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The deadly al-Qaeda affiliate terrorising western Africa

The deadly al-Qaeda affiliate terrorising western Africa

Telegraph6 days ago
When Amadou Traoré was posted to an army base in western Mali, his family could take comfort that the soldier was far away from the jidahists pillaging towns and killing hundreds.
The Kayes region, where he was based, had escaped the relentless terrorist attacks that led the US and UN to label Mali and its neighbours the new global epicentre of terrorism.
But that reprieve from bloodshed ended this month. Lieut Traoré's family woke to reports of coordinated attacks in seven towns and cities across the region.
'Automatically, I called his wife: 'Have you heard from Amadou?' recalls his father, Ousmane. At the same time, social media began flooding with pictures of destruction unfolding in an area previously considered safe.
As his family spent hours calling the army officer's mobile, his phone rang out and later it went straight to voicemail.
'It was the next day that his wife called me to tell me that she had been contacted to say her husband had died,' the retired teacher told The Telegraph.
'And that's how we learned. We learned and in turn, I informed his mother, I informed his brothers.'
Ousmane's son was killed by the same al-Qaeda offshoot rampaging across Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. It has become one of the world's deadliest militant groups.
Some 850 people have been massacred by Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) across the three countries in May alone, according to data from Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), a US crisis-monitoring group.
The surge in attacks has marked one of the deadliest periods in the Sahel's recent history and heightened fears about the stability of the region at a time when its junta regimes are estranged from former Western military allies.
After more than a decade of insurgency bloodshed which has caused mass displacement, there are fears the violence is now pushing toward coastal west Africa.
Gen Michael Langley, the top US commander in Africa, said reaching the coast was one of the terrorists' new objectives.
'If they secure access to the coastline, they can finance their operations through smuggling, human trafficking, and arms trading,' he said.
Mali's government was able to repel JNIMs' attacks on July 1, but the push into the Kayes region has been described by analysts as a key change in the war.
At the same time, there has been an apparent shift from rural guerrilla tactics to a campaign aimed at controlling territory around urban centres and asserting political dominance in the Sahel, they said.
South-west Mali not only controls access to the nearby Senegal and Mauritania borders, but also contains much of Mali's gold wealth.
Ulf Laessing, director of the Sahel programme at German think tank the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said Mali still had a better grip on its south-west than elsewhere, but the new JNIM push could stretch government forces.
'JNIM is trying to establish a presence in south-western Mali near the Senegal border, which has been relatively quiet,' Mr Laessing told The Telegraph.
'The region is strategically important as Mali's main supply route for imports from Dakar passes through Kayes and western Mali.
'I think JNIM is trying to establish a new front, and force the army to move soldiers from the north and centre to the south.'
Mali has been in deep crisis since early last decade, when Tuareg separatists and radical Islamist factions took over Timbuktu, Gao and other towns across the north.
French military intervention had some early success pushing them back, but Paris soon became bogged down in a difficult counter-insurgency mission marred by strained ties with the government.
The violence spread into Niger and Burkina Faso and in 2017 JNIM was founded in a merger of jihadist groups including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
JNIM and its estimated 6,000 to 7,000 fighters has since been the region's strongest militant group and is led by Iyad Ag Ghaly.
Ghaly, the former rebel leader in Mali's Tuareg uprisings in the 1990s, led Ansar Dine, the fundamentalist group, as part of a coalition that briefly occupied northern Mali in 2012.
His ambition is thought to be to impose Islamic rule across the Sahel.
Military coups in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have all capitalised on public anger at the failure to improve security in the face of JNIM's advance.
Yet while the incoming juntas have kicked out Western allies, particularly the former colonial power France, and turned to the Kremlin for military support instead, the violence continues to worsen.
The juntas and Russian mercenaries are meanwhile accused of turning people against them by conducting atrocities as they try to beat back JNIM's advance.
Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, of the International Crisis Group, said: 'The parties are fighting a war of attrition, with jihadist groups expanding in rural areas, and government forces and their Russian allies controlling urban centres.'
Meanwhile, JNIM's battlefield tactics are reported to have become increasingly sophisticated, and now include the use of anti-aircraft weapons and drones.
The group is also thought to gain hefty revenue from raids, cattle rustling, hijacking of goods, kidnappings and taxes on local communities.
It has imposed taxes in areas it controls and imposed a form of Sharia law, requiring women to wear veils and men to grow beards.
Mr Traore said that the JNIM attacks that had killed his son showed how powerful the group had become. He predicted only some form of negotiation would be able to stop the violence.
He said: 'It will take time and in my opinion, it's negotiations, it's dialogue that we must consider.
'Because we're fed up with this war all the time. Attacks here and there, killings here and there and deaths. Really, we've had enough. We've had enough.'
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British recognition for Palestine is to play a valuable card and get nothing for it
British recognition for Palestine is to play a valuable card and get nothing for it

