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Tag: Islamic State Group

  • Libyan court docket sentences 17 former IS participants to demise

    A court docket in Libya sentenced 17 former participants of the Islamic State staff to demise.

    Benghazi,UPDATED: Dec 20, 2022 08:46 IST

    This can be a locator map for Libya with its capital, Tripoli. (AP Photograph)

    By way of Related Press: A Libyan court docket sentenced 17 former participants of the Islamic State staff to demise, a remark from the rustic’s Tripoli-based best prosecutor mentioned on Monday.

    The demise sentences got out to these convicted of taking part within the killing of 53 folks within the western town of Sabratha and destruction of public assets, in keeping with the remark. Some other 16 militants got jail sentences, two of them for lifestyles. The court docket didn’t specify when the sentences could be performed.

    Libya stays break up between two rival administrations after years of civil conflict. The divide between government within the capital of Tripoli and jap Libya has ended in standard lawlessness. Defense force teams have additionally accrued huge wealth and tool from kidnappings and their keep an eye on over the rustic’s profitable human trafficking business.

    READ: Islamic State claims accountability for shrine assault, Iran vows reaction

    The extremist staff expanded their succeed in in Libya after the 2011 rebellion that toppled and later killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi. IS militants first seized Darna in 2014 after which later Sirte and spaces surrounding the town of Sabratha.

    Then again, in contrast to Syria and Iraq, IS used to be not able to make the most of chaos and take massive swathes of Libya. As a substitute, the crowd used to be restricted to just administrative wallet dotted around the oil-rich North African nation, not able to realize supremacy over Libya’s a large number of well-armed military forces tightly certain by means of tribal loyalties.

    A number of IS coaching camps have been situated out of doors Sabratha. In early 2016, some 700 of its warring parties, maximum of who have been Tunisian, have been founded within the space. In March 2016, associates of the crowd in short took over the town’s safety headquarters and beheaded 12 Libyan safety officers earlier than the use of the headless corpses to dam within reach roads.

    READ: Chennai guy arrested, 2 detained for wearing Islamic State leaflets, bomb-making handbook

    Sirte’s central Martyrs’ Sq. used to be remodeled by means of IS right into a degree for public extrajudicial killings — together with beheadings by means of a sword — for all kinds of offenses.

    In April 2016, close to the peak of its energy, the Libyan department of the militant staff had recruited round 6,000 warring parties, U.S. army mavens estimated.

    IS used to be pushed from its major stronghold, the coastal town of Sirte, in overdue 2016 and fled inland. Then again, the militants deal with a restricted presence in small wallet of the rustic together with the spaces surrounding Sabratha.

    In February 2016, the USA performed an airstrike on an IS coaching camp close to Sabratha, killing no less than 40 folks, as a part of its effort to remove the Islamic State.l

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    Dec 20, 2022

  • Declassified document displays US predictions of IS workforce danger

    US intelligence officers predicted two years in the past that the Islamic State workforce would most likely regain a lot of its former power and world affect, in particular if American and different Western forces diminished their function in countering the extremist motion, consistent with a newly declassified document.

    Analysts mentioned lots of the judgments within the 2020 document seem prescient lately, in particular as the crowd is resurgent in Afghanistan following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of American forces ultimate yr. The Islamic State workforce is now not controlling large swaths of territory or staging assaults in the USA because it did a number of years in the past sooner than a big US-led offensive.

    However it’s now slowly rebuilding some core functions in Iraq and Syria and an increasing number of preventing native governments in puts together with Afghanistan, the place an associate of the IS workforce, additionally recognized via the acronym ISIS, is preventing the ruling Taliban following the USA withdrawal.

    “If the USA and our companions pull again or withdraw farther from spaces the place ISIS is lively, the crowd’s trajectory will an increasing number of rely on native governments’ will and capacity to fill the ensuing safety voids,” says the document, at first revealed in categorized shape in Might 2020, months after then-President Donald Trump’s management reached an settlement with the Taliban to drag out American troops.

    Biden and best nationwide safety officers have cited the new strike killing al-Qaida head Ayman al-Zawahri as proof that The usa maintains an “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism capability in Afghanistan after the withdrawal. U.S. particular forces additionally killed the top of the Islamic State workforce in a February raid in northwest Syria. “The reality of the ones operations are, I believe, reflective how critical this danger surroundings stays,” mentioned Christy Abizaid, director of the Nationwide Counterterrorism Middle, on Thursday. However she added that analysts consider the terrorist danger to the U.S. native land is “much less acute than we’ve observed it” at any time for the reason that 9-11, 2001, assaults.

