Uzbekistan is strengthening the state border in connection with the special services’ data about the intentions of “Islamic State” (IS, previously “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”) extremist group members to conduct terrorist attacks in the country, the national media reported with reference to the National Security Service experts Feb. 3.

The National Security Service representatives think that the activity of the IS group members arrested in Uzbekistan in 2014 is not limited to the recruitment of militants. In parallel, several terrorist attacks were prepared in Uzbekistan for the spring of 2015.

The data obtained by the law enforcement bodies from the members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, as well as members of the IS group arrested in Uzbekistan in November and December 2014 testify to this. The detained Uzbek citizens underwent military training in Pakistan in 2013. In 2014 they returned to Uzbekistan to attract young people into the IS ranks to destabilize the country’s situation on the eve of the presidential election.

Moreover, the authorities have data about the gathering of militants on the Afghan-Uzbek border, as well as about large harvest of opium in Afghanistan in 2014.

With this information, Uzbekistan is taking additional measures on strengthening and protection of the state border as well as proactive preventive actions and raising public awareness.

The cooperation between the border guards of neighboring countries in the region plays a significant role in strengthening the protection of the state border, according to the National Security Service analysts.

The analysts believe that this cooperation is possible with the technical equipment and interaction system of border guards of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and this will allow the countries to protect their borders without the need to redeploy additional troops.

The length of the border between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan is 137 kilometers. International experts believe that it is the most protected section of the border compared to the same sections of the neighboring Central Asian countries.

The ‘Islamic State’ (IS, formerly ISIL or ISIS,) was created in 2003 in Iraq. Between 2004 and 2006, the organization was led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and consisted of 11 radical Islamist groups, which had close ties to the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda.

Following the start of military confrontation in Syria between the armed opposition and government forces, the IS penetrated the country in 2013. The organization said at the time it refuses to take the oath of Al-Qaeda and declared ‘a holy war’ against all groups in Iraq and Syria, as well as the Syrian government forces.

Strengthening of the IS in Syria allowed it to return to Iraq, deploying military actions against government forces there.

In late June of 2014, the IS announced about the creation of the ‘Islamic Caliphate’ on the territories under its control in Iraq and Syria. In turn, Iraqi authorities asked the international community for help in fighting the IS.

Source:  trend.az

For years, EU apaches have dreamt of putting their names into the annals of history by giving Brussels more clout around the world, with its own security policy – to compete with NATO. And now the time, it seems, is ripe for that idea to be floated again with the situation in the South of Lebanon.

Is Israel’s recent complaint about UNIFIL – made just days ago after the recent battle with Hezbollah – just a coincidence, after an EU chief talks of a new ‘presence’ on the Lebanese side?

Is the European Union looking to use Lebanon as a crash-test dummy as Brussels moves ahead with plans to create an EU army of ‘peace-keepers’ in the Middle East –stationing the first group in the south of Lebanon alongside present UNIFIL soldiers?

Presently the EU has only dabbled in peacekeeping in Africa with minimal success in Chad and Mali, countries where the 28 nation block has more or less, singular ‘multilateral’ relations with the incumbent governments.

But in the Middle East, EU countries have varying opinion and diplomatic relations with the regional superpowers, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel.

Furthermore, it’s a little bit more complicated than keeping African rebels at bay and the EU has little or no credibility as a geopolitical player during a period where its Big Brother, Washington, appears to make up foreign policy for the region on a weekly basis.

Nonetheless, the EU is now about to look at the role present European armies play in the South. And that can only mean one thing. An EU mandate alongside the UN one.

The problem with this grandiose scheme is that it is an enormous experiment with the host country the one who plays the guinea pig and the EU cashing in, if it all goes well on the night.

The intractable problems in the South along the Israeli border seemed to have caught the imagination of EU chiefs who bandied the idea around for years that the EU could be an international peace-keeping force with its own autonomous policy alongside NATO in Afghanistan, for example – a blueprint which was explored in 2008 but never got off the drawing board.

