Latest news with #jihadists
France 24
5 days ago
- Politics
- France 24
Troops kill at least 95 'bandits' in northwest Nigeria
Armed gangs known as "bandits" have taken root across Nigeria's rural hinterlands amid poverty and government neglect. They raid, loot and burn villages, exact taxes, and conduct kidnappings for ransom. On Tuesday, Nigerian air and ground troops "foiled an attempted bandit attack, launching air strikes and shootouts" in the northwestern state of Niger, according to the report, which was produced by a private conflict monitor. It added that "at least 95 bandits" were killed in the clash, which occurred near the villages of Warari and Ragada in the Rijau local government area. The Nigerian military put out a statement about the clash Wednesday, saying that forces "engaged terrorists in a firefight, neutralizing several." One soldier was killed, it said. Tuesday's attack follows a slew of battles where the Nigerian military -- which has in the past has been quick to publicise and sometimes exaggerate its gains -- has kept relatively mum on apparent victories where scores of bandits were killed. An intelligence source told AFP the military was changing tack after realising publicising their gains was keeping jihadists and bandits abreast of their operations. The army declined to comment. Conflict spreading Nigeria's myriad bandit gangs maintain camps in a huge forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states, in unrest that evolved from clashes between herders and farmers over land and resources into a broader conflict across the sparsely governed countryside. Since 2011, as arms trafficking increased and the wider Sahel fell into turmoil, organised armed gangs formed, with cattle rustling and kidnapping becoming huge moneymakers in the largely impoverished northwest. Groups also levy taxes on farmers and artisanal miners. Violence has spread in recent years from its heartland in the northwest -- where analysts say some gains have been made by the military recently -- into north-central Nigeria, where observers say the situation is getting worse. Increasing cooperation between the criminal gangs, who are primarily motivated by financial gains, and jihadists -- who are waging a separate, 16-year-old-armed insurrection in the northeast -- has seen attacks worsen. Despite recent gains in the northwest, the military remains overstretched. While improved cooperation between the army and air force has aided the fight, analysts say, airstrikes have also killed hundreds of civilians. Between 2018 and 2023, there were more deaths from bandits than there were from jihadist groups, according to figures from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a US-based monitor. Last week motorcycle-riding bandits rounded up a group of farmers working their fields outside Jangebe village in Zamfara state, killing nine and kidnapping around 15 others, local residents told AFP. Earlier this month, Nigerian soldiers killed at least 150 bandits in an ambush in northwestern Kebbi state, a local official said.
Fox News
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
American man from Oklahoma 'brutally executed' by Syrian-backed jihadis
Syrian jihadists reportedly executed a 35-year-old Syrian American – a member of the religious minority Druze community – last week as government-backed forces viciously attacked members of the Druze community in the country. The State Department confirmed on Tuesday to Fox News Digital that an American, who has been identified as Hosam Saraya from Oklahoma, was killed in Syria. A State Department spokesperson said, "Time and time again, Secretary Rubio has emphasized the importance of prioritizing the safety and security of U.S. citizens. We can confirm the death of a U.S. citizen in the Sweida region of Syria last week. We offer condolences to the family on their loss and are providing consular assistance to them." Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla, wrote on X, "Hosam was an Oklahoman and member of the Druze community who was tragically executed alongside other members of his family in Syria. We are praying for his family, friends, and the entire community as they grieve this senseless loss." Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla, wrote on X that an "American citizen from Oklahoma" was "brutally executed alongside his family members in Syria," adding, "I'm working with partners in the region to learn more, and we're in touch with @GovStitt on this devastating situation. Our prayers are with the family at this time." President Ahmed Al-Sharaa had reportedly taken the side of the jihadi-influenced Bedouin tribes who executed Druze residents in southern Syria, declaring they carried out "heroic actions." Al-Sharaa, who used a nom de guerre "Abu Mohammed al-Golani," was on the FBI's Most Wanted List from 2013 through 2024 for his role in terrorism. Critics accuse al-Sharaa of seeking to violently repress the struggling ethnic and religious minority populations in Syria – Christians, Druze, and Kruds. Last week Israel launched military strikes against the jihadi forces on their way to the southern city of Sweida, where there is a large Druze population, to stop the massacre. Israel also attacked the Syrian Defense headquarters in Damascus to halt the bloodshed in Sweida. An Israel Defense Force spokesman told Fox News Digital during a Zoom call that it "learned its lesson" from the Hamas invasion of the Jewish state in 2023 and has two goals in southern Syria: border security