Seven Libyan terrorists have been arrested Tuesday in Hassi-Kiout, in the province of Illizi (1850-km southeast of Algiers), by a detachment of People’s National Army, from the north-east operational section of In-Amenas, the fourth military district in Ouargla said in a statement.

The Army has also seized a number of arms: four automatic rifles (Kalashnikov), four pump-action shotguns, and a precision rifle, in addition to a quantity of ammunition, a pair of binoculars and two battle dresses, the statement disclosed.

Three all-terrain vehicles were also recovered during the operation, according to the statement.

Investigations have been launched into the case as part of the efforts to fight against terrorism, smuggling, organized crime and illegal immigration.

aps.dz

ibtimes.com

Concern is growing in Libya about the rise of IS through radicalising young men via videos and pamphlets glorifying the group.

Fears are growing about the radicalisation of young people in Libya after the Islamic State (IS) announced that one of the suicide bombers who led an assault on two of the country’s main oil ports last week was a Tripoli teenager.

After the revelation that the 15-year-old Libyan was one of those who carried out suicide attacks on 4 January, Libyan media reported that the boy had disappeared from his home in Tripoli four months ago, after being radicalised in a mosque in the capital. In a call to his family after he vanished from home, he told them he had joined IS and was in Sirte, according to Libyan news outlet Alwasat.

Libya’s struggle with instability and civil conflict in the wake of the 2011 uprising has made the country a fertile ground for IS, which has attracted foreign fighters and garnered some local support. It now has complete control over 300 kilometres of coastal territory, including four towns and a further four villages.

The militant group is spreading its reign of terror beyond its declared territory, with attacks in the past week targeting a police academy at Zliten, 280 kilometres west of Sirte, as well as the oil ports of Sidra and Ras Lanuf. These latest assaults indicate the presence of sleeper cells in other Libyan towns, local people say.

“We have Daesh [the Arabic acronym for IS] in our town, for sure,” said a senior official from al-Khoms – just 115km from Tripoli – who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity. “They are small in number, but it’s like a snowball. They are targeting our youth now, and this is how they become strong.”

He said that propaganda DVDs were being surreptitiously distributed among young people.

“I have watched this film and it is like a promotional video designed to brainwash 15- to 25-year-olds. Believe me, if you see it, you can understand why people join Daesh,” he said. “I think they used professional psychologists because they know exactly how to affect the minds of young men.”

The official said IS was preying on vulnerable young people who were religious but poorly educated, adding that some youngsters from Khoms had already left the town and were now believed to be in Sirte.

“I think they went because of promises of money and other benefits. Daesh seems to have a lot of money to recruit people,” he said. “If a young man wants a woman, Daesh promises him three women. If he wants a knife, Daesh will give him an AK47. If he wants to go to Europe, Daesh says no problem, just fight with us for two years and then you can go.”

Several displaced families who had fled from Benghazi, where IS militants are fighting alongside rebel groups and members of al-Qaeda affiliate Ansar al-Sharia against government forces, were behind the DVD distribution, he said.

“Daesh has not yet declared our town is part of its state, but people have to understand what is coming,” the al-Khoms official said. “There are sleeper cells in Tripoli and Misrata, as well as in the western towns of Zawia and Sabratha. In Libya, we cannot stop the spread of Daesh now.”

Similar material glorifying IS ideologies and operations has been circulating in Libya for several years, according to a former official from the town of Nofaliya, which was declared part of IS earlier this year. “Filmed mainly in Iraq and Syria, these films show young men happily leaving on suicide missions or beheading Syrian and Iraqi soldiers,” he said. “They are very high-quality and, along with the extremist preaching in the mosque, inspired many of our sons to join ISIS.”

In Tripoli, the Special Deterrence Force has started to dismantle IS sleeper cells, making a number of arrests. In a recently released hour-long video about IS activity in the capital, seven men captured by the force confessed to being IS members and gave details about their operations in Tripoli during 2015, including attacks on a five-star hotel and diplomatic missions. One of the IS militants said these attacks were designed to gain media attention and further isolate Libya from the outside world.

The youngest captive said he had been trained in an IS camp in Libya where trainees were mainly born in the 1990s and were under 25. It was unusual to see older recruits amongst the many nationalities, which included Tunisians and Europeans, at the training camp, he said.

The men had all previously been in Sirte, the nucleus of IS activity in Libya after the militant group lost control of the eastern town of Derna. Sirte itself has been all but cut off from the outside world after IS shut down telephone and internet networks, enabling it to keep a tight check on information coming out of the town. But former residents who have fled say IS members in the town now run to several thousand, many of whom are foreign militants.

