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Libya: ’40 decapitated heads’ uncovered in Benghazi

13 Febbraio 2015 By Redazione Islamedianalysis

The Libyan army has discovered 40 decapitated heads while combing the area of Bouatni in Benghazi, days after it seized back a military base in the Libyan city from Islamist fighters.

The decomposed heads have been put in refrigerators to allow medical tests for identification, according to a report on Libyan newspaper Qurynan. It is unclear if the incident is related to recent fighting or dates back to the Muammar Gaddafi era.

The country’s special forces, supported by general Khalifa Haftar, attacked Islamists in the city in mid-October with the purpose to retake it after Benghazi fell to militants last summer.

The Libyan troops conquered the army camp, on a road to the airport outside Benghazi and nearby offices belonging to state mobile operator al-Madar.

But fighting against Islamist forces is still ongoing in other parts of the country, with the Islamic State (Isis) claiming attacks on institutions and the army.

Last month, IS-linked members launched an assault at a luxury hotel in Tripoli, killing three security guards, five foreigners and a hostage.

More recently, a local radio in Sirte was stormed by IS supporters and started broadcasting the group’s propaganda, according to reports.

21 dead in two Boko Haram attacks in NE Nigeria

13 Febbraio 2015 By Redazione Islamedianalysis

At least 21 people were killed in two separate Boko Haram attacks on villages near the key city of Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria, a community leader and a witness said on Friday.

“They (Boko Haram) killed 12 people in Akida village and nine others in Mbuta village during a raid,” said community leader Mustapha Abbagini.

A witness to the attack in Mbuta gave the same death toll while both said that the insurgents destroyed shops and homes in the raids, which happened on Thursday morning.

Italy closes embassy in Yemen as security deteriorates

13 Febbraio 2015 By Redazione Islamedianalysis

Italy has closed its embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa due to a breakdown in security and is withdrawing its ambassador and staff, the foreign ministry in Rome said on Friday.

Britain, France and the United States have already closed their diplomatic missions this week as the Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militia known as the Houthis tighten their grip on power after seizing the capital in September.

On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Yemen was “collapsing before our eyes” and slipping closer to outright civil war.

Sisters in arms: Kurdish women achieve legendary status on battlefield

13 Febbraio 2015 By Redazione Islamedianalysis

Meet Nassrin Abdallah. With her diminutive height and broad smile, it doesn’t seem like she should strike fear into the hearts of hardened Islamic State jihadists.

But this 36-year-old Syrian Kurd woman has been at the tip of the spear of the Kurdish forces that last month liberated the symbolic city of Kobane from IS militants.

“In Kobane, women were fighting on all fronts, in all the trenches against a brutal enemy,” she told cheering crowds during a visit to Paris this week.

As the head of the armed wing of the Kurdish PYD, “commander” Nassrin has led both men and women into battle against Islamic State fighters who have overrun large areas of Iraq and Syria.

“We kept the promise we made to the people and we won the day,” she said to thunderous applause.

According to Nassrin, around 40 percent of the Kurdish fighters battling over the town on the Syrian-Turkish border were women.

Some, like her, are hardened warriors but also joining their ranks were mothers who sent their children over the border to the safety of Turkey, then rushed off to join their sisters in arms.

Fighting alongside Nassrin are other powerful female commanders who have achieved legendary status on the battlefield.

Women like Narine Afrin, who played a key role in the defence of Kobane. Or Arin Mirkan, who blew herself up on October 5, killing dozens of IS fighters encircling the town, according to Kurdish sources.

In total, there are 4,000 women fighting in the armed wing of the PYD, say Kurdish officials, who refuse for strategic reasons to disclose the total number of people who have taken up arms.

Over and beyond the military aspect of the victory over IS in Kobane, it has been seen as a triumph for women, who are repressed in areas under IS control, obliged to wear the veil and, in the case of the Yazidi minority, forced into slavery.

“Daesh is a major danger for women and their status,” said Assia Abdallah, co-president of the PYD, using an alternative name for the IS militants.

The PYD has close links with the outlawed rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency in southeast Turkey and is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and some of its Western allies.

But in a sign of growing international recognition, Assia Abdallah and Nassrin Abdallah held talks on Sunday at the Elysee Palace with French President Francois Hollande — the first such meeting of its kind.

Like the PKK, the PYD has a policy of placing equal numbers of men and women at the head of their political and military structures.

In the Kurdish zones of Syria, they decree that women should have the same rights as men and forbid girls from marrying before the age of 18.

They have also outlawed “honour crimes” and “violence and discrimination” against women, as well as polygamy, which is nevertheless permitted in Islam.

Nassrin, a former journalist from the north-east of Syria, is unmarried but otherwise gives away very little about her private life.

The hardest thing about the battle is the lack of weapons and ammunition, she says.

