Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Intelligence said that “Gull Zaman,” his deputy, and five fighters were killed in a US drone strike in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.
Mansur al Harbi, a Saudi who served as a senior al Qaeda military leader, trainer, and facilitator is said to have been killed by the US in an airstrike in Afghanistan over the past several days. His death has not been confirmed.
Prior to his capture in July 2014, Maulawi Abdul Rashid Baluch was a senior Taliban member whose activities ranged from waging guerrilla warfare against NATO and Afghan forces to narcotics trafficking. Rashid also served as a liaison to al Qaeda, arranging “planning meetings” between senior Taliban leaders and al Qaeda members in Karachi, Pakistan.
The Taliban and allied groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, al Qaeda, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, and Lashkar-e-Taiba are known to have run dozens of camps inside Afghanistan even as the Coalition was present.
Sa’ad Emarati, a senior jihadist commander as well as a member of the “Khorasan Shura,” was executed for leaving the Islamic State and rejoining the Taliban.
Five of the eight strikes that have taken place in Pakistan so far this year have targeted jihadists operating in the Shawal Valley, which spans both North and South Waziristan.
In late May, the Islamic State’s so-called “Khorasan province” released a video threatening the Taliban. Multiple press reports say the two sides have repeatedly fought one another since the beginning of the year. Still, the Islamic State’s presence in the region is likely much smaller than the network operated by the Taliban, al Qaeda, and their allies.
A newly-released file recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound shows that the Taliban offered its condolences on the death of a senior al Qaeda leader in May 2010. Other documents reveal that Mullah Omar’s representative corresponded with bin Laden’s chief lieutenant even as he negotiated with the State Department.
Earlier today, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a set of files recovered from Osama bin Laden’s compound. These are but a fraction of the files that should be released to the public.
The attack, which took place the Shawal Valley, a terrorist haven, is just the sixth recorded inside Pakistan this year. The US launched 117 drone strikes in Pakistan at the peak of the campaign in 2010.
The Taliban claimed credit for today’s attack and said it was carried out by a single fighter. The jihadist group denounced the hotel for promoting “lasciviousness and indecency.”
A Taliban video shows its fighters inside military bases; seized Humvees, weapons and ammunition; and Afghan security personnel who were captured during the jihadist group’s weeklong offensive in Kunduz.
Taliban gains pull US units back into fight in Afghanistan
The camp is named after Ustad Yasir, a senior Taliban commander who was killed in an internal purge in 2012. The camp’s name is further evidence that the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province is comprised of marginalized Taliban commanders.
Thousands of Taliban fighters are said to have attacked multiple districts in the northern province of Kunduz. The chief of the provincial council claimed that the Taliban control two-thirds of Kunduz.
While the Taliban admitted its fighters beheaded Afghan troops, it placed the blame on the soldiers. According to the jihadist group’s ‘rules of engagement,’ the fighters should have shot, and not beheaded.
The statement highlights the close working relationship between al Qaeda and the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, and al Qaeda’s influence over the fellow jihadist group.
Al Qaeda announced the death of sharia official Ibrahim Suleiman al Rubaish, who was killed in a drone strikein eastern Yemen. Rubaish is a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay who also served as an operational planner for the jihadist group.
Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent confirmed that deputy emir Ustad Ahmad Farooq and shura member Qari ‘Imran were killed in separate strikes in January. Farooq was identified in Osama bin Laden’s documents as an up and coming al Qaeda leader.
A Taliban suicide bomber killed four Afghan civilians in an attack on a US military convoy in Jalalabad. The Taliban killed 12 civilians in an IED attack in Ghazni. A Taliban suicide assault team killed 10 people in an attack on a court in Mazar-i-Sharif.
The video focuses on ambushes and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks in the provinces of Kunar, Laghman, Wardak, Paktia, Paktika, Khost, and Ghazni.
The attack in Jalalabad, which occurred at the government center, is the second insider or green-on-blue attack reported in Afghanistan this year.
The so-called “charitable organization,” which is based in Pakistan and Afghanistan, funds al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Taliban. Sheikh Aminullah, a dual-hatted al Qaeda and Taliban leader who runs a “terrorist training center” in Pakistan, has been funded by Al Furqan.
“Mullah Mohammad Umar ‘Mujahid’ is still the leader in the present hierarchy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” the Taliban stated in a hagiography of its emir.
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