    Analysts have not too long ago observed enlargement in IS workforce branches world wide, in particular in Africa, mentioned Abizaid, who spoke on the Intelligence and Nationwide Safety Summit outdoor Washington. “Afghanistan is a in reality fascinating tale alongside the ones traces about the place the ISIS associate is and the way we proceed to be curious about it,” she mentioned. Some outdoor analysts say al-Zawahri’s obvious presence in downtown Kabul means that extremist teams are extra comfy working in Afghanistan — and that it’ll be harder to counter the Islamic State workforce because it grows around the nation.

    Bruce Hoffman, senior fellow for counterterrorism on the Washington-based Council on International Family members, known as the Might 2020 document “very clear-eyed and forthright.” “It’s very other working in opposition to ISIS within the remoted mountain redoubts or deep valleys of Afghanistan,” he mentioned. “The benefits that enabled us to so brilliantly take out al-Zawahri, I’d bet, are absent outdoor of Kabul.”

    Whilst the White Space ultimate month launched declassified issues from an intelligence evaluate announcing al-Qaida had no longer reconstituted in Afghanistan, the issues didn’t deal with the Islamic State in Khorasan, the native IS workforce associate. IS-Ok was once chargeable for killing 13 U.S. troops outdoor the Kabul airport all through the withdrawal and has persisted to mount an insurgency in opposition to the Taliban now in keep watch over of the rustic. The Nationwide Safety Council mentioned in a remark that the U.S. is operating to disclaim “ISIS-Ok get admission to to financing, disrupt and deter overseas terrorist combatants from achieving Afghanistan and the area, and counter ISIS-Ok’s violent extremism.”

    The Might 2020 document was once declassified this August and revealed on-line ultimate week via the U.S. Place of work of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence. The ODNI periodically declassifies and releases older intelligence checks. A spokesperson for the ODNI’s Nationwide Counterterrorism Middle declined to respond to questions in regards to the evaluate or deal with the intelligence neighborhood’s present view at the Islamic State workforce. The document predicts that the Islamic State workforce’s world branches are more likely to building up its “capacity to behavior assaults in lots of areas of the arena, together with the West.”

    The U.S. would much more likely face assaults from folks impressed via the crowd’s ideology than plots directed or supported via the crowd, the document mentioned. Power via native governments the place the IS workforce is lively and their world companions “nearly definitely will form the size of ISIS’ resurgence in Iraq and Syria and its growth international,” the document mentioned.

    Professionals recurrently believe the document’s predictions, mentioned Colin Clarke, knowledgeable on counterterrorism who’s director of study for The Soufan Crew, an intelligence and safety consultancy. However best intelligence analysts would had been curious about drafting and reviewing the evaluate, officially referred to as a countrywide intelligence estimate, he mentioned. Clarke famous a number of contemporary IS-linked assaults in Afghanistan, together with an obvious suicide bombing outdoor the Russian embassy in Kabul that killed two diplomats, in addition to ongoing preventing between militants and U.S.-backed forces at a sprawling camp in Syria. “There are a few things that experience came about in the previous few weeks,” he mentioned, “that make you wonder whether the location isn’t extra dire than is being offered.”

  • American girl accused of distinguished function in Islamic state crew

    The FBI has arrested an American girl who federal prosecutors mentioned had risen throughout the ranks of the Islamic State crew in Syria to turn into a battalion commander, coaching ladies and youngsters to make use of attack rifles and suicide belts, the Justice Division disclosed Saturday.

    The lady, Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, a former trainer from Kansas, was once charged with offering subject matter improve to a 15 May Organization. The instances of her seize in Syria weren’t right away recognized, however the FBI flew her to Virginia on Friday to stand prosecution.

    Prosecutors described Fluke-Ekren as enjoying an surprisingly oversized function within the Islamic State as a girl and an American. Fees in opposition to American ladies concerned with the militant crew were uncommon.

    Fluke-Ekren was once smuggled into Syria in 2012 from Libya, court docket paperwork mentioned. She traveled to the rustic, in line with one witness, as a result of she sought after to salary “violent jihad,” Raj Parekh, a federal prosecutor, wrote in a detention memo that was once made public Saturday.

