The Islamic State group on Sunday claimed responsibility for the killing of a Tunisian soldier at his home in a central region that is a major hideout for jihadist groups.

“A Tunisian soldier was assassinated in his home yesterday at the hands of Islamic State fighters in Mount Mghilla,” the IS-affiliated Amaq news agency said.

Public television reported late Saturday that a soldier had been killed at his home by unidentified attackers.

Citing defence ministry spokesman Belhassen Oueslati, the channel said army and national guard units had launched a search for the attackers.

Contacted by AFP, the defence ministry declined to comment.

Since a revolution in 2011, Tunisian security forces have been battling a jihadist movement responsible for the deaths of dozens of soldiers and police officers as well as civilians.

A total of 59 tourists have also been killed.

The country has been under a state of emergency since a string of deadly attacks in 2015, claimed by groups affiliated with IS and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

IS carried out three major attacks on Tunisian soil in 2015, killing 72 people.

In March 2015, jihadist gunmen killed 21 tourists and a policeman at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis.

The following month, 30 Britons were among 38 foreign holidaymakers killed in a gun and grenade attack on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse.

That November, a suicide bombing in the capital killed 12 members of the presidential guard.

Authorities responded by declaring a state of emergency and a curfew in Tunis. The curfew was later lifted, but the state of emergency has remained in place.

In March, dozens of jihadists attacked security installations in the town of Ben Guerdane on the border with Libya, killing 13 members of the security forces.

Seven civilians and 55 extremists were killed, according to an official toll.

Several thousand Tunisians have travelled abroad to join jihadist groups in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

thepeninsulaqatar.com

Morocco busted on Friday an Islamic State (IS)-linked cell composed of five people in the northern city of Tetouan, the Interior ministry said in a statement, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.

A preliminary investigation confirmed that the members of this terror cell planned to join IS camps on the Syrian-Iraqi territory or its branch in Libya, said the ministry in a statement.

“The investigation also revealed the full support of members of this cell for the destruction agenda of IS and their willingness to carry out major terrorist operations in Morocco, after leading monitoring and tracking operations of sensitive targets in Tetouan,” the statement pointed out.

The same source said that the individuals were conducting paramilitary training in nearby forests in order to increase their fighting ability, adding that the suspects will be brought to justice after the completion of the investigation, conducted under the competent public prosecutor’s office.

Morocco is facing a growing threat from terrorist groups, especially the IS group.

Authorities said over 160 terrorist cells have been busted since 2002, including over 40 in the past three years with ties to extremists groups in both Iraq and Syria.

astroawani.com

US Marines are using Super Cobra attack helicopters to mount close-range airstrikes against Islamic State militants in the Libyan city of Sirte, the US navy said Thursday.

The gunship attacks, the first of their kind to be confirmed in over two months, were launched overnight from the USS San Antonio, an amphibious transport dock ship deployed off the North African state.

A statement from the US navy’s base at Naples in southern Italy said the Cobras were carrying out “precision airstrikes” during combat operations in Sirte, a coastal city where IS loyalists established a base in 2015.

The US Naval Forces in Europe base did not immediately provide further details of the scope, objectives or impact of the attacks.

They were part of a sea-borne air operation launched by President Barack Obama in August in support of Libya’s fledgling national unity government’s attempt to drive IS out of Sirte.

Hundreds of airstrikes have been unleashed but the only previously confirmed deployment of the Cobra gunships came at the end of August.

At the time, the Pentagon was predicting that US involvement in the battle for Sirte would last “weeks not months”.

Forces loyal to Libya’s Government of National Accord launched their offensive on Sirte in May.

They claimed last month to be closing in on the complete liberation of the city from the jihadists.

The Pentagon said in August that it estimated that there were around 1,000 hardened fighters in Libya who were loyal to IS.

The US attacks involved forces from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), a 2,500-strong task force comprised of elements from both the elite Marine Corps and the US Navy.

