[AlAhram] La Belle France's army said Monday that its anti-jihadist force in Mali had killed Yahia Djouadi, a "big shot" of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) responsible for finance and logistics.
La Belle France's army said Monday that its anti-jihadist force in Mali had killed Yahia Djouadi, a "big shot" of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) responsible for finance and logistics.
Djouadi, an Algerian also known as Abu Ammar al-Jazairi, was killed overnight from February 25 to 26 around (160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Timbuktu in central Mali, the army said in a statement.
His death "once again weakens al-Qaeda's governance" in Mali, it added, calling him "a major link in northern Mali and especially the Timbuktu area" to the Qaeda-aligned GSIM group.
A former "emir" of al-Qaeda's Libyan operations, Djouadi fled to Mali in 2019 and settled in the Timbuktu region, helping organise the group and coordinating supplies, financing and logistics, the army said.
It added that he was killed by ground forces supported by a Tiger attack helicopter and two drones.
La Belle France is preparing to redeploy some 2,400 troops away from Mali to other countries in the Sahel region ... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas... facing cross-border jihadist insurgencies, after falling out with the military junta in Bamako.
While the pullout is set to stretch over six months, the army said that "operations continue against armed terrorist groups, especially against the top leaders of al-Qaeda, GSIM and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara ...he succulent fruit of the union of splinter factions from Mokhtar Bekmokhtar'sal-Mourabitunes and MUJAO. Once the dust had settled and the smell of gunsmoke had dissipated, they became the Islamic State in Mali, then adopted their present clever name. They are headed by Adnan Abu Walid Saharaoui. It operates along the borders of Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other... , Niger, and Mali... (ISGS) group."
French forces first intervened in Mali in 2013, but disputes between Gay Paree and Bamako since a 2020 coup have prompted the military government to turn to other allies like Russia's Wagner paramilitary group.
Even with international allies on the ground, the Malian state has struggled to reassert control of territory from the jihadist insurgency that began in the country's north in 2012 and has since spread to neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.
The fighting has claimed thousands of lives and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
La Belle France has said forces from its Operation Barkhane contingent killed a senior regional al-Qaeda leader in an overnight raid near Timbuktu last week. Meanwhile, ...back at the shootout, Butch clutched at his other leg...... two UN peacekeepers have died in an explosive attack.
On Monday, two members of the UN's Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) force were killed in a roadside kaboom when the vehicle they were traveling in hit an improvised bomb.
"This morning, a supply convoy ... struck an improvised bomb north of Mopti," MINUSMA front man Olivier Salgado wrote on Twitter. Four other peacekeepers were maimed in the attack.
The nationalities of those killed and injured in the attack were not immediately released.
FUTURE OF UN PEACEKEEPING MISSION IN DOUBT
Western nations participating in the international mission have said the shifting situation on the ground may in fact compromise the 13,000-strong contingent, the annual mandate of which must be renewed this June. As with the French deployment to Mali, UN troops have been on the ground in the Sahel since 2013 in an effort to halt the advance of Islamic fighters who began seriously challenging governments and civilians in the region in 2012.
MINUSMA troops have been heavily dependent upon French air and medical support throughout their mission. La Belle France's withdrawal from Mali, as well as the recent coup, has caused contributing nations such as Germany, Sweden and Denmark to rethink their commitment to it.
The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has killed several militants of the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP) with airstrikes from two of the newly acquired A-29 Super Tucano Jets in Borno State.
It was gathered that the NAF component of Operation Hadin Kai launched a series of attacks on Monday at the terrorists’ hideout in Dooma village, Kaga Local Government Area.
The operation was conducted around noon after Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions, revealed the location of the ISWAP members.
The ground assessment from the spots of the air interdiction indicated that scores of the terrorists were killed in the process.
Since the death of JAS leader, Abubakar Shekau, ISWAP has been consolidating its grip in locations around Lake Chad.
