IDF special forces units teamed up with U.S. Marines last week for a joint military exercise in the Negev Desert in part aimed at coordinating techniques for combating terrorist activities such as that of Islamic State, Channel 2 revealed Thursday morning.

The drill dubbed ‘Noble Shirley,’ which was kept under wraps until now, reportedly involved special units from the Israeli Air Force, Navy and ground forces.

Channel 2 reported that the IDF forces relayed their experience in combating regional terrorism threats to the US forces, which can apply the training to America’s fight against ISIS in the Middle East.

During the exercise, the troops took part in drills simulating helicopter landings behind enemy lines, urban warfare above and below ground along with close-range combat and military takeover techniques.

breitbart.com

The country will offer a case study of what happens after IS suffers territorial defeat

Far from the broken cities of Mosul and Raqqah, the future of Islamic State is playing out in the Libyan city of Sirte on the glittering Mediterranean. Sirte is best known for being the birthplace of Muammar Gadhafi, but IS declared a third arm of its caliphate from there in February 2015, heralding its arrival with the execution of 21 Coptic Egyptians on the beach. From this early indicator of depravity, Sirte has been a microcosm of the dizzying rise of IS. But just as the city was the site of Gaddafi’s squalid death—he was dragged from a gutter and executed by a militia fighter from the nearby city of Misrata—so too might it witness the end of IS’s territorial hold in Libya. Today, its forces are trapped in the city centre by Misratan militias and close to defeat. And as Misratans, supported by the west, continue to inch forward, Libya will be a case study of what comes next after IS suffers territorial defeat.

The parallels with Raqqah and Mosul run strong. IS-Libya did not emerge from the ether. In the wake of Gaddafi’s death, Sirte was left destroyed, populated by dispossessed and disenfranchised tribes and Gaddafi loyalists. Ignored by a Libyan government caught up in internecine warfare, Islamist networks exploited the frustration to take control, eventually allowing IS to walk into the city in 2015. As in Mosul and Raqqah, they exploited isolation and bitterness, tapping into networks of local conflicts and grievances, tackling the endemic lawlessness and filling the vacuum left by an eroded state.

From its bloodless conquering, IS-Libya worked hard to implement a state and project an image of governance, stability and military capability. Its media releases stressed territorial control of Sirte; it had brought the third element of caliphate into existence, and the Libyan soil it controlled was testament to the movement’s millenarian perfection. Information on the situation inside Sirte was hard to come by, but IS-Libya were thought to have several thousand fighters, and to have ruled via a developed Sharia court system and police. It was a powerful and focused enemy, instantly at home in the unwinding civil war of Libya.

An abortive attempt earlier this year to expand from Sirte towards Misratah and the oilfields put paid to that image. Threatened by its expansion, Misratah finally girded its loins and its militias rapidly pushed IS back to the centre of Sirte, puncturing its appearance of superiority. There IS remains, barricaded in, close to the streets where Gaddafi was captured and executed. But unlike the dictator, IS-Libya is ready to fight to the death.

The death of Gaddafi reverberated around the Arab world, dealing a fatal blow to the invincibility of Arab dictators. IS’s defeat in Sirte will be a similarly powerful stroke to its narrative of blessed invincibility. Once Sirt becomes the first Caliphate capital to fall, the threat to Mosul and Raqqah becomes more vital. In the face of this, the senior leadership of IS has laid the ground for a move to a new kind of warfare. Its emir in Syria, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, rejected the previous conceptual underpinnings of the Caliphate (terrority and governance) in a May press release, instead focusing on the eternal, eschatological insurgency against infidels.

When Sirte falls, we will find out what sort of insurgency IS will fight, and who will fight it. Defeat there does not mean total defeat for IS-Libya—it claims to have placed cells across the country, as well as having declared groups in the eastern cities of Benghazi and Derna. With its focus moved from building the caliphate in Sirte, Libya’s phenomenally weak state becomes a greater target, as it will in Iraq and Syria when Mosul and Raqqah fall. And, as in Iraq and Syria, little capable opposition exists to prevent them. All three countries are striated by competing armed groups and centres of power—the unitary government in Tripoli barely exists, and cannot harness forces nationally to fight an insurgent IS. Instead, in Libya, a patchwork of militias and armed groups, at best loosely affiliated with the government, at worst in direct competition with the state and each other, will fight against IS.

The lack of opposition provides crucial opportunity for US. A simple path suggests itself for the campaign in Libya—faced by weak and incoherent opponents, IS can easily strengthen its insurgent tactics, targeting the institutions of state to prevent it ruling; the markets and commercial areas of cities to cripple local economies; and, finally, the competing militia factions to sow discord and mistrust between them. The chaos will enlarge the space IS has to exist, in time giving it a safe space for further attacks in Libya and abroad. Given continued poor opposition, it may even have the chance to regenerate a territorial caliphate. And this may breathe new life into the IS brand. What emerges from Sirte may be even more dangerous and alluring—a narrative not just of invincibility, but rebirth.

