Tag Archives: Al Qaeda

U.S. military seeks to prepare Africa for shifting terror threat

THIES, Senegal (Reuters) – African forces began a U.S.-led counter-terrorism training program in Senegal on Monday amid what a U.S. commander said were rising signs of collaboration between Islamist militant groups across north Africa and the Sahel.

The annual “Flintlock” exercises started only weeks after an attack in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou left 30 people dead. The assault on a hotel used by foreigners raised concerns that militants were expanding from a stronghold in north Mali toward stable, Western allies like Senegal.

Al Qaeda (AQIM) fighters claimed responsibility for the attack, one of increasingly bold regional strikes in the Sahel, a poor, arid zone between the Sahara Desert and Sudanian Savanna that is home to a number of roving militant groups.

U.S. Commander for Special Operations Command Africa Brigadier General Donald Bolduc told reporters on Monday that increased collaboration between militant groups meant they have been able to strengthen and strike harder in the region.

“We have watched that collaboration manifest itself with ISIS becoming more effective in north Africa, Boko Haram becoming more deadly in the Lake Chad Basin (and) AQIM adopting asymmetrical attacks … against urban infrastructure,” he said. ISIS, or ISIL, is used for the militant group Islamic State.

Bolduc said that cooperation had increased as Islamic State exploited a power vacuum in Libya to expand its self-declared caliphate, which takes up large areas in Syria and Iraq.

“We know in Libya that they (AQIM and ISIS) are working more closely together. It’s more than just influence, they (AQIM) are really taking direction from them,” he said.

Not all security experts agree that there are emerging alliances between Islamist militant groups. Some argue that competition between groups has led to more attacks.

This year’s program, which opened on a dusty airstrip in Senegal’s central city of Thies, involves around 1,700 mostly African special operation forces. Western partners including France and Germany are among more than 30 countries participating.

Nathan Broshear, spokesman for U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, said the exercises were called Flintlock, after a type of firearm, to symbolize readiness for any threat.

Bolduc stressed the importance of regional cooperation and intelligence-sharing and said the United States would help Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon set up a joint intelligence center by the middle of next year.

The United States already supports a regional task force against the Nigeria-based group Boko Haram.

The Ouagadougou attack and a hotel attack in Mali’s capital in November led to a greater emphasis on preparing for urban attacks this year through training to increase cooperation between military forces and police.

At the request of African partners, the exercises will also include anti-Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) training.

The program, an annual event since 2005, will run from February 8 through 29. Some exercises will also be held in Mauritania.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

Mass deaths in Syrian jails amount to crime of ‘extermination’, U.N. says

GENEVA (Reuters) – Detainees held by the Syrian government are being killed on a massive scale amounting to a state policy of “extermination” of the civilian population, a crime against humanity, United Nations investigators said on Monday.

The U.N. commission of inquiry called on the Security Council to impose “targeted sanctions” on high-ranking Syrian civilian and military officials responsible for or complicit in deaths, torture and disappearances in custody, but stopped short of naming the suspects.

The independent experts said they had also documented mass executions and torture of prisoners by two jihadi groups, the Nusra Front and Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. These constituted war crimes and in the case of Islamic State also crimes against humanity, it said.

The report, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Deaths in Detention”, covers March 10, 2011 to November 30, 2015. It is based on interviews with 621 survivors and witnesses and evidence gathered by the team led by chairman Paulo Pinheiro.

“Over the past four and a half years, thousands of detainees have been killed while in the custody of warring parties,” the Commission of Inquiry on Syria said.

The U.N. criticism of the Damascus government comes at a time when its forces have been advancing with the aid of Russian air strikes. A Moscow-backed government assault near the city of Aleppo this month marks one of the biggest momentum shifts in the five year war and helped torpedo peace talks last week.

Pinheiro, noting that the victims were mostly civilian men, told a news briefing: “Never in these five years these facilities that are described in our report have been visited and we have repeatedly asked the government to do so.”

There was no immediate response by the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which has rejected previous reports.

“Prison officials, their superiors throughout the hierarchy, high-ranking officials in military hospitals and the military police corps as well as government were aware that deaths on a massive scale were occurring,” Pinheiro said.

“Thus we concluded there were ‘reasonable grounds’ – that is (the threshold) that we apply – to believe that the conduct described amounts to extermination as a crime against humanity.”

NAMES KEPT IN U.N. SAFE

Tens of thousands of detainees are held by the government atany one time, and thousands more have “disappeared” after arrest by state forces or gone missing after abduction by armed groups, the report said.

