Host Bill Roggio is joined by FDD Senior Fellow Behnam Ben Taleblu to disuss Behnam’s major new FDD Monograph — Arsenal: Assessing the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Ballistic Missile Program — including through the lens of Iran’s shadow war against Israel, AKA “the war between wars.”
One day before Quds Day, Palestinian Islamic Jihad unveiled a new drone called “Jenin.”
The IDF’s downing of two Hezbollah drones suggests it continues its attempts to probe Israeli airspace to gather information on activity in Israel.
The last five US counterterrorism strikes have all taken place inside Pakistan’s Kurram tribal agency. The Afghan Taliban, including the Haqqani Network, is known to operate inside Kurram and use it as a base to attack Afghanistan.
Jamiuddin, was a “trusted man” within the Haqqani Network, a subgroup of the Afghan Taliban, who helped fighters move from Pakistan to Afghanistan.
The video offers more visual confirmation of Hezbollah’s capabilities for armed commercial drones.
The US military “remains committed to defeating AQAP and denying it safe havens in Yemen.” AQAP remains entrenched in southern and central Yemen despite the active targeting of the group and its leaders by the US for eight years.
All three strikes took place in the province of Shabwa, where AQAP remains entrenched despite an offensive spearheaded by the United Arab Emirates to dislodge the group from southern Yemen.
Jund al Aqsa, an al Qaeda front group, is playing a major role in the rebel offensive in Hama province. The group released a video earlier today showing one of its drones dropping a small, unguided bomb on Syrian regime forces. Jund al Aqsa has endorsed Al Nusrah Front’s relaunch as Jabhat Fath al Sham (“Conquest of the Levant Front”), saying that al Qaeda’s senior leadership must have determined that it was in the best interests of the people and the jihad in Syria.
The US military announced that it targeted Abdullahi Haji Da’ud, a top military commander and planner for Shabaab, al Qaeda’s official branch in East Africa, in an airstrike late last month. It is unclear if he is dead or alive.
Just months prior to his death, Osama bin Laden ordered his right hand man to relocate the al Qaeda “brothers” out of North and South Waziristan. The al Qaeda men were to be moved to Afghanistan and other areas in Pakistan.
The attack took place in the tribal agency of Kurram, where the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network is known to have moved its base of operations.
A Twitter feed operated by Al Nusrah’s “correspondent” in the Latakia province posted four photos of the drone after it was downed.
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.
Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent’s spokesman said that more than 50 of its members have been killed in strikes since June 2014.
Khawray Mehsud served as a bodyguard and close aide to Baitulllah Mehsud, the founder of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. The Taliban said Khawray was a skilled military commander who fought on multiple “fronts” in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Garaar is the fourth senior Shabaab official killed by US forces since September 2014, and the third high-ranking official in the Amniyat killed since December 2014.
Seven “militants” are reported to have been killed in a strike on a compound in an area administered by Sajna Mehsud.
The airstrike took place in a province in eastern Yemen where the terror group has been battling the government for control.
The attack is the fourth by the US in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan since July 10; at least three al Qaeda leaders are thought to have been killed in one of the strikes.
Sanafi al Nasr, a top al Qaeda leader based in Syria, named three jihadists killed in the “Khorasan.”
The strike is the second in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan in the past week.
Abdul Basit Usman was rumored to have been killed in a US drone strike in North Waziristan, Pakistan in 2010. He has since been spotted in the Philippines.
The strike is the second in the village of Darga Mandi in the past week, and just the third in Pakistan this year.
A “key” Haqqani Network commander and two “prominent Afghan Taliban commanders” are said to have been killed in the two drone strikes in Pakistan that took place over the past 24 hours.
Ali bin Lakraa’ al Kazimi, the leader of Ansar al Sharia in Al Mahfad district, was killed in a US drone strike on April 20.
Ibrahim al Asiri is said to be the target of a drone strike that hit a vehicle. The day before, another US and Yemeni attack killed more than 30 AQAP fighters at a training camp.
The strike killed a local al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula military commander known as Moajab bin Aziz, as well as his bodyguard. The US has launched four drone strikes in Yemen since the beginning of March.
The Yemeni media identified the two AQAP commanders killed in last night’s strike in Marib province as Ebad Mobarak Al Shabwani and Ja’afar Mohammad Jaber Al Shabwani.
An al Qaeda commander in northern Yemen known as Ali Juraym was killed in the strike. He previously fought for al Qaeda in Iraq.