Telegraph

time13 minutes ago

  • Telegraph

British recognition for Palestine is to play a valuable card and get nothing for it

On Thursday night, Hamas was busy writing a statement of praise for President Macron. The French President declared that France would officially recognise a Palestinian state, much to the delight of the Islamist terrorist group. In the UK context, some voices are calling for Prime Minister Starmer to follow Macron's Napoleonic cosplaying. Were the UK to actually recognise a Palestinian state, such a decision would have exceptionally dangerous repercussions not only for Israelis but for the West as a whole. Chief among them would be that Palestinian recognition would be a reward for hostage-taking, for rape, for murder, for burning innocent people alive. Recognising a Palestinian state in a post-October 7 reality would be nothing less than a reward for terrorism. Few would argue that this impetus for unilateral Palestinian recognition has stemmed from the atrocious acts that Hamas committed on October 7 – the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. Remember, this push for recognition was not on the table on October 6. Be in no doubt, Islamist extremists are watching closely, terrorists are watching intently and the signal that they are receiving is that their violent tactics yield positive results for them in the UK and the West. They say it themselves: Hamas has welcomed multiple statements coming from London. I am sure similar praise from Hamas would come again were the UK to recognise a Palestinian state, in the same way that the terror group gleefully congratulated Macron. Recognition would be utter folly – terrorism should be eliminated, not encouraged. You may ask, what concessions are those who call for recognition asking for from the Palestinians in return? Nothing. Our 50 hostages, still languishing in the torturous terror dungeons of Gaza will not be released. Hamas will continue to be the governing authority in Gaza. It really would be a masterclass in futile diplomacy. The tragic reality is that Israel does not have, and never has had, a genuine Palestinian partner for peace. Indeed, the history of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process reads as a timeline of missed opportunities for a Palestinian statehood due to the phenomenon of Palestinian rejectionism and the refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state within any borders. And yet, we are repeatedly told that Yasser Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas, is a credible partner in that respect. How ridiculous. It was less than a year ago that Abbas praised the October 7 massacre. Furthermore, if Abbas is so pro-democracy, why is he half-way through the 21st year of his four-year term? Mahmoud Abbas has a history of Holocaust denial, having blamed the Jews for the Holocaust on multiple occasions, including in September 2023 when he said: 'Hitler Fought the European Jews Because of Their Usury, Money Dealings, It Was Not about Anti-semitism.' Most worrying of all, Abbas currently has a policy in place in which the 'moderate' Palestinian Authority literally pays salaries to the families of terrorists who murder Israelis. The more Jews murdered, the more money they receive. The PA's 'Pay for Slay' policy tragically ensures that Palestinian terrorism remains a profitable industry. For Western governments to recognise a Palestinian state, would be a de facto acceptance of Pay for Slay, which crucially would take us further away from peace and encourage more murders of Israelis and Jewish people. I have been asking myself what impact would result from such a decision, other than the aforementioned encouragement for terror? There would be no positive impact as far as the Middle East is concerned, with recognition only serving as an act of grandstanding and virtue-signalling. Positive progress can only come through bilateral discussions. Unhelpful, unilateral steps seeking to bypass Israel will achieve absolutely nothing as the reality on the ground would remain the same. And that reality is that there can be no progress or positive impact in the Israeli-Palestinian context as long as our hostages remain in captivity and Hamas remains in power. In recognising a Palestinian state, the UK would be playing a major card which could gain concessions from the Palestinians towards peace for absolutely nothing. It would also signal a significant departure from the policy of the US administration. As US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, remarked following Macron's announcement of recognition: 'This reckless decision only serves Hamas propaganda and sets back peace. It is a slap in the face to the victims of October 7.' Ultimately, we have to move beyond empty words and virtue-signalling and look into the practical implications of what people are saying. When people call for recognising a Palestinian state, who would they be recognising as the Palestinian leadership? Who would they wish to govern? Presumably not the elected, genocidal terrorist group, Hamas? So, would it then be Mahmoud Abbas and his terror-supporting Palestinian Authority? Amid such global instability, the last thing the world would need is another failed state like that of Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, or Libya. We have too many of them in our region. Corruption, jihadi extremists, power vacuums, radicalism, Iranian interference, a plethora of armed terrorist groups – a Palestinian state would have all the ingredients of a would-be failed state. Why would a Palestinian state be any different to the others? What would an education system overseen by a Holocaust denier look like? In the post-October 7 reality that Israelis are living in, what security guarantees are being given to us for our legitimate concerns? I have yet to hear a viable answer to any of those questions.