In and around Sirte, a local radio station is being used to spread propaganda amongst residents and passing travellers after militants commandeered broadcasting equipment. The al-Bayan station provides 24-hour coverage of IS operations in countries including Yemen and Russian Caucasus as well as Libya.

Propaganda material is also regularly distributed at checkpoints along the 300km stretch of coastal highway that is under IS control. Driving to the capital from eastern Libya last week, businessman Abdul Hassan said he was shocked by the visible IS presence along the road.

“The town of Harawa was completely deserted. I counted five black ISIS flags, and they have painted their logo on the front of two government buildings,” he said. “I knew they controlled the area, but to see the reality was something unbelievable because I’ve been using that road for 40 years.”

He said he was handed a propaganda leaflet by militants manning one IS checkpoint. “It was all about the family history of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, claiming that his ancestors were related to the Prophet Mohammad. But I don’t think it’s true. It’s like brainwashing, to make more people believe in his authority and join IS,” he said.

middleeasteye.net

A major power plant in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi has been attacked by militants, an army commander and a plant employee said on Saturday.

The employee said the shelling started late on Friday evening and continued into the morning, shutting down one of the plant’s units and starting a fire that sent black smoke billowing into the sky.

The fire was later extinguished, he said.

Military Commander Fadhal al-Hassi told Reuters Islamic State fighters were to blame. This could not be independently confirmed, though other Islamist groups operating in Benghazi do not tend to target civilian infrastructure.

Libya has slipped into turmoil following the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with rival militias, factions and governments competing for power and for the country’s oil wealth.

On Thursday, dozens of police recruits were killed in a truck bombing claimed by Islamic State in the western town of Zliten.

Earlier this week, Islamic State militants attacked major oil terminals at Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, triggering several days of clashes and causing fires at seven oil storage tanks.

The Petroleum Facilities Guard said the last of those fires were put out on Friday.

Benghazi has seen months of heavy fighting between Islamist militants and military forces allied to the country’s recognized, eastern-based government.

The power plant, which supplies much of eastern Libya, currently has an output of 910 MW. That is some 170 MW short of demand, meaning power is rationed to residential parts of Benghazi for several hours a day.

It was unclear how output might be affected by the shelling on Friday and Saturday.

reuters.com

Two Egyptian police officers have been shot dead in Cairo as they made their way to work near the Pyramids of Giza.

The Interior Ministry published pictures of the two men on its Facebook page, saying they had been travelling through the district in their car.

“Immediately after the incident several moving and fixed checkpoints were deployed in the Muneeb area in order to crack down on the attackers and catch them,” a security source was quoted as saying by the state news agency.

It came after two men attacked a hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada, wounding two Austrians and a Swede.

Isis claimed responsibility for a separate attack on the Three Pyramids Hotel in Cairo on Thursday, where no one was injured.

independent.co.uk

The German army is considering sending personnel to Tunisia to train Libyan soldiers within the next few months, according to a report. The mission would aim to help stem the spread of the jihadist group “IS” in Libya.

Around 150 to 200 Bundeswehr soldiers could soon be deployed to Tunisia together with Italian military personnel to train members of the armed forces from neighboring Libya, German news magazine “Spiegel” said on Saturday.

Citing internal Bundeswehr plans, “Spiegel” said the mission would be modelled after the current Bundeswehr training mission for Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq.

It said the aim was to enable Libyan soldiers to better combat the extremist “Islamic State” (“IS”) group, which is exploiting the lawless situation in the North African country to seize territory. The mission would take place in Tunisia owing to the lack of sufficient security in Libya itself, according to the report.

However, “Spiegel” said that such a mission would only take place after the rival political forces in the country had formed a unity government. The UN special envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler of Germany, recently succeeded in mediating an agreement that foresees the formation of such a government.

Kobler has also supported the idea of a Bundeswehr training mission for Libyan soldiers.

‘A time for diplomatic negotiations’

The German Defense Ministry has not denied the report. However, a spokesman said that it was not the time for speculation about a military deployment, but rather for diplomatic negotiations.

Libya has been in a state of political chaos and violence ever since the ouster of long-term dictator Muammar Gadhafi in 2011. Two rival governments and parliaments are currently embroiled in a power struggle, while Islamist groups such as “IS” are turning the lack of law and order to their advantage.

Western nations have stepped up efforts to combat the jihadist group particularly since the deadly November 13 attacks in Paris, which were carried out by “IS”-affiliated militants. “IS” has already taken over large swathes of territory in northern Iraq and Syria in its declared bid to form an Islamic “caliphate.”

dw.com

Morocco said on Friday its security forces had arrested a group of seven suspected Islamist militants linked to Islamic State, including the group’s leader, who has been recruiting fighters.