And now, just weeks after a new foreign policy diva sweeps into her new palatial office in Brussels, the same bold ideas are being dredged up. Such super power masturbation will no doubt be welcomed by Israel which is already looking like an old friend to Federica Mogherini – who just recently scrapped all plans to sanction Netanyahu’s government for illegal land grabbing.

But now the idea of EU troops in the south of Lebanon, with those important blue flags on their arms, is the focus of power brokers in Brussels, it seems.

The European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management has said that terrorism is a common enemy with Lebanon, adding that the presence of European troops in southern Lebanon would be discussed during a meeting in Brussels.

“We have a common enemy which is terrorism,” Christos Stylianides told An Nahar in an interview today.
“It is beneficial to have deeper cooperation in that regard,” he said.

“Terrorist attacks are not against a certain religion or civilization. We have a common enemy and people are assaulting our joint legacy,” he added.

What difference does a blue flag on the arm make?
Stylianides revealed that the role of European peacekeepers in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon would be the subject of discussion at the meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels (today) on Monday.

He made the revelation after he was asked whether he had fears about the present European military presence in southern Lebanon – although was unable to explain what benefit it would be to Lebanon if a European soldier had an EU mandate, rather than the present UN one.

A Spanish peacekeeper was killed on Wednesday in the deadliest escalation on the disputed frontier since the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

The violence erupted when Hezbollah fighters attacked an Israeli military convoy in the Shebaa Farms area, killing two soldiers and wounding seven. Israel responded with shelling.

Stylianides announced on Saturday that the EU is providing 37 million euros ($42 million) to help Lebanon cope with the Syrian refugees.

In his interview with An Nahar, Stylianides said that the EU has been facing the most demanding humanitarian crisis since World War II as a result of 12 million refugees.

“Those 12 million people are the victim of misery and are very close to the European border,” he said.

Source:  annahar

Hezbollah’s ambitions are spreading far beyond its Lebanon home as the movement appears increasingly bent on taking on radical Islamist foes across the Middle East. It has sent thousands of its fighters into Syria and senior military advisers to Iraq, helped rebels rise to power in Yemen and threatened Bahrain over its alleged abuse of Shiites there.

French anti-terrorist police carried out raids early Tuesday in two separate areas of France, detaining eight individuals suspected of links with terrorist networks sending “foreign fighters” to Syria, the Interior Ministry said.

The raids, part of a series of operations since the attacks that killed 17 people in Paris between January 5-7, were carried out in the Seine-Saint Denis area north of the capital and in the region around the south-eastern city of Lyon.

Dozens of suspected militants with links to the conflicts in Iraq and Syria have been detained since the Paris attacks, including several individuals linked with the three terrorists shot dead by elite police units.

Tuesday’s raids show “the total determination of the government to fight against Jihadism,” Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a press statement.

He explained that the eight people arrested in the operations were “suspected of actively taking part in signing up young French people for Jihadism.”

There are around 1,400 French people and residents here believed to be involved in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, either on the field of battle or en route to or from the battlefield. Others are involved in the logistics of getting fighters to and from the region or in mainly Internet recruitment of volunteers.

Justice Minister Christiane Tabubira said in press comments recently that at least 60 French people have died in the fighting in Syria and Iraq and France was taking steps to detain fighters upon return to this country.

Taubira said in comments to the Anglo-American Press Association that she was reviewing the detention conditions for the most radical prisoners and isolating them to prevent “radicalisation of young vulnerable co-detainees”, many of whom have social or family problems.

Some 126 people have been detained upon returning from the Iraq-Syria region and most are facing terrorism charges and are being held in preventative detention pending formal proceedings.

Source:  kuna.net

Militant groups claiming to represent ISIL are reportedly trying to replace the Taliban but many in Afghanistan question whether there is any difference

For almost two decades, the white flag of the Taliban has been the dominant symbol of militants operating in Afghanistan, but the group is now reportedly facing competition.

