Latest news with #al-Qaida
Global News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Global News
Canadian diplomat says West Africa terror threat has grown since his capture
A Canadian diplomat who was held captive by al-Qaida terrorists in the Sahara Desert for 130 days says Canada's promised boost to defence should include commitments to combatting the growing Islamic terrorism threat in Africa — a threat he says isn't getting the attention it deserves. Robert Fowler says it would take 'a very large and serious effort to eradicate' the groups that have taken root in West Africa's Sahel region — particularly Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali — and that U.S. military officials say are fighting to gain access to the western coast, which would increase their ability to attack North America. 'There's nothing we can say that will dissuade those people from doing what they're doing — I certainly learned that in the sand,' he told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block. 'They are deeply, absolutely committed and are evidently prepared to die in that commitment. So it would take a very large and serious effort to eradicate them, because they won't be convinced not to do it.' Story continues below advertisement Fowler, the longest-serving Canadian ambassador to the United Nations and an adviser to three former prime ministers, was captured by militants with the al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terrorist group in December 2008 while serving as a UN special envoy to Niger. He was released along with other Western captives the following April. Since then, the presence of AQIM and other Islamic militant groups in the Sahel region has only grown, carrying out attacks against civilians while claiming wide swaths of territory. Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali are currently ruled by military juntas who took power through coups in the last two years, with varying degrees of Islamic influence. 4:52 Why jihadist violence is getting worse in West Africa Around 5,000 civilians have been killed in the violence in those three countries in the first five months of this year, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a 25-per cent increase from the previous five months. Story continues below advertisement The loss of the French and American militaries from the region in recent months has further created a power vacuum, experts like Fowler say. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Gen. Michael Langley, commander of U.S. Africa Command, told reporters last week that the U.S. military's withdrawal from Niger and an important counterterrorism base there last September means it has 'lost our ability to monitor these terrorist groups closely,' as violent attacks in the Sahel continue to rise in both 'frequency and complexity.' He added that U.S. forces are 'standing with' local militaries in Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, and Benin to prevent those groups from reaching their coasts. 'If they secure access to the coastline, they can finance their operations through smuggling, human trafficking, and arms trading,' Langley said in a media briefing. 'This puts not just African nations at risk, but also increases the chance of threats reaching the U.S. shores.' Fowler said Canada also faces this risk, particularly the threat of individual acts of violence in the name of groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. 'I think it is fair to say that Islamic terrorism has not been beaten,' he said. 'Whatever success we had in Iraq, and the non-success we had in Afghanistan, hasn't in any way blunted the jihadi movement, and so we're going to have to be extremely vigilant.' Story continues below advertisement He added that western governments aren't prepared to commit the investments and military capabilities necessary to eliminate those threats in Africa. 'Whatever they should be doing, they won't be doing for all kinds of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with Africa,' he said. 'There are other issues and other concerns, and everybody needs money for those different things, and that doesn't leave much for Africa. 'The French had 5,000 top-line soldiers there for years, and they couldn't do it. It would take much more than that. But no, I don't think we have the will to do it.' 2:38 France pulls ambassador, troops out of Niger in wake of military coup Canada's new Africa Strategy, released in March, commits over $30 million to 'peace and security' projects in the Sahel and other conflict-affected regions like Sudan, but are focused primarily on humanitarian aid and civilian supports. Story continues below advertisement The Canadian Forces ended its peacekeeping mission in Mali in 2023 and has otherwise drastically reduced its presence on the continent. Prime Minister Mark Carney has committed to bolstering border security, building on promises under the previous Liberal government to enhance screening of entry points and crack down on illegal crossings and smuggling. Fowler said the African threat should further inspire the Canadian government to spend 'a whole lot more' on defence, which he said has been 'pitiful' for years. Carney has vowed to get Canada's defence spending to NATO's target level of two per cent of GDP by 2030, and the Liberal platform promised $30 million in new spending over the next four years. The government spent just over 1.3 per cent last year. 'We don't have to think nice things about President Trump, but that doesn't mean he isn't wrong when he criticizes our defence performance,' Fowler said. 'He is right: we have been getting for years a free ride, particularly in continental defence.' While he wouldn't go so far as to recommend Canada sign on to Trump's 'Golden Dome' space-based missile defence concept, Fowler said it's 'illogical' that Canada is not part of the current U.S. ballistic missile defence initiative and similar programs. 'We very much have to convince the Americans that we are doing our bit, that we are sovereign and are committed to remaining so, because I think Canadians deserve that kind of defence of their territory,' he said. Story continues below advertisement Asked what advice he'd give Carney, Fowler said simply: 'Sign on.'
