The Islamic State’s so-called Khorasan “province” has set up a radio station to broadcast propaganda in Afghanistan. Officials have tried to jam its signal, but the station is also disseminating its content online via multiple platforms.
This month, the Popular Mobilization Force began harassing Christians in Baghdad by suggesting women wear the hijab, or veil, and instructing the minority not to celebrate Christmas.
A US military spokesman said earlier today that five members of the Islamic State’s external operations arm were killed in recent airstrikes. Some of the jihadists are believed to have ties to the terrorist cell that struck Paris on Nov. 13.
A video released by the Imam Bukhari Jamaat shows children training with various weapons, reading the Koran, practicing mathematics, and learning Sharia and Arabic.
The coordinated assaults are likely intended to show that the jihadist group is still able to mount such attacks, despite some claims to the contrary.
Problems within the Islamic State’s Yemen Province continue to mount as three senior leaders, including two members of the province’s Security Committee and a member of the Preaching Committee, and 28 more fighters reject the group’s governor.
In a new speech, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi claims that all Muslims are confronted by an alliance that includes much of the rest of the world. And he says the Islamic State is “the spearhead in the conflict between the camp of belief and the camp of non-belief,” meaning all Muslims should rally to its cause.
The loss of Ramadi is a major blow to the Islamic State, which seized the provincial capital and raised its flag over the government center on May 15 after launching a coordinated assault on Iraqi units stationed in the city.
The attacks on the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad are likely an attempt to destabilize the movement and the region after several other Tuareg separatist movements signed a peace deal with the Malian government earlier this year.
Al Nusrah Front and Ahrar al Sham have issued eulogies for Zahran Alloush, the leader of Jaysh al Islam, who was killed in an airstrike outside of Damascus on Dec. 25. Alloush portrayed himself and his organization as “moderate” in comparison to the Islamic State, but that was not an apt description for him.
In a lecture posted online, AQAP leader Qasim al Raymi explains why America is the jihadists’ “real” and “primary” enemy.
Abu Yahya al Hammam joins other Al Qaeda figures in Mali and the Sahara to have threatened France and its interests this year, including Iyad Ag Ghaly and a fighter from Al Murabitoon.
Seventy members of the Islamic State’s Yemen “province,” including three members of its sharia committee, its military emir, and its chief of general security, announced their “defection” from the group’s “governor.”
One month after the jihadist group conducted a terrorist attack in Mali’s capital killing over 20 people, the French military launched a four hour raid against Al Murabitoon reportedly killing several of its fighters in northern Mali.
If confirmed, the Turkistan Islamic Party is not the only jihadist group to have used the US-made anti-tank missiles. The Islamic State, Al Nusrah Front, and the Caucasus Emirate in Syria have all released propaganda showing its forces using the TOW missiles.
Israel carried out the assassination of Samir Quntar, a man who had become a symbol in Hezbollah for killing Israelis and was acting as one of its commanders in Syria.
“Six Resolute Support service members died as a result of a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack in Bagram, Afghanistan,” the international coalition confirmed. Bagram is a high priority target for the Taliban.
Sangin district is the latest to fall under the Taliban’s control. The Taliban now controls five of Helmand’s 13 districts, and contests another seven.
The video shows a rudimentary training camp in a forested area somewhere in the Philippines. It is unclear which group is shown training, but the video makes clear of its support to the Islamic State.
The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan again rejected the Islamic State and said its emir, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, is illegitimate and his followers kill “innocent mujahideen.”
Afghan security forces claimed it ejected the Taliban from the Khanashin district center in southern Helmand province, while the Taliban claimed it seized control of Marawara in Kunar.
The failure to mention al Qaeda’s renewed oath to the Taliban in the military’s latest report on Afghanistan is no accidental omission.
According to the Department of Justice, Syed Farook was influenced by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (Inspire) magazine and the teachings of Anwar al Awlaki. Shortly after the San Bernardino shooting, an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State’s Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was posted on a Facebook page associated with Farook’s wife, Tafsheen Malik.
The Pentagon’s latest report on Afghanistan pushes for reconciliation with the Taliban, but makes no mention of Mullah Mansour accepting an oath of allegiance from al Qaeda’s Ayman al Zawahiri.
The role of terrorist-backed media has emerged as an area of concern not only in the West but across the Middle East as an increasing number of individuals are incited to violence by these outlets. Saudi Arabia is the latest country to shut down Al-Manar.
Ibrahim Abu Salih (also known as Abu al Hassan al Hashimi) was featured in a video posted online by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) earlier this month. He has been a jihadist for more than 35 years and, in the early 1990s, al Qaeda’s leaders ordered him to build an arm for their organization in Yemen. Abu Salih later cofounded AQAP. He is currently the group’s security official, as well as a member of its shura council.
The US military continues to claim that al Qaeda is “primarily concentrated in the east and northeast” of Afghanistan, despite a major operation two months ago that targeted the jihadist group at two established training facilities in Kandahar province in the southeast.
Abu Muhammad al Julani, who heads al Qaeda’s Al Nusrah Front in Syria, gave an interview that was aired by Orient News TV on Dec. 12. Julani defended his organization’s relationship with al Qaeda and discussed the Free Syrian Army, among other topics.
A US military spokesman touted the strikes that killed the three Islamic State leaders as “an example of how we’re able to decimate networks.”
A new AQAP video features Ibrahim al Qosi, who was detained at Guantanamo from 2002 until 2012. Qosi is now an AQAP leader and spokesman.