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Lebanon: Hezbollah’s use of recent attack on protests is calculated risk

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Hezbollah has sought to capitalize on the killing of several people in Beirut last Thursday to try to mobilize anger against a Christian Lebanese leader named Samir Geagea, like reported by jpost.com.

This leads to questions about what Hezbollah’s real plan is. Within a day of the attack, the pro-Hezbollah social media was already labeling Geagea responsible and various graphics appeared comparing him to fascists and reminding Lebanese of the civil war that pitted Christian fighters like Geagea against Muslims.

How did Hezbollah know to latch onto this narrative so quickly? It appears that Hezbollah wants to exploit the chaotic scenes last week to claim that they know who shot at protests.

However, the actual events are more unclear. A video emerged showing Lebanese soldiers shooting at least one civilian. Hezbollah members arrived quickly with arms to begin shooting at random buildings during the protest in Beirut. The protest was a Hezbollah provocation designed to remove a judge investigating an explosion last year in Beirut.

This means that some supporters of Hezbollah may have been looking for an excuse to try to sideline or target Geagea. Why him? Because targeting a Christian leader who opposes Hezbollah is one way to divide the opposition in Lebanon.

While some Christians have sided with Hezbollah, such as Michel Aoun, others back the Lebanese Forces, the group led by Geagea. Many Sunni Muslims also back Saad Hariri and others who oppose Hezbollah. This has created political deadlock for years.

Hezbollah wants to remind Lebanon that it is the group with the most weapons and armed members. That is why it has bragged of having some 100,000 fighters. It also wants to use this incident to create a new narrative about having “martyrs” to pretend that it is the victim.

This is the classic victim-perpetrator model, where the more one is a perpetrator, the more one claims also to be a victim and be “forced” to perpetrate crimes. Hezbollah has entered this cycle because of its strength in Lebanon today.

The question for Hezbollah is whether it will continue down a road of sectarian division and trying to create a kind of a cause that could unite its followers against Geagea and lead to violence, or whether it will tone down the rhetoric and stop the incitement.

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Al-Qaeda attacks threaten only road linking Morocco to sub-Saharan Africa

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The expansion of Al-Qaeda attacks in Mali threaten dozens of Moroccan truck drivers who transport goods to sub-Saharan Africa every day, like reported by middleeastmonitor.com.

The terror group has hit a 3,700-kilometre road to Morocco and it “has now become dangerous,” according to a report published by the Spanish news agency (Efe).

It all started when gunmen presumed to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda killed a truck driver and his companion, both of whom were Moroccan, on 9 September.

The attackers withdrew after the attack without taking anything from the trucks, which rules out that the motive behind the attack was theft.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Al-Qaeda affiliates have admitted to carrying out similar attacks on Moroccan drivers.

Ten days of driving
To reach Mali’s capital from Morocco, truck drivers travel about 3,700 kilometers, which normally takes ten days, unless two drivers go on the trip, then it will only take eight days, of which a whole day is spent waiting in the long truck lines at the Guerguerat border crossing between Western Sahara and Mauritania.

Once in Mali, part of the cargo is unloaded at Bamako, which in turn is a strategic transportation point; Another part of the shipment goes from there to different countries in the sub-Saharan region; Niger, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso.

Some estimates put the number of Moroccan trucks working on that road to be between 1,300 and 1,800, depending on the seasons.

The head of Mali’s Financial Transport Council, Youssef Traoré, said terror groups “carry out attacks against trucks operating between Malian cities and neighbouring countries on a daily basis. Many attacks occur between Zhao and Sevare (in the north) and no one is compensating the owners.”

Traore added: “The terrorists carry out their attacks on this road to punish the truck drivers; who supply the United Nations Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) with fuel, which is a target for terrorists, especially to pro-Al-Qaeda.”

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3 Tehrik-i-Taliban terrorists killed in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

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Three Tehrik-i-Taliban militants have been killed by police in Pakistan’s Kyber Pakhtunkhwa province, officials said on Thursday. They said police’s counter terrorism team raided a spot at Shahpur area of Peshawar district, based on an intelligence input on Wednesday night, like reported by outlookindia.com.

Officials confirmed that three terrorists were killed during an exchange of fire, while others managed to escape from the spot. The killed included wanted militant Hizbullah, while the identify of other two is yet to be ascertained, police said.

