The United States is offering a $10 million reward for information to identify or locate the head of Al-Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate the Fateh al-Sham Front. The State Department’s Rewards for Justice reward for information on Abu Mohamed al-Jolani is its first for a leader of the group. He has been named a “specially designated … Read more
An alliance dominated by Al-Qaeda’s former Syrian branch has warned rebel groups against implementing a deal on safe zones, saying they would be considered traitors. Tahrir al-Sham, led by the jihadist Fateh al-Sham Front, made the threat late Tuesday in response to an agreement signed by rebel backer Turkey and regime supporters Iran and Russia … Read more
Fighting subsided in Syria on Saturday after a deal signed by government backers Russia and Iran and rebel supporter Turkey to create four safe zones began to take effect, a monitor said. The zones still exist only on paper and the cosponsors have until June 4 to finalise their borders under the terms of the … Read more
After six years of conflict in Syria, government backers Russia and Iran and rebel supporter Turkey have signed a deal to create four “de-escalation zones” in the country. Here are some questions and answers about the deal and the planned zones: The zones are four areas located across eight of Syria’s 14 provinces. The first … Read more
Fierce clashes between jihadists and Islamist rebels near Damascus left at least 40 dead and 70 wounded on Friday, a monitoring group said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes pitted the Saudi-backed rebel faction Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) against Fateh al-Sham, Al-Qaeda’s former branch in Syria, and Faylaq al-Rahman, which is … Read more
A man suspected of being a radicalised Islamist shot and wounded two policemen on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion as they tried to arrest him on Thursday, authorities said. “The man refused to be arrested and fired a rifle at police,” a local government official on the island said, adding that the suspect … Read more
The green mosque in the Afghan military compound attacked by Taliban militants is scarred — disfigured by bullet holes, blast marks and with blood splattered across the ceiling — telltale signs of the deaths of at least 144 young Afghan recruits. Images filmed by an AFP journalist reveal some of the horror of one of … Read more
Iraq is holding hundreds of millions of dollars Qatari negotiators had brought to Baghdad as ransom money for the release of kidnapped hunters, the prime minister said Tuesday. A hunting party consisting of 24 Qataris and two Saudis kidnapped in southern Iraq in December 2015 was released last week and flew back home from Baghdad … Read more
The death toll from last week’s Taliban attack on an Afghan military base stands at 144, a senior US defense official told AFP on Tuesday. The exact toll from the assault had been unclear, with