Libya may no longer be front-page news, but it should be. Late last month, rebels seized the Benghazi branch of the Central Bank of Libya. Gunmen kidnapped the internationally recognized deputy foreign minister right before U.N. talks between the factions were to begin. Troops loyal to the recognized prime minister also had a gun battle with an al-Qa’ida affiliate. Libya is rapidly becoming the next breeding ground for terrorist organizations.

The revolution in Libya, beginning in February of 2011, gave hope to the world that a country once ruled by a pariah regime could turn a new leaf and re-enter the community of nations. While no one expected the process to be smooth, the U.S. and our allies bear much of the blame for the current state of affairs.

After helping revolutionaries overthrow Qaddafi, the West failed to follow through with any plan for stabilization. With no existing civil society, coherent opposition, or leaders in waiting, Libya plunged into sectarian conflict. Instability worsened further with Egypt and the UAE backing secularists in the East, and Sudan, Turkey, and Qatar supporting the Islamists. As if this wasn’t complicated enough, al-Qa’ida and separatists are also in the mix.

It did not need to turn out this way. The United States and Europe (France in particular, which took an early leading role) should have brought the factions to the table to reach some power sharing agreement and put their collective weight behind a new government. It is not as though the West doesn’t have tools – financially, it could have leveraged threats of frozen oil and overseas assets; politically, the importance of diplomatic and international recognition is often overlooked; and finally, the introduction of a stabilization force would have signaled the West’s commitment and it’s resolve.

Instead, the West withdrew and paid less and less attention. The response of the U.S. since the terrible attack on our consulate in Benghazi only made this situation worse – the closure of our Embassy and our remaining consulates has left us blind. Without a strong American presence in country and no real partner domestically, we have little influence or ability to bring all of the murderers to justice.

Two female suicide bombers attacked the Niger frontier town of Diffa on Wednesday, security sources said, shortly after Chad’s army said it had killed 13 fighters from the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in the Nigerian town of Gambaru.

The violence on Nigeria’s borders with Niger and Cameroon occurred as regional armies are mobilising to foil Boko Haram’s bid to carve out an emirate around Lake Chad, which borders Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

Boko Haram’s five-year-old insurgency has killed thousands in northern Nigeria but regional armies say they have killed hundreds of militants in battles along the borders since deploying troops to contain the threat.

“There were two suicide attacks carried out on Wednesday by women,” said a police source, referring to the Diffa attack. “The two women died and I think they were the only victims.”

Reuters was not able to verify whether there were any other casualties.

Earlier in the day, clashes erupted in the Nigerian town of Gambaru, on the eastern border with Cameroon, where Chad has deployed hundreds of soldiers to help Cameroon ward off attacks from Boko Haram.

Chad’s army said 11 Chadian soldiers were wounded, three out of 14 Boko Haram vehicles were destroyed, and one was seized.

“We knew they were going to attack us. We were waiting. The battle didn’t last long. They fled,” a military source said.

Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin have promised to contribute a total of 8,700 troops to a regional force being set up to defeat Boko Haram, whose insurgency has forced Nigeria to delay its presidential election due on Feb. 14 for six weeks.

However, the details of the plan are still being hammered out and Chad has spearheaded regional effort to pre-empt further attacks by Boko Haram in the region.

Niger’s parliament this week unanimously approved sending troops to northern Nigeria as part of the regional offensive.

Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou called on his countrymen to support the struggle against Boko Haram, in particular by providing intelligence.

“I also call on any (Nigerien) youth who have joined this outfit to immediately change sides while there is still time as Boko Haram will be defeated,” he said.

Niger officials have warned that civilians fleeing northern Nigeria have been infiltrated by Boko Haram fighters. Authorities in Diffa have declared a 15-day state of emergency and are searching house-to-house for Boko Haram suspects.

Four men on a truck bound for Niger’s second-largest city, Zinder, were arrested, a military source said.
Schools in Diffa were closed and civil servants had left their posts to take their families to more secure towns elsewhere, said a police officer in the town.

Boko Haram assaulted the town of N’Guigmi on Niger’s border with Nigeria late on Tuesday with mortars and machine guns, but the attack failed, a Niger military source said.

“The situation is precarious because Boko Haram could come back to assault us at any moment,” a military source said on Wednesday, adding that schools in the town were closed.

Sartaj Aziz, Advisor to the Prime Minister of Pakistan on National Security and Foreign Affairs, has of late, shown this penchant for brushing aside all talk of the presence in Pakistan of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) now popularly called the Islamic State (IS) and also “Daish.”

The situation on ground, however, does not offer scope for such optimism; the optimism is yet another reflection of the state of denial that successive governments in Pakistan have gained notoriety for.

