Israel and its allies fended off almost all the armed drones and missiles fired by Iran on 13 April. This outcome affords both sides a face-saving way out of what could otherwise be a ruinous broader confrontation.
Israeli army officers believe that they can’t defeat Hamas and Israel’s war on HAMAS will have to last till 2026 and possibly 2027.
Ismail Haniyeh, senior Hamas leader and former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (2006–07) and of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip (2007–14). Screen shot is from Al Jazeera broadcast of his statement on Dec 13, 2023
Despite the massive destruction of Gaza by the Israeli army and the terrible killings of civilians, the Palestinian resistance movement led by Hamas’ Izz Al Din Al Qassam Brigades and Saraya Al Quds of Islamic Jihad still remain a formidable force in the Gaza Strip.
There is no need, therefore, to abandon the terms jihadism and jihadist out of political correctness or fear of offending Muslims. When appropriately defined, those terms are helpful in grasping the terrorist and insurgent threats and challenges posed by al-Qa’ida, the Islamic State and similar groups — far more so than khawarij, a term that does not have immediately clear meaning for wider audiences, is historically inaccurate, and sounds like a sneaky effort to cloud a very real threat.
Military experience gained from fighting in Syria’s civil war and decades of clashes with Israel has strengthened the Iran-backed group, but politically, its clout among Lebanon’s populace may be waning.
Summary
Since the Islamic State fell, tens of thousands of people—many of them children—have been herded into Al-Hol, a giant fenced-in camp in Syria, and effectively given life sentences.
The dead turned up everywhere. Two decapitated corpses in a cesspit. The remains of a woman with a pierced skull. A child with a bullet hole in his temple. Men clustering around a ditch suggested the worst, as did women running at full speed through the dirt. With each grim discovery, Jihan Omar renewed a promise to herself: she had to find a way out.
On April 3, 2024, a group of mujahideen from the Caucasus affiliated with Syrian jihadi group Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), released a nine-and-a-half-minute video in Russian.
Abu Maria Al-Qahtani was the founder of Al-Nusra Front, one of the key groups in Syria’s war, and was killed in bombing on Thursday.
As a leading military commander in the revolt against the Syrian regime and Islamic State group, Abu Maria Al-Qahtani, who was killed on Thursday, was a divisive figure within the Islamist wing of the insurgency.
The Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow claimed by the Islamic State (IS) was the deadliest in Russia in two decades, leaving at least 143 dead and almost 200 injured. In its immediate aftermath, several analysts and commentators questioned if the Islamic State had made a bloody comeback.
At the peak of the group’s power, the Islamic State held large swathes of captured territory in Syria and Iraq equal in size to the United Kingdom under its control. It declared its self-styled caliphate in June 2014 and held territory until March 2019.
Since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 terror attack, and against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, which has been ongoing for six months, Jordan has seen a surge in popular support for Hamas and hostility towards Israel, which are expressed in many anti-Israel demonstrations and in explicit calls to confront it and wage jihad against it.[1]
Terror organization: Houthis
Status: Financier
Role: He is running a network (companies in the Middle East, Asia and Africa) generates tens of millions of dollars in revenue from the sale of Iranian commodities, Iranian petroleum, a significant portion of which is then directed through a complex network of intermediaries and exchange houses in multiple countries to the Houthis in Yemen.