In 2021, it appointed Wali Sani Shuwaram, a 45-year-old as the new Leader (Wali) of ISWAP in Lake Chad.
The sect’s membership has swollen with the defection of hundreds of Boko Haram fighters under Shekau.
The terror group has caused over 100,000 deaths and displaced millions of individuals mainly in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states.
No fewer than 26 people have reportedly been killed and many others injured by suspected armed herders at Tor-Damisa community in the Donga Local Government Area of Taraba State.
It was learnt that the people killed in the attack included children and women.
According to Punch, the attack, which happened in the early hours of Monday, has left hundreds of houses burnt while properties worth millions of naira were also destroyed.
The attack was said to be a reprisal attack after a Fulani man in the area was allegedly shot in the leg by a suspected Tiv farmer, who is currently receiving treatment and in police custody.
The village head of the community, Zaki Ugondo Uma, who said that more bodies were still being recovered, explained that there was a little misunderstanding between Fulani herders and some Tiv farmers in the community and that he made frantic efforts with the Fulani leaders to restore normalcy.
He said, "Some farmers had an issue with Fulani herders, but we reached a truce and they assured us of peace. I am taken aback as we woke up this morning to witness a massive attack on our community affecting over 15 villages.
"As I am talking, we are yet to recover all bodies, but more than 26 corpses have been recovered. We are in a situation of despair as we don’t know if the attack will continue.
"I am calling on the state to provide security and as well intervene with relied materials for thousands that have been rendered homeless," Uma added.
Confirming the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer, Taraba State Command, ASP Usman Abubakar, noted that the command was aware of the incident but was yet to ascertain the cause of the crisis and the number of casualties.
[AlAhram] Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... 's Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... rebels launched at least one missile into the busy waters of Red Sea over the weekend, the US Navy said Monday, raising the risks of their fire striking one of the many commercial vessels using a waterway crucial to global shipping.
The Red Sea connects into the Suez Canal, which sends cargo and energy shipments from the wider Mideast onto Europe. Since seizing Yemen's capital in September 2014, the Houthis have launched missiles, deployed bomb-laden drone boats and released mines into the Red Sea.
The missile fire took place Saturday in the Red Sea, the Navy said.
``Although maritime traffic was not impacted in this instance, these actions are destabilizing and present a danger to all vessels transiting a critical international waterway,'' said Cmdr. Timothy Hawkins, a front man for the Navy's Mideast-based 5th Fleet.
Spokesmen for the Iranian-backed Houthis did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century... , which has led a coalition battling the Houthis since March 2015 and has a coastline stretching some 1,760 kilometers (1,100 miles) along the Red Sea, also did not respond to requests for comment.
Houthi missile fire in the Red Sea has come near an American warship before. In October 2016, the US Navy said the USS Mason came under fire from two missiles launched out of Yemen. Neither reached the warship, though the US retaliated with Tomahawk cruise missile strikes on three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory on Yemen's Red Sea coast.
The week before, the Emirati vessel SWIFT-1 came under Houthi missile attack. The Emirati government asserted the SWIFT-1 at the time carried humanitarian aid; UN experts later said of the claim that they were ``unconvinced of its veracity.'' The vessel had been sailing back and forth in the Red Sea between an Emirati troop base in Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... and Yemen.
In April 2021, an Iranian fat merchantman that is said to serve as a floating base for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard forces came under attack in the Red Sea likely part of a wider shadow war between Israel and Tehran.
More recently in January, the Houthis seized the Emirati-flagged ship Rwabee in the Red Sea off Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition asserted the ship carried medical equipment from a dismantled Saudi field hospital. The Houthis released video showing military-style inflatable rafts, trucks and other vehicles on the vessel, as well as rifles.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] A court in Makhachkala gave a local resident a two-year suspended sentence, finding him guilty of participating in a religious extremist organization, the Dagestan FSB reported.
Here’s hoping they can keep track of him going forward, against his next big adventure.