How would Aziz explain away the presence of the black standard of the IS on the electricity poles of Lahore? How would he explain away the detention of an alleged IS members Yousaf Al Salafi and his accomplices once again in Lahore? These persons are said to have come from Turkey a few months back and are busy carrying out recruitment for the Syrian war.

A top US commander in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, while confirming the recruitment activities of the IS in Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the Army Times, “There have been some night letter drops, there have been reports of people trying to recruit both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, quite frankly.’

How would Sartaj Aziz explain away the alleged nexus between the Daish and the Lashkar -e-Janghvi (LeJ) with a common agenda to persecute minorities of the nation, particularly Shia Muslims?

Even more worrisome is news from Bangladesh where, four suspected members of the IS have been arrested. The senior among them, Mohammad Sakhawatul Kabir, on interrogation by Dhaka police, has confirmed that he and his accomplices have received training in Pakistan.

Whatever Aziz may want the world to believe, the fact is that militancy-infested Pakistan has taken to the IS like fish takes to water. The manner in which the IS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi openly addresses his cadre and the manner in which the IS has occupied territory and declared a Caliphate, is a source of inspiration for Pakistani militants whose own leaders and role models like Mullah Fazlulla and Mullah Omar remain in hiding perpetually. Pakistani militants now identify more with the IS tactic of holding ground and controlling territory rather than pursuing terror tactics advocated by al Qaeda.

The IS, on its part, is also quite determined to register its presence in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. One of the demands that it made to free American journalist James Foley was the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist serving an 86-year-long prison term in the US. Siddiqui was an active member of al Qaeda, and has been convicted by a US District Court on seven counts, including attempted murder, and more significantly, assaulting US officers.

The IS has also aligned with a faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and gone to the extent of declaring its commander, Hafez Saeed Khan, as the “Governor of Khorasan.” Khorasan is an area encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts of the Central Asian Republics, China, and of course, India.

The IS are determined to extend their Caliphate into this province, and from there, launch its international Jihad. Reports suggest that it has instituted a “strategic planning wing” that is spearheading its operations in Pakistan.

The objective is to highlight the shortcomings of the existing militant movement and thus establish its credentials as a viable option; once it succeeds in garnering adequate militant strength, it will formally wage war against the Pakistan Army and other security forces under its black banner; simultaneously it will inflict its traditional atrocities against the ethnic minorities primarily the Shia community of Pakistan and also the remnants of Hindus, Christians etc. now left in the country. Once the IS gains a foothold, it will simply overwhelm al Qaeda and the TTP to emerge as the sole arbiter of Jihad in the subcontinent.

The IS is bound to look at its ingress into India through the Kashmir Valley, onwards to the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, and then on to the rest of the country. The call will be for the “liberation of the Sunni brothers of Kashmir from the oppressive yoke of the infidel.” The preparatory stage will be based on spread of propaganda and dissidence in Jammu and Kashmir mainly through the use of social media and other forms of communication.

While being prepared for any onslaught on Indian territories that the IS might launch, India also has to consider the outcome of the genocide that it is likely to be unleashed on minorities in Pakistan. A majority of the Shias are from Gilgit-Baltistan and in effect citizens of India, whose protection is a moral obligation for the country; India also has the third largest population of Shia Muslims in the world whose sensitivities will need to be kept in mind. Similarly, the Hindus and Christians of Pakistan have a historic affinity with India; the moral obligation to protect them goes beyond the humanitarian aspect.

Should the IS succeed in its nefarious agenda the attendant atrocities will create a huge refugee problem that will definitely spill over into India and strain the country’s resources terribly. One needs to take lessons from the holocaust in East Pakistan now Bangladesh to get an idea of the magnitude that the problem can attain.

India needs to remain alive to the impending crisis and have all options in place to deal with it as it gains momentum. There is no point in reacting once the tidal wave has burst. As a start-up there is a need to create awareness about the plight of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan. Diplomatic and moral support should be extended to them in their struggle against the state of Pakistan and more so the militant organisations like the LeJ that it has spawned. On the domestic front a keen eye has to be kept on the efforts being made by divisive forces to in ignite a religious flame in Jammu and Kashmir, especially the Kashmir Valley.

The idea of ISA gaining a foothold in the Indian subcontinent may look a little far-fetched today, but if not nipped in the bud, it will definitely ignite into a flame and sweep across the region, causing death and destruction in its wake.

Source:  newkerala

 
Nine militants involved in planning the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar were killed and scores of others injured on Wednesday in a drone strike in the Nazyan area of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.

Official sources said that the drone fired two missiles on a compound in the Nazyan area near the Pak-Afghan border.

According to security officials, militants based in the Nazyan district had planned the devastating attack on the Army Public School, Peshawar, which left over 150 people dead, including more than 130 schoolchildren.