Revealed: Where 'White Widow' Samantha Lewthwaite REALLY is... as jihadi bride becomes mum-of-six in a polyamorous marriage with Islamic terror warlord she shares with two more women
Revealed: Where 'White Widow' Samantha Lewthwaite REALLY is... as jihadi bride becomes mum-of-six in a polyamorous marriage with Islamic terror warlord she shares with two more women

Daily Mail​

time2 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

Revealed: Where 'White Widow' Samantha Lewthwaite REALLY is... as jihadi bride becomes mum-of-six in a polyamorous marriage with Islamic terror warlord she shares with two more women

White widow Samantha Lewthwaite has become the third wife of a fearsome warlord and mothered two more children while on the run as one of the world's most wanted terrorists, MailOnline can reveal. Lewthwaite - the widow of 7/7 suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay - is said to be hiding out with Islamic terror chief Osman Abdullahi Dhaga'ade in Somalia, according to intelligence sources. She is described as living in a polyamorous marriage with a terror warlord husband and his two other wives. Lewthwaite, 41, was thought previously to have had four children with two previous husbands. It is claimed the fugitive - who is linked to a catalogue of atrocities that have led to the deaths of more than 240 people - continues to play a key role within the terror organisation, it's claimed. She is said to help prepare bomb vests and 'brainwash' suicide bombers alongside her husband who is also a propaganda chief for the outlawed fanatics. Sources told MailOnline the fugitive was last seen on July 8 in the southern city of Jilib - the de facto capital of the Islamic Emirate of Somalia controlled by al-Shabaab. It's claimed Lewthwaite had also been spotted recently in other areas in the south with the family regularly switching locations for security reasons while protected by an elite squad of heavily armed bodyguards. An al-Shabaab source said Lewthwaite was 'highly regarded and respected' within the terror group. He said: 'She lives in several houses located in different areas. She does not move during the day but only at night and is highly protected by heavily armed elite Amniyat close protection security guards, which also includes women guards. 'The white woman also always carries a pistol and sometimes a rifle for her protection 'She does not stay in one location for long with her husband; they move around a lot.' He added: 'The white woman works closely with her husband in preparing explosives and the suicide vests 'She is also responsible for training and brainwashing women suicide bombers before they are deployed for a mission.' If the claims are true it would see a chilling switch in tactics for the terror organisation who are not known for using women in combat or suicide bombing missions. Their roles have traditionally involved intelligence gathering and logistics support which are seen as crucial to the movement's military resilience. A Somali intelligence source said: 'In 2023, she tried to leave Somalia to go to Yemen or Kenya. 'But al-Shabaab failed to find her a safe route, so had to stay in Somalia. The British woman helps recruit foreign fighters, especially women. 'She gets protection from her husband as he is high up in al-Shabaab. She speaks Somali and Arabic.' Lewthwaite first came to public attention when her 19-year-old husband detonated an explosive-filled rucksack on a Piccadilly Line Tube train at King's Cross in 2005. Her 'martyred' husband - a Jamaican-born carpet fitter - was responsible for 26 of the 52 deaths in the coordinated wave of attacks on London's transport network. At the time Lewthwaite - who was eight months pregnant with the couple's second child - portrayed herself as another victim of the July 7 London bombings. In reality she was a dangerous extremist hell-bent on plotting her own murderous missions. She fled the country and was responsible for a string of atrocities in Africa while remaining one step ahead of law enforcement agencies and evading capture. A series of mugshots of the fugitive in various guises have been circulated by Interpol since the international law enforcement agency issued a warrant for her arrest in 2013. It followed a massacre after masked gunmen ran amok at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, murdering 71 people. Lewthwaite is accused of planning, funding or taking part in the outrage, along with a grenade attack on a bar in the coastal resort of Mombasa the previous year in 2012 which left three dead. She is also said to be behind a 2015 massacre at Garissa University which left 148 dead and was also linked with a terrorist attack on a hotel in Nairobi that led to the slaughter of 21 people in 2019. Her transformation - from Home Counties prom queen to fanatical jihadist - is, controversially, being made into a feature film called Girl Next Door starring Bella Ramsey from the post-apocalyptic TV series The Last Of Us. It was recently revealed that beyond her notorious image she has remained a fan of pop superstar Beyonce and has compiled shopping lists with British items such as Weetabix when she has been able to source them. Lewthwaite - who is believed to have adopted a series of identities and altered her appearance through plastic surgery - is an