Through mass arrests and killing of civilians, including by starvation and denial of medical treatment, state forces have “engaged in the multiple commissions of crimes, amounting to a systematic and widespread attack against a civilian population”.

There were reasonable grounds to believe that “high-ranking officers”, including the heads of branches and directorates commanding the detention facilities and military police, as well as their civilian superiors, knew of the deaths and of bodies buried anonymously in mass graves.

They are thus “individually criminally liable”, the investigators said, calling again for Syria to be referred to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a decision that only the Security Council can take.

“It depends on the political will of states. Apparently for Syria now, there is none – there is total impunity, unfortunately,” said panel member Carla del Ponte.

“We are still waiting for a green light for international justice,” she said.

“The Security Council doesn’t do anything and can’t do anything because of the veto”, she added, a reference to Russia, Assad’s ally, which has repeatedly used its power as a permanent Council member to block resolutions against Damascus.

Over the past four years, the investigators have drawn up a confidential list of suspected war criminals and units from all sides which is kept in a U.N. safe in Geneva. Pinheiro said “we have included new names” but gave no details.

Del Ponte disclosed that the U.N. investigators have provided judicial assistance to various authorities in response to 15 requests for information on foreign fighters in Syria.

She declined to identify the countries involved, but later told Reuters: “These are low-level and middle-level perpetrators because they are foreign fighters, not high-ranking.”

The Nusra Front, which is allied to al Qaeda, and Islamic State, which has proclaimed a “caliphate” in swathes of Syria and Iraq, have committed mass executions of captured government soldiers and subjected civilians to “illicit trials” by Sharia courts which ordered death sentences, the report said.

“Due to their exclusive control of large territories and its centralized command and control structure the so-called ISIS established detention facilities as far as we know are in Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Aleppo. Serious violations were documented in these facilities, including torture and mass executions,” Pinheiro said.

“Accountability for these and other crimes must form part of any political solution,” the investigators said, five days after U.N.-sponsored peace talks were suspended without any result.

DEAD BODIES

Raneem Matouq, daughter of prominent lawyer Khalil Matouq missing since Oct 2012, said she had been held for two months in 2014 at Military Security Damascus Branch 227 after being arrested for her own “peaceful activism” while a student.

Inmates at the detention facility, estimated to hold several thousand, have died as a result of torture, disease and appalling prison conditions, including chronic lack of food, according to the U.N. report.

“I was with 10 other girls in a room one-and-a-half metres long by two meters long. For guys it was a room the same scale but they had 30-40 men, with dead bodies,” Matouq told Reuters on a visit to Geneva last week with Amnesty International.

“It was full of insects, we were sleeping on the floor, there was no toilet,” she said. “We were allowed to go to the toilet three times a day, we called it ‘the picnic’ because we could walk outside.

“Sometimes we would find dead bodies inside the toilet (area). It was so horrible, they were all men.”

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Ralph Boulton and Peter Graff)

Afghanistan needs long-term U.S. commitment, general says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States must make a long-term commitment to Afghanistan to stop security there from worsening further and prevent attacks on the West by militants based there, the outgoing commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan said on Tuesday.

General John Campbell said in testimony before a congressional committee that while Afghan security forces had shown “uneven” performance in 2015 and faced major leadership problems, continued U.S. support for the Afghan government was needed to defeat the Taliban and other militant groups including al Qaeda and the Haqqani network.

“These are certainly not residual threats that would allow for a peaceful transition across Afghanistan,” Campbell said. “Ultimately the threats Afghanistan faces require our sustained attention and forward presence.”

Campbell has commanded U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan for the past 18 months and is expected to retire. President Barack Obama has chosen Lieutenant General John Nicholson to replace Campbell.

A blunt Pentagon report released in December said the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated in the second half of 2015, with the Taliban staging more attacks and inflicting far more casualties on Afghan forces.

The security situation prompted Obama to announce in October that the United States would maintain a force of about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of 2016, instead of drawing down to an embassy-based presence by 2017.

Of 407 district centers in Afghanistan, 26 are under insurgent control or influence, Campbell said, with another 94 district centers viewed as at risk at any given time.

Campbell praised Obama’s decision to maintain a U.S. troop presence throughout most of this year, and said the United States was developing a five-year vision that would avoid the traditional year-to-year planning mindset.

“Now more than ever, the United States should not waver on Afghanistan,” Campbell said. “If we do not make deliberate, measured adjustments, 2016 is at risk of being no better, and possibly worse than 2015.”