and the rescue of Syrian Druze. The bulk of the world's Druze community lives in Syria. There are also sizable Druze populations in Israel and Lebanon. Arizona GOP Congressman Abe Hamadeh, who is of Druze background, told Fox News Digital, "The barbaric violence against the Druze community in Syria must end immediately. Under the bold leadership of President Donald J. Trump, Secretary Rubio, and Ambassador Barrack, the United States took bold steps to ease sanctions and extend goodwill to the Syrian government and its people in the hope of seeing real reforms." Hamadeh, whose mother is from Sweida, added, "Now is the time for the Syrian government to turn their words into real actions, if they want to maintain legitimacy: restore order, protect all of its citizens, and demonstrate a genuine commitment to peace and long-term stability. The only way is to build a new Syria that is reflective of its ethnic and religious mosaic. The United States wants Syria to succeed, but bloodshed, senseless violence, and division is not the path forward." The Arizona congressman said, "My staff and I are engaged in interagency efforts to ascertain what is, and is not, happening on the ground in Syria amid the fog of this conflict. We will not rest until all American remains and victims are returned. Justice and accountability must be served. We are praying for the victims and for peace." Al-Sharaa's rule since he toppled the pro-Iran regime of Bashar al-Assad in December has experienced massacres of Alawites, Christian and Druze. Critics argue that Al-Sharaa refuses to rope in the jihadi forces who seek to impose a Taliban-style rule on Syria. After Al-Sharaa's forces executed Syrian Christians in March, Rev. Johnnie Moore, the president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, told Fox News Digital: "This is a warning that the Syrian government is not ready for prime time if it can't protect a handful of vulnerable Christians who had absolutely nothing to do with this violence except being its victims," The death toll involving the clashes between Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze fighters, which includes government forces and Israel, topped 1,000, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Washington helped implement a fragile ceasefire. SOHR noted, "Reaching an agreement including ceasefire and sponsored by Washington coincided with threats to keep Syria on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, in case that the agreement's terms were violated."
Free Malaysia Today
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Rubio demands Syrian government forces intervene to prevent jihadist attacks
Marco Rubio said the fighting between Druze and Bedouin groups must stop immediately. (AP pic) WASHINGTON : US secretary of state Marco Rubio on Saturday called on the Syrian government's security forces to prevent jihadists from entering and 'carrying out massacres' in the conflict-stricken south of the country. 'If authorities in Damascus want to preserve any chance of achieving a unified, inclusive and peaceful Syria… they must help end this calamity by using their security forces to prevent ISIS and any other violent jihadists from entering the area and carrying out massacres,' Rubio said in a statement posted to X, using another name for the Islamic State group (IS). Sectarian clashes between armed Bedouin forces and the Druze in the community's Sweida heartland had drawn in Syria's Islamist-led government, Israel and other armed tribes. US-brokered negotiations have sought to avert further Israeli military intervention, with Syrian forces agreeing to withdraw from the region. 'The US has remained heavily involved over the last three days with Israel, Jordan and authorities in Damascus on the horrifying & dangerous developments in southern Syria,' Rubio said. He called for the Syrian government to 'hold accountable and bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities, including those in their own ranks.' 'Furthermore, the fighting between Druze and Bedouin groups inside the perimeter must also stop immediately,' Rubio added. Once in control of large swathes of Syria, the IS was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 largely due to the efforts of Kurdish-led forces supported by an international coalition. Violence between the Druze and Bedouin groups that began on July 13 has left an estimated 940 dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor. The count included 326 Druze fighters and 262 Druze civilians, 165 of whom were summarily executed, according to the Observatory. The monitor also included 312 government security personnel and 21 Sunni Bedouin in the toll.
Telegraph
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The deadly al-Qaeda affiliate terrorising western Africa
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.'
Arab News
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Rubio demands Syrian government forces intervene to prevent jihadist attacks
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday called on the Syrian government's security forces to prevent jihadists from entering and "carrying out massacres" in the conflict-stricken south of the country. "If authorities in Damascus want to preserve any chance of achieving a unified, inclusive and peaceful Syria... they must help end this calamity by using their security forces to prevent Daesh and any other violent terrorists from entering the area and carrying out massacres," Rubio said in a statement posted to X.