As the UN and western countries have identified, military support needs to be matched by political. For that reason, IS leadership in Syria and Iraq are watching Libya along with us, to note the success of any insurgent tactics and, more importantly the willingness of international partners to support and insulate the fragile Libyan state. What lessons, they may ask, have we learned from Afghanistan and Iraq? Is the international community prepared to see Libya descend into utter chaos? And, if not, what are we prepared to invest to defeat IS?

And, finally, what of the foreign fighters? IS-Libya’s soldiers have yet to drain away. But IS forces in Sirte also relied on North and sub-Saharan Africans. As the noose tightens, we will find out whether foreign fighters will continue to seek to die, either in their frontlines or home countries, or whether their personal jihad finished in the ruins of Sirte. That, no doubt, is one question we all seek the answer to. The future of IS, and our security, lies in Libya.

prospectmagazine.co.uk

Two militants were killed and one soldier was injured on Wednesday during an armed clash in Om Al-Hani, a village of the Jendouba Province in northwestern Tunisia, according to local media.

The Tunisian Defense Ministry has not given any details on the clash so far.

On July 22, Mohamed Sablaoui, a 21-year-old corporal, was killed by a mine when he was on mission in the mountain of Samama in Kasserine Province in central west of Tunisia.

The explosion was claimed by Katiba Okba Ibn Nafaa, a jihadist armed branch which is said to be loyal to the al-Qaida.

xinhuanet.com

Morocco said on Wednesday that it had arrested 52 suspected militants inspired by Islamic State and that it had foiled several attacks in the North African kingdom by seizing weapons and bomb-making materials.

It is the largest group arrested in years and the latest of a series of cells that the authorities say they have found plotting attacks inside and outside Morocco.

The North African kingdom, an ally of the West against Islamist militancy, has been on high alert since 2014, when IS took control of large swathes of northern Iraq and Syria.

The 52 arrested were among 143 people investigated in many Moroccan cities and towns, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Many members of the group were planning to create an Islamic State province (Wilayat) in Morocco, the statement said. They intended to assassinate Moroccan security and military officers and tourists, as well as targeting prisons and festivals and other institutions in the country.

Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation, the judicial part of the Moroccan domestic intelligence service, has tracked suspected militants since Islamic State established itself as a global threat.

Morocco has dismantled 38 suspected militant cells with Islamic State ties since 2013, the statement said, adding 159 cells had been found since 2002.

Hundreds of fighters from Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have joined Islamist militant forces in Syria. Some are threatening to return and create new jihadist wings in their home countries, security experts have said.

Nearby Libya has become a major draw for jihadists from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Islamic State has taken advantage of the security chaos there to build a base, operate training camps and take over the city of Sirte.

Morocco has been the target of militant attacks, most recently in 2011 in Marrakesh, when an explosion in a cafe killed 15 people, mostly foreigners.

reuters.com

After the latest round of attacks on Egypt’s Christian minority—which saw at least one Copt stabbed to death and many Christian homes and a church burned—Coptic Bishop Makarious of al-Minya, the region where many of the attacks on Christians take place, wasinterviewed on television.

Although Church authorities in Egypt are regularly diplomatic and sensitive to what they say—more elements in Egypt, including in the government, can seek “retribution” if Christians openly complain and make them look bad—Makarious made many revealing comments.

Although only Christians, no Muslims, were killed and hurt, he wondered why the government and media continue to describe these incidents as “clashes”—which suggests two quarrelling parties—when the reality is always that one side attacks the other: “Within minutes [of the start of one of the attacks], 100 Muslims instantly appeared, fully armed, as if ready for war.”

His grandest point was that the attackers know that they will never be punished, so they continue to grow more and more emboldened:

As long as the attackers are never punished, and the armed forces are portrayed as doing their duty, this will just encourage others to continue the attacks, since, even if they are arrested, they will be quickly released.

When the host asked questions about who is released and why, suggesting that perhaps those released are in fact innocent of any wrongdoing against the Christians, the bishop replied:

Well what do you think when the actual attackers themselves are arrested, with complete proofs and evidences against them, but then they are still declared innocent and released?… this happens every single time.

When asked what the government did regarding this incident, he said it did what it always does: taking its time, “security comes after all the damage is complete, after the rioters have had their fill of plunder, then it stays in the area for a couple days, and once it leaves, the area again falls under the sway of certain elements.”