The Pentagon insists operations to support the GNA will be conducted only from the air but officials acknowledge that small teams of US special forces are in Libya gathering intelligence and liasing with forces on the ground.

rawstory.com

As Lebanon celebrates the election of a new president after more than two years of parliamentary deadlock, Lebanese Hizballah hails the election as a vindication of its ever-expanding role in Syria. On October 31, Michel Aoun was elected to the Presidency of Lebanon, which has been vacant since 2014. As the founder of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM)—a Christian party allied with Shi’a Hizballah since 2006—Aoun’s election points to a growing consensus within the divided country that Lebanese national security is inextricably tied to Hizballah. While Hizballah claims that it is indispensable in its role in the conflict with Israel, the Syrian civil war has fortified the group’s position as the self-proclaimed guarantor of Lebanese national security. 

For years, Hizballah has argued that its military wing is essential to preserving security in Lebanon. The Shi’a military-political movement of today is a far-cry from its original incarnation as an Iranian supported resistance group in the 1980s. As the threats facing Lebanon have evolved, Hizballah has filled the vacuum left by a weak government and military. From the ongoing conflict with Israel, to its involvement in the war in Syria, to its role as an Iranian proxy, Hizballah continues to advance as a regional force.

Aoun’s FPM and Hizballah have maintained a relationship since February 2006, when they released a joint ‘Memorandum of Understanding’. Prior to the agreement, the two groups were in opposition; bringing a major Christian faction into any sort of alignment was an important victory for Hizballah, which sought to bolster its image as the protector of Lebanon more broadly. Hizballah’s claim to defend Lebanon from Israel was reinforced by its impressive military performance in 2006. While culpability for initiating the war was contested, for many Lebanese, Hizballah was perceived as the only defense against a far-superior Israeli force. The support of the FPM throughout the conflict lent Hizballah significant credibility. 

The Syrian civil war has threatened to engulf Lebanon since 2011, with spill-over from across the border aggravating the country’s historical sectarian disputes. Sunni extremist groups—such as the so-called Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra (now Jabhat Fateh al-Sham)—have targeted Shi’a neighborhoods in Lebanon in efforts to incite an internal conflict. On the border, al-Nusra threatened Shi’a towns in the Bekaa valley. At the same time, Hizballah fighters deployed to Syria have been instrumental in turning the military situation in favor of the Assad regime since 2012. To its critics, Hizballah’s military engagement in Syria has made matters worse; to its supporters, Hizballah has taken the fight to the extremists, preventing terror attacks within Lebanon.

For Hizballah, the election of Aoun symbolizes a national consensus over its role in Syria. Days before the election, Aoun met with Secretary General of Hizballah, Hassan Nasrallah, who urged national unity in electing Aoun. In his inaugural speech, Aoun mimicked Hizballah’s stance on Syria, asserting that he would deal with terrorism ‘preemptively’—a point that Nasrallah has made profusely. The FPM even lauded Nasrallah as its ‘partner in victory’ in the presidential election, demonstrating how far the FPM-Hizballah relationship has come in the ten years since their reconciliation.

With the election of Aoun, Lebanon is likely to move closer to the influence of the Syrian regime, as well as Iran. Aoun has already promised to coordinate with the Assad regime in returning Syrian refugees. While Aoun has stated his commitment to pursuing an ‘independent foreign policy’, it is unclear what that will mean in light of Syrian and Iranian influence in the country.

Just as Hizballah emphasized the FPM’s endorsement prior to the 2006 war, the group will likely continue to tout the election of Aoun as a national consensus on its activity in Syria. Hizballah will likely continue to operate extensively in Syria, as the group’s own survival and the fate of Lebanon are increasingly tied to the endurance of the Syrian regime. Thus, the election of Aoun is likely to push Lebanon ever deeper into regional entanglements, as the lines between national priorities and those of Hizballah are increasingly blurred.

soufangroup.com/

The recent protests in Morocco began with a shocking incident that appeared to pit authorities against a poor citizen just trying to make a living

Angry demonstrations in Morocco have raised the question of how stable the kingdom, which survived the Arab spring intact, actually is today.

The trigger for the protests, which have been peaceful thus far, bears similarities to that which set off unrest in Tunisia nearly six years ago and spread into the convulsions that swept up Egypt, Libya and Syria.

The Tunisian uprising began in December 2010, when a young man set himself on fire after police confiscated fruits and vegetables he was selling. Likewise, the recent protests in Morocco began with a shocking incident that appeared to pit authorities against a poor citizen just trying to make a living.