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Swedish man charged over 2015 killing of a Jordanian pilot by the Islamic State group
A Swedish man was indicted Tuesday in connection with the killing by the Islamic State group of a Jordanian pilot whose plane went down in Syria on Christmas Eve 2014, prosecutors said. The 26-year-old Jordanian, 1st Lt. Mu'ath al-Kaseasbeh, was taken captive after his F-16 fighter jet crashed near the extremists' de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria. He was forced into a cage that was set on fire, killing him on camera in early 2015. The suspect was identified by Swedish prosecutors as Osama Krayem, 32, who is alleged to have traveled to Syria in September 2014 to fight for IS. The airman became the first known foreign military pilot to fall into the militants' hands after the U.S.-led international coalition began its aerial campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq in 2014. Jordan, a close U.S. ally, was a member of the coalition and the pilot's killing appeared aimed at pressuring the government of Jordan to leave the alliance. Krayem is set to go on trial June 4 in Stockholm. He was previously convicted in France and Brussels for fatal Islamic State attacks in those countries. Video of the killing In a 20-minute video released in 2015, purportedly showing al-Kaseasbeh's killing, he displayed signs of having been beaten, including a black eye. Toward the end of the clip, he is shown wearing an orange jumpsuit. He stands in an outdoor cage as a masked militant ignites a line of fuel leading to it. The footage was widely released as part of the militant group's propaganda. The killing sparked outrage and anti-IS demonstrations in Jordan, and King Abdullah II ordered two al-Qaida prisoners to be executed in response. In 2022, Krayem was among 20 men convicted by a special terrorism court in Paris for involvement in a wave of Islamic State attacks in the French capital in 2015, targeting the Bataclan theater, Paris cafés and the national stadium. The assaults killed 130 people and injured hundreds, some permanently maimed. Krayem was sentenced to 30 years in prison, for charges including complicity to terrorist murder. French media reported that France agreed in March to turn Krayem over to Sweden for nine months, to assist with the Swedish probe and his expected trial. Sweden is then to return him to France so he can serve out his sentence, French media reported. In 2023, a Belgian court sentenced Krayem, among others, to life in prison on charges of terrorist murder in connection with 2016 suicide bombings that killed 32 people and wounded hundreds at Brussels airport and a busy subway station, the country's deadliest peacetime attack. Krayem was aboard the commuter train that was hit, but did not detonate the explosives he was carrying. Both the Paris and Brussels attacks were linked to the same Islamic State network. Life in Sweden Krayem grew up in Rosengard, a district notorious in Sweden for high crime and unemployment rates where more than 80 percent of the residents are first- or second-generation immigrants. 'He was well-known to the local police for multiple criminal activities like thefts, for instance,' Muhammad Khorshid, who ran a program in Rosengard to help immigrants integrate into Swedish society, told The Associated Press in 2016. He said Krayem 'was the perfect target for radicalization — no job, no future, no money.' Krayem had posted photos on social media from Syria, including one where he posed with an assault rifle in front of the black flag of the Islamic State group. Lost territory At its peak, IS ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom in Iraq and Syria and was notorious for its brutality — much of it directed against fellow Sunni Muslims as well as against those the group deemed to be heretics. It beheaded civilians, slaughtered 1,700 captured Iraqi soldiers in a short period, and enslaved and raped thousands of women from the Yazidi community, one of Iraq's oldest religious minorities. In March 2019, the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces captured the the last sliver of land the extremists controlled in the eastern Syrian town of Baghouz. While IS has lost its hold on all of the territory it once controlled, sleeper cells still stage occasional attacks in Iraq and Syria and abroad. Arrest in Germany Also on Tuesday, the German federal prosecutor separately announced the arrest of an alleged member of the Syrian secret intelligence services under former Syrian President Bashar Assad. The suspect, who was only named as Fahad A. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested on suspicion of acts of killing, torture, and deprivation of liberty as crimes against humanity. He allegedly took part in more than 100 interrogations between late April 2011 and mid-April 2012. At least 70 prisoners died from the torture and prison conditions, the federal prosecutor's office said. __ John Leicester in Paris, Abby Sewell in Beirut and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.