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Syrian al Qaeda affiliate ‘much more dangerous’ than ISIS, new report says

While the United States continues its military campaign against the Islamic State, a new report charges that a different terrorist organization poses a greater long-term threat to the country.

Jabhat al Nusra, a Syrian al Qaeda affiliate, “is much more dangerous to the U.S. than the ISIS model in the long run,” according to a report released Friday by the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute.

“Any strategy that leaves Jabhat al Nusra in place will fail to secure the American homeland,” the report cautions.

The report offers a scathing critique of the United States’ anti-terrorism efforts in Iraq and Syria, saying the military campaign “largely ignores” Jabhat al Nusra, a group that “will almost certainly cause the current strategy in Syria to fail.”

It also argues the challenges facing the United States have been oversimplified, and warns a “collapse of world order” could allow the Islamic State and al Qaeda to grow stronger.

The report’s authors argue the United States must choose a new strategy, writing “passivity abroad will facilitate the continued collapse of the international order, including the global economy on which American prosperity and the American way of life depend.”

According to the report, Jabhat al Nusra differs from the Islamic State in its ideologies and practices. While the Islamic States seizing cities and imposes its will on civilians, brutally mistreating anyone who dissents, Jabhat al Nusra has taken a friendlier approach. It has aligned with several groups that oppose Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, a key point of contention in the nation’s ongoing civil war, and provided those groups with “advanced military capabilities.”

In doing so, the report says Jabhat al Nusra “has established an expansive network of partnerships with local opposition groups that have grown either dependent on or fiercely loyal to the organization.” The institutes charge the front has become so engaged with the opposition, it’s now “poised to benefit the most” from the downfall of the Islamic State and Assad’s removal.

“The likeliest outcome of the current strategy in Syria, if it succeeds, is the de facto establishment and ultimate declaration of a Jabhat al Nusra emirate in Syria that has the backing of a wide range of non-al Qaeda fighting forces and population groups,” the report states. Such an emirate would be a key component of al Qaeda’s global terror network, providing manpower and resources to other affiliates while “exporting violence into the heart of the West.”

The report calls al Qaeda and the Islamic State “existential threats” to Europe and the United States, and concludes that while the groups don’t currently have the ability to topple the West, they — along with broader turmoil in the world — threaten the way of life in those nations.

The report argues there are several public misconceptions about national security in the United States, namely that the Islamic State is the nation’s only enemy. The situation is far more complex, the report argues, and stretches far beyond the borders of the Middle East.

Groups such as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda are benefitting from events such as North Korea’s nuclear testing, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Europe’s ongoing migrant crisis, the report’s authors wrote, calling them “symptoms of a collapsing world order” that exacerbate the threat.

Conflicting policies of Iran, Russia and China have also helped fuel the collapse, the report says.

“The collapse of world order creates the vacuums that allow … organizations such as al Qaeda and ISIS to amass resources to plan and conduct attacks on scales that could overwhelm any defenses the United States might raise,” the report states. “Even a marginal increase in such attacks could provoke Western societies to impose severe controls on the freedoms and civil liberties of their populations that would damage the very ideals that must most be defended.”

West African hotels boost security after Burkina attack

DAKAR (Reuters) – West African hotels from Dakar to N’Djamena are strengthening security, adding armed guards and increasing cooperation with local authorities as a pair of high-profile attacks have exposed a growing Islamist threat to foreign travelers.

Al Qaeda fighters killed 30 people on Friday at a hotel and restaurant in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. The assault, the country’s first militant attack on such a scale, came just two months after Islamist militants killed 20 people at a Radisson hotel in Mali’s capital Bamako.

In both instances the attacks targeted establishments popular with Westerners, dozens of whom were taken hostage. Witnesses to the Ouagadougou attack spoke of gunmen singling out white foreigners for execution.

High-end hotels in major cities across the region have been quick to react in the wake of the violence, which diplomats and analysts warn likely marks a new strategy by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its allies.

Abidjan and Dakar, the largest cities in Ivory Coast and Dakar, are viewed as particularly attractive to Islamist militants due to their large Western expatriate populations and steady flow of tourists and business travelers.

“If you strike the capital, you are seen to be striking harder and the threat is there for other cities like Dakar and Abidjan,” Cynthia Ohayon, West Africa analyst at International Crisis Group, said by phone from Ouagadougu.

But diplomats said they had no information on specific threats in either city.

At the Sofitel Hotel Ivoire, one of Ivory Coast’s most luxurious hotels, uniformed police officers were posted around the grounds. The use of metal detectors and body searches was being ramped up. Guard dogs were used to help patrol the lobby.

