An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which is commonly known as drone has targeted a vehicle of insurgents in eastern Nangarhar province killing six insurgents and damaging their weapons.

The Iraqi troops inflicted hefty losses on the ISIL terrorists in the strategic city of Tikrit and succeeded in retaking the city’s general hospital.

Local forces supported by the U.S.-led coalition airstrikes seized a key terrain from the Daesh terror group in northeast Syria, the U.S. said Tuesday.

The seizure now denies the terror group, also known as ISIL, access to its primary route between Syria and Iraq.

During the two-week operation that ended March 7, anti-Daesh forces seized critical portions of Route 47 in Syria, a key communications and supply line of the terror group leading from Tal Afar, Syria into Mosul, Iraq, according to a statement from the Combined Joint Task Force that oversees the U.S.-led coalition efforts against the militants.

The forces also seized the Jazeera region in Iraq near the northern city of Mosul and liberated 94 villages in the region, while coalition forces conducted supporting air strikes that destroyed multiple Daesh weapons systems, vehicles and fighting positions.

The statement, however, did not specify which local groups took part in the given operations.

Syrian Kurdish militias are currently fighting the terror group in northeastern Syria, while in Iraq, Kurdish peshmerga forces, and the Iraqi army, accompanied by tribal and Shia militias, are fighting Daesh.

The Iraqi army is also conducting an offensive against Daesh in attempts to push the terror group north, and with the help tribal forces and Shia militia, Iraqis have seized control of large areas in Anbar province northeast of Baghdad.

Clashes between Iraqi forces and Daesh have been ongoing since last June when the militants seized Mosul and other territories in Iraq.

Source: Anadolu

The head of Yemen’s Houthis accused Gulf Arab states on Tuesday of supplying weapons and funds to Islamist militants, in an effort to create an environment in the southern part of the country where al-Qaida could flourish.

Speaking in a speech broadcast on al-Maseerah television, a media outlet of Ansarullah, the Houthi political wing, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi also accused unnamed parties of recruiting al Qaeda militants from abroad to justify a Western operation to occupy Yemen.

“Is there a just and equitable position for Gulf Arab states towards the Yemeni people?” Abdel-Malek said in the speech.

“Is there any position other than to send support, money and weapons, to the takfiri elements, and to facilitate the atmosphere for al Qaeda in the southern provinces,” he added, using an Arabic expression to describe Sunni Muslim militants.

Yemen, which shares a border with Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, has been in turmoil since protests in 2011 forced President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down. The turmoil worsened in September when the Shi’ite Houthi captured Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, a move that Gulf states condemned as a coup.

The army said today that some 200 fresh troops  had travelled from Beida to Benghazi to join in what appears to be increasingly intense fighting for the Leithi city district.

Combat is also reported to be continuing in Sabri, a district which last month the army was saying was effectively cleared of Ansar Al-Sharia fighters.

Yesterday a sailor and a soldier were killed in exchanges which also saw 11 government troops injured.  The bodies of the two men along with the wounded were taken to Jaala hospital.  The army has yet to comment on the casualties from today’s fighting.

The Beida formation that sent the two companies to Benghazi, was named by Alwasat as the Mujahid Hussin Al-Jaweifi battalion.

Two missiles, apparently fired at random yesterday killed one civilian and injured five others.

At least 34 persons were killed by a teenage girl suicide bomber on Tuesday at a crowded market in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, said witnesses.

The blast by a female teenager occurred in the market near the Old Elkanemi Cinema in the late afternoon, said Musa Danbaba, a member of a civilian protection militia. He said 34 bodies were counted and many more were wounded.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but it bears the hallmarks of Nigeria’s Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram.

The Maiduguri market is where suicide bombers on Saturday detonated explosives that killed 54 people.
Boko Haram is waging a nearly 6-year insurgency to impose Muslim Shariah law in Nigeria.

An estimated 10,000 people were killed by Boko Haram violence last year, according to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. Last week Boko Haram announced its allegiance to the Islamic State extremist group operating in Iraq and Syria.

The head of the Libyan armed forces, General Khalifa Haftar, on Tuesday asked Italian Premier Matteo Renzi for help in getting an arms embargo lifted so his troops can stem the advance of Islamic State.