Mouhcine Fikri, a fish seller in the northern town of Al-Hoceima, was crushed to death inside a garbage truck Friday night, after he entered the back of the truck in an effort to reclaim fish that the police had confiscated from him in punishment for breaking a ban on swordfish sales.

Word spread throughout Morocco that police had ordered the garbage men to “grind” Fikri, something the police denied.

But the grinding allegation has remained, amid a widespread perception that the entire Moroccan system grinds down those who are not well off.

“Welcome to COP 22, we grind people here,” read one protester’s sign at a demonstration in Rabat, referring to the upcoming UN global summit on climate change in Marrakech, which the regime hopes will boost its image abroad. Another sign at the same protest showed a blender filled with blood.

Despite the intensity of the anger, Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, a Tel Aviv University scholar of Arab politics, says there is reason to believe the current Moroccan protests will not escalate into the kind of sustained unrest that would threaten the monarchy.

Among the factors pointing against that eventuality is the fact that the main Moroccan Islamist group, the Justice and Development Party, which leads the government and scored well in recent elections, has urged its supporters not to join the protests.

“If the Islamists aren’t there, the chances of sustained protests are less,” Maddy-Weitzman said.

“It’s hard to see a united opposition crystallizing like we had in Tunisia.”

King Mohammed was able to contain Arab spring protests in 2011, in part by launching a reform process in which he appeared to devolve some power to elected representatives, albeit with the palace remaining as final arbiter. “Since 2011, there have been two rounds of parliamentary elections, enabling authorities to say, ‘we have a legitimate government and this is the best way to go.’” Maddy- Weitzman says. “The reforms were cosmetic, but they bought time.”

The swift response of the government in arresting 11 people yesterday over Fikri’s death may also help the government ride out public anger. The palace has been doing its utmost to show it sympathizes with public opinion.

Immediately after Fikri’s death, the king, who was abroad, ordered the interior minister to visit his family and convey his condolences. Government leaders vowed a rigorous investigation to get to the bottom of the incident.

Another factor that could contain the unrest is that the protests, thus far, have not led to clashes with the security forces.

Until now, both sides seem to be exercising restraint, and the government has let the demonstrations proceed.

“A lot of young people are alienated and angry and are ready to express that anger when there’s a trigger, but that doesn’t indicate a massive snowball effect that would challenge the regime,” Maddy-Weitzman says.

Still, another incident or a mistake by either side could stoke passions further, as grievances run deep. Morocco is “still in need of a renewed social contract.

The problems are still there – large scale unemployment, alienation and economic growth that is not at a rate that can dent unemployment,” Maddy-Weitzman says.

The economic woes mean there is scant chance for young people to advance, which naturally breeds resentment against the system. In this case, there is also resentment over long-standing marginalization of Moroccan Berbers. Fikri hailed from the northern Rif region of Morocco, a Berber area with a history of tense relations with the central authorities in Rabat. Some protesters have carried Berber flags during the demonstrations.

Berber grievances include that the state does not accord the Berber language an equal status to Arabic, despite making it an official language in 2011, and that the state, in the past, has not invested in Berber areas.

The demonstrators are young.

On Monday, students in Al-Hoceima boycotted their schools and took to the streets. Some carried signs that read, “we are all Mouhcine,” The Moroccan Times reported. Protesters shouted, “criminals, criminals, murderers and terrorists.”

It should be of concern to the king that some demonstrators railed against the makhzen, a word that connotes the elite establishment connected to the palace. This reflects a wide perception among citizens that the system is rigged against them.

“The makhzen humiliates people, life and human rights,” the Moroccan Times quoted Maati Monjib, a professor of political history at the University of Rabat, as saying.

Nadir Bouhmouch, a Moroccan activist and filmmaker, suggested that grievances against the regime run very deep, in an interview published on the Democracy Now website. “This is a much bigger issue than just the death of Mouhcine Fikri,” he said. “I mean, Mouhcine died with an empty stomach, according to the medical examination.

This is about a people that is hungry, that is being what we call hogra. The protests are about hogra, which is a sort of trailing oppression, an oppression that comes from the top and goes all the way down to the roots of the regime, which are the daily officers, the bureaucracy, everything that is lined up against the people who are seeing an increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and of austerity and privatization, the neoliberal pull that’s destroyed the needs of the people.”

jpost.com

An Egyptian soldier was killed and a number of others were injured Monday nigth after an explosive device hit a military vehicle that was patrolling a section of the border area between Israel and Egypt.Egyptian security sources told  Ma’an that a military vehicle was scanning the borders in the Bir Main area of the central Sinai Peninsula “near international border mark number 52” with Israel.