The 358-room luxury hotel is regularly fully booked as Ivory Coast’s booming economy draws investors and business people from around the world. It also plays host to large international meetings at its adjoining conference center.

“Since the beginning of the week, the security measures have been reinforced,” said Alfred Kouassi, a hotel employee working in the lobby. “The police often come to speak to us with us.”

In Senegal, gendarmes have been deployed at roundabouts and on major streets in neighborhoods popular with Westerners.

Dakar’s Radisson Blu, the sister hotel of the establishment attacked in Bamako in November, installed additional cameras inside and outside, ordered vehicle barriers and had increased security personnel well before the Ouagadougou attacks.

“Of course, there is always a risk, but I can assure you that we have in place all the precautions to control the building in the most professional way,” said Jorgen Jorgensen, the hotel’s general manager.

In Chad’s capital N’Djamena, which was hit by deadly attacks by Islamists in June and July, the government has called upon hotels to carry out car and body searches as well as increase their collaboration with local authorities.

TOURISM THREATENED

While tourism to the region has long been hobbled by poor infrastructure and expensive air travel, it had recently seemed that change was in the air.

Low-budget airlines have launched or expanded in the continent. West Africa had 13,500 hotel rooms in development in 2014, a third of the continent’s total.

Senegal – one of three countries in the region, along with Nigeria and Ghana, that had surpassed 1 million international arrivals – aims to triple tourists by 2025.

Ivory Coast had the third-largest growth of visitor arrivals in Africa in 2014, according to the African Development Bank.

But suddenly the outlook looks much less rosy.

Even in Senegal, long considered to be a bulwark of stability, France has urged citizens to avoid public locations including nightclubs and stadiums.

At the Hotel du Phare, a budget hotel in Dakar that hosts weekly parties popular among twenty-something expatriates, bag checks and security guards for their soirees had increased and secondary doors had been closed.

Penelope Theodosis, who manages the hotel along with her husband, said she had a guard stationed outside at night, but added that she was walking a fine line between making her guests feel safe and frightening them.

“We only have nine rooms … A guardian inside the hotel would cause more fear than reassurance.”

(Additional reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly in Abidjan and Madjiasra Nako in N’Djamena; Editing by Joe Bavier and Ralph Boulton)

American al Qaeda suspect faces new U.S. terrorism charges

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – Federal prosecutors in New York unveiled new criminal charges on Wednesday against a U.S. citizen believed to have once been an al Qaeda operative, accusing him of involvement in a 2009 car bomb attack on a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.

According to a nine-count indictment, Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, 30, helped prepare one of two explosive devices for use in the Jan. 19, 2009 attack.

Prosecutors said an accomplice detonated one device, while Al Farekh’s fingerprints were found on packing tape for the second device, which a second accomplice carried and did not detonate. The military base was not identified.

Sean Maher, a court-appointed lawyer for Al Farekh, did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The Texas-born Al Farekh was charged with providing material support to al Qaeda, providing material support to terrorists and using explosives. He also faces six conspiracy counts including to murder Americans, use a weapon of mass destruction, bomb a government facility and aid al Qaeda.

Al Farekh faces up to life in prison if convicted. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday before U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in Brooklyn, New York.

Also known as Abdullah al-Shami, Al Farekh had been detained in Pakistan prior to being flown to Brooklyn, where he first appeared last April 2.

He pleaded not guilty on June 4 to three criminal counts in an indictment made public a week earlier.

Prosecutors accused Al Farekh of providing material support to al Qaeda from Dec. 2006 to Sept. 2009, in a plot that involved two fellow students from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.

Al Farekh was purportedly inspired by Anwar Al-Awlaki, a radical cleric whose teachings are believed by prosecutors to have inspired terrorism plots including the 2005 London subway bombings and a failed 2010 bombing in New York’s Times Square.

Al-Awlaki was killed in a 2011 U.S. drone attack in Yemen.

The case is U.S. v. Al Farekh, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00268.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)

Hostages in Mali Hotel : U.S. Special Forces Assisted in Rescue Efforts

Two gunmen arrived in cars with diplomatic plates early Friday morning and fired their way into the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali,West Africa’s capital.  A combination of UN peacekeeping forces, U.S. Special Forces and local police  worked together to rescue well over 100 Staff and Guests.  The siege ended with both gunmen killed.  Currently officials are combing the building looking for more injured.  So far 21 people have been confirmed to be dead.   There are an unconfirmed number of injured being brought out of the building.

