The Islamic Front announced today that more than one dozen of its senior leaders were killed in a car bombing in Idlib. Among the slain leaders is Hassan Abboud, who was the leader of Ahrar al Sham and the head of the Islamic Front’s political office. Abboud was especially close to Ayman al Zawahiri’s representative in Syria.
Iran says Afghan, Pakistani Islamic State volunteers arrested
After Syria and Iraq, Islamic State makes inroads in South Asia
Less than one week after Ahmed Abdi Godane was killed in an American airstrike, Shabaab has named a new leader and publicly reaffirmed its allegiance to al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri.
Abu Firas al Suri long served as a clandestine figure in al Qaeda’s international terrorist network. Today he serves as the Al Nusrah Front’s spokesman. He is tasked with defending Al Nusrah’s capture of more than 40 UN peacekeepers.
‘Removing Godane from the battlefield is a major symbolic and operational loss to al-Shabaab,” the Pentagon’s spokesman said. But jihadist groups have withstood the loss of top leaders in the past.
A closer look at recent developments in a number of countries should dispel any illusions that the Islamic State’s aspirations and activities are only regional.
Usama Mahmoud, AQIS’s spokesman, openly stated that the group “was formed by the gathering of several jihadi groups that have a long history in jihad and fighting.”
Fourteen security personnel and 19 heavily armed Taliban fighters were killed and another 154 people were wounded during the coordinated attack.
Ayman al Zawahiri announced the establishment of al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. The group is led by a former Taliban leader known as Asim Umar.
Shabaab emir Ahmed Abdi Godane and several senior leaders of the group are rumored to have been at a Shabaab camp when it was targeted by a US airstrike.
Shabaab was attempting to free prisoners held at the intelligence headquarters in the Somali capital.
In 2011, ISAF captured Qari Bilal, who was serving as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan’s top leader in Afghanistan. He was subsequently released by the Afghan government, and is now commanding more than 300 jihadist fighters in Kunduz.
Thirty-six Taliban fighters and nine policemen are reported to have been killed in fighting in Ghor. The military claimed it retook control of the Doab district in Nuristan. The Taliban killed three Afghan soldiers in IED attacks. The military said it captured 27 Pakistanis in Paktika.
“Jaamat-ul-Ahrar deals with itself and does not take orders from TTP leadership,” the group’s spokesman told The Long War Journal.
The Long War Journal first exposed one of the two, a jihadist known as Sanafi al Nasr, as a senior al Qaeda operative in March. Al Nasr is a senior al Qaeda leader who relocated from Pakistan to Syria last year. Treasury reveals that he previously served as the head of al Qaeda’s Iran-based network.
Despite claims to the contrary, the US military is now acting as Iraq’s air force.
Siraj Haqqani’s reward is raised to $10 million, putting it in the top tier of wanted terrorist leaders. Rewards of $5 million were posted for four other Haqqani leaders.
The Treasury designation added the Pakistan-based Basir Zarjmil Hawala and its owner Haji Abdul Basir, along with a Taliban commander known as Qari Rahmat to the US government’s list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
Pakistan fires 5,000 missiles on Afghan borders over past year
Abu Muhammed al Adnani is the Islamic State’s controversial spokesman. Said Arif is a seasoned jihadist who has traveled to several battlefields and is now with the Al Nusrah Front in Syria.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has released a new English-language magazine titled, “Palestine, betrayal of the guilty conscience.” As in past AQAP publications, the magazine includes instructions for building pressure cooker bombs and car bombs.
The airstrike took place in a province in eastern Yemen where the terror group has been battling the government for control.
Peace agreements with the Taliban on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border have always ended badly.
In a video released on Aug. 8, Abu Firas al Suri, a senior al Qaeda operative who currently serves as the Al Nusrah Front’s spokesman, discusses al Qaeda’s approach to waging jihad in Syria. Al Suri denies that Al Nusrah seeks to unilaterally establish an Islamic emirate.
Jamaat Ahadun Ahad, or the Group of the One and Only, is led by a Chechen commander and its fighters include “many Chechens, Turks, Arabs, Europeans, and even several former members of the Taliban.”
Ansar Dine leader Iyad Ag Ghaly has appeared in a video calling on Muslims to fight back against France and its allies.
A suicide bomber killed four civilians in an attack that targeted an ISAF convoy in Kabul. ISAF reportedly killed 21 Taliban fighters in an airstrike in Marja in Helmand province. The Pakistani military killed two civilians in a a missile attack in Kunar.
The strike took place in the al Qaeda stronghold of Wadi Abida. In eastern Yemen, the military and AQAP have been battling for control of Hadramout province.
The jihadist group, which is tolerated by the Pakistani state and whose leader lives openly in Islamabad, is currently running training camps in eastern Afghanistan, the US State Department said.