Despite a relative lull in the use of females in suicide bombings in 2016 compared to 2015, West Africa is currently seeing a significant uptick in the use of females so far in 2017.
Mullah Fazlullahsaid that his group’s ultimate goal is “to implement the law of Allah on the Earth” and called on Muslims to unite and wage jihad to achieve that end. Fazlullah also said that attempts made by Pakistan’s military intelligence service have largely failed and the TTP has reorganized following a tumultuous period.
US and Afghan forces have been attempting to clear the Islamic State’s so-called Khorasan province from Achin and several other districts in eastern Afghanistan for nearly two years.
The suicide bombing targeted Somalia’s newly appointed chief of defense forces near the defense ministry headquarters in Mogadishu. At least 15 people were killed, but the Somali general escaped the assassination attempt.
The Islamic State has claimed credit for bombings at two Coptic churches in the Egyptian cities of Tanta and Alexandria earlier today. The attacks killed dozens of people and wounded approximately 100 others. The so-called caliphate has a history of targeting Christians in Iraq, Egypt and Libya.
The policy debate concerning Syria must reflect on-the-ground realities. The war is a complex, multi-sided affair with no easy solutions.
An American soldier was killed while fighting the Islamic State’s jihadists in eastern Afghanistan. While the Wilayah Khorasan (or Khorasan province) has suffered significant losses since early 2016, it still maintains a significant operational capacity and can mount high-profile attacks.
The Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), al Qaeda’s new group in West Africa, claimed an ambush on French troops in central Mali near the borders with Burkina Faso. Additionally, it also claimed launching Grad rockets into a French base in northern Mali.
AQIM’s Uqba bin Nafi battalion claimed an IED blast on Tunisian troops close to the Algerian border. This is the second claim in two months for the jihadist group.
The eighth edition of the Islamic State’s Rumiyah magazine features a cover story on Ahmad Abousamra, who was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist List in 2013. Abousamra was the “chief editor” of Dabiq, the Islamic State’s English-language magazine, and also one of al Qaeda’s fiercest rhetorical opponents. He described al Qaeda’s leaders and pro-al Qaeda ideologues as the “Jews of Jihad.”
The US has now launched more than 75 airstrikes in Yemen since the beginning of the year, almost double the yearly total since the drone program against al Qaeda in Yemen began in 2009.
A photo surfaced on Friday claiming to show Qassem Soleimani, the chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) extraterritorial branch the Qods Force, in the northern countryside of Syria’s central province of Hama. Meanwhile, the IRGC announced the deaths of three additional Guard soldiers including a brigadier general second class in Syria.