“U.S. forces have helped move civilians to secured locations as Malian forces clear the hotel of hostile gunmen,” said Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Falvo, a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command said before the crisis ended.

The Islamist terrorists stormed the US-owned hotel,  popular with foreign businesses and airline crews, shooting and shouting “God is great!” in Arabic, according to the BBC.  The gunman took over 170 people including many foreigners as hostages.

Reuters reports that dozens of people were reported to have escaped or been freed. Some people were freed by the attackers after showing they could recite verses from the Koran, while others were brought out by security forces or managed to escape under their own steam.

Interior Security Minister Colonel Salif Traore, speaking on state-run television, said 76 people had been freed by security forces.

Mali has been battling rebels allied to al Qaeda for several years.  An al Qaeda Islamic Terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Terrorists Seize Key Syrian Airbase

The key Syrian government airbase in Idlib has fallen to rebels after a two-year siege of the base.

The majority of the rebel groups that finally overran the base were Islamists groups including the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front.  The capture was possible because a major dust storm that struck the region grounded all the aircraft at the base.

The rebels now control the province of Idlib.

Syrian state TV even conceded the base, stating that troops had “evacuated their positions and moved to another point”.

Syrian President Bashir al-Assad has admitted that his army is facing a “manpower problem.”  He said that they will have to give up some land so they have sufficient forces to defend “more important” properties.

At least 240,000 people have died so far in the four year Syrian civil war.

Al-Qaeda Second In Command Killed

The number two man in the al-Qaeda power structure has reportedly been killed in a drone strike in Yemen.

Nasir al-Wuhayshi was called the “leading light” of the terrorist organization and one terrorism analyst told CNN the death is “the biggest blow against al-Qaeda since the death of bin Laden.”

“[Al-Wuhayshi] was responsible for the deaths of innocent Yemenis and Westerners, including Americans,” U.S. National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said.

“While AQAP, al Qaeda and their affiliates will remain persistent in their efforts to threaten the United States, our partners and our interests, (al-Wuhayshi’s) death removes from the battlefield an experienced terrorist leader and brings us closer to degrading and ultimately defeating those groups.”

Al-Wuhayshi was notorious for saying that Al-Qaeda needed to “eliminate the cross and the bearer of the cross is America!”

“Nasser al-Wuhayshi was a major global figure among jihadists, even supporters of al-Qaeda’s rival Islamic State viewed Wuhayshi with respect,” Islamic groups analyst Murad Batal al-Shishani said to the Christian Post.

“As well as creating AQAP itself, Wuhayshi also played a major role in forming the AQAP off-shoot, Ansar al-Sharia, in 2011, to appeal to disaffected youth in Yemen at the time of the Arab Spring. AQAP’s leader cultivated good relations with local tribes, which helped his group advance in various places in the south of the country.”

Unfortunately, the man who is replacing al-Wuhayshi is considering a formidable opponent.

“Qasm al-Rimi was considered the brains of the operation,” CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said. “For more than a decade, he’s really been at the helm of the military side of things for AQAP but also planning their large international operations.”

Senator Says U.S. Vulnerable To ISIS

The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said that the United States is “certainly vulnerable” to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said those who support ISIS see them as a “winning organization” so the U.S. has no other choice but to completely defeat the group.

“The best strategy the U.S. can employ to defeat this is actually defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria so that the reality is conveyed that this is not a winning organization, it is a losing organization,” Johnson said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Johnson cited the recent failed attack on a cartoon contest in Texas as an example of ISIS supporters seeing them as “winning” despite the attack failing in its goal.  Johnson said it’s also difficult because they can’t easily deal with those who are activity promoting ISIS.

“The problem is, what do you do with the not-guilty-yet? We do have laws, we have a Constitution, and it’s extremely difficult for law enforcement officials when you might have tens of thousands of sympathizers — how do you track them all?” Johnson asked.

Johnson said that up to 90,000 twitter accounts in the United States were promoting ISIS although Twitter has begun to delete them.

FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that the terrorists are trying to recruit “hundreds, maybe thousands” of potential terrorists in the U.S.  Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the U.S. is in “more serious circumstances today than we were after 9/11.”

“Remember, back then we thought about al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and a few other places? Well, we’ve seen al-Qaeda metastasize,” Ridge told CNN. “It is now a global scourge. And you have the ascendancy of ISIL. The combination of those two groups — their appeal to the lone wolfs and we see them acting in Belgium and in France and in Canada and the United States, so the threat factors and the nature of the threats are far more complicated and far more serious today than on Sept. 12, 2001.”