The Israeli Air Force reportedly carried out an airstrike on a Syrian weapons convoy overnight. Reports suggest that Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, believed to be headed for Hezbollah, were struck in Syria, not far from the Lebanese border.
Insight: Egypt is once again risking its futur
On Jan. 28 authorities in Brakna arrested three Salafists in Chegar alleged to be members of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Tens of thousands of refugees from the fighting in Mali have fled to camps in Mauritania.
Acting on information from an al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb terrorist arrested in December 2012, authorities broke up an al Qaeda support cell in the Tiaret region on Monday; four men and three women, including a physician, were arrested. Five such cells have been dismantled in the province since September 2012.
Hezbollah and the Qods Force in Iran’s Shadow War with the West
French and Malian troops secured the airport in Kidal. Islamist fighters had fled, offering no resistance. On Monday, the Tuareg MNLA and the Ansar Dine splinter group Islamic Movement of Azawad claimed control of Kidal.
The Interior Minister said France will deport several hardline imams who advocate global jihad, describing them as foreign-born Salafists who “target women, make remarks contrary to our values and refer to the need to fight against France.” Police arrested two men in Toulouse suspected of links to al Qaeda sympathizer Mohamed Merah.
Black Bloc must die, say Jihad and Jama’a al-Islamiya
Syria’s Aleppo University tries to carry on after mystery blasts
AP Interview: Top US general confident in Afghans
The US signed a status of forces agreement with Niger, to allow for an increased US military presence in the country as well as the establishment of drone bases and other facilities to monitor the rising Islamist threat in north Africa. Senator John Kerry was confirmed as the new Secretary of State.
The weapons facilitator and assassinations director is the third Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan commander killed or captured in the Afghan north so far this year.
The Pakistani military claimed it killed 33 Taliban and Lashkar-e-Islam fighters in airstrikes in Khyber and Arakzai tribal agencies. The Taliban, which has been battling the rival Ansarul Islam in Khyber, denied the Pakistani military’s claims.
“Gunmen” assassinated a district governor in Kapisa province. Twenty-eight insurgents reconciled with the government in Baghlan. Denmark will withdraw all of its troops from the country at the end of 2014.
Syria gets ‘blowback’ after playing with fire in Iraq
The bodies of more than 100 men and boys, apparently executed, were pulled out of a river in Aleppo. After five days of fighting, rebels overran an intelligence complex in eastern Syria, freeing 11 from its prison facility. Syrian refugees exceed 700,000.
Egypt’s army chief warned that the current political crisis could cause the collapse of the state. In Port Said, thousands of protesters called for the downfall of Egypt’s president. Public prosecutors urged that members of the ‘Black Bloc” anti-President Morsi group be arrested.
Hundreds of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula fighters have arrived in Manaseeh in Baydah province to battle Yemeni forces who launched an offensive in the area. The fighters are said to have come from Abyan province.
A suicide bomber killed two Somali security personnel in an attack near the prime minister’s home in Villa Somalia. A minister said that the suicide bomber was a former employee of the National Intelligence and Security Agency.
Three security guards were killed when “terrorists” attacked a camp at a gas pipeline in Djebahia. Al Qaeda’s El Farouk Brigade is accused of carrying out the attack.
Google releases detailed map of North Korea, gulags and all
Kurdistan Workers’ Party leader Abdullah Öcalan asked the Constitutional Court to allow the publication of his book “Kürtlerin Manifetosu” (The Kurds’ Manifesto). As a result of a government-launched “peace process” involving talks between intelligence officials and jailed PKK leader Öcalan, 100 PKK fighters are expected to lay down their arms and leave Turkey this spring.
Mali Tuareg rebels say they control Kidal, Islamists gone
Foreigners struggling to weaken Afghanistan: Karzai
School Support Grows Even Under Specter of a Taliban Return
Security woes plague Benghazi
Global experts tackle Sahel security
Several military leaders defected from Ansar Dine; one took 20 vehicles and some fighters and joined the secular Tuareg MNLA. The MNLA claimed to have taken Kidal and six other towns, and said it would work with the French but not allow the return of Malian forces. International donors pledged $455.53m for aid projects and […]
Argentina and Iran agreed to form a “truth commission” to adjudicate the case of six Iranian suspects in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. The bombing, which killed 85 people and wounded another 300, was the largest terrorist attack on Argentine soil. Israel protested that the agreement was “like inviting […]
Sole Algerian killed by Islamists hailed as a hero