    Consistent with a prison grievance that was once filed in 2019, a witness instructed the FBI that Fluke-Ekren and her husband introduced $15,000 to Syria and used the cash to shop for guns. Her husband, the witness mentioned, was once the commander of snipers for the Islamic State crew; he later was once killed by way of an airstrike whilst seeking to habits a terrorist assault, investigators mentioned. Fluke-Ekren had met him in the US, in line with court docket paperwork.

    The similar witness additionally instructed the FBI that Fluke-Ekren had a plan in 2014 to assault a faculty in the US the usage of a backpack full of explosives. Prosecutors didn’t divulge which faculty she had sought after to focus on. The prison grievance mentioned her plan was once introduced to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the chief of the Islamic State on the time, who licensed investment for it, however that the assault was once placed on dangle after Fluke-Ekren realized she was once pregnant. Fluke-Ekren had a couple of youngsters, however it isn’t transparent what number of.

    Prosecutors mentioned Fluke-Ekren moved to Egypt in 2008, lived there for roughly 3 years after which traveled to Libya, the place she stayed for roughly a 12 months earlier than sneaking into Syria. Consistent with one witness, Fluke-Ekren departed Libya as a result of every other 15 May Organization, Ansar al-Sharia, was once now not carrying out assaults in that nation and she or he sought after to salary violent jihad.

    In his memo arguing to stay Fluke-Ekren at the back of bars whilst she awaits trial, Parekh mentioned she were a “fervent believer within the radical terrorist ideology of ISIS for a few years.” The prosecutor mentioned the federal government had a lot of witnesses who had been ready to testify in opposition to her.

    Consistent with the detention memo, the mayor of the Syrian town of Raqqa, the Islamic State crew’s self-proclaimed capital, licensed the outlet of an all-female army battalion. Fluke-Ekren, investigators mentioned, quickly was the chief and organizer of it.

    Witnesses mentioned Fluke-Ekren taught categories for individuals of the battalion, and on one instance, a tender kid of hers was once observed conserving a system gun. Greater than 100 girls and women gained coaching from her, one witness mentioned.

    Fluke-Ekren had was hoping to create a cadre of suicide bombers that would infiltrate enemies’ positions, however the effort by no means materialized, in line with the grievance. She additionally instructed a witness about her need to assault a shopping center in the US the usage of a remote-detonated car stuffed with explosives.

    Courtroom paperwork mentioned that when the dying of her husband, Fluke-Ekren married every other Islamic State terrorist, a Bangladeshi guy who specialised in drones and labored on a plan to drop chemical bombs the usage of them. He additionally died. She then married an Islamic State army chief who was once answerable for the protection of Raqqa, a witness mentioned.

    Fluke-Ekren instructed a witness that she had attempted to ship a message to her circle of relatives with the purpose of tricking them into believing she was once lifeless so the U.S. executive would no longer attempt to in finding her. Fluke-Ekren additionally mentioned that she by no means sought after to return to the US and sought after to die a martyr in Syria, in accordance the witness.

    Federal prosecutors in Virginia have fastened an competitive effort to prosecute terrorists captured out of the country. The instances can also be extraordinarily tricky as a result of witnesses and different proof can continuously most effective be present in struggle zones, in addition to on account of geopolitical concerns.

    Remaining 12 months, Mohammed Khalifa, a Saudi-born Canadian who traveled to Syria in 2013 and later joined the Islamic State, was once dropped at the US and charged with offering subject matter improve to a 15 May Organization that ended in dying. Khalifa equipped the narration and translation for about 15 movies created and dispensed by way of the militant crew. He later pleaded in charge and faces existence in jail.

    Two British males, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey, who had been a part of an Islamic State mobile of 4 Britons referred to as “the Beatles,” had been dropped at the US in 2020 to stand fees. The gang, which was once for the reason that nickname by way of its sufferers on account of the accents of its individuals, abducted and abused greater than two dozen hostages, together with American reporters James Foley and Steven Sotloff, either one of whom had been beheaded in propaganda movies.

    Kotey pleaded in charge to his function within the deaths of 4 American citizens in Syria. He faces existence in jail. Elsheikh has pleaded no longer in charge and awaits trial.