The court and the investigation established that the native of Makhachkala was a member of a cell of the At-Takfir Val-Hijra religious extremist organization banned by the court in Dagestan, took part in the meetings of its adherents and called for the overthrow of the constitutional order in Russia.
The At Takfir wal Hijra movement has existed since 1971. Its leader was the Upper Egyptian agronomist Shukri Mustafa (1942-1978).
Originally Muslim Brotherhood, he joined Sayyid Qutb in splitting off to pursue violent jihad. After Shukri Mustafa was executed, the group split again, the more moderate faction following Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who subsequently became Al Qaeda’s second in command. Takfir wal Hijra has cells all over the place — Ukraine reported arresting three Crimean turbans in 2009, and a larger cell was tied up in Moscow in 2013.
The creators of the movement came to the conclusion that the Egyptian society no longer corresponds to Islam, so in 1973 the Takfirists left for the sparsely populated foothill regions of Egypt.
In 1976, the size of the group (they called themselves Jamaat al-muslimin - "community of Muslims", considering the rest infidels) was several thousand people. In 1977, members of the movement took hostage the former Minister for Religious Affairs of the Egyptian government, Muhammad al-Dhahabi. Shukri Mustafa was arrested in 1977 and executed in 1978, RIA Novosti informs. The activity of the international religious association "At Takfir wal-Hijra" (Atonement and Exodus) is prohibited in Russia decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of September 15, 2010.
Smart move, Russia.
The Leninsky District Court of Makhachkala found him guilty of participating in a religious extremist organization (Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), RIA "Dagestan" cited a message from the press service of the FSB for the republic today.
"The court sentenced him to a two-year suspended sentence with a one-year probationary period," the agency said.
Note that the maximum penalty under this article is six years in prison.
The verdict has already entered into force, the report says.
The "Caucasian Knot" does not yet have any comments from the local resident or his representatives regarding the decision of the court.
[IsraelTimes] Police say officers arrested six Paleostinians for hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at a Border Police base in the West Bank town of Abu Dis, on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Around 100 Paleostinians rioted in the area, and Border Police officers responded with crowd dispersal means, police say.
The six suspects are residents of the area, and have been taken for further questioning.
Last night, a 16-year-old Paleostinian was rubbed out by Israeli troops after allegedly hurling Molotov cocktails at a military post near the town.
[IsraelTimes] Police say two Border Police officers have been lightly hurt in a suspected ramming in the West Bank town of Silat al-Harithiya.
According to police, a vehicle accelerated toward troops in an armored vehicle at high speed and collided with it, injuring the two.
The two officers were taken for further medical treatment at their base, police say.
The driver of the vehicle has been arrested, and he has been taken for further questioning.
The incident comes amid festivities in the area, as troops enter the town to demolish the home of a suspect charged in a deadly shooting attack near Homesh last December, according to Paleostinian media reports.
[IsraelTimes] Two coppers were moderately hurt in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday evening, police and medics said.
In a statement, police said an assailant attacked the two officers near an entrance to the Temple Mount, and they responded with gunfire.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said the two men in their 20s were treated at the scene and then taken to the Shaare Zedek and Hadassah Mount Scopus hospitals in the city.
The alleged Paleostinian assailant died of his wounds after being shot, a police spokesperson confirmed to The Times of Israel.
— NORTH PRESS AGENCY - ENGLISH (@NPA_English) March 7, 2022
DARAA, Syria (North Press) – On Monday, unknown individuals targeted a military vehicle of the Syrian government forces with an IED in the eastern countryside of Daraa, southern Syria.
A military vehicle affiliated with the Brigade 52 of the government forces was targeted with an IED planted by unknown persons on the road between al-Hirak and Soura towns, east of Daraa, an eyewitness said.
The vehicle was delivering food to the military points of the government forces in the area, and 5 members were in, the eyewitness added.
The targeting did not result in human casualties, according to the eyewitness.