The call of “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”) echoed from a megaphone in the Tunisian border town of Ben Guerdane on March 7. Islamic State militant group (ISIS) fighters, mostly Tunisian nationals, had arrived from neighboring Libya. They beckoned residents towards them as they launched an assault on security forces, killing 12 and seven civilians.

Security forces ended the assault, killing 36 militants and arresting six others. ISIS’s attempt to capture the area and establish what President Beji Caid Essebsi called “a new emirate,” had failed. But as the first mass-coordinated ISIS attack to strike Tunisia, it highlighted the danger the North African country faces from militants returning from its permeable border with Libya, a country wracked by instability.

Now, as pro-government Libyan forces, backed by U.S. airstrikes and Western special forces, near victory in the central coastal city of Sirte—ISIS’s only stronghold in North Africa—Tunisian authorities expect a new wave of returning jihadis. With the returning fighters comes a heightened extremist threat.

While some ISIS fighters have flocked south in the face of intense military pressure in Sirte—seeking refuge in the vast Sahel desert region, or joining other Libyan groups such as the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Ansar al-Sharia—many Tunisians are trying to return home. Tunisians represent the majority of foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria, according to official figures. But of more than 4,000 Tunisians to travel to Iraq and Syria to fight for radical Islamist groups, some 700 have come back.

Fighters returning from Iraq or Syria face the most obstacles on the journey back, with the prospect of arrest at the airport if they choose to fly from Turkey. But those based in Libya can move easily, crossing Tunisia’s eastern border, as many smugglers do, to sell cheap Libyan goods such as petrol on the streets of Tunisia’s towns and cities. Jihadis can even pay smugglers to help them across the border, according to experts. The fighters are managing to enter the country despite Tunisia building a 125-mile barrier on its border with Libya to keep them out.

“Tunisia’s military continues strengthening its border defense capabilities, but the flow of goods and people across the border is constant, both through legal crossing points and through smuggling routes,” says Haim Malka, senior fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Returning fighters can take advantage of the relatively porous border to cross from Libya into Tunisia.”

ISIS is resisting the Libyan forces in Sirte but many of its fighters are leaving, according to local officials and the country’s unity government. Pro-government forces killed 10 ISIS fighters fleeing Sirte in October and reports have emerged of militants attempting to blend in with the local civilian population—anti-ISIS forces have found sinks full of shaved-off beards and long hair in Sirte buildings previously housing militants. ISIS has also developed a presence near the Western Libyan city of Sabratha—less than a two-hour drive to Ben Guerdane—where U.S. airstrikes and Libyan security force raids have cornered the group.

Both Tunisian and French governments have called for greater cooperation to deal with the threat that neighboring countries face from the spread of ISIS fighters once they are defeated in Sirte, which held around 5,000 militants at its peak, according to U.S. official estimates.

“The danger is real,” Tunisian Defense Minister Farhat Hachani told journalists on the sidelines of a meeting of defense officials in Paris in September. “Those who leave Sirte are heading south to eventually join Boko Haram, but some are also going west.”

He added that international cooperation is “not up to the level of the danger” posed by ISIS in North Africa. “We are in a decisive moment. The threats endanger all the region. We have to cooperate before the boat sinks.”

While regional cooperation will aid the fight against ISIS, the key issues that Tunisia should focus on are border security, corruption and countering domestic radicalization, experts say.

“Tunisia must continue to do more to secure its borders with Libya and control smuggling activities because this would be the only way for returning fighters to get back into the country,” says Mohamed Eljarh, non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Centre for the Middle East, based in the eastern Libyan city of Tobruk.

“It must take tough measures against corruption of the police force—especially those manning roads or checkpoints—and there is no doubt that Tunisia must work on the wider socio-economic issues that lead Tunisians to the path of radicalization.”

The Tunisian government’s inability to tackle these root causes has allowed ISIS an increased presence in the country. The tourism industry—a vital stream of revenue for the economy—suffered severe losses in the wake of the assault on the Bardo museum in Tunis in March 2015, which killed 22 people, and the beach massacre in the coastal city of Sousse three months later, which killed 38 people. The four attackers responsible had all received training in Libya.