Is she not frightened of these Islamic State fighters, who have videoed beheadings and burned hostages alive?

Quite the reverse, she says.

“They are scared of fighting against women. They believe they will not go to Paradise if they are killed by a woman.”

Source: middle-east-online

Abdullah Azzam Brigades militants plan attacks in Lebanese city

13 Febbraio 2015 By Redazione Islamedianalysis

Terrorist groups belonging to the al-Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades are plotting to carry out bombings in a Lebanese city and its neighboring areas, As Safir daily reported on Friday.

The newspaper said that security forces and the military informed several officials to limit their movements and take utmost precautions after learning that the militants were planning to carry out bombings and launch rockets on the city, which it did not identify, and on a main highway that links a Lebanese region with Beirut.

A 36-year-old Syrian has booby-trapped three vehicles – a silver Kia, a dark blue Nissan Maxima and a BMW X5 – to use them in the bombings, said the report.

It said the officials did not confirm that a fourth car, a Hyundai four-wheeler, was also loaded with explosives at a town in northeastern Lebanon.

The officials told the daily, however, that the army has intensified precautionary security measures which allowed soldiers to thwart on Thursday a terrorist attack against them on the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal.

The army said in a communique that a patrol for the intelligence unit located a 25 kg bomb placed in the area of Ras al-Sarj on a road used by troops to reach Wadi al-Raayan.

As Safir’s report came a day after security forces arrested 10 individuals and confiscated 18 stolen cars in the eastern Bekaa Valley, on the first day of a much anticipated security plan aimed at cracking down on criminals and robbery and kidnapping gangs.

Source: albawaba

ISIS getting closer to direct combat with U.S. troops in Iraq

13 Febbraio 2015 By Redazione Islamedianalysis

On Thursday afternoon, a series of unconfirmed reports indicated that forces loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria had surrounded a base in which 320 United States Marines were stationed.

Those reports were particularly disturbing because they came on the heels of a dispatch which indicated that ISIS forces had taken control of areas in al-Anbar province near the al-Asad Airbase where American advisors are training Iraqi Security Forces.

“Ninety percent of al-Baghdadi district has fallen under the control of the insurgents,” district manager Naji Arak told Reuters by phone.

Militants attacked al-Baghdadi from two directions earlier in the day and then advanced on the town, intelligence sources and officials in the Jazeera and Badiya operations commands said.

The officials said another group of insurgents then attacked the heavily-guarded Ain al-Asad air base five km southwest of the town, but were unable to break into it.

About 320 U.S. Marines are training members of the Iraqi 7th Division at the base, which has been struck by mortar fire on at least one previous occasion since December.

“There were reports of ineffective indirect fire in the vicinity of the base,” a Navy spokeswoman told Reuters, suggesting that there was militant activity in the vicinity of the massive (25 square mile) base but that the American forces were not in immediate danger.

Shortly after this report was published, the Pentagon insisted that no American troops were in any danger of coming into direct contact with ISIS forces. There are, however, reports of skirmishes between Iraqi forces and ISIS occurring just outside that base.

That base has been a target of ISIS attacks in the past. In December, al-Asad was subject to shelling from ISIS positions which approached areas where U.S. troops were stationed. In early January, Time noted the acute threat that this base faces now that it is positioned at the front of Iraq’s war against advancing ISIS forces.

Al Asad air base was the second-biggest U.S. base in Iraq during the 2003-11 Iraq war. About 100 miles west of Baghdad in Sunni-dominated Anbar province, the base sits on the Syrian Desert. About 320 U.S. troops are now there, earning hazardous-duty pay while training Iraq’s 7th Infantry Division to take on ISIS. There are just over 2,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq, and Obama has authorized the dispatch of 1,000 more.

There have been grim reports from the region in recent weeks. The BBC reported Dec. 19 that the base “has been encircled by militants from Islamic State (IS).” Four days later, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a branch of the U.S. government, reported that Iraqi military forces and tribal fighters, backed by U.S.-led air strikes, had thwarted an ISIS effort to overrun the base.

“Al Asad air base has received some indirect fire in the last week or so, couple of weeks,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, told CNN Monday. “It happens frequently, but it’s not like multiple attacks every single day.” The Pentagon, he says, calls it “unguided— it’s just random, sporadic, you might get one, one day, and three the next day. It’s done no damage, it has hurt nobody.”

That might have been reassuring at the time, but it’s cold comfort now that ISIS militants are taking control of the towns surrounding this base. Sporadic and infrequent may soon evolve into targeted, regular, and threatening.

“I’m convinced the U.S. should not get dragged back into another ground war in the Middle East,” President Barack Obama said when submitting to Congress language that will form the basis of a new authorization to use force against the Islamic State. “That’s not in our national security interest, and it’s not necessary for us to defeat ISIL.”