Strikes against militants have increased on both sides of the border since the attack. Pakistani security forces have also been carrying out ground offensives in the Khyber Agency, particularly in Tirah Valley, which borders Nazyan. — INP

Our correspondent adds from Bannu: Security forces arrested some suspected militants and destroyed five of their sanctuaries during a search and strike operation in Janikhel, Frontier Region (FR), Bannu, on Wednesday.

The sources said the security forces launched an operation in various areas in Janikhel and arrested some suspected militants and destroyed five of their sanctuaries, besides seizing heavy arms from their possession.

Source:  thenews.com.pk

A branch of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has seized an army base in the southern Yemeni town of Baihan, in Shabwa province, reports AFP.

Members of Ansar al-Sharia, Yemen’s main al-Qaeda faction, raided the 19th Infantry Brigade, leaving at least seven people dead, including three soldiers, an official told AFP.

Ansar al-Sharia claimed the attack over their Twitter account, justifying their actions by accusing the attacked troops of having links to the Shiite Houthi militia that recently took control of Yemen.

They also published photos of a black and white al-Qaeda flag being flown over the camp, as well as photos of allegedly captured soldiers.

AQAP is considered to be one of the most deadly terrorist organizations in the world. They claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris earlier this year that left twelve people dead.

Source: albawaba

A security plan kicked off in the eastern Bekaa Valley before dawn on Thursday, the National News Agency (NNA) reported, with security forces raiding towns and searching for fugitives.

According to the NNA, the Lebanese army and Internal Security Forces (ISF) raided Hor Taala, Brital and other neighboring villages in search of wanted drug suspects and kidnappers.

Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said Tuesday that the security plan was “ready” and would involve 1,000 army troops backed by 500 members of the ISF.

The Bekaa campaign came after a series of similar initiatives in northern Lebanon, especially in Tripoli’s restive neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh last year.

Hundreds have been killed in fighting between the two neighborhoods since the outbreak of the war in neighboring Syria. Fighters in the neighborhoods back opposing sides in the war.

Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen both suffer from deep poverty and marginalization, and many fighters have said they would not have fought had they had jobs.

In recent months, Lebanon’s army has fought several battles against jihadists streaming in from across the restive border with Syria.

The deadliest battle took place last August in the border town of Ersal with jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group and al-Qaeda’s Syria branch, al-Nusra Front.

The Ersal violence left 16 soldiers dead and 85 wounded, while dozens of jihadists are said to have been killed, along with three civilians.

Islamist militants withdrew from the town to its outskirts, taking with them 25 captive Lebanese soldiers and policemen, four of whom they have since executed.

In October, Lebanese troops fought deadly clashes with ISIS and Nusra jihadists in the northern city of Tripoli.

The fighting left 42 people dead, including 11 soldiers and eight civilians.

ISIS has captured large swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, declaring what it calls a cross-border Islamic ‘caliphate,’ killing thousands and displacing millions in the two countries.

Source:  al-akhbar

The government is preparing special lessons on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) for elementary, middle and high school students to prevent Korean teenagers joining it.

The program is part of measures to strengthen the protection of Koreans abroad, officials said Thursday.

This comes after a Korean teenager, surnamed Kim, crossed the border from Turkey to Syria to join ISIS last month. He allegedly obtained information about the group through the Internet and contacted people there online and via mobile devices.

“Elementary, middle and high school students will learn the truth about ISIS,” a Ministry of Education official said.

“We are introducing the lessons because ISIS uses social networking services (SNS) to conduct propaganda activities and attract people to join it. Kim’s case showed that Koreans are no longer safe from the ISIS activities.”

The special classes were approved at a meeting of the foreign affairs, public security and safety, justice, national defense, and education ministries, and the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office and National Police Agency, Wednesday.

The education official said the ministry had been developing material about ISIS and would distribute it to schools soon.

“As the ISIS issue is very sensitive, we think giving too much information may make children curious about the terrorist group and they could try to contact it, like Kim,” she said, adding the lessons would let students know how dangerous the group was.

In January, Kim, 18, was reported missing during a trip to Turkey. But it was found that Kim met an unidentified man and went to Besiriye, near the Syrian border.

The unidentified man is believed to be connected to ISIS and Kim is suspected of joining the group.

Police found that Kim used the Internet to search for words including “ISIS,” “Turkey,” “Syria” and “Islam”, and for photos related to ISIS.

He also joined a Facebook group called “Join the Islamic State,” where he asked questions about how to join.

Besides the school program, the government will strengthen monitoring of online postings about ISIS.

It also will meet Korean missionary or relief groups that are working in countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon to ensure the groups’ safety. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already met such groups in Seoul.

The government will also send an additional official to 10 countries where many incidents involving Koreans occur. In the Philippines, where four Koreans have been killed this year, it will send an extra police officer to the Korean Desk to liaise with local police.

