Tag: isis

IS hostage-takers killed as Russian prison siege ends: authorities

  MOSCOW, June 16, 2024 (AFP) – Russian authorities said Sunday that they had brought a siege at a prison in the southern Rostov region to a swift end, killing the Islamic State hostage-takers and freeing their two prison guard captives unharmed. The prison service had earlier reported that the two guards had been taken hostage by an unspecified number of Islamic State detainees and had entered negotiations for their release. But a short time […]

Four teenagers detained in Germany over ‘Islamist attack’ plot

By Hui Min NEO BERLIN, April 12, 2024 (AFP) – Police have detained two girls and two boys — all teenagers — in western Germany on suspicion they were planning an Islamist attack, prosecutors said on Friday, with churches or synagogues as possible targets. Three were arrested in North Rhine-Westphalia state, who are “strongly suspected of planning an Islamist-motivated terror attack and of having committed to carrying it out”, Duesseldorf prosecutors said in a statement. […]

Gun attack at Moscow concert leaves more than 60 dead

KRASNOGORSK, Russia, March 23, 2024 (AFP) – Gunmen who opened fire at a Moscow concert hall killed more than 60 people and wounded over 100 while sparking an inferno, authorities said Saturday, with the Islamic State group claiming responsibility. Attackers dressed in camouflage uniforms entered the building on Friday, opened fire and threw a grenade or incendiary bomb, according to a journalist for the RIA Novosti news agency at the scene. Fire quickly spread through […]

Six soldiers killed, one militant dead in Mindanao as hunt for bombers continues

MANILA, Feb 19, 2024 (AFP) – Six soldiers and at least one Islamist militant have been killed in the southern Philippines, an army spokesman said Monday, as security forces hunted down fighters believed to have bombed a Catholic mass last December. The clashes took place Sunday in the jungle near the town of Munai on Mindanao island, Philippine army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala told AFP. “This is part of the operation against the Dawlah Islamiyah. […]

2 Filipino pro-IS militants suspected in Catholic church bombing

MANILA, Dec 6, 2023 (AFP) – Philippine police named two Filipino members of a pro-Islamic State militant group on Wednesday as suspects in the deadly bombing of a Catholic mass in the country’s insurgency-plagued south. Four people were killed and 50 were wounded in Sunday’s attack on worshippers gathered inside a university gym in Marawi, the country’s largest Muslim city, which was besieged by militants in 2017. The Islamic State group claimed the bombing, which […]

Singapore detains student for planning attacks on city

Singapore has detained an 18-year-old man, accusing him of supporting the Islamic State group and planning to carry out attacks, security officials said Wednesday. Muhammad Irfan Danyal bin Mohamad Nor, a Singaporean student, was detained in December under the Internal Security Act, which allows for detention without trial for up to two years. He became radicalised after viewing Islamic State group propaganda online, authorities said in a statement, adding that he wanted to use social […]

Two Israeli police killed in attack claimed by Islamic State group

by Nir KAFRI Agence France-Presse HADERA, Israel (AFP) – Two police officers were shot dead in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group in the northern Israeli city of Hadera late Sunday as top US and Arab diplomats visited the Jewish state for an unprecedented regional meeting, authorities said. Police said the two gunmen — Israeli Arabs identified by Israeli intelligence as local IS operatives — were killed by counterterrorism officers who happened to […]

Biden says IS leader killed in US military raid

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Joe Biden said Thursday that the leader of the Islamic State group had been “taken off the battlefield” during a raid by US forces in Syria. “Last night at my direction, US military forces in northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our allies, and make the world a safer place,” Biden said in a statement. “Thanks to the skill and bravery of […]

Young Iraqi film students tell their own stories from Mosul

by Tony Gamal-Gabriel Agence France-Presse MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) – A budding Iraqi filmmaker yells “action!” as an actress clambers over rubble in Mosul’s Old City, proud students of a nascent film school in the former jihadist bastion. Mosul still bears the scars of the brutal reign of the Islamic State group, who overran the northern Iraqi city in 2014 and imposed their ultra-conservative interpretation of Islamic law. They destroyed everything from centuries-old churches to musical […]

URGENT: Blast heard in Afghan capital Kabul: AFP journalists

A loud blast was heard in the Afghan capital Kabul on Sunday by AFP journalists, hours after US officials warned of the possibility of a terror attack. A security official from the recently deposed government told AFP it was a rocket that “initial information shows hit a house”. bur/ecl/jds/fox/axn © Agence France-Presse

JUST IN: Biden warns Kabul bombers ‘we will hunt you down’

    WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Joe Biden pledged on Thursday to hunt down the perpetrators of the suicide bombings in Kabul that killed 12 American troops. “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” Biden said in an address from the White House during which he praised the slain US troops as “heroes.” Biden also vowed on Thursday that the United States […]

World leaders condemn ‘despicable’ Kabul airport attack

    By Agence France Presse Deadly coordinated explosions on Thursday tore through crowds of people at Kabul airport hoping to board flights to safety, as countries raced to evacuate as many people as possible before an August 31 deadline. Here is a round-up of the reaction to the attack following the Taliban’s power grab. – Britain – Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the attack as “barbaric”, paying tribute to the “phenomenal effort” of those […]