups in Iraq and was involved in the murder of five US soldiers in 2007.
Syria
Noting the failure of diplomacy, Kofi Annan resigned as UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria. US President Obama signed an order authorizing the US to support Syrian rebels seeking to overthrow to the Assad regime. Rebels used captured tanks to bombard a military airport in Aleppo.
Egypt requests release of al Qaeda explosives expert
The Egyptian government has requested the release of Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed al Sawah from Guantanamo. Al Sawah was a top al Qaeda explosives expert before his capture, and designed the prototype of the shoe bomb used by Richard Reid, as well as magnetized limpet mines. He was originally a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the leaked JTF-GTMO file for his case notes that the US government has been spying on the Brotherhood.
Somalia
A Somali comic who was critical of Shabaab was gunned down in Mogadishu. Shabaab claimed credit for yesterday’s suicide attacks in Mogadishu and also climbed it killed nine militiamen in Baidoa and 12 militiamen and six Kenyan troops in Fahfahdhun.
CNN interviews Mohamed al Zawahiri
CNN interviewed the brother of al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri. Mohamed al Zawahiri is just one of many known and suspected terrorists to be freed from Egyptian prisons since the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
50 US troops must be ‘blown to smithereens’ for America to take Haqqani Network, Pakistan seriously
US officials fear that one of the Haqqani Network’s complex suicide assaults will eventually succeed in killing a number of Americans, and then Pakistan and the Haqqanis would need to be dealt with.
Niger
The European Union deployed a Capacity Building Mission team to Niger to help combat the spread of Islamist terror groups in the Sahel region. The 50-man-strong EUCAP team is described as a civilian mission, but includes military advisers.
Spain
Three members of an al Qaeda cell, including a Turkish man, were detained during raids in San Roque and Almuradiel. Explosives were seized during the raid in San Roque. The men had recently been seen paragliding in Gibraltar, and may have been planning an attack there.
Afghan intel kills 5 members of Haqqani Network suicide cell in Kabul
The Haqqani Network cell was planning to take over a high-rise building in Kabul. Three trucks packed with explosives, suicide vests, and weapons were seized during the raid.
New jihadist group emerges in the Egyptian Sinai
Jund al Sharia called for the establishment of Islamic law and threatened to attack US peacekeepers in the Sinai if they do not withdraw.
Syria
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad digs in for a fight to the death
Iran
Iran seethes with discontent during Ramadan
Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said economic sanctions were failing to halt Iran’s nuclear program. US Secretary of Defense Panetta implied the possibility of a military attack if Iran decides to develop a nuclear weapon.
Egypt
Newly elected President Mohamed Morsi released from prison 26 Islamists jailed during the Mubarak regime. Egyptian security services refused to release a further 26 inmates.
United Kingdom
Twin brothers Mohammed Shabir Ali and Mohammed Shafiq Ali from east London were jailed for three years after admitting to raising money to fund terrorism. They had sent money for several years to another brother who had gone to Somalia to join Shabaab.
Bulgaria
Specialists have made in an image of the face of the suicide bomber who killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgaria bus driver in Burgas. The suicide bomber’s head was decapitated and mutilated in the blast.
Syria
In Aleppo, heavy fighting continued as government attacks appeared to have stalled. President Assad issued a written statement urging his forces to step up the fight. Rebel forces acquired tanks, heavy weapons, and surfac- to-air missiles. Fighting renewed in Damascus.
Afghanistan
The Taliban killed a district police chief in Helmand, a senior police officer in Ghazni, four ISAF soldiers in the south and east, four civilians in Wardak, and a policemen in Uruzgan. Four Taliban fighters were killed in an airstrike in Wardak.