But the residents of Ben Guerdane did not rise up against security forces to meet the call to arms as ISIS had hoped. According to Tarek Kahlaoui, a former adviser to Tunisia’s first Arab Spring leader Moncef Marzouki, and Professor of Islamic History and Art at Rutgers University in New Jersey, the militants’ failure demonstrates that Tunisia does not have the right conditions for ISIS to capture territory in impoverished areas—unlike the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014.

“I think [the threat] is huge,” Kahlaoui says. “You have hundreds of Tunisians who are trying to escape and this factor may provide a platform for possible attacks. But clearly what happened in Ben Guerdane shows they don’t have a popular incubator.

“Attacking a whole city is only possible when you expect some kind of popular support.”

As Tunisian jihadis fail to hold onto territory in Libya, as well as Iraq and Syria, ISIS is likely to focus its efforts on more attacks led by small cells of radicalized individuals, rather than the mass assault seen in Ben Guerdane.

“I think one of the lessons that terrorists took from Ben Guerdane is that the approach of a large, overwhelming attack on a single city is not yet possible in Tunisia,” Kahlaoui adds. “This is going to push ISIS back to the classic lone-wolf approach.”

newsweek.com

alalam.ir

Three jihadis shot the officer in the restaurant in a northern district of Constantine.

Mouthpiece for ISIS, Amaq news, said in a statement that depraved militants shot the officer and seized his weapon during the attack, around 240 miles east from the capital Algiers.

A security official told local media: “According to witnesses, these individuals went straight to the victim as he was eating and shot him and then took his service weapon.”

Attacks are rare since Algeria ended its 1990s civil war with Islamists that killed 200,000 people.

But Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and small brigades of Islamic State affiliates are still active, mostly in mountainous areas or the remote south near the country’s borders with Niger and Libya.

The last suicide attack in Algeria was in 2011 in the same town, when a militant tried to drive a bomb-packed truck into a police station, injuring 29 people.

It comes just two months after Algerian forces said they had cleared out Islamic State-affiliated militants, known as Jund al-Khilafa, or soldiers of the Caliphate, from the mountains east of Algiers – two years after they kidnapped and beheaded a French tourist in the former al Qaeda stronghold.

Daesh has become desperate to cling onto it’s strongholds as US-led forces close in on the recapture of the Iraqi city of Mosul.

ISIS jihadis have now resorted to planting bombs inside teddy bears and hiding detonators for booby traps within innocent-looking toy cars, it has been revealed.

Horrifying examples of the wickedly disguised improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have been put on display at a training centre for bomb disposal experts as 40,000 soldiers prepare to advance on Mosul.

Colonel Nawzad Kamil Hassan, an engineer with the Kurdish forces who has been leading a team responsible for investigating ISIS’ IEDs, said: “Why would Isis use something nice, like a bear or a rabbit?

“They used this toy because they know the peshmerga [Kurdish fighters] will not touch it but children will.”

express.co.uk

Four Egyptian army soldiers were killed in the country’s restive North Sinai province during military operations against militants, the military spokesman said in a statement on Sunday.

According to the statement, six militants were killed during the ongoing clashes while three weapons and explosives caches were destroyed.

Twelve roadside bombs ready to detonate against security forces on highways were discharged, it added.

Egypt has been witnessing a growing wave of attacks by militants, based mainly in North Sinai, since the army-led ouster of Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

The attacks have killed hundreds of police and army men, with a Sinai-based Islamic State affiliate group claiming responsibility for most of them.

The Armed Forces in coordination with the police have lately intensified wide-scale operations to uproot the militants’ hideouts, killing nearly 100 jihadists on Oct. 15, in retaliation to the killing of 20 soldiers in the same day.

Also on Sunday, an Egyptian police officer and four civilians were injured after an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated in North Sinai’s al-Arish city, official Ahram Online website reported.

According to Ahram Online, the IED, which was planted next to the entrance of a bridge in the city, detonated as an armored police vehicle passed through the area.

Last week, Egypt’s military launched a new campaign to fight Islamist militants in North Sinai, killing over 50 in response to a militant attack two weeks ago that killed 12 soldiers and injured six others.

xinhuanet.com