Tag: isis

No direct link between shooter, IS militants: officials

(Reuters) U.S. authorities said on Monday they had found no direct links between Islamic State militants and the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, describing him as a homegrown extremist who was inspired by radical Islamist groups. The FBI and other agencies were still looking at evidence inside the club and on the closed-off streets around the Pulse nightclub, where New York-born Omar Mateen perpetrated the worst mass shooting in […]

IS claims Orlando shooting in radio bulletin

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) –The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting that killed 50 people, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by “one of the soldiers of the caliphate”. “Allah allowed Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out an attack entering a crusader gathering in a night club… in Orlando in Florida, killing and wounding more than 100 of them,” a bulletin […]

Gunman in worst U.S. massacre described as ‘quiet,’ with few friends

  (REUTERS) The photo from Omar Mateen’s high-school yearbook is hardly remarkable – a toothy, dimpled smile with a peach fuzz mustache below a mop of black hair. But his transformation from high-school football player to perpetrator of America’s worst mass shooting raises questions over whether authorities, and the security company where he worked, missed red flags over the depth of his apparent sympathies with Muslim extremists and whether the United States has a clear […]

Libyan forces claim port in Islamic State stronghold of Sirte

  (Reuters)  Forces aligned with Libya’s unity government said on Friday they had taken control of the port of Sirte, making further gains in Islamic State’s North African stronghold. Brigades largely composed of fighters from Misrata advanced this week to the perimeter of Sirte’s city center, after launching a counter attack against Islamic State last month and driving the militant group back along the coastal road between the two cities. The brigades are part of […]

Syrian and Russian aircraft step up bombing of Aleppo city – monitor

  (Reuters)    Nearly 50 air strikes hit rebel-held areas in and around the Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday in some of the heaviest recent raids by Russian and Syrian government aircraft, residents and a monitoring group said. The group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also said an unidentified war plane had crashed in countryside south of Aleppo, in an area where Islamist rebel fighters are battling the Syrian army and Iranian-backed forces. It […]

Australia holds five suspected of plotting sailing trip to join Islamic State

  (Reuters) — Australian police have detained five men suspected of planning to sail a small boat from the far north of the country on to Indonesia and the Philippines and finally to Syria to join Islamic State, officials said on Wednesday (May 11). The men were held on Tuesday (May 10) after towing the seven-meter boat almost 3,000 km (1,865 miles) from Melbourne to Cairns in Queensland state, police said. “There have been reports that […]

IHS: Islamic State boosts attacks in response to territorial losses

  (REUTERS)  Islamic State attacks have increased this year, particularly in Iraq and Syria as the group responds to substantial territorial losses, a U.S.-based analysis firm IHS said on Sunday. There were 891 attacks during the first quarter of 2016 in neighbors Iraq and Syria, more than in any three-month period since the militants’ sweeping advance in mid-2014, IHS said in a new report. Those attacks killed 2,150 people, a 44 percent rise over the […]

Obama: 250 more US troops to help fight IS in Syria

HANOVER, Germany (AFP) Monday 4/25/2016 –President Barack Obama said Monday the US would send up to 250 more military trainers to help fight the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria. “I have approved the deployment of up 250 additional US personnel in Syria, including special forces,” Obama said in Germany. “They’re not going to be leading the fight on the ground, but they will be essential in providing the training, in assisting local forces as they continue […]

Obama: U.S. giving more support to Iraq as it fights Islamic State

President Barack Obama said in an interview broadcast on Monday that the United States is providing more support to Iraq as its military moves to take back territory from Islamic State, and he expects the city of Mosul will be retaken eventually. “As we see the Iraqis willing to fight and gaining ground, let’s make sure that we are providing them more support,” Obama said in an interview with CBS News. U.S. officials announced in […]

Videographics on Brussels attack

https://youtu.be/bUVUyiBsebI   The Islamic State group on Tuesday officially claimed responsibility for attacks at Brussels airport and on a metro train in the Belgian capital that left some 35 people dead. (Courtesy AFP)

Two suicide bombers kill 15 at Shi’ite mosque in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) — Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a Shi’ite mosque in Baghdad on Thursday (February 25), killing at least 15 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State militants. Fifty other people were wounded in the blast in the predominantly Shi’ite Shuala neighbourhood of the Iraqi capital, police and medical sources said. The first bomber detonated his vest inside the mosque and the second blew himself up when security forces gathered […]

Obama warns Russia ‘world will be watching’ Syria ceasefire

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Barack Obama put the onus for upholding a ceasefire in Syria firmly on the regime and its Russian ally Thursday, warning Moscow and Damascus that the “world will be watching.” Hours before the Saturday cessation of hostilities comes into force, Obama huddled with his top national security advisors to plot the way forward and discuss the campaign against the Islamic State group. “Everybody knows what needs to happen,” Obama […]