It is undoubtedly Obama’s intention to avoid creating a situation where American troops are forced to engage ISIS but, as they say, the enemy also gets a vote.

United Nations: Yemen on brink of civil war

13 Febbraio 2015 By Redazione Islamedianalysis

The UN special envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar, has warned that the country may be on the brink of civil war and accused all sides of contributing to the political and economic turmoil.

Yemen is slipping further into chaos as the Houthis, an armed Shia group from the north, consolidate their grip on power after seizing the capital in September and sidelining the central government.

Addressing the UN Security Council on Thursday, Benomar said: “Yemen is at a crossroad: Either the country will descend into civil war and disintegration” or a political transition will work.

Speaking from Yemen, Benomar said he is “in the middle of delicate negotiations” daily with parties involved.

However, Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, reporting from the Yemeni city of Taiz, said that the political parties involved in the UN-led negotiations were “more pessimistic about the UN role because the only consistency throughout is that the Houthis, who conducted the coup, have become more powerful as the negotiations continue.

“A lot of people are asking what the UN is willing to do to solve the dangerous situation evolving in the unstable state.”

Following Benomar’s statements, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, issued a warning before the council saying that “Yemen is collapsing before our eyes” and the international community cannot stand by and watch.

Why Salafists see Shiites as their greatest enemy

13 Febbraio 2015 By Redazione Islamedianalysis

Helping Shiite groups in their military operations against Israel or the United States has always been a source of discord among Salafists. Radical Salafists consider both Shiites and Jews the enemies of Islam. But anti-Shiite enmity is often stronger than that against Jews among Salafists, who consider the Shiites a fifth column and thus see “damage” by Shiites as more serious than that caused by others.

In the latest chapter of this contentious relationship, a number of Salafist clerics praised the deaths of Shiite leaders in an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian Golan Heights on Jan. 18. Among the most prominent of these Salafist clerics is Mohammed al-Barrak, a professor at Umm al-Qura and a member of the Muslim Scholars Association in Saudi Arabia.He tweeted: “When the [Shiites] die at the hands of the Jews we thank God that he answered our prayers,” and “The damage inflicted by the [Shiites] on the Muslims is more than that inflicted by the Jews.” He also criticized Hamas for issuing a statement of condolence to the leadership of Hezbollah after the event. Barrak said that the statement “shows a theological deficiency within [Hamas], which is not fighting the Jews according to doctrine.”

He asked Hamas’ leaders not to be courteous at the expense of doctrine and the community, adding, “No matter what the [Shiites] gave to Hamas, it does not justify appeasing them or supporting them.”

Comparing Shiites to Jews, Barrak said over Twitter: “Shiites are more harmful [to the Muslims] than the Jews because the [Shiites’] crimes in four years have exceeded all the Jews’ crimes in 60 years,” adding, “Shiites are the Muslims’ worst enemy because they are polytheists in terms of belief and religion and because their religion is creation of the Jews, making [the Shiites] worse enemies than the Western infidels or the Jews loyal to the State of Israel.”

Most Sunni radicals believe that Shiism emerged as a result of a Jewish infiltration by a legendary character named Ibn Sabaa. According to them, he was a Jew who falsely claimed to be Muslim in order to introduce Jewish beliefs to Islam and succeeded in forming the Shiite sect. According to the legend, the Shiites are considered a fifth column.

The Shiites are thus blamed for the major defeats in the history of Islamic confrontation with the enemies of Islam — including the Crusades, the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate and the control by the Tatar armies over Islamic countries. Sunni historical texts include dozens of stories woven around the role of Shiites in those events.

This hard-line Salafist attitude is due to a doctrinal dispute among Salafists about the jurisprudential rule regarding cooperation with “misguided groups” such as the Shiites. Most Salafists, especially the radicals, contend that cooperating with Shiites is completely prohibited because the Shiites follow a “bidaa” (heretical belief), while the followers of other religions, such as Jews and Christians, don’t represent a bidaa position within the Islamic religion.

Thus, a number of Salafist clerics, including Ibn Hanbal, issued a religious edict permitting the acceptance of help from “infidels” in cases where there is a benefit. However, he still ruled that it was forbidden to use the help of those who follow a bidaa, like the Shiites.

This hostile position against Shiites represents a principle that remains with the Salafists today. For example, Saudi Arabia’s former Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz bin Baz issued a religious edict at the time permitting the use of help from the Western alliance against Iraq in 1991.

He deemed it permissible for Saudi Arabia to open its land to the alliance to carry out attacks from Saudi territory against Iraq. The Salafists have no objections to using unbelievers to kill an enemy that has usurped land. But bin Baz hesitated about whether it was right to cooperate with the Shiites against Israel by questioning the intentions of the Shiites.