Assassinations dominate the scene in Syria’s southern governorate of Daraa, most of which are filed against unknown persons and they target former members of the opposition factions and those who have been subject to settlement agreements.
Despite the entire control of the Syrian government on Daraa and the reconciliation it made with the residents, the governorate witnesses unrest and security chaos where arrests, assassinations, and killings have sharply increased.
Reporting by Mo’ayed al-Ashqar
Posted by: badanov ||
03/08/2022 00:00 ||
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Residents of #Syria’s Afrin and other areas are arbitrary arrested by Turkish-backed opposition factions for ransoms or for pushing them to leave their areas.https://t.co/qQKUu3T0Be
— NORTH PRESS AGENCY - ENGLISH (@NPA_English) March 7, 2022
ALEPPO NORTHERN COUNTRYSIDE, Syria (North Press) – The Turkish-backed Levant Front faction arrested on Monday evening a resident of the village of Kafr Jannah in Sharan district in the countryside of Afrin, north of Aleppo.
“Aref Hamdoush, a resident of the village of Kafr Jannah, was arrested by members of the Levant Front on charges of collaborating with the Autonomous Administration previously,” a special source told North Press.
“Hamdoush was arrested at al- Shatt checkpoint at the entrance to the city of Azaz while going to the city. He was taken to one of the to the faction’s security points of the faction and his fate is still unknown,” the source added.
The area, according to human rights reports, has been witnessing systematic arrest campaigns against the residents with the aim of taking money and pushing them leave their areas.
Reporting by Farouq Hamo
Posted by: badanov ||
03/08/2022 00:00 ||
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— NORTH PRESS AGENCY - ENGLISH (@NPA_English) March 7, 2022
DEIR EZ-ZOR, Syria (North Press) – On Monday, several government forces’ members were killed and wounded in a missile attack carried out by unknown on a military point of the government forces in the town of eastern Deir ez-Zor, east Syria.
“Unidentified gunmen targeted a military point of the Fourth Division of the government forces at the western entrance to the town,” a military source from the government forces, in the town of Boqrus, 10 km east of Deir ez-Zor, told North Press.
“The attack resulted in the killing of two members of the city of Homs in east of Syria, and the injury of three members with mild injuries. They were taken to al-Assad Hospital in the center of Deir ez-Zor, and they are in good condition, according to a doctor in the hospital.
The Badia regions and the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor are a source of concern for the Iranian-backed factions and the government forces, as they witness operations by ISIS cells where the government forces and Iranian factions sustained heaves loses, despite the intensive security campaigns to comb the area.
On Sunday, 13 government forces’ soldiers were killed and 18 others were wounded in the Palmyra desert, in an attack by gunmen on a bus they were traveling in.
Reporting by Omar Abdulrahman
Posted by: badanov ||
03/08/2022 00:00 ||
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Fifteen soldiers have died in an Islamic State group attack on an army bus in the central Syrian desert, a war monitor said, as state media reported a "terrorist attack".
Despite the fall of IS's "caliphate" in 2019, the group continues to launch deadly attacks from hideouts in the Syrian desert, which extends from the outskirts of the capital Damascus to the Iraqi border.
IS cells "attacked a military bus" in the Palmyra desert, "killing 15 soldiers and wounding 18 others", the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
State news agency SANA had reported 13 dead "including officers" and 18 wounded in a "terrorist attack" on a military bus on Sunday afternoon.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources across the country, said the death toll could rise as most of the soldiers were "seriously wounded".
IS did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack.
Read the rest at the link
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03/08/2022 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[AlAhram] 
...he succulent fruit of the union of splinter factions from Mokhtar Bekmokhtar'sal-Mourabitunes and MUJAO. Once the dust had settled and the smell of gunsmoke had dissipated, they became the Islamic State in Mali, then adopted their present clever name. They are headed by Adnan Abu Walid Saharaoui. It operates along the borders of 
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century...
[IsraelTimes] Police say officers arrested six Paleostinians for hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at a Border Police base in the West Bank town of 
