Sources claim the offensive killed between 60-80 Taliban fighters, but with other reports suggesting the Taliban quickly retook the targeted territory, it appears the offensive is in line with past short-term strategies that fail to fully deny the Taliban strategic footholds in the region.
The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency quickly claimed responsibility for an assault near the Marshal Fahim National Defense University in Kabul, Afghanistan earlier today. It is the third major attack inside the Afghan capital in the past eight days. The previous two were carried out by the Taliban.
The video does not make clear where the ambush took place, but Katibat Imam al Bukhari has advertised its role fighting in the northern Afghan province of Faryab in the past.
The State Department designated two Islamic State members, Siddhartha Dhar and Abdelatif Gaini, as terrorists. Dhar “is believed to be the masked leader who appeared in a January 2016 ISIS” execution video.
While Katibat al Ghuraba al Turkistan (KGT) appears to be small, it is yet another group in northwestern Syria containing ethnic Uighurs.
Backed by Saudi air power, Yemeni forces are advancing on a number of critical fronts including Yemen’s northern border and western coast.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack outside of a Coptic Church in a southern suburb of Cairo earlier today. The assault is one in a series of operations targeting Coptic Christians in Egypt since 2016.
Dozens of civilians were killed during a bombing at the Tabayan cultural center in Kabul, Afghanistan earlier today. The Islamic State’s Khorasan “province,” which regularly targets Shiite civilians and places of worship in Afghanistan, quickly claimed responsibility.
At least 50 people were killed by a suicide bomber during morning prayers at a local mosque in northeastern Nigeria. No group has claimed the attack, but it fits with the modus operandi of that of Abubakr Shekau’s faction.
The US has released a video from Hamza bin Laden’s wedding, providing a more recent image of Osama’s heir than was previously available. The video was recovered during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011. FDD’s Long War Journal assesses that the wedding likely took place inside Iran, where Hamza was detained until being released sometime in 2010.
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.
The strike took place just days after Pakistan freed two westerners and their children from Taliban custody in the same tribal agency.
The video reportedly shows a nascent Islamic State-loyal group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its authenticity cannot be independently verified by FDD’s Long War Journal.
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 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 […]
Resolute Support, NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, claimed the aircraft made “a precautionary landing for a maintenance issue.”
An Islamic State production featuring the young man responsible for stabbing rampage in the Russian city of Surgat is similar to past videos released by the group. The jihadist swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi before his day of terror. The video also contains a clip of a young Russian child beheading a captive.
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) says that 12 Ugandan soldiers were killed in an ambush by Shabaab yesterday. The al Qaeda branch claims the casualties were much higher and a local official told the press that 24 bodies were carried away from the scene.
The US military identified seven senior Islamic State propagandists and facilitators killed in coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria this year. One of them, Rayaan Meshaal, founded Amaq News Agency, one of the group’s most important propaganda arms.
On July 19, Dr. David Andrew Weinberg testified before Congress concerning the incitement found in Saudi Arabia’s government-published textbooks for school children. He argued that such incitement is not just a moral issue or a human rights issue, but also a national security issue.
Thomas Joscelyn’s testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee’s Task Force on Denying Terrorists Entry into the United States on what happens to the Islamic State after it loses its territory in Iraq and Syria.
US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have entered the Old City of Raqqa after the coalition blew two holes in a historic wall the Islamic State was using as a defensive fortification. The SDF’s fighters first approached the Old City in mid-June, but the wall and heavy fighting in a nearby neighborhood impeded their advance. Meanwhile, an Australian jihadi is featured in a new propaganda video recorded in Raqqa.
Al Muhajirun, a jihadist media front in Syria, recently released a video highlighting how jihadists, especially foreign jihadists, view the West.
Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) has released a 20-page code of conduct outlining its approach to waging jihad throughout the region. The group says its men are currently fighting “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the Taliban and calls on Muslims in the surrounding countries to pledge allegiance to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (another name for the Taliban).
The photos and videos show the extent of the US presence in southern Syria near the border with Iraq. This comes as the Tanf area of southeastern Syria has largely become a flash-point between US and Iranian-controlled forces.
Shabaab, al Qaeda’s branch in Somalia, released a nearly hour-long video celebrating al Qaeda’s legacy and promoting its war as part of the global jihad. The group also advertised its “Mohamed Atta Training Camp for Martyrdom Seekers.”
Two bombings in the Iraqi capital killed more than 30 people and wounded dozens more. The Islamic State quickly claimed responsibility for both, saying that Shiite “polytheists” had been targeted. The first bombing struck near a popular ice cream shop in the Karrada district of Baghdad.
CENTCOM announced today that “three senior foreign fighters” in the Islamic State were killed in recent weeks. Two of them were reportedly involved in the group’s “external operations” and one of them was a trainer in the “Cubs of the Caliphate” program, which indoctrinates youth. The third jihadist helped oversee the Islamic State’s use of small drones.
In a newly released video, Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mahmoud Rage addresses graduates of a training camp for foreign fighters. “Many” of the graduates are from Kenya and, Rage says, they should form an “army that will conquer Kenya so that we may return to our families and relatives in a state of honor and glory.”
Hamza bin Laden, the son of Osama, has released a new audio message in which he provides “advice for martyrdom seekers in the West.” Hamza’s message was disseminated less than a week after Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader Qasim al Raymi released a similar call for individual attacks in the West.