Ansar al-Islam raided an Assad regime military position in the Latakia province yesterday, killing more than two dozen Assad loyalists. The attack was widely celebrated on Sunni jihadist social media channels. Ansar al-Islam is a small jihadist group that originated in Iraq, but has fought in Syria for years.
The deadly bombing is the first major attack executed by the Taliban group since Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud assumed command of the group in late June.
The Islamic State claimed a suicide bombing that targeted the Assad regime and Russian forces in southern Syria yesterday. The group claims that 50 people were killed or wounded, while a pro-regime source reported “scores” of casualties. The operation was conducted by a jihadist dispatched by a new Islamic State “province,” but the group has operated in the area for years under another brand.
The Taliban reiterated that it views itself as the sole representative of the Afghan people, while those who fight for the Afghan government are “puppets” of the United States.
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in Afghanistan and Syria has long operated as part of the Taliban-al Qaeda axis. Earlier this year, however, the TIP’s Syrian branch sided with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) during its battles with other rebel groups. This infighting and related events have complicated the picture with respect to the TIP in Syria. One TIP-affiliated outlet claimed earlier this year that the group’s senior management had sent new leadership from Afghanistan to Syria.
The US Department of State added Saraya al Ashtar, an Iranian-supported group that openly flaunts its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps affiliation, to its list of global terrorists.
The Taliban described an upcoming conference of religious scholars that will be held in Saudi Arabia later this week as illegitimate and urged Islamic clerics to boycott the meeting.
The Secretary-General of Kata’ib Sayyid al Shuhada, an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, said he is a “soldier” of Abdel Malek al Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi movement.
Yesterday’s ambush was the highest death toll in a terrorist attack in the country since the Islamic State’s foray into Ben Gardane in March 2016.
Liwa Zulfiqar’s secretary general was seen in a Syrian military operations room for ongoing operations in Syria’s southern Deraa province.
The Pentagon and the US intelligence community have been consistently wrong about al Qaeda’s strength in Afghanistan, and evidence of strategic ties between the two groups does indeed exist.
The Houthi rebels showed off new ballistic missile technology in a new missile launch directed at an airport in southern Saudi Arabia.
The Islamic State announced today that Hudhayfah al-Badri, the son of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, has been killed during a raid on Syrian and Russian forces in Homs province. Al-Badri’s death was announced via a graphic that is part of the Islamic State’s “Caravan of the Martyrs” series, which has featured deceased jihadists from around the globe. The so-called caliphate has offered few details concerning al-Badri’s purported death.
The jihadist group claims the bombing, and last week’s bombing at the G5 Sahel base in central Mali, were messages to warn France and its allies about the “costs” of being in Mali.
Only days after a suicide assault on an African military base in central Mali, another suicide car bombing hit French Barkhane troops in the northern city of Gao.