Orientul Mijlociu

The jihadist insurgency against the Egyptian army and its local allies in the Sinai region has been dominated since late 2014 by the Islamic State’s ‘Sinai province’, the origins of which primarily lay in the group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. There has however been at least one other noteworthy jihadist group present in the Sinai region: Jama’at Jund al-Islam (Group of the Soldiers of the Islam), but its own media output has been infrequent and it is clearly much weaker than the Islamic State’s Sinai province/affiliate. Jama’at Jund al-Islam has appeared to be more aligned with the Islamic State’s rival al-Qa’ida.

The drug, in the form of 84 million Captagon tablets, was worth about one billion euros, police said in a statement, describing the operation as “the biggest seizure of amphetamines in the world”.

Over the past few weeks, protests in Lebanon have regained strength, mainly in response to economic distress and the deterioration in the value of the Lebanese currency, the pound. As the protests were not convenient for Hezbollah when they broke out in October 2019, they are still not convenient with their renewed strength now. (Hezbollah is accused by the protesters as being the major factor of the deterioration of the Lebanese economy due to its activities that prevent foreign aid and economic investments.)

Jewish supremacy is a characteristic of the Zionist Jewish state of Israel. Some Israeli human rights activists deny this fact. Some know it but avoid discussing it for fear of being attacked as anti-Jewish. It is safer for critics of Israel to address the other characteristics of the Zionist state — its settler-colonial origins, its apartheid as enshrined in law, or the bigotry against Jews of color found in Israeli society.

Today’s Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews and glorify — and handsomely profit from — violence against them.

Not long after a Dutch national arrived in Syria to join the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group, he posed next to a crucified body in a photo that later circulated on social media. Two French nationals did the same, instead posing with a severed head.

Clashes intensified on Thursday afternoon between extremist opposition groups Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and the recently formed “Fathbito” (Be Steadfast) Operations Room, in Arab Said, just west of Idlib City—the third day of fighting between the two.

A French jihadist went on trial Thursday on terror charges amid accusations that he oversaw executions in Syria as a senior figure in the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

An al-Qaeda branch in northwest Syria has confirmed that a US drone strike earlier this month killed one of the group’s most senior leaders, a veteran Jordanian jihadi who had been the brother-in-law of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

It is dead wrong to assume that if Israel abandons its plan, most Muslims would give up their desire to destroy Israel and replace it with an extremist Iran-style Islamic state.