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(Reuters) — Belgium’s interior minister said Belgian resolve and motivation to fight extremism will only increase in the aftermath of Islamic State suicide bomb attacks on Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train on Tuesday (March 22) which killed at least 30 people. “It’s a day of mixed feelings, from one side very sad about what happened for the victims and the families, so we share our sympathies with those people. From the other […]
President Benigno S. Aquino III denied that Islamic State-linked militants are operating in the southern Philippines, describing armed groups in the area as mercenaries who are looking to raise funds from abroad. A handful of small but violent Islamist militant groups in the south have posted videos in social media pledging alliance to Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria and displaying the trademark black flag. Last month, the army and air force fought a […]
KUALA Lumpur, Malaysia (AFP) — The Islamic State group is trying to establish a stronghold in the violence-racked southern Philippines, the head of the nation’s biggest Muslim rebel organisation warned Monday. Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairman Murad Ebrahim said the extremist IS seeks to capitalize on growing frustration over the breakdown of efforts to end a decades-long Muslim separatist rebellion in the southern Mindanao region. The peace process has been frozen since the Philippine […]
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 […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — US President Barack Obama warned Russia and Damacus that the “world will be watching”, hours before a partial truce was due to come into force in war-torn Syria on Saturday. Obama said “the coming days will be critical” for the ceasefire brokered by Moscow and Washington, and agreed to by both President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Syria’s top opposition grouping. The deal — which excludes the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group and […]
UNITED STATES, United States (AFP) — The UN Security Council is expected to vote Friday on a US-Russian draft resolution endorsing the Syria ceasefire, diplomats said. The 15-member council is set to meet as of 2000 GMT to hear a report from UN envoy Staffan de Mistura and could vote on the measure at that session. The draft text obtained by AFP welcomes the truce as “a step towards a lasting ceasefire” and endorses the US-Russian agreement […]
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 […]
WASHINGTON D. C., United States (Reuters) — U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday (February 25) expressed confidence that the United States would prevail in its fight against the Islamic State, but said that an end to the conflict in Syria would be key to dismantling the group. Obama made the comments following a meeting with the National Security Council at the State Department. Obama said his security team was realistic about how difficult the fight […]
ANKARA, Turkey (AFP) — It started with a rumble that sounded like thunder or an earthquake, sending startled residents rushing to their balconies, who watched in horror as plumes of smoke rose over central Ankara. It wasn’t long before their worst fears were confirmed: Turkey’s capital, still reeling from twin blasts that killed over 100 last year, had been hit again. Sirens blaring, ambulances and police cars raced to the scene of the explosion […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Russian air strikes in and around the city of Aleppo against opponents of the Syrian regime are benefitting the Islamic State group, a senior US official charged Wednesday. “What Russia’s doing is directly enabling ISIL,” Brett McGurk, President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the coalition fighting the group in Syria and Iraq, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. US Secretary of State John Kerry has taken the lead over the past […]
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AFP) — Kurdish forces backed by Arab rebel groups captured a strategic air base and the adjacent town in northern Syria from rival anti-government factions overnight, a monitoring group said early Thursday. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and its Arab allies expelled Islamist and other rebel fighters from the Minnigh air base and adjacent town, north of Syria’s second city Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP. The advance comes […]
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday (January 28) that defeating “terrorism” had to be Syria’s main priority problem, not who is leading the war-ravaged country. Rouhani said that the main issue in the devastating five-year war in Syria was the threat from the Sunni militant group Islamic State and their supporters, and not Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “The problem today in Syria and the region is not a question of ‘this person’ or ‘that […]