unlikely jihadist mastermind after growing up as a shy schoolgirl in the Home Counties. Her father, an English soldier called Andy Lewthwaite, met her mother, an Irish Catholic called Christine Allen, while he was serving in Northern Ireland during the 1970's. Lewthwaite was born in Banbridge in County Down, Northern Ireland, in 1983 before the family moved to the Buckinghamshire market town of Aylesbury. She is said to have been introduced to Islam after her parents divorced in 1994 as she sought comfort from Muslim neighbours who she considered to have a stronger family network. Lewthwaite, who changed her first name to Sherafiya after converting aged 17, enrolled in a degree course in politics and the study of religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 2002, although she dropped out before completing it. She first made contact with Lindsay, also known by his Islamic name, Jamal, in an internet chat room and they met face-to-face at a Stop The War march in London. They married in October 2002 and had a son in April 2004. Shortly afterward the 7/7 bombings, Lewthwaite, who had been given police protection in the aftermath of the atrocity, cradled her newborn daughter in her arms as she said: 'We are victims as well.' She added of her husband: 'I totally condemn and am horrified by the atrocities. I never predicted or imagined that he was involved in such horrific activities. He was a loving husband and father.' But just months later, Lewthwaite is thought to have first moved to Kenya before travelling to South Africa under her own name in 2008. She was deported to the UK the following year and returned to give birth to her third child at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury in August 2009. Seemingly desperate to return to Africa, Lewthwaite changed her personal details and adopted the name of Asmaa Shahidah Bint-Andrews. She used her new identity to return to South Africa with her three children where she reportedly found work in a halal pie factory. While there, Lewthwaite activated a third identity - that of a British nurse called Natalie Faye Webb, whose details were stolen. She also gave birth to a fourth child at a private birthing clinic in Johannesburg. She later crossed into Tanzania in 2011 and then returned to Kenya - where she began masterminding campaigns. Today the children she had with Lindsay, a boy and a girl, would be around 21 and 19. The children she had with her late second husband, an Islamist terrorist she married in Africa are aged around 16 and 15. They are also a boy and a girl. Lewthwaite has also recently been described as the 'main financier' of the cell of frontline fighters. She narrowly escaped capture in 2011 after Kenyan police discovered the bomb-making factory in a villa in Mombasa. Hidden under a sofa, they found a haul of fuses and 60 rounds of ammunition with magazines of bullets for AK-47 assault rifles. They arrested a British man called Jermaine Grant at the scene who was later jailed but who named Lewthwaite as the senior member of the cell. Police discovered she was in the adjacent apartment – the flats shared the same balcony - but the passport they found was in the name of Natalie Faye Webb. By the time they realised that the nurse had been a victim of identity theft and they had made 'a mistake' Lewthwaite had fled. This is the official version of events which was reported in the media at the time, but her getaway was more controversial, it seems. Local sources claimed officers found Lewthwaite playing with her children when they first entered her accommodation around midnight. They returned to their headquarters saying they thought she was 'innocent' of any involvement with Grant and another accomplice who was also taken into custody. But they were strongly suspected of accepting five million Kenyan dollars (nearly £30,000) from Lewthwaite on the night, which she produced from her handbag, security sources have claimed. The source said: 'She left the flat immediately afterwards. Officers returned the following day after anti-terrorist officers in the UK told them who she was. 'Several posh houses in the Nyali and Shanzu districts of the city were searched but she was nowhere to be found.' Police discovered Lewthwaite subsequently got out of Kenya with the help of a police informer - a woman - who was the widow of a Kenyan terrorist killed in Somalia. It is unclear whether she slipped back into the country again for the attack at the Westgate mall in Nairobi in 2013 or simply helped organise and fund the terror campaign from outside. Among her discarded possessions was her laptop which revealed a browsing history of any ordinary young woman including websites for hair, make-up, fashion, weight loss - and There was a handwritten journal in which she tells herself to 'look fabulous' for social occasions, along with a typical weekly shopping list: '32 eggs, 12 cheese, Weetabix, orange juice and tuna ...' On the computer she had written a poem praising 9/11 terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden while fingerprints found at the property were also said to be hers. And police discovered through a forensic examination of the device that Lewthwaite had spent eight years researching bomb-making and searching for the deadly chemicals used to make improvised explosives devices.