Search is on for the gunmen who escaped during the raid, officials said. In the last few months, there has been an uptick in terror activities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.

Earlier on Wednesday, a powerful bomb ripped through the tribal area of Tiara Bandagai in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, resulting in the death of at least four security personnel.

A number of Chinese citizens working on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor have also come under attack

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Mali: British troops shoot Islamic State jihadis

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British troops have shot dead jihadists, believed to be Isis fighters, after coming under attack while on a UN mission in Mali – a country facing a fierce insurgency and political upheaval drawing-in rival international powers, like reported by independent.co.uk.

The killings of the two gunmen were the first by regular UK forces since Afghanistan in 2014, and highlighted the dangers in a conflict which has spread across states in the Sahel.

The UN mission, described as the most dangerous peacekeeping operation taking place at present, is carrying on alongside a counter-insurgency operation led by France.

The clash between British forces and the Islamists took place in a remote area in the east of the country where troops from the Queen’s Dragoon Guards were on an operation to find alternative routes to ones which have come under repeated roadside bombings.

The gunmen, carrying a Russian made PKN machine-gun and a Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle opened fire on the troops in Jackal armoured vehicles on a track between the towns of Indelimone, where a Malian army base had been overrun by Islamists and Menaka, a regional centre.

The British troops from the Long Range Reconnaissance Group chased the two gunmen into an undergrowth before returning fire with a GPMG (general purpose machine gun) and 40 mm grenade machine gun in a 20 minute exchange, which began at a distance of 10m, on Wednesday morning.

The British troops, contingents from the Queen’s Dragoon Guards and the Royal Anglian Regiment, are taking part in Operation Newcombe under UN rules of engagement which allows appropriate action in self-defence. The intention during the confrontation, say the UK military, was to detain the two gunmen, who fired more than hundred rounds.

The area is the furthest east the UK troops have gone in the 10-month mission as part of expanding their role with helping the UN investigate atrocities committed by armed groups.

Lt Col Will Meddings, the UK commanding officer, said: “Today’s action demonstrates exactly what the UK is bringing to the UN’s most dangerous peacekeeping mission – a long-range force that doesn’t just find those who harm civilians, but acts as well.

“Results like this come from patrolling huge distances, day and night, in places where ISGS (Islamist State in the Greater Sahara) feel they have the freedom to extort and murder, and proving to them that they cannot act with impunity.”

French forces, which are taking the lead in the counter-insurgency war, last month killed Adnan Abu Walid al-Saharoui, leader of the ISGS. As well as Isis, Mali and neighbouring countries have become a haven for al-Qaeda with the jihadist leaders declaring that they had been energised by the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, however, has announced that the number of French troops would be cut drastically with the end of Operation Barkhane.

The military regime running Mali after two coups in nine months has accused the French of a “lack of consultation” and of “abandoning us in mid-fight”. They are said to be negotiating a $10.7m-per-month deal with the Russian mercenary company, Wagner Group, to replace the French.

France and Germany have warned that they will reconsider their military commitment to Mali if the deal with the company, which is owned by an ally of Vladimir Putin and is accused of committing atrocities in a number of countries, goes ahead. In London, defence secretary Ben Wallace has also spoken about deep concern over the possible involvement of the Wagner Group.

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Syria: Islamic State bombing kills at least 14 in Damascus

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At least 14 people have been killed and several injured in a bomb blast that targeted a military bus driving through the Syrian capital on Wednesday morning.

The attack – the deadliest in Damascus for years – is believed to have been carried out by the Islamic State terror group but nobody has yet officially claimed responsibility. It follows a recent spate of attacks on government troops fighting to maintain control after President Bashar al-Assad’s forces retook the vast majority of the areas from various terror groups.

Syrian state TV showed footage of the charred bus and images showed smoke from the soldiers hosing down the destroyed vehicle. An investigation into how the attack happened and who is responsible is ongoing.

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Children in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso face greater risk of recruitment by Islamic terrorists

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Children living in conflict zones in the Central Sahel region across Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are facing a greater risk of illegal recruitment by non-state armed groups on a drive to attract young people after thousands of schools closed in the past two years due to increasing violence and COVID-19.