Black flags used by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militant group, known as ISIL, have reportedly emerged in parts of the country, according to Afghan officials and local residents.

Whether this is merely a symbolic change by militant commanders to capitalize on ISIL’s popularity among fighters, after declaring a so-called Caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq, remains a matter of dispute in Afghanistan.

In an op-ed critical of U.S. regional policy Abdul Karim Khuram, the adviser to former president Hamid Karzai, wrote on Afghan website nunn.asia that the purported presence of ISIL “represents the beginning of a new phase of war.”

“New slogans, new forces and new operating areas requires a new group of fighters to advance the war. It is difficult to fight under the name ‘Taliban’ in Central Asian states,” Khurram wrote, hinting that there would be a wider fight, beyond Afghanistan.

The apparent emergence of a group with new allegiances is confirmed by local residents. Haji Abdul Latif, an elder of the southern Helmand province, told Anadolu Agency that the fighters swearing loyalty to ISIL had been battling with Taliban militants in the province.

Latif said they were under the leadership of Mullah Abdul Raouf, a former Taliban commander who spent at least six years imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay after being captured by U.S. troops in 2001, who has now telling his fighters to operate under the ISIL flag.

Saeeduddin Sanginwal, an elder of the restive Sangin district, said the newly ISIL-inspired Afghan group sparked the anger of the Afghan Taliban when it raised its black flags in the district, where departed foreign troops had recently handed over security responsibilities to Afghan national security forces.

According to Sanginwal, the replacement of white Afghan Taliban flags with the ISIL symbol has led to clashes between the two groups that have killed and injured up to 20 fighters.

Security officials, including the commander of Afghan ground forces, General Murad Ali Murad, also claim ISIL-inspired groups are present in parts of Afghanistan.

Murad said their “operatives are trying to make foot space in restive parts of Afghanistan, as they have already stationed in volatile southern Helmand province. They are trying to infiltrate to northern provinces of country which borders with central Asian states.”

Similarly, the police chief in eastern Zabul district, General Roogh Liwanai, said groups are trying recruit from among Afghan fighters and had begun militant activities in some parts of the province. He also claimed that hundreds of foreign militants had crossed the border from Pakistan.

Can ISIL make Afghan inroads?
General John Campbell, a top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, also confirmed recruitment activities in both Afghanistan and Pakistan in an interview with the Army Times recently but he also claimed the group have a “hard message to sell.”

Officially, Afghanistan’s interior ministry denies any ISIL presence but it has simultaneously assured that Afghan forces are capable of overcoming any militant group.

Afghan parliament also rejected last week the idea that ISIL had started substantial operations but recognized that some individual Taliban groups were now paying homage to the Iraq- and Syria-based militants.

“No difference between them, all are the same—the same people and the same program,” said the governor of Zabul province Amir Mohammad, adding that militants in Afghanistan once fought under the flag of al-Qaeda, then the Taliban.

He said they have failed to recruit from local people, who with police help have pushed the apparent ISIL-enthusiasts from their areas.

Head of the Afghanistan Women’s Council Fatana Gilani said the name used by militants does not matter, they are all part of a conspiracy to destroy the past decade of achievements for women’s rights.

“No difference between the Taliban and ISIS (ISIL). Both are bloodthirsty and not ready to respect women rights—even women in Iraq and Syria under the ISIS control are not treated as human,” she said.

Much of the reported ISIL presence has been near the borders with central Asian states — 40 Uzbek militants arrived in northern Faryab province recently, according to local residents — leading some to claim the presence is a creation of western powers, whose forces have recently withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Political expert and ex-Afghan diplomat Ahmad Saaedi is one of those who claims that the apparent ISIL presence is actually a creation of western powers who hope to benefit from instability among their rivals in the region.

Abdul Wali Neyazi, now a lawmaker but a former commander of the Mujahideen — who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s — also claims that the Taliban, and now ISIL, were western creations.