Winnipeg Free Press
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Swedish man charged over 2015 killing of a Jordanian pilot by the Islamic State group
A Swedish man was indicted Tuesday in connection with the killing by the Islamic State group of a Jordanian pilot whose plane went down in Syria on Christmas Eve 2014, prosecutors said. The 26-year-old Jordanian, 1st Lt. Mu'ath al-Kaseasbeh, was taken captive after his F-16 fighter jet crashed near the extremists' de facto capital of Raqqa in northern Syria. He was forced into a cage that was set on fire, killing him on camera in early 2015. The suspect was identified by Swedish prosecutors as Osama Krayem, 32, who is alleged to have traveled to Syria in September 2014 to fight for IS. The airman became the first known foreign military pilot to fall into the militants' hands after the U.S.-led international coalition began its aerial campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq in 2014. Jordan, a close U.S. ally, was a member of the coalition and the pilot's killing appeared aimed at pressuring the government of Jordan to leave the alliance. Krayem is set to go on trial June 4 in Stockholm. He was previously convicted in France and Brussels for fatal Islamic State attacks in those countries. Video of the killing In a 20-minute video released in 2015, purportedly showing al-Kaseasbeh's killing, he displayed signs of having been beaten, including a black eye. Toward the end of the clip, he is shown wearing an orange jumpsuit. He stands in an outdoor cage as a masked militant ignites a line of fuel leading to it. The footage was widely released as part of the militant group's propaganda. The killing sparked outrage and anti-IS demonstrations in Jordan, and King Abdullah II ordered two al-Qaida prisoners to be executed in response. In 2022, Krayem was among 20 men convicted by a special terrorism court in Paris for involvement in a wave of Islamic State attacks in the French capital in 2015, targeting the Bataclan theater, Paris cafés and the national stadium. The assaults killed 130 people and injured hundreds, some permanently maimed. Krayem was sentenced to 30 years in prison, for charges including complicity to terrorist murder. French media reported that France agreed in March to turn Krayem over to Sweden for nine months, to assist with the Swedish probe and his expected trial. Sweden is then to return him to France so he can serve out his sentence, French media reported. In 2023, a Belgian court sentenced Krayem, among others, to life in prison on charges of terrorist murder in connection with 2016 suicide bombings that killed 32 people and wounded hundreds at Brussels airport and a busy subway station, the country's deadliest peacetime attack. Krayem was aboard the commuter train that was hit, but did not detonate the explosives he was carrying. Both the Paris and Brussels attacks were linked to the same Islamic State network. Life in Sweden Krayem grew up in Rosengard, a district notorious in Sweden for high crime and unemployment rates where more than 80 percent of the residents are first- or second-generation immigrants. 'He was well-known to the local police for multiple criminal activities like thefts, for instance,' Muhammad Khorshid, who ran a program in Rosengard to help immigrants integrate into Swedish society, told The Associated Press in 2016. He said Krayem 'was the perfect target for radicalization — no job, no future, no money.' Krayem had posted photos on social media from Syria, including one where he posed with an assault rifle in front of the black flag of the Islamic State group. Lost territory At its peak, IS ruled an area half the size of the United Kingdom in Iraq and Syria and was notorious for its brutality — much of it directed against fellow Sunni Muslims as well as against those the group deemed to be heretics. It beheaded civilians, slaughtered 1,700 captured Iraqi soldiers in a short period, and enslaved and raped thousands of women from the Yazidi community, one of Iraq's oldest religious minorities. In March 2019, the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces captured the the last sliver of land the extremists controlled in the eastern Syrian town of Baghouz. While IS has lost its hold on all of the territory it once controlled, sleeper cells still stage occasional attacks in Iraq and Syria and abroad. Arrest in Germany Also on Tuesday, the German federal prosecutor separately announced the arrest of an alleged member of the Syrian secret intelligence services under former Syrian President Bashar Assad. The suspect, who was only named as Fahad A. in line with German privacy rules, was arrested on suspicion of acts of killing, torture, and deprivation of liberty as crimes against humanity. He allegedly took part in more than 100 interrogations between late April 2011 and mid-April 2012. At least 70 prisoners died from the torture and prison conditions, the federal prosecutor's office said. __ John Leicester in Paris, Abby Sewell in Beirut and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.