A new report commissioned by Save the Children and published by the Migration Studies and Research Group found a growing number of factors in the Central Sahel region were driving children into conflict at an alarming rate including a new deliberate and calculated recruitment strategy by non-state armed groups, including extremist groups, in the three countries.

Interviews in 23 locations with young people formerly involved in armed groups, local authorities and other decision makers found some children were forcefully recruited into conflict, others driven by poverty, while some felt the need to fulfil a religious duty, or for security and protection. But some were attracted by promises of pay, phones, or motorbikes by non-state armed groups.

It remains difficult to determine exactly how many children are associated with armed groups but researchers found the children recruited had dropped out of school or did not have access to a school system. Some children as young as seven were illegally recruited to gather intelligence on local communities for the non-states armed groups.

Save the Children, which has been present in the Sahel since the early 1980s, warned that the creation of more desperate circumstances for children in the region compounded by the impact of COVID-19 was putting boys and girls at a heightened risk of being recruited into conflict which is a grave violation of child rights and international humanitarian law.

The organisation also expressed concern over the failure to respond to targets to help children in the region that were set at a ministerial funding conference a year ago. More than 1.4 million people remain displaced in the region, more than half of whom are aged under 15.

Abdou, 21, joined an armed group operating in Burkina Faso while he was still a child:

“I spent more than four years in an armed group. I got to know this group by going to listen to their sermons. The fact that I was [not in school or working] pushed me and other young people to find an occupation and the only available [option] was to join a [an armed] group. At the time of recruitment, what was important was to have motivated people, people ready to follow them … the candidates they looked for are children aged 15 to 25 years.”

In Niger, Mouhamadou, 22, joined an armed group for three years after learning about it through friends.

“Two things encouraged me to join the armed group. The first was for jihad for religion and the second, they said [they would] pay me. I was promised one day I would become a civil servant.

“Penalties were imposed on children for errors. They are punished for treason or if they make the slightest mistake. The penalties are different depending on the nature of the slip. If you haven’t slipped a lot, we deny you food, we lock you in a place where you don’t know where you are. They can even be killed.

“I realized this is not the life I wanted to lead. It’s true that you make money in the group, but we don’t know what to do with it.”

In a new Policy Brief released today, Save the Children is calling on governments in the Central Sahel region and the international community to commit to funding education in emergencies, and protect children from recruitment. The call comes ahead of the Fourth International Conference on the Safe Schools Declaration in Nigeria next week.

Eric Hazard, Pan Africa Policy Director for Save the Children, said:

“Violence, poverty, and insecurity are threatening the safety of millions of children across Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Children in the region are facing a dire protection crisis and they need access to education. Within the $200 million needed to respond to the Education crisis in the Sahel, only 11% have been mobilised so far[iv], while more than 4,000 schools are currently closed in the region, due to insecurity, putting over 800,000 girls and boys at an increased risk of recruitment.

“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, eight million children were out of school due to violence and insecurity. The longer they are out of school, the risk of forced recruitment will only increase. For a child in conflict, school provides access to a safe space to learn, protection from risks such as recruitment into armed groups, and provides a crucial sense of routine and calm.”

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Afghanistan: grenade targets Taliban vehicle in Kabul

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A grenade was thrown at a Taliban vehicle in the Afghan capital on Wednesday morning, wounding two fighters and four nearby school children, government officials said.

“This morning a grenade was thrown at a mujahideen vehicle in Deh Mazang, wounding two mujahideen,” Taliban interior ministry spokesman Qari Sayed Khosti told AFP.

Another official said: “Our initial information shows four school students wounded.”

The explosion happened just before 8 am (0330 GMT) during rush hour in the Deh Mazang district in the west of the capital, a witness told AFP.

“I was on my way to work, it was 7.55 am and I heard this very big explosion on the road. I managed to escape,” said Amin Amani.

“I saw a lot of smoke in the mirror of the car and I saw people running,” the 35-year-old translator said.

Images shared on social media showed plumes of smoke and dust rising into the air on the streets of the capital.

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Yemen: Saudi-led coalition says 150 Iran-backed Houti rebels killed in air strikes

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The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said on Monday it had killed 150 Houthi rebels near Marib, as fierce fighting erupted in the strategic city in a war that has raged on for seven years, like reported by alaraby.co.uk.