Bishop Makarious ultimately held the government responsible for the repeated attacks on the Coptic Christians of Minya. After he pointed out that “some of the authorities always smile at what is happening,” the surprised host asked him to explain, to which the bishop responded: “Of course I don’t assume that all authorities have the interest of the nation at heart and are sincere, because if they did, these attacks would not happen time and again, at a rate now of every two or three days.”

meforum.org

The Lebanese Army arrested on Sunday at checkpoint a top Nusra Front official in the outskirts of Arsal, NNA correspondent said.

Army units pursued their security measures within Arsal town in search of terrorists and wanted suspects.

nna-leb.gov.lb

Armed groups including Islamists have urged Libyans to mobilise against French and other foreign troops deployed in the country, denouncing their presence as a “blatant aggression”.

The call by militias in the second city of Benghazi came after French President Francois Hollande confirmed on Wednesday that his country has soldiers in Libya.

Hollande made the announcement after three French troops were killed in Libya during a mission to gather intelligence.

His remarks sparked anti-French protests in several Libyan cities, while the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) said the presence of foreign troops was a “violation” of Libya’s sovereignty.

A military commander allied with a rival government based in eastern Libya has said that French troops along with US and British soldiers were in Libya to “monitor” Islamic State group jihadists.

The extremist group seized the Libyan coastal city of Sirte in June last year, raising fears that it is establishing a new stronghold on Europe’s doorstep.

The armed groups, known as the Revolutionary Shura Council of Benghazi, urged Libyans to rise up against the deployment of foreign troops in the chaos-wracked country.

“We call on all the Libyan people to mobilise and defend their (Muslim) religion… and expel” all foreign troops from Libya, a statement said.

The French military presence in Libya is tantamount to a “crusader’s invasion”, it added.

Dozens of protesters rallied Friday outside the GNA’s former headquarters in a Tripoli navy base and called on authorities to boycott French firms.

The Pentagon said in May that it had a “small presence” in Libya tasked with trying to identify which groups might be able to assist the United States in its mission to combat ISIS.

British media reported in May that British special forces had taken part in combat missions against ISIS in the country’s northeast.

Rival militias in Libya have been vying for power since the overthrow of veteran dictator Moamer Gathafi in 2011.

Amid the chaos, the GNA, which is the result of a UN-backed power-sharing agreement in December, has been striving to assert its authority.

Troops loyal to the unity government are battling to recapture Sirte from ISIS.

Benghazi meanwhile has seen bloody battles for more than two years between armed groups, including jihadists, and forces loyal to the internationally recognised parliament, which has yet to endorse the GNA.

middle-east-online.com/

Armed groups including Islamists have urged Libyans to mobilise against French and other foreign troops deployed in the country, denouncing their presence as a “blatant aggression”

The call by militias in the second city of Benghazi came after French President Francois Hollande confirmed on Wednesday that his country has soldiers in Libya.

Hollande made the announcement after three French troops were killed in Libya during a mission to gather intelligence.

His remarks sparked anti-French protests in several Libyan cities, while the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) said the presence of foreign troops was a “violation” of Libya’s sovereignty.

A military commander allied with a rival government based in eastern Libya has said that French troops along with US and British soldiers were in Libya to “monitor” Islamic State group jihadists.

The extremist group seized the Libyan coastal city of Sirte in June last year, raising fears that it is establishing a new stronghold on Europe’s doorstep.

The armed groups, known as the Revolutionary Shura Council of Benghazi, urged Libyans to rise up against the deployment of foreign troops in the chaos-wracked country.

“We call on all the Libyan people to mobilise and defend their (Muslim) religion… and expel” all foreign troops from Libya, a statement said.

The French military presence in Libya is tantamount to a “crusader’s invasion”, it added.

Dozens of protesters rallied Friday outside the GNA’s former headquarters in a Tripoli navy base and called on authorities to boycott French firms.

The Pentagon said in May that it had a “small presence” in Libya tasked with trying to identify which groups might be able to assist the United States in its mission to combat IS.

British media reported in May that British special forces had taken part in combat missions against IS in the country’s northeast.

thelocal.fr

alaraby.co.uk

Two Libyan officials say that a French warplane has bombed positions of Islamic militias outside the eastern city of Benghazi, killing at least 16 fighters and destroying the militias’ weapons.

The officials on Thursday told the Associated Press that the bombing came in retaliation for Sunday’s killing of members of the French special forces by the militias. France has acknowledged the killing of three of its officers and for the first time said that its forces are operating in eastern Libya.

The officials say the bombing took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, forcing the militias to retreat toward the town of Ajdabiya, west of Benghazi. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters.

ap.org