Business Mayor
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
‘My parents didn't have a clue': why many digital natives would not give their kids smartphones
I n 2019, when Sophie* was 12, her classmates sent her 'extreme and traumatising' videos that included an al-Qaida beheading, pornography and bestiality. She recalls an adult player in an online game persuading her to meet in person. Although her dad worked in IT, looking back she thinks: 'My parents' generation simply didn't have a clue.' Now aged 18 and a student at the University of Edinburgh, she wouldn't allow her children to have a smartphone until they're adults. 'As a teen I would have been the biggest advocate on everyone having a phone, but I've 100% changed my opinion,' she said. 'Until you're an adult and able to recognise the many ways in which people act deviantly to advance their own interests, you should not be online. The minute there is instant messaging I think it gets dangerous.' Social media fuelled bullying at Sophie's school, including competing for likes and using anonymous confession apps to share cruel comments. She also wonders what else she might have done with the time wasted. Sophie is one of many so-called digital natives who are growing sceptical of the largely unfettered access to technology that they grew up with. A poll this week suggested that almost half of young people would rather live in a world where the internet does not exist, and a similar number would support a digital curfew, while more than three-quarters felt worse about themselves after using social media. Izzy Bouric 24, with her flip phone that has allowed her to reclaim time and mental space. Photograph: Magali Delporte/The Guardian Meanwhile, Netflix's hit four-part series Adolescence has sparked a wide-ranging conversation about the harms to children of social media and the online misogyny that has taken root on some platforms. Izzy Bouric, 24, an artist from Brighton living in Paris, thinks part of the problem is the way the boundaries between child and adult spaces have blurred on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Roblox in recent years. 'I was on [online children's game] Club Penguin at their age – what you could actually say and type was limited and you got banned for using bad words because it was a child-friendly space, and now you have 12-year-olds on Instagram reading Nazi comments,' she said. Despite this, Bouric says, 'I was definitely exposed to things I shouldn't have been, growing up', adding that 'everyone from my generation has an experience of being on chatrooms and getting solicited by someone who is much, much older'. She would only allow her children to have a smartphone from age 17. 'It's not for children, it's not for people who don't have developed brains,' she said, adding: 'Your parents not knowing what you're doing is not the safest thing in the world.' She feels that in recent years social media has become oppressive and 'cannibalised by advertisements and corporations' as well as spreading misinformation around sensitive topics such as mental health and neurodivergence. 'Suddenly, instead of my friends, my phone was filled with tiny people shouting at me, saying I was doing everything wrong, and then begging me to buy something from them.' The shift left her feeling anxious and unwell and prompted her to opt for a flip phone, which she feels is a breath of fresh air that has allowed her to reclaim time and mental space. 'I found myself in moments of despair,' says Tobias, 20, from Austria. Tobias, 20, from Austria, received his first smartphone aged 11 or 12, and noticed a change in his classmates. 'You just sat down and started scrolling and you didn't really talk to the person one row behind you, you texted them.' Although his school had a policy to keep phones turned off, teachers soon gave up on enforcing it. 'They were just buzzing and there were notification sounds all the time,' he said. In his late teens, he began watching videos on YouTube and Instagram. 