Resolute Support, NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, claimed that today’s bombing in Kabul “shows the insurgents are desperate and cannot win.” However the Taliban has sustained offensive operations in all areas of the country and has had battlefield successes against a struggling Afghan military.
Omar Khalid al Khurasani was closely allied with al Qaeda and its emir, Ayman al Zawahiri. In the past Khurasani has called for the imposition of sharia law, the establishment of a global caliphate, and the seizure of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. He was killed in a drone strike in Paktia province.
Afghan forces suffered 97 percent casualties during the suicide assault. The attack is the latest in the southern province, where the Taliban has stepped up its attacks on Afghan military outposts.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Russia have spearheaded the operation to capture the Islamic State-held city of al Mayadeen in Deir Ezzor province, eastern Syria.
Taliban suicide teams hit the police headquarters and a training center in the provincial capital of Gardez City. Twenty-two policemen and 20 civilians were killed and scores more were wounded.
Taliban forces have overrun two district centers in Kandahar and Farah provinces over the past two days. The jihadist group continues to gain ground in Afghanistan despite a change in US strategy that has reduced restrictions on local commanders to launch airstrikes against the group.
The Pentagon announced today that “dozens” of Islamic State jihadists were killed during a strike on two training camps in Yemen. The Islamic State regularly advertises its presence in Yemen, including a camp named after the group’s deceased spokesman.
Before President Donald Trump levied a terrorism designation against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC and the Islamic Republic threatened the US over the move. One senior Iranian official initially called it a “declaration of war” and then he tampered it down.
The strike took place just days after Pakistan freed two westerners and their children from Taliban custody in the same tribal agency.
The Iraqi government quickly capitalized on its victory against the Islamic State in the adjacent city of Hawija and turned its energy on the secessionist Kurds in Kirkuk. The rapid offensive exposes deep fault lines in the anti-Islamic State coalition and within Kurdish politics.
The commander, who went by the alias Abu “Khalid,” or Shahid Showkat, was highly sought by Indian security forces for his role in orchestrating attacks targeting Indian military positions and personnel.
An explosively formed penetrator (EFP) killed an American soldier in Iraq on Oct. 1. The US and Iraqi governments haven’t conclusively fingered a perpetrator, but EFPs have been used by Iranian-backed groups in Iraq in the past.
The Pakistani and American governments announced today that Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle, along with their three children, have been released from the Taliban’s custody. The couple was abducted in Afghanistan in 2012.
The strike is the latest in a series that have targeted the entirety of AQAP’s network in the war-torn country.
The State Department announced today that it is offering rewards for information concerning the whereabouts of two senior Hezbollah operatives. One of the two, Talal Hamiyah, is the head of Hezbollah’s External Security Organization, which oversees worldwide terrorist plots. The other, Fuad Shukr, “played a central role” in the Oct. 1983 Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. That suicide bombing helped inspire a generation of Shiite and Sunni jihadists.
The Islamic State claims to have captured several villages from its jihadist rivals in Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (HTS) in Hama province. The Islamic State’s assault on HTS came just days after HTS launched its own offensive against Assad regime positions in Hama.
Islamic State forces still control a small pocket of villages to the north and east of the town, but are now surrounded.
In a new message, Ayman al Zawahiri holds up the Taliban-al Qaeda relationship as a model for jihadists around the globe. He also critiques the jihadists and Islamists in Egypt and Syria who think they can “deceive” America and achieve power by placating the US.
US AFRICOM has confirmed that three US Special Forces troops have been killed in an ambush near Mali. The three are the first American soldiers to die in combat in the country.
Mattis and Dunford placed all of the blame for Pakistan’s support of terrorist groups on the ISI, and essentially absolved Pakistan’s government and the military of any responsibility for incubating and supporting regional and global jihadist organizations.
The Egyptian militant group, Hasm, claimed responsibility yesterday for its attack against Myanmar’s embassy in Cairo a day earlier, noting that it was a response to Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims. “This bombing served as a warning to the embassy of murderers, killers of women and children in the Muslim Rakhine State [in Myanmar], and […]
The attacks represent a significant increase in jihadist attacks in northern Burkina Faso. In addition, the use of improvised explosive devices, previously unknown to the country, is on the rise.
The Congressionally mandated Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued a detailed report evaluating the current challenges facing the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and the lessons learned from America’s nearly 15-year campaign in the country. The report argues that security priorities guiding US decisions early in the war effort negatively impacted […]
The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency claimed that two stabbings at the Saint-Charles train station in Marseille, France were the work of its “soldier.” Separately, an attack in Edmonton, Canada is being investigated as a terrorist act.
US Africa Command launched airstrikes against the Islamic State in Libya for the first time in eight months. AFRICOM also revealed to FDD’s Long War Journal that an estimated 800 to 900 Islamic State fighters were killed during Operation Odyssey Lightning’s air campaign in Sirte last year.
The US-led coalition announced that three Islamic State figures were killed in airstrikes in Mayadin, Syria between Sept. 12 and 14. All three worked for the so-called caliphate’s drone program. The US has carried out a targeted air campaign against the group’s personnel in or near Mayadin since earlier this year.
“The brave and Mujahid nation of Afghanistan rejects disbelief, apostasy, democracy, and slavery!” said one fighter interviewed in the Taliban’s latest propaganda video.
“Last half century proves that this land was and will be the land of Islam and Jihad.”
Getting the right answers on allegations surrounding an alleged Iranian ballistic missile launch requires asking the right questions. The following eight questions make sense of the English and Persian language news reporting surrounding the Khorramshahr ballistic missile.
As tensions mount between the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government, several Iranian-backed group have deployed more troops to contested areas near Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu. As both sides remain steadfast in their claims to the oil rich province, tensions continue to mount and the risk of military escalation rises.
The Islamic State’s Al Bayan radio station has released several religious lectures dealing with an internal controversy over takfir, the practice of excommunicating other Muslims and denouncing “polytheists.” The so-called caliphate tried to quell the controversy by repealing a problematic memo earlier this month.