Al Qaeda has released a new message from its emir, Ayman al Zawahiri, who argues that the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is a core part of a new, imagined caliphate.
At a Pentagon press conference, General Nicholson again gave a Pollyannish assessment of the state of Afghanistan. He claimed the peace process is working and the Taliban’s offensive is failing, and took credit for a Taliban victory over the Islamic State.
An assailant stabbed a small number of people in Trappes, west of Paris, earlier today. The Islamic State quickly claimed via its Amaq News Agency that the attacker was one of its “fighters.” Authorities are investigating the incident, and the possibility it was a family dispute turned violent. Some reports say the two people killed were the “attacker’s mother and sister.”
The public seldom hears from the reclusive Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who last released a speech nearly a year ago. But in his latest message, Baghdadi downplays the loss of his territorial caliphate while claiming the US has entered a new stage of “weakness.”
A team of nine Islamic State jihadists launched a mortar attack in Kabul yesterday as President Ashraf Ghani was delivering a speech. NATO’s Resolute Support touts the efficacy of the Afghans’ response, but the Islamic State’s network continues to regularly launch operations in the Afghan capital.
The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency has released a short video purportedly showing the four young males responsible for attacks on police in Chechnya yesterday. Chechen authorities have said the attackers were all younger than 17 years-old, with the youngest being just 11. Amaq’s video shows youth in that age range swearing allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.
The death of Ibrahim al Asiri, one of the most dangerous and wanted men in the world, has yet to be confirmed. If he is confirmed to have been killed, his death will likely have minimal impact on AQAP as he has shared his expertise for well over a decade.
The fall of the northern district of Bilchiragh in Faryab province, is part of a disturbing pattern of Afghan forces being surrounded by the Taliban and then either overwhelmed or forced to surrender.
The Taliban has released a new statement attributed to its emir, Hibatullah Akhundzada, who says there will only be “peace” when America leaves Afghanistan. Akhundzada blasts the current Afghan government as a “corrupt regime” and portrays the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as the only legitimate authority.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a school in the Afghan capital yesterday. The so-called caliphate’s jihadists regularly target Shiite civilians in its “suicide and complex attacks.”
The Taliban never slowed in launching numerous attacks across the country even as it committed significant resources to the fight in Ghazni.
According to a new report published by the United Nations, al Qaeda’s “alliance with the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan remains firm,” as al Qaeda and the Taliban are “closely allied.” Some of the UN’s Member States consider al Qaeda’s global network to be a bigger long-term threat than the Islamic State.
A report by the United Nations includes new details concerning the dispute between Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and al Qaeda’s senior leaders, including the role played by two veteran operatives living in Iran. The UN’s member states say that HTS is still in “contact” with al Qaeda’s leadership despite their heated disagreements, and that al Qaeda has even reinforced HTS with “military and explosives experts” sent from Afghanistan.
On Aug. 8, the State Department announced that it had increased its reward for information concerning the whereabouts of two veteran al Qaeda leaders: Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah and Saif al-Adel. Although State didn’t explain the move, there is evidence that the two al Qaeda managers were operating inside Iran as of 2017.
In addition to Ajristan and Khwaja Umar, the districts of Nawur, Jaghatu, and Deh Yak have fallen to the Taliban. Meanwhile, Resolute Support has intentionally misled the the public about the status of seven of Ghazni’s districts. Resolute Support claimed these districts were under government control; in reality the Taliban physically controlled the terrain while the Afghan government operated the government remotely from Ghazni City.
Al Qaeda has long operated in Ghazni province, the site of a large-scale Taliban offensive in recent days. In 2010, Osama bin Laden ordered his men to relocate from northern Pakistan into Ghazni and other Afghan provinces. Bin Laden’s lieutenant also wrote in mid-2010 that al Qaeda had “very strong military activity” in at least eight Afghan provinces, including Ghazni. More recently, American and Afghan forces have targeted al Qaeda operatives in the province.
This now makes two Iranian-based leaders of Bahraini militant group Saraya al Ashtar, or the Al Ashtar Brigades, to be designated as global terrorists by the US State Department.
The current fighting in and around Ghazni City indicates that the Taliban has a detailed plan to tie up Afghan forces while attempting to seize the provincial capital. Additionally, the Taliban was able to mass its forces undetected; the Afghan military was clearly caught off guard and is struggling to get into the fight four days after the Taliban launched its attack.
Between 40 and 100 Afghan Army Commandos are reported to have been killed as the Taliban overran Ajristan district in Ghazni province. As the Taliban overran Ajristan, battled for control of Ghazni City, and cut off the Kabul-Kandahar highway, it has demonstrated that it is able to effectively hit multiple locations at the same time.
Resolute Support initially described the attack on Ghazni City as a “failed attempt” that would be used by the press to generate sensational headlines. Two days later, Afghan forces are still battling entrenched Taliban fighters inside the city, and the vital Kabul-Kandahar remains severed. Battles such as the one in Ghazni, reveal a disturbing pattern of misinformation and deception by Resolute Support when it comes to assessing and reporting on the Taliban’s attacks on major cities as well as its assaults on district centers.
Both the Afghan government (and Resolute Support) and the Taliban claim they control the city. The Afghan government and Resolute Support have proven unreliable in the past when it denied that the Taliban twice took control of Kunduz City, as well as Farah City earlier this year.
An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander confirmed for the first time that the Yemeni Ansar Allah (Houthis) struck targets following the IRGC’s order. The IRGC spokesman scrambled to deny the statements.
The raids in Helmand and Nangarhar indicate that al Qaeda’s leaders are not focused on its survival. Al Mesri was focused on manufacturing IEDs to support the Taliban’s insurgency in Helmand, while Rahmatullah and his cohorts were operating in Nangarhar’s provincial capital.
AFRICOM noted that Shabaab, which is al Qaeda’s branch in East Africa, continues to maintain “training camps” and “safe havens throughout Somalia and the region.”
The majority of coalition strikes over the past three months have been concentrated in Abu Kamal, a critical border crossing on the southern border between Iraq and Syria.
The complex Taliban operation that was designed to eject the Islamic State from Jawzjan highlights the Taliban’s ability to coordinate and mass for attacks in the Afghan north. However it is unlikely that the Islamic State has been “completely defeated” in the north.
The US Treasury and State Departments designated three members of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba as terrorists today. One of them was captured in Iraq in 2004 and held for a decade before he was transferred to Pakistan and released. Another has raised funds to send to Syria.
The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency has released a short video allegedly showing five young jihadists swearing allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before they attacked cyclists in Tajikistan. The video is similar to a number of others released after small-scale attacks since mid-2016.
Resolute Support continues to invent new terminology to obfuscate the extent of Taliban control in Afghanistan.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack on a school for midwives in Jalalabad, Afghanistan yesterday, saying the target was a headquarters for USAID. Despite a focused, US-led counterterrorism campaign against Wilayah Khorasan in Nangarhar, the group retains an operational footprint in eastern Afghanistan.