'I found myself in moments of despair after watching short video content for two to three hours straight and wondering, 'Wow, that went fast and I have no time left for things I actually want to do.'' Tobias was particularly unnerved to see his interest in first-person shooter games resulted in his algorithm showing content from creators showcasing real guns and violent acts. He now concludes: 'The longer children and teens have restricted contact with smartphones, the better.' Lethe, 20, a student paramedic from near Birmingham, England, wouldn't allow her child to have a smartphone until they were 16 and would only allow restricted media access. She didn't get her first smartphone until she was nearly 18, but she noticed how her friends who had them were bullied, had reduced attention spans and spent their time scrolling through social media rather than chatting or being creative. Two years on from her first phone, she says: 'It definitely has changed me. I'm less good at being bored, and my attention span has decreased. I struggle to live in the moment. Algorithms on social media have led to me seeing things I wouldn't really wish to see.' Read More Elon Musk's X back online after global outage Nora, 23, a project manager from Spain, wouldn't allow social media access until age 13 and would restrict use and install content filters, although she would want to open a dialogue with her child, explaining the risks. 'I would hope to have built enough trust and understanding for them to feel comfortable coming to me if they ever encountered something scary or unsettling,' she says. She remembers this growing up. Aged 13, she and other girls in her school started receiving messages from a stranger on Google Messages. He convinced some to send inappropriate images and was eventually imprisoned for paedophilia. She also recalls classmates bullying people on messaging services. 'I struggled with some nasty messages,' she said. Later, she found that social media exacerbated her eating disorder through comparing herself to other girls and watching weight-loss transformation videos, which can promote unhealthy habits. She also chased likes on Instagram, which she has since deleted. 'It was not very healthy for me.' Now, she fears for her 16-year-old brother. 'His TikTok is filled with super misogynistic ideas and toxic masculinity – his friends say very nasty things about women's bodies. That wasn't a thing for me and my friends.'
Boston Globe
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump's Warming Toward Syria Complicates Israel's Military Strategy
Israel has also called the new Syrian government, led by an Islamist rebel faction once linked to al-Qaida, 'extremist.' Advertisement But just days after Israel's May 2 airstrike near the palace in Damascus, President Donald Trump upended decades of U.S. foreign policy by meeting with President Ahmad al-Sharaa of Syria and announcing plans to lift all sanctions on the country. Trump said al-Sharaa had 'a real shot at pulling it together,' after a nearly 14-year civil war fractured his country. Since that meeting May 14, the Israeli strikes on Syria have all but stopped. The United States is Israel's staunchest and most powerful ally. But Trump's surprise embrace of al-Sharaa not only offered the new Syrian leader an unexpected lifeline, it also appears to have undercut efforts by the hard-line Israeli government to seize on the instability in Syria and the weakness of the new government to prevent the rise of another anti-Israel neighbor. Advertisement 'Israel has serious doubts about his true intention and the pragmatic image that he is trying to project,' Carmit Valensi, a senior researcher at the think tank Institute for National Security Studies, said of al-Sharaa. Before Trump's declaration of confidence in the new Syrian leader, Netanyahu and his top aides in Israel had been determined to deny al-Sharaa and his nascent government access to the vast array of heavy weaponry amassed by the Assad regime over its decades in power. 'The most significant part of the Israeli airstrikes in Syria over the past four months was aimed against strategic weapons that were under the possession of the former Syrian army,' Valensi said, adding that the Israeli government now appears to be starting to find ways to avoid more confrontation. 'All of this is indicating a direction of deconfliction and de-escalation and more willingness to open a dialogue with the Syrian regime,' she said. Publicly, Israeli officials have described a number of drivers behind their attacks on Syria. One was a kinship with the Druse religious minority in Syria, who practice an offshoot of Islam. About 150,000 Druse live in Israel, serve in the military and participate in politics. In a statement last month, the Israeli military vowed to assist Druse communities in Syria 'out of a deep commitment to our Druse brothers in Israel.' The Druse in Syria have long controlled the strategically located Sweida region in the southwest near Israel, but are not seen as a threat by the Israelis. In late April, when fierce sectarian clashes broke out between Druse militia fighters and forces linked to Syria's new