A magazine run by the Islamic State (IS) militant organisation has published an interview with the French widow of a Paris hostage taker, its first official claim that Hayat Boumeddiene is in their territory, which spans parts of Syria and Iraq.

France launched a search for the 26-year-old after police stormed a Jewish supermarket where her partner Amedy Coulibaly had taken hostages, four of whom were killed along with Coulibaly. Authorities described her as ‘armed and dangerous’. Turkish officials said last month that Boumedienne had been in Turkey five days before the shootout, and crossed into Syria on January 8.

Wednesday’s edition of Islamic State’s online French-language magazine, Dar al-Islam, ran an edition on the attacks in Paris and included an interview with a woman who it said was Coulibaly’s wife, although her name was not given. Reuters could not immediately verify the ‘authenticity of the interview’, which provided no photos or videos of Boumeddiene.

Asked how she felt when she entered the ‘caliphate’, the term Islamic State uses for the territory it controls, she was quoted as saying: “I did not encounter any difficulties (getting here), it is good to live in the land that is governed by the laws of God.” She also said her husband had been an Islamic State supporter; Coulibaly himself had said he was carrying out the attack in the name of Islamic State.

Seventeen people, including journalists and police officers, were killed in three days of violence that began with the storming of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, January 7, and ended with the hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket. Two other gunmen were killed.

An official French police photograph shows Boumeddiene as a ‘young woman with long dark hair hitched back over her ears’. French media released photos purporting to be of a ‘fully-veiled Boumeddiene’, posing with a crossbow, in what they said was a ‘training session’ in 2010 in the mountainous Cantal region.

French media described her as one of seven children whose mother had died when she was young, and whose delivery-man father had struggled to keep working while looking after the family. As an adult, she lost her job as a cashier when she converted to Islam and started wearing the niqab, the Muslim facial veil.

Il più rilevante prodotto della rinnovata minaccia jihadista pare essere una nuova competizione tra sigle del radicalismo islamico che fanno leva sull’utilizzo dei foreign fighters nel compiere azioni violente.

La nuova legge italiana in materia di antiterrorismo, approvata nei giorni scorsi, prevede solo alcune modifiche al codice penale introducendo una pena da tre a sei anni di reclusione per chi va a combattere il jihad nei teatri di guerra o supporta i combattenti organizzando, finanziando e facendo propaganda, anche via web.

Misure più severe, fino a 10 anni di carcere, per i lupi solitari, che si autoaddestrano all’uso delle armi.

Sarà inoltre istituita una black list dei siti internet che sostengono il terrorismo e sarà possibile oscurarli su disposizione dell’autorità giudiziaria.

Basta, tutto qua.

Tramontata l’idea di una Procura nazionale antiterrorismo viene istituito un coordinamento centrale presso la Procura nazionale antimafia per le inchieste che riguardano il terrorismo.

Inoltre, il decreto rafforza l’intelligence, favorendo le operazioni sotto copertura ed allargando le garanzie funzionali per gli infiltrati.

Le misure introdotte vanno nella direzione di colmare alcune delle lacune del sistema precedente, in primis la possibilità di punire anche il reclutato e non solo il reclutatore.

Manca invece un intervento sul fronte della prevenzione, tema sul quale molti altri paesi europei hanno già investito somme importanti.

Questa la legislazione italiana. All’estero, invece, le normative in materia di antiterrorismo sono molto più severe e restrittive…

Il 6 novembre 2014 la Francia ha approvato una nuova legge sull’antiterrorismo, il 14esimo provvedimento di questa natura dal 1986.

Il disegno di legge consegna alle autorità francesi ampi poteri: il divieto di ingresso nel paese o l’abbandono dello stesso da parte di sospettati di pianificazione di atti di terrorismo, il blocco di siti web che fanno apologia di atti terroristici e misure cautelative e repressive per gli individui sospettati di terrorismo.

Nel Regno Unito è al momento in discussione un nuovo disegno di legge che permetterebbe alla polizia inglese di confiscare i passaporti ai cittadini britannici sospettati di voler lasciare il paese per dedicarsi ad attività terroristiche.

La legge britannica innalza il livello delle possibili restrizioni andando a toccare la sfera della libera circolazione e della libera espressione. Ad esempio, alcune disposizioni permetterebbero alle autorità britanniche di vietare ai propri cittadini, per la durata di due anni, di far ritorno nel Regno Unito, se sospettati di aver preso parte ad attività terroristiche, rendendoli così effettivamente degli apolidi.

Il premier canadese Stephen Harper ha proposto al Parlamento una legge che, se approvata, trasformerà in un reato punibile con la reclusione fino a 5 anni il solo incitamento a commettere un atto terroristico e amplierà i poteri di indagine dei servizi segreti.

La modifica alla legge attualmente in vigore era stata promessa dal governo dopo gli attacchi a Ottawa dell’ottobre scorso.