“I ask Renzi to convince the international community to lift the arms embargo and help us fight for a Libya free from extremists…it’s decisive for Italy too: should ISIS win your security would be at risk,” he told.

The general added that if the Tobruk government prevails it could stop extremists sending desperate migrants across the Mediterranean.

At least eight United Nations Security Council members delayed approval on Monday of a request by Libya to import weapons, tanks, jets and helicopters to take on Islamic State militants and monitor its borders, diplomats said.

Spain – supported by Lithuania, Chile, New Zealand, Britain, France, Angola and the United States – placed a so-called “hold” on the request to the Security Council committee that oversees an arms embargo imposed on the North African state in 2011, said council diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Spain would appreciate further information on the point of origin of the weapons requested and the arrangements established for transportation,” the Spanish U.N. mission wrote to the chair of the committee in a note seen by Reuters.

Libya wants to import 150 tanks, two dozen fighter jets, seven attack helicopters, tens of thousands of assault rifles and grenade launchers and millions of rounds of ammunition from Ukraine, Serbia and Czech Republic.

If agreement is not reached to lift the hold, it could leave the request in limbo indefinitely. The 15-member committee works on the basis of consensus.

The internationally recognized government is allowed to import arms with approval of the committee. Libya said it needs the weapons and equipment to take on Islamist militants and to control borders.

“Without strengthening the air force we cannot do anything about it,” Libya’s U.N. Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi told Reuters, adding that he was disappointed by the delay.

U.N. sanctions monitors say they are concerned that if the committee approves the request, then some of the weapons and equipment could be diverted to militia groups.

“Spain is also deeply concerned about the major threat to international peace and security posed by the proliferation of weapons in the region,” the Spanish U.N. mission said.

Libya’s internationally recognized government has operated out of the east since a rival armed faction called Libya Dawn took over Tripoli in fighting last year and set up its own administration.

The rival governments are battling for control of Libya four years after Muammar Gaddafi was ousted. The chaos has allowed Islamic State and Ansar al-Sharia militants to strengthen their foothold in Libya, an OPEC member.

Libya has called for the arms embargo on the government to be lifted entirely. The council committee has long urged Libya to improve monitoring of its weapons over concerns that arms were being diverted to militant groups.

Source:  nation.com.pk

A 13-year-old boy is said to have become the youngest French jihadist to die fighting for the Islamic State (Isis) in Syria.

Abu Bakr al-Faransi was killed while on patrol at an IS border post near the western city of Homs a couple of months ago, as it was attacked by the Syrian army, local sources told France’s RFI radio.

The teenager from Strasburg, eastern France, was taken to the civil war-torn country and enrolled as an Islamist fighter by his family last year, according to RFI journalist David Thomson.

Thomson, a jihadism expert who authored a book titled Les Français jihadistes (The French Jihadists), quoted an IS militant as celebrating the boy’s death as “martyrdom”.

“He was a good child, determined. I loved him very much,” the source said. “This news makes me happy. I’m happy for him.”

Al-Faransi reportedly arrived with his entire family in Syria last August. Travelling with a camper van, his parents took him and six of his siblings to the IS de-facto capital of Raqqa, initially to recover the body of another brother Mohamed, who had died in fighting there, an investigation by Europe 1 revealed.

The family eventually remained in IS-controlled territory, joining the jihadi group. Several photos depicting some of the young brothers posing with Kalashnikov rifles were posted online.

One of them, said to be aged 10, also featured in a propaganda video where he was briefly interviewed along another child from Toulouse. Brandishing an automatic rifle, he urged other French children to join the conflict “We are in Raqqa here, there is war here […] come here and you’ll see how it goes,” the child said in the clip.

According to Thomson at least two of the brothers are among the roughly 90 Frenchmen who are believed to have been killed fighting for IS.

France is largest western contributor of militants to extremist militias in Iraq and Syria, with more than 1,200 of its nationals believed to be fighting there, according to the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR).

IS has been known to groom children to take part in jihad, also setting up dedicated military training camps, with the objective of creating an entire generation for whom violent Islamic extremism is normal practice.