government, Israel offered to come to the aid of the Druse. Advertisement Israeli leaders said the airstrike near the presidential palace was a warning to al-Sharaa to stop the attacks on the Druse. But the motivations behind the hundreds of strikes on Syria over the past months go beyond support for the Druse. Israel began its attacks on Syria almost immediately after Assad was driven from power on Dec. 8 after a 24-year tenure, more than half of it spent fighting a bloody civil war. Within about a week of Assad's fall, Israel had conducted more than 450 strikes on Syria, according to the military and humanitarian groups. The attacks took out the entire Syrian navy, fighter jets, drones, tanks, air-defense systems, weapons plants and a wide array of missiles and rockets across the country, according to the Israeli military. The new government in Syria has not attacked Israel since coming to power and has said the country is weary of war and wants to live at peace with all countries. Trump's olive branch to al-Sharaa complicates the Israeli strategy in Syria and is the latest example of how U.S. foreign policy is reshaping the Middle East. 'What we don't want in Syria is in another version of the Houthis,' said Yaakov Amidror, another former national security adviser to Netanyahu and a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. The Iran-backed Houthis control northern Yemen and have been firing missiles at Israel since the war in the Gaza Strip began, in solidarity with the Palestinians. Al-Sharaa, who has long since distanced himself from his past connections to al-Qaida, insists that he wants to preside over a stable regime and be a reliable partner for Western nations. Advertisement But Israeli officials are skeptical at best. Many around Netanyahu see Syria's new administration as likely to evolve into a stridently Islamist, anti-Israel government. In March, Gideon Sa'ar, the Israeli foreign minister, said the idea that Syria was moving toward a reasonable government was 'ridiculous,' adding that al-Sharaa and his cohorts 'were jihadists and remain jihadists, even if some of their leaders have donned suits.' Still, the sheer volume and scope of Israel's attacks on Syria have drawn criticism from around the world, including from President Emmanuel Macron of France, who met with al-Sharaa in mid-May. 'You cannot ensure the security of your country by violating the territorial integrity of your neighbors,' Macron said of Israel. And even some inside Israel say that a concerted military campaign will not be good for Israel long term. Tamir Hayman, a former head of intelligence for the Israeli military who is the executive director of the Institute of National Security Studies, said he worries that the strikes are creating the very extremism Israel wants to deter. 'I think we are kind of doing it, sort of from momentum, and should reconsider all of those missions that we are conducting,' he said. Military experts say part of the motivation behind the Israeli strikes was Netanyahu's desire to secure the parts of southwestern Syria closest to the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured during the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed. The fear is that groups far more extreme than the Druse could establish a foothold close to Israel, with the ability to threaten Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights or launch attacks deeper into Israel. Advertisement After the Assad regime fell, Israeli troops also seized more Syrian territory. Another Israeli goal in Syria, according to former military officials and analysts, is to limit Turkey's influence in Syria. Israel and Turkey have had a fraught relationship over the years. And President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has moved quickly to establish military and political influence in neighboring Syria, positioning himself as a close ally to the government there. 'If the Turks try to make Syria a base for their military and help the current regime to build capacities that might be used against Israel, there might be conflict,' Amidror said. But it may be the United States' efforts at rapprochement with Syria that end up stymying Israeli military strategy in Syria. Trump said in a speech in Saudi Arabia this month that he hopes Syria's new government will succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace. 'They've had their share of travesty, war, killing,' he said. 'That's why my administration has already taken the first steps toward restoring normal relations.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