Historically, the Sunni-Shiite relationship has been affected by majority-minority logic, whereby the Shiite minority tries to link itself to the general Islamic entity and thus gain the majority’s recognition as an equal. However, the majority has usually been suspicious and distrustful of the Shiites and considered them inferior.

Here appears one of the fundamental differences between the two fundamentalist currents in the Muslim world. There is ideological Salafism, which makes ideology a strict principle in dealing with politics and is often influenced by Wahhabi ideology. Then there is political fundamentalism, whose principles serve the groups’ political goals. The Muslim Brotherhood and its extensions in the Middle East are of this second kind.

Therefore, Hamas, which is close to the Muslim Brotherhood, tolerates dealing with Iranian Shiites. However, ideological Salafists have never dealt with Iran, either in Palestine or elsewhere. The ideological Salafists even reject Hamas’ legitimacy because the group doesn’t strictly adhere to ideological principles from the Salafist perspective.

The ideological Salafists demand Hamas not treat the question of Palestine from a national perspective but from the perspective of the umma and doctrine.

Political fundamentalism is somewhat politically pragmatic. Ideological Salafists oppose this pragmatism as incompatible with religious principles. This conflict reveals that the two sides disagree on the identity of the No. 1 enemy. While the likes of Hamas consider Israel the primary enemy, ideological Salafists believe that the Shiites are the most dangerous.

This difference allows each party to ally with the enemy of its enemy when necessary. Just as Hamas accepts Iran’s help to fight Israel, ideological Salafists have no objections to allying, if necessary, with the Jews or Christians in fighting the Shiites.

This whole relationship shows that the history of religious conflicts among the sects in the region is still alive and active in the political world, and further paves the way for sectarian conflict to play a crucial role in the Middle East.

Source: Al Monitor

US closes Yemen embassy, following Somalia, Syria and Libya

13 Febbraio 2015 By Redazione Islamedianalysis

Violence in Sanaa, the capital city in Yemen, has been increasing after the al-Houthi ethnic group completed its coup last week, and took complete control of Yemen’s government.

Anti-Houthi demonstrations have been growing, and Houthi militias have been using force to disperse crowds. The al-Houthis are an Iran-backed Shia militia, and their slogan is: “God is the Greatest. Death to America. Death to Israel. Damn the Jew and Victory to Islam.”

Fearing an assault, the U.S. on Tuesday closed its embassy in Sanaa and evacuated all personnel. As soon as U.S. officials left the capital, the Houthis seized more than 20 vehicles from the evacuated embassy.

Yemen is the home of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which the U.S. has been fighting with the cooperation of the preceding government. It is not clear whether the new al-Houthi government will agree to continued attacks on AQAP, particularly the drone strikes, but the al-Houthis themselves also would like to see AQAP defeated.

Yemen becomes the third Arab country to lose its American embassy since December 2010, when the “Arab spring” began, creating turmoil in one country after another throughout the Mideast. The Syrian war forced the closure of the US embassy in Damascus in February 2012, and the dissolution of Libya’s government forced the closure of the embassy in Tripoli in July 2014.

On January 8, 1991, looters in the army of the government of Somalia fired rocket grenades in the capital city Mogadishu, leading to the famous “Blackhawk down” incident. The U.S. embassy was closed, and all diplomats and employees were evacuated.

In July of last year, President Obama appointed Omar Abdirashid Ali Shamarke to be the first U.S. ambassador to Somalia since 1991. However, Sharmarke will work out of the American embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.

‘Suicide bomber’ kills 15 at a market in Nigeria, Islamists group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility

13 Febbraio 2015 By Redazione Islamedianalysis

At least 15 people were killed on Thursday and several others were injured in an explosion at a crowded market in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Biu.

The attack was believed to have been carried out by a female suicide bomber.

“The scene of the attack was littered with human body parts and blood stains,” said a rescue worker who wanted to remain anonymous.

Thousands of people have been killed in the last six years since Boko Haram embarked on a terror campaign to impose strict Islamic rule in Nigeria. Boko Haram has terrorised northern Nigeria, attacking police, schools and churches, as well as civilians and government buildings.

Boko Haram carried out its worst attack last month in a group of fishing settlements near Nigeria’s border with Chad. The human rights group Amnesty International said more than 2 000 people died.

The suicide bombing in Biu is the first major terrorists attack in Nigeria since the country’s National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the postponement of presidential and parliamentary elections from Saturday to 28 March citing security concerns over Boko Haram activities in north-eastern Nigeria.

INEC chairperson Attahiru Jega said the postponement was inevitable because the military needed at least six weeks to conclude a major military operation against the insurgency in the north-east.

The military may not be able to support the police and other agencies during the election because it will be concentrating its attention “in the theatre of operations”, Jega said on Sunday when he announced the postponement of the elections.

It remains unclear if the planned military operation will go far enough to guarantee enough security for the elections to take place.