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 Islamist group, the latest of a series that the authorities say they have found plotting attacks inside and outside the country, had been active in the town of Dar Bouazza, near Casablanca, they said.

The group had been in contact with IS in Iraq and Syria and had tried to send fighters there for training so that they could return to carry out attacks on Moroccan soil, the interior ministry said in a statement.

“Investigations showed that the leader of the group had solid contacts with commanders of IS on the ground in Iraq and Syria,” the statement said.

The government believes 2,000 Moroccan nationals are fighting with armed groups in Syria and Iraq. About 220 have returned home and been jailed and 286 have been killed.

Morocco has suffered a number of bomb attacks by suspected Islamist fighters, most recently in 2011 in Marrakesh.

trust.org

These images of massive black smoke plumes were captured by satellites, after battles at oil production and storage facilities in Libya between January 4th and 6th. The thick poisonous smoke looks troublesome even from space.

According to several news reports Islamic State (IS) shelled two oil terminals near Sidra and Ra’s Lanuf, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between Sirte and Benghazi, damaging five oil storage tanks. These photos show the direct environmental damage caused by Islamic State militants.

gizmodo.com

Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, announced the foiling of a plot by a Hamas cell to kidnap and murder Israeli citizens in December, The Times of Israel reported on Thursday.

The cell, which included three Israeli citizens from Jerusalem and three residents of Hebron, was led in part by 36-year-old Hebron resident Maher Qawasmeh, who had previously been jailed for planning terror attacks for Hamas. A second leader was identified as 20-year-old Ziad Abu Hadwan, who lived in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The group met in Hebron multiple times over the past year and acquired two vehicles to carry out their plot. 22-year-old Ammar Rajabe, also of Jerusalem’s Old City, was the intended driver of the car that would be carrying the kidnapped Israelis. The suspects told the Shin Bet that Rajabe was chosen for the job because his Hebrew language skills are “superior.”

The cell planned to abduct one or more Israelis, kill them, and then negotiate to trade the bodies for jailed terrorists. The Shin Bet discovered a hiding place where the group intended to store their victims’ remains.

After security forces detected and arrested those in the cell who have Israeli citizenship, Qawasmeh ordered the remaining members to make explosives to carry out a bombing. That effort was unsuccessful.

In the summer of 2014, three Israeli teens– Eyal Yifrach, 19; Naftali Fraenkel, 16; and Gil-ad Shaar, 16– were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank in a similar plot.

Last month, the Shin Bet announced that it had uncovered and dismantled a Hamas cell that planned to carry out mass-casualty bombing attacks. According to the Times, in both plots, “many of the members of the group were Israeli citizens, residents of Jerusalem, who were given tasks that made use of their greater freedom of movement, as compared to Palestinians who live in the West Bank.”

thetower.org

The Algerian Air Force has ordered 12 Su-34 Sukhoi Russian fighter jets as it looks to upgrade from its antiquated Soviet-era Su-24s. While the value of the deal for the jets has not been announced, it is part of a larger $7.5 billion weapons deal with Russia signed in 2006 and ends nine years of negotiations between Algiers and Moscow, according to General Chkalov Sergei Smirnov, director of Novosibirsk Aircraft Production Association, the government-owned company that manufactures the aircraft.

The Su-34 was recently used in the Russian bombing campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria, an opportunity for perspective buyers to see it fly in a true operational environment.

“Several countries in Africa, including Uganda and Nigeria, which [are] waging a war against Boko Haram, could buy the Su-34,” said Korotchenko, according to a Defense News report published late Wednesday. “Such top of the range fighter bomber aircraft could also strengthen Ethiopia’s Air Force, which still operates a large fleet of aging Su-27 fighters.”

To help pay for its $400 billion military technological advancement and growth program, the Russian government had been selling to countries it did business with before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991 and to countries that could not afford the more expensive western defense products being sold by the U.S. and European countries. To that end, Moscow made big deals with India, China, Iran and countries in the Middle East during 2015.

While Africa is a market that has traditionally not generated big revenues, it is being seen as a future battle ground for defense companies. The U.S. And Europe are less inclined to sell to unstable regimes where the government could turn on the civilian population using the weapons it bought, whereas Russia had shown in the past that it is more than comfortable selling to any country.

The Su-34 has also attracted the interest of Iraq, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan while Kazakhstan already operates a squadron recently acquired from Russia.

ibtimes.com