“Creation of the Taliban was a momentous aim of the western powers to overthrow the Mujahideen government and take a grip on central Asian countries and easily confront some nuclear nations like Iran and China,” he said, claiming that ISIL-branded fighters were simply replacing previous Afghan militants who could not infiltrate into those nations.

Several video tapes showing Taliban fighters shifting their allegiance from Taliban leader Mullah Omar to the distant ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi have emerged but have not been independently verified. Still, the prospect of a new militant group in Afghanistan worries many Afghans, tired after three decades of conflict in their country.

“Their extremism is the harshest and intolerable. We are tired of war, the war is enough. ISIL in Afghanistan means another 30 years of war in our country,” worries 72-year old Abdullah, an Afghan citizen.

He says he does not want to see ISIL come through his country, just as the Soviet army, and more recently American and British forces, passed through.

Source: aa.com.tr

Nigeria’s military on Sunday repelled a Boko Haram assault on the key city of Maiduguri as violence raged across the country’s northeast just two weeks before national elections.

The hours-long attack on the strategic capital of Borno state was the Islamists’ second attempt to take Maiduguri in a week.  As government forces were holding them off, the airforce of neighbouring Chad was pounding the militants’ positions in Gamboru, a town on Nigeria’s border with Cameroon 140 kilometres (87 miles) to the northeast.

With near-relentless violence plaguing much of the northeast, and Boko Haram still in control of large swathes of the region, fears are mounting over the prospect of organising polls on February 14.

The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), which claims to be gaining momentum in the campaign against President Goodluck Jonathan, has rejected calls for the vote to be postponed.

But hundreds of thousands of voters in the northeast, an APC stronghold, could be disenfranchised by the unrest if the election goes ahead in two weeks.

Heavily-armed gunmen attacked the southern edge of Maiduguri at about 3:00 am (0200 GMT), setting off explosives as they tried to enter the city, several residents said.

Repelled in the south by troops backed by vigilantes, they regrouped and tried to take the city from the east, where they again met stiff resistance.

As the gunbattles raged, “the whole city (was) in fear“, said resident Adam Krenuwa.

Defence ministry spokesman Chris Olukolade said the assault on the town, where the extremist group was founded more than a decade ago, was “contained” and that “the terrorists incurred massive casualties“.
“The situation is calm as mopping up operation in the affected area is ongoing,” he wrote in a text message, a claim consistent with witness reports.

Despite being under fire in recent months, Maiduguri has become a place of refuge for people forced to flee other areas in Borno that have been taken over by the Islamist rebels.

In other attacks in the northeast Sunday, a suicide bomber killed seven people in Potiskum, the economic capital of Yobe state, while two blasts killed five people in Gombe city to the south.

The bomber in Potiskum blew himself up shortly after midday outside the home of Sabo Garbu, who is running for a seat in the lower house of parliament on behalf of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
Seven people died in the blast and seven were wounded, a police officer at the scene who requested anonymity said in an account supported by three witnesses.

Garbu and those attending his campaign meeting reportedly escaped unhurt.

It was not immediately clear if the attack was the work of Boko Haram.  The Islamist militant group, fighting to create a hardline Islamic state, has carried out dozens of bombings throughout its six-year uprising, which has claimed more than 13,000 lives.

Fearing the collapse of government control in areas controlled by the Islamists along their borders, Nigeria’s neighbours have rallied to the fight against Boko Haram.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday backed an African Union proposal for a 7,500-strong regional taskforce.

Chad has already sent troops and aircraft to help repel cross-border Boko Haram incursions.

On Sunday, Chadian fighter jets went into action against Boko Haram in the town of Gamboru for a second day running, an AFP journalist witnessed.

Loud explosions were heard coming from the town while local and Chadian troops and armoured vehicles massed across the border in the Cameroonian town of Fotokol, pointing to a possible imminent ground operation.