Air strikes “destroyed 13 military vehicles and killed 150 terrorist elements” in Abdiya within the past 24 hours, the coalition said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

The latest toll takes to more than 1,100 the number of rebels the coalition says it has killed in the past week around Abdiya which is about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Marib, the internationally recognised government’s last bastion in oil-rich northern Yemen.

The Iran-backed Houthis rarely comment on losses, and the numbers could not be independently verified by AFP.

In a televised speech on Monday, rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi called for continued fighting.

“We must… confront the aggression with all firmness until the siege is lifted, the aggression and the occupation ends,” he said.

Tens of thousands of Houthi sympathisers took part in a rally on Monday in areas under the control of the insurgents, AFP correspondents reported.

In video footage shot by AFP, government loyalists shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) as they fired assault rifles on a rebel position in Marib and clouds of smoke billowed from the base of a mountain range.

“We are today fighting on the southern front line” of Marib, one of them says.

“We gave the enemy an unforgettable lesson and captured some of them,” he told AFP.

“We thank the Arab coalition for their air support and the strikes that they carried out against the enemy and for the destruction of their vehicles.”

On Sunday, the Houthis declared on Twitter that they had advanced on several fronts around Marib, including Abdiya, where the coalition says it is pounding the insurgents.

The Houthis began a major push to seize Marib in February and have renewed their offensive since September after a lull.

The Yemeni civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa, 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of Marib, prompting Saudi-led forces to intervene to prop up the government the following year.

Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced in what the United Nations has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations last week called for a halt to fighting in Abdiya, where it said the movement of aid to tens of thousands of people had been “extremely restricted”.

 

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Pakistan’s Taliban problem: by encouraging insurgency in Afghanistan has Pakistan stoked militancy at home?

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In Pakistan’s rugged tribal regions along the Afghan border, a persistent warning is circulating: the “other” Taliban is returning, like reported by inews.co.uk.

Pakistan’s own Taliban movement, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban, with its own record of violent attacks against the Islamabad government, has been emboldened by the return to power of their namesakes across the border.

Islamabad was warned by many that in backing the Taliban in Afghanistan it was playing with fire.

Officially, the Pakistan government doesn’t support the Taliban in Afghanistan, but merely urges the world to work with it. Few, though, believe that.

Pakistan viewed the rise of anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s as a chance to turn Afghanistan into a satellite state. Once the Soviets were vanquished, Pakistani officials turned their attention, post-9/11, to ousting the Americans.

General Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), spelled out publicly in 2014 how the agency used US aid after 9/11 to continue funding the Taliban.

“When history is written, it will be stated that the ISI defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with the help of America. Then… the ISI, with the help of America, defeated America,” he said.

Islamist extremism has already divided Pakistani society along sectarian lines, and experts say the return of Afghan Islamists will embolden radicals in Pakistan-based groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Tehrik-e-Taliban.

Amir Rana, executive director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, notes that Tehrik-e-Taliban has ramped up deadly attacks in recent months.

He warns that Pakistani society is at risk of turning into one similar to the Taliban-run Afghanistan.

A Gallup Pakistan survey last week found 55 per cent of Pakistanis would support an “Islamic government” like the one now in power in Afghanistan

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Nigerian, Cameroonian troops eliminate Boko Haram-ISWAP fighters as IED kills others

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Nigerian troops of Joint Task Force, North East Operation HADIN KAI (OPHK) alongside Cameroonian Defence Force have eliminated four Boko Haram/ISWAP fighters, like reported by dailypost.ng.

The battle occurred on Monday at the Forward Operating Base (FOB) in the Wulgo area of Borno State.

Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu, Director Army Public Relations disclosed that the soldiers foiled an attempted attack on the military base.

In a statement, the spokesman said they returned superior fire and were assisted by reinforcement from the Battalion Headquarters.

Troops chased the terrorists after they retreated, neutralizing three.

Three AK 47 rifles, six magazines and 50 rounds of 7.62mm special were recovered.

Also on Monday, four insurgents met their waterloo around the 151 Battalion location

“The terrorists were burnt beyond recognition, as their truck mounted with Anti Aircraft Guns ran over an Improvised Explosive Device (IED)”, Nwachukwu added.

Troops are conducting further exploitation of the general area to clear surviving terrorists.

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