Last week, the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington D.C. released a nine-page primer on Iran’s continued support to Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Buried within the same document was photographic evidence of Saudi Arabia’s latest charge against Iran: the provision of the Sayyad-2C surface-to-air missile (SAM) to Houthi rebels.
In his latest message, Hamza bin Laden warns that Shiites are expanding throughout the Middle East and claims that the Saudi government is incapable of stopping them. Hamza calls upon Muslims to support the jihadists in Yemen. He also criticizes the relationship between the Saudis and the US.
According to the report, insufficient US oversight and Afghan capability led to mismanagement and an overall lack of assurance as to exactly where DoD funds ended up.
Resolute Support continues to claim that the Taliban failed in its strategic goals in 2017 and discounts the importance of the Taliban’s rural insurgency.
Pro-Houthi media outlets like Yemen News Agency (SABA) reported that at least three types of projectiles were fired into the Kingdom. They include the Burkan-2H, the Qaher-2M, and the Badr-1. Both the Burkan and the Qaher have been used multiple times in the Yemeni theater, while the Badr was only unveiled last week.
The US military announced that it killed Musa Abu Dawud, a high-ranking al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leader in Libya, in an airstrike last weekend. Dawud is an established jihadist who has been in the fight with the GSPC and AIQM for at least three decades.
Pakistan continues to fuel the terrorist insurgency inside Jammu and Kashmir by backing Lashkar-e-Taiba and other proxies.
Jihadists and Islamists in Syria have denounced the US government’s decision to designate Katibat Imam al Bukhari (KIB) as a terrorist organization. The KIB’s own statement on the designation includes misleading claims and some of those defending the group have their own al Qaeda links.
The latest edition of al Qaeda’s Al-Nafir news bulletin addresses the jihadists’ infighting in Syria. Al Qaeda has been forced to comment on the disputes multiple times over the past year.
French authorities ended a hostage crisis earlier today after an armed man assaulted a supermarket in Trèbes. The man reportedly killed at least three people, including a passenger in a car he attempted to hijack and two others in the market. The Islamic State (ISIS) claims the perpetrator is its “soldier.” ISIS has been tied to a series of plots in France since 2014.
Abdel Malek al Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi insurgent group, again promises to send fighters to battle alongside Hezbollah in any future war with Israel.
The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency has claimed responsibility for a jihadist’s assault on police in Grozny on Mar. 20. Amaq released a video of the alleged perpetrator swearing allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi prior to his day of terror. The video is similar to a string of other clips released by Amaq since mid-2016.
The State Department announced today that Joe Asperman, a French national, has been designated as a terrorist. Asperman works as “a senior chemical weapons expert for ISIS” and “oversaw chemical operations production within Syria for ISIS and the deployment of these chemical weapons at the battlefront.”
Katibat Imam al Bukhari (also known as the Imam Bukhari Jamaat), an Uzbek jihadist group that operates in Syria and Afghanistan, has been formally designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department today.
As Sahab has released two new messages from al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in recent days. In the first, he again criticizes Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s Islamic State, accusing it of sowing dissent in the jihadists’ ranks. In the second, Zawahiri reminds jihadists and Muslims that his organization considers the US to be their “first enemy.”
JNIM’s new video shows its fighters across Mali and even in Burkina Faso. The video also shows the group’s rising media capabilities.
US forces conducted nine strikes in Somalia this year, all of which have targeted al Qaeda’s affiliate in the country.
The Islamic State’s Khorasan branch quickly claimed responsibility for an attack near a shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan earlier today. The Sunni jihadists regularly target Shiite civilians in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
A US military spokesman also said that the military would be fine if the Taliban was operating on the Pakistani side of the border just as long as Afghanistan was secured.
The helicopter that crashed is used to conduct search and rescue as well as Air Force special operations missions.
The US military has launched 22 airstrikes against al Qaeda int he Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State’s Yemeni branch, a spokesman told FDD’s Long War Journal.
The Tuareg alliance says the vehicle, which was reportedly used by US troops in last October’s deadly ambush in Niger, was recovered after recent raids on Islamic State-loyal militants in northern Mali.
Turkistan Islamic Party fighters, alongside the Afghan Taliban, released a video showing the combined forces overrunning remote Afghan military outposts in mountainous terrain.
The Taliban killed at least 10 Afghan commandos and several other security personnel during an ambush in Farah province last night.
Maj Gen Qassem Soleimani, the chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Force, addressed late last month a commemoration held in Iran for slain Lebanese Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh (AKA Hajj Radwan).
State added Ahmad Iman Ali, the leader of Shabaab’s network in Kenya, and Abdifatah Abubakar Abdi, a dangerous Kenyan commander, to its list of Specially Designated Global terrorists.
The recent battle comes less two weeks after the Tuareg militias last clashed with militants from the so-called Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
The son of Mullah Fazlullah, the emir of the TTP, and two commanders, including the camp’s trainer of suicide bombers, are reported to have been killed.
Bahrain claims to have broken up a militant cell, which was reportedly linked to Iran. Also captured in the raids was large amounts of explosives, including material to produce IEDs.
Al Qaeda and ISIS have spawned such groups as Boko Haram and Al Shabaab that are spreading their influence across the Sahel, in the Horn of Africa, and beyond. A recent study shows that African jihadists are increasingly attacking Western targets.