“We are determined to fight the enemy,” Chadian commander General Ahmat Darry Bazine said in front of national television cameras after the bombing raid.

“The morale (of the troops) is very high,” he said, sitting among his men in the bush.

A Chadian officer told AFP the air strikes sought to pave the way for Gamboru “to be liberated“.

Election officials have insisted Nigeria’s vote will go ahead on February 14, but concede that voting will be impossible across much of the northeast.

Foreign observers have said that they will not even attempt to monitor polling in the region because of the unrest.

Jonathan, who is facing a stiff challenge from former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, has repeatedly tried to assure Nigerians that Boko Haram could be contained.

But those promises have consistently proved hollow, with the violence having escalated each year under his watch and his management of the crisis being fiercely criticised, including during the presidential campaign.

The APC’s Buhari, a former army general who briefly led the country in the mid-1980s, has told voters that he will be able to curb the bloodshed but has so far not released a specific plan to deal with Boko Haram.

Source:  timeslive.co.za

Cairo airport authorities tightened security after finding two bombs near the arrivals hall and a homemade explosive device exploded in the centre of the capital on Tuesday, security officials said.

United Nations Mission reports that over thousand lives have been claimed in January alone in Iraq amid the Islamic State terrorist organization’s offense against the Iraqi government.

The Iraqi capital of Baghdad was the worst affected region in the country, where 256 were killed and 758 injured, according to the United Nations mission report.

UNAMI admitted however, that the organization is often “able only to partially verify certain incidents,” and that sometimes they are unable to verify the exact number of casualties.

2014 was the deadliest for Iraq in over five years, according to UNAMI. A total of 12,282 Iraqis were killed while 23,126 were injured.

Since early 2014, Iraq has been victim to a “surge in violence” amid IS targeting the Iraqi government. UNAMI claims that last year Iraq saw the highest casualty figures in over five years.

The IS Sunni extremist group began fighting the government of Syrian in 2012 and later expanded into Iraq. The militant group controls large swathes of land in both countries and declared a caliphate on the areas that it controls. The Taliban, which increased its activities in 2014, also intends to establish an Islamic state in Afghanistan.

“On Sunday night, coalition jets hit Islamic State (IS) bases hard, inside and around the town of Sinjar,” Peshmerga Commander Bahram Doski told BasNews, from the frontlines.

“Peshmerga snipers have been deployed to the Sinjar frontline. They play a major role. Every day, the snipers kill a number of IS militants.”

Recent IS attacks in the area have been defeated, inflicting significant losses on the group.

Source: BasNews

The Lebanese army is pushing ahead with preemptive strikes, shelling the outskirts of the northeastern Bekaa Valley area of Ras Baalbek to prevent any attack by Islamist militants deployed on the border with Syria, a security source said Monday.

The source told The Daily Star artillerymen maintained a daily pattern of pounding the area of Wadi Rafeq on the outer edge of Ras Baalbek with 120mm and 155mm projectiles for about 10-15 minutes every few hours in anticipation of any infiltration attempt by Daesh or Nusra Front jihadis.

Wadi Rafeq is less than three kilometers south of Ras Baalbek, whose outskirts saw deadly battles between the Lebanese army and militants who tried to overrun a military post in nearby Tallet al-Hamra last month.

The Syria-based militants, believed to be affiliated to Daesh, launched a surprise attack on an army post in Tallet al-Hamra, a hill overlooking Wadi Rafeq, in an early morning attack on Jan. 23, prompting clashes that endured for over 16 hours. The militants briefly overran the post, but the army regained control after it received reinforcements.

The attack posed a serious threat to the village of Ras Baalbek, which lies a mere five kilometers from the post. The fighting left eight Lebanese soldiers dead and at least 22 others wounded.

The bodies of more than 40 militants were discovered on the outskirts of Ras Baalbek, most of whom were killed by Lebanese army airstrikes.

Source:  albawaba