A Bulgarian court sentenced two men to life imprisonment without parole on Monday over a 2012 bus bombing that killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian driver at a Black Sea airport. Israeli tourists
The 252nd edition of Al-Naba, the weekly newsletter of the Islamic State (IS), was released on 17 September.
Al-Naba 252 contained reports of guerrilla attacks and targeted assassinations at the Centre—against Iraqi security forces and the Iranian proxy militias in the Hashd al-Shabi in Iraq, and against the SDF/PKK in eastern Syria—and the “West African State”, Chad and Niger specifically. IS has been making the Maghreb a primary front since the caliphate collapsed. There was, as ever, the ideological essay on page eleven (of twelve).
Newton’s Third Law states that “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This is relevant to many aspects of day-to-day life. Public policy and economic strategies are governed by totally different precepts, as different measures have unequal, multidimensional, and long-lasting consequences – many of which are impossible to determine beforehand.
On 11 September 2020 al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) posted a statement that circulated Telegram calling on Muslims in the homes of the Crusaders to launch attacks on France, in response to what was published by the Charlie Hebdo newspaper. Additional chatter around the statement also circulated Telegram. The timing of the ‘call to action’ for lone wolf attacks cannot be ignored. The statement was released on 9/11 anniversary attacks in the United States. Given the length and lack of flashy imagery, it is unclear how inspired lone wolves will be willing to answer the call. The message will most likely only appeal to those insider AQAP base supporters in Yemen and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Senegal has arrested at Blaise Diagne international airport a German national wanted by his country and the Interpol for terrorism.
Swiss federal prosecutors took charge of a homicide investigation, saying on Monday they could not exclude a terrorist motive for the fatal stabbing of a Portuguese man in the western town of Morges at the weekend.
Desperate refugees crammed into cockle-shell boats landing on the shingle beaches of the south Kent coast are easily portrayed as invaders. Anti-immigrant demonstrators were exploiting such fears last weekend as they blockaded the main highway into Dover Port in order “to protect Britain’s borders”. Meanwhile, the home secretary, Priti Patel, blames the French for not doing enough to stop the flow of refugees across the Channel.
Au moins 24 migrants et réfugiés qui tentaient de gagner l’Europe sont présumés morts en Méditerranée dans le naufrage de leur embarcation au large de la Libye, a déclaré mardi l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM).
Migration barely came up at the recent G-7 summit in France—a far cry from just two years ago, when Italy hosted the G-7 in Sicily, which has seen an influx of migrants and asylum-seekers given its proximity to North Africa.
On Friday, Syrian state-run news SANA reported that the Israelis conducted an airstrike in the suburbs outside of Aleppo in southern Syria. The target was the town of al-Safirah where the Syrians once had a major missile production facility.
SANA quoted an unnamed military source who said that “at 1:30 am at dawn on Friday, the Zionist enemy launched an air aggression [sic] targeting the vicinity of Aleppo city with a number of missiles.”
The source added that “the army air defenses confronted the aggression and shot down the majority of the missiles.” However, the Syrian military always claims to shoot down the “majority” of incoming missiles and those boasts are generally ignored by the majority of military analysts.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the U.K.-based watchdog for the Syrian civil war, reported that its personnel heard loud explosions in Aleppo city and the surrounding countryside in the early hours of Friday morning. They said that the Israeli rocket attack, the fourth in the past month on Syrian territory, did in fact lost some missiles due to Syrian air defenses. SOHR’s report stated that the Israeli missiles hit the area of “Defense Factories” near al-Safirah in the eastern countryside of Aleppo, where Iranian-backed militias are located.
No casualties or material damage have been reported.
On September 3, SOHR reported that supposed Israeli airstrikes pounded the positions of Iranian forces and Iranian-backed militias in the al-Thallathat area in al-Bokamal desert in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor. SOHR personnel on the ground documented the killing of nine Iranian-backed militia members; several others were wounded in this attack.
Furthermore, SOHR sources reported that jets, said to be Israeli, also targeted a base that housed Iraqi Hezbollah troops about five kilometers away from Qallat al-Rahbah on the outskirts of al-Mayadeen city in Deir Ezzor. That attack left seven more militia fighters dead. The death toll in the airstrike is expected to rise because of the serious injuries of some casualties.
