The governor of Kenya’s Mandera County recently stated that Shabaab is controlling “over 50 percent’ of northern Kenya and “more than 60 percent” of Mandera. Kenyan authorities have quickly scrambled to contradict these claims.
Hosts Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio discuss and critique Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech on the Iran-Al Qaeda axis. Contrary to much reporting, there is a long history of ties between the two. But there’s also much evidence pointing to al Qaeda’s ongoing alliance with the Taliban, an issue Pompeo is eager to downplay. The guys also explain why the 2001 AUMF isn’t being used to start a war with Iran.
Joint U.S. and Israeli military cooperation led to airstrikes targeting Iranian sites and that of its proxy groups in eastern Syria Wednesday morning.
The State Department revealed today that ‘Abd al Rahman al Maghrebi, a senior al Qaeda leader who heads the group’s propaganda arm and has served as its “general manager,” is based in Iran. Maghrebi and four others based in Iran were designated as terrorists.
Additionally, the US State Department will also designate three of the Houthis’ top leaders as global terrorists.
In Israel’s attempts to thwart the establishment of Iranian-led proxies in southern Syria, it has also targeted Syrian troops in recent weeks.
Falih al-Fayyadh, the Chairman of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces and the former National Security Advisor to the Iraq’s Prime Minister, was identified as a member of an “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Force Qods Force supported crisis cell” that supported attacks on protesters in 2019.