At least nine killed in militant attack on courthouse in south-east Iran
At least nine killed in militant attack on courthouse in south-east Iran

The Guardian

time2 hours ago

  • The Guardian

At least nine killed in militant attack on courthouse in south-east Iran

An attack by the jihadist separatist group Jaish al-Adl on a courthouse in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan killed at least nine people, including a mother and child, and wounded 22, Iranian media reported on Saturday. Attackers stormed the building, shooting a number of people inside. They then launched a second attack with mortars and grenade launchers on the courthouse, where a clash that lasted three hours began with security forces, according to the Baluch human rights group Haalvsh. Three gunmen were killed in clashes with security forces who responded to the attack, Iran's state news agency said. State media said several people injured in the attack were in critical condition and had been transferred to local hospitals. Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on Telegram and told civilians to evacuate the area 'for their safety'. Residents reported hearing several explosions and gunfire, while some roads that led to the courthouse were closed, Haalvsh reported. The Sistan-Baluchestan province, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, has had an ongoing insurgency for the past two decades. The province is home to Iran's Sunni Baluch minority, who have advocated for autonomy and have long maintained that they experience marginalisation and exclusion under the Iranian government. The insurgency is part of a greater insurgency in Balochistan, which includes the Pakistani province of Balochistan. The insurgency is waged by Islamic militant groups and separatists and has resulted in bloody attacks which have wounded civilians as well as state security personnel in both countries. Jaish al-Adl is one of the Islamist militant groups in the province, which has been fighting Iranian security forces since 2014. Iranian authorities have designated the organisation a terrorist group and have accused Pakistan and Israel of backing the group. In December 2023, the group carried out an attack on a police station in Sistan-Baluchestan prvoince, killing 11 people. A later attack by the group on Iranian border guards in January 2024 led to Iran striking Pakistan, which it said was targeting a cell of Jaish al-Adl in the neighbouring country. The Iranian government has accused the insurgency movement of being funded by foreign actors and of being engaged in illegal smuggling operations. The deputy police chief of Sistan-Baluchestan province, Sardar Alireza Deliri, described Jaish al-Adl on Saturday as being affiliated with 'Zionists', referring to Israel. He added that the three militants were the only ones involved in the attack and claimed they were wearing undetonated suicide belts at the time of the attack.

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