Tunisia’s Chaambi: Afghanistan-isation?

Algeria to tackle extremist preaching

Terrorism comes to Tunisia

US officials believe that an Israeli strike in early July near the Syrian port city of Latakia failed to eliminate all of the targeted Russian anti-ship missiles.

Afghanistan, U.S. near agreement on post-2014 force

A suicide bomber killed seven people at a Shia mosque in Baghdad; two more people were killed outside of another mosque in the capital. Security forces killed 10 al Qaeda fighters during a raid on a hideout in the Jazeera desert in Salahuddin.

Turkey’s $50 billion jet programme raises questions –

Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said it is “our belief that armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.” Iran sent aid to Gazans for Ramadan through Palestinian Islamic Jihad. PA Caretaker Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said he intends to continue with plans to resign in a few weeks. Palestinian officials visited Israel’s parliament as peace talks between the two begin. A PA minister issued a fatwa calling on Palestinians to revolt against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The cabinet told the police to clear two protest areas occupied by supporters of former president Morsi; the Muslim Brotherhood responded that protests and sit-ins will continue. Militants failed in an attempt to target security personnel by detonating a landmine in the Sinai. At least 30 people have been killed in the Sinai since June 30.

Why fewer ground reports are emerging from Syria

Egypt’s Wild East

NATO says it is keeping close eye on Egypt, plans no action

The leader of the Syrian National Coalition said the SNC will not engage in peace talks until “the Free Army and revolutionary forces” regain ground lost over the past eight months. Two al Qaeda affiliates, the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, are fighting along with allied groups simultaneously in the northern provinces of Raqqah; Hasakah; and Aleppo, where they have kidnapped over 200 civilians from two towns. Regime forces are fighting to regain the town of Khan al-Assal, the site of alleged chemical weapons use by rebels. Iran signed a deal to supply…

Unrest in Egypt: Closed Tunnels Could Ruin Hamas

Aid Groups Warn of Afghan Security Vacuum

Port city ‘no haven’ for Swedish Jews

Jihadis threaten Tunisia’s Arab Spring transition

Somaliland to stiffen smuggling and trafficking penalties

The People’s Defense Units (YPG), the military arm of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), issued a call to arms against Islamist forces in Syria, and charged that the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, along with the Free Syrian Army, have “become one side in attacking the Kurdish people.” The deputy leader of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party recently warned that unless the government begins to implement promised reforms by Sept. 1, “the freedom movement and Kurdish people will defend itself.” Two members of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) were arrested with…

Shabaab freed two Kenyans who were kidnapped in northern Kenya and have been held for more than 18 months. Shabaab fighters also gunned down a farmer in Moqokori.

The commander of the military’s protection force in Benghazi was killed, and his son was injured, yesterday by a car bomb attached to his vehicle. Libya’s oil minister warned that the country’s oil exports might drop by 30% if blockades of oil terminals by armed groups were not ended soon. He also dismissed accusations that Libyan oil is being stolen and sold at the terminals. Although some 20,000 oil facilities guards are on the government payroll, they reportedly do not show up for their jobs.

Suspected Boko Haram militants on motorbikes stormed a construction site in Yobe state and stole about 275 pounds of dynamite. Nigeria began pulling some of its 1,200 soldiers out of Mali to help confront the Islamist insurgency at home. Hackers infiltrated the computer system of the army headquarters in Abuja, sending out fraudulent messages.

In one attack in Idlib, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria claimed that “2,000 fully-equipped mujahideen” from eight different “brigades” fielded “8 tanks, a BMP armored vehicle,” and an assortment of mortars, rockets, machine guns, and other heavy weapons to overrun Syrian military forces. Free Syrian Army units participated in the attack.

War in Syria inspires Kurdish unity

Gen. Dunford, head of US forces in Afghanistan, said some US troops should stay in Afghanistan after combat forces leave at the end of 2014. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction accused the US military of failing to act on his agency’s recommendations to ensure that US aid money did not fall into the hands of insurgents, including al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Haqqani Network. Pfc. Bradley Manning, defendant in the WikiLeaks case, was acquitted of the charge of aiding the enemy but was convicted on over 20 other charges, including violating the Espionage Act.

In Syria, Signs of Civilian Massacre

The Taliban assaulted a prison in Dera Ismail Khan and freed more than 200 prisoners and killed six security personnel. Eight “militants” and two soldiers were killed in Darra Adam Khel. A policeman was killed during a militant attack on polio vaccination workers in Pishin.

A car bomb in Qamlishi killed Isa Huso, a founder of the Kurdish PYD; Kurdish YPG fighters, who have been battling Islamists in northern Syria for weeks, issued a call to arms against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Al Nusrah Front, and allied groups. An Italian priest who traveled to Raqqah to talk with the ISIL about releasing hostages has disappeared, raising fears he has been kidnapped. The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation appealed for a ceasefire during next week’s feast of Eid al-Fitr.
