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MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) – Somalia’s deadliest ever attack, a truck bomb in the capital Mogadishu, has now killed 358 people with 228 more injured, the government said late Friday, a major jump in the fatality toll. A truck packed with explosives blew up in Hodan on October 14, destroying some 20 buildings in the bustling commercial district, leaving scores of victims burned beyond recognition. Several experts told AFP the truck was probably carrying at least 500 kilos […]
ADEN, Yemen (AFP) — Al-Qaeda fighters have retreated from an oil-rich southern province of war-ravaged Yemen in the face of an assault by an elite United States-backed government force, a military official said Monday. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), seen by the US as the global network’s most dangerous franchise, has exploited Yemen’s war to expand its presence in the country’s south. But special forces, trained by the United Arab Emirates and backed by […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Fighting between Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and a former Al-Qaeda affiliate on the Syria-Lebanon border halted Thursday after a ceasefire was reached, Lebanese media and Hezbollah outlets reported. The ceasefire comes a week after the powerful Shiite militant group launched an offensive against the jihadists in the mountainous Jurud Arsal border region. Hezbollah’s “War Media” outlet said “a ceasefire that began at 6:00 am (0300 GMT) is in effect on all the […]
BAMAKO, Mali (Reuters) – A new alliance of Islamist militant groups linked to al Qaeda on Monday (June 19) claimed responsibility for an attack that killed at least five people at a Mali luxury resort popular with Western expatriates just outside the capital Bamako. The militants’ al-Zallaqa Media Foundation posted a statement on its Telegram channel saying that al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Mali, Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen, had said the attack bears a message to the […]
by Ian Timberlake with David Harding in Doha Agence France Presse United States President Donald Trump threw his weight behind efforts to isolate Qatar on Tuesday, backing Saudi Arabia and its allies after they cut ties with Doha over claims it supports extremism. In a surprise move against a key US ally, Trump suggested Qatar — home to the largest American airbase in the Middle East — was funding extremism as he tacitly backed the diplomatic […]
(Eagle News) — The Department of Labor and Employment has suspended the deployment of Filipino workers to Qatar amid a diplomatic crisis that has engulfed the region, this as the head of the Philippine Embassy in Doha called on all Filipinos there to “remain calm.” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the suspension of the deployment was effective today, June 6. There are 141,000 documented Filipino workers in Qatar. Meanwhile, in an advisory, Ambassador Alan TImbayan called on […]
by Ian Timberlake with David Harding in Doha Agence France-Presse RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia and several of its allies on Monday cut relations with Qatar, accusing it of supporting extremism, in the biggest diplomatic crisis to have hit the region in years. Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and the Maldives also severed ties with gas-rich Qatar, which Riyadh accused of supporting groups, including some backed by Iran, “that aim to destabilize […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US military said Wednesday that it had killed eleven Al-Qaeda operatives, including a veteran leader and suicide bombing pioneer, in a bombing raid in Syria. The Pentagon said Abu Hani al-Masri, the Qaeda veteran, was one of those killed in the precision airstrikes near Idlib carried out on February 3-4. Al-Masri was an early official in al-Qaeda, overseeing the group’s training camps in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A US strike against a senior Al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan in October also killed two other senior operatives, the Pentagon said Monday. The Defense Department had already announced the death of Farouq al-Qahtani, Al-Qaeda’s emir for northeastern Afghanistan, who was killed in the October 23 drone strike in Kunar province. On Monday, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook confirmed the strike also killed Bilal al-Utabi, Qahtani’s deputy, as well as Abd […]
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AFP) — Bangladesh began observing two days of national mourning Sunday after 20 hostages were slaughtered at a restaurant packed with foreigners in a terrifying escalation of a campaign of attacks by Islamist extremists. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina decreed the mourning period as she vowed to drag Bangladesh back from the brink, warning of a concerted bid to turn one of the world’s most populous nations into a failed state. Amid mass condemnation of […]
ADEN , Yemen (AFP) — Al-Qaeda militants, including three suicide bombers who blew up vehicles, killed at least 13 Yemeni government troops outside the southeastern port city of Mukalla on Thursday, a military official said. Several soldiers were also wounded in the attack on the eastern outskirts of the Hadramawt provincial capital, which the army recaptured from Al-Qaeda last month, ending a year of jihadist rule, the official said. One suicide bomber rammed a vehicle […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – US troops are helping United Arab Emirates forces push Al-Qaeda-affiliated forces from a Yemeni port, and the Pentagon has stepped up air strikes against the jihadists in the war-torn country. Defense Department spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis’s confirmation of the deployment marked the first time the Pentagon has publicly acknowledged that US troops are operating inside Yemen. Davis said a “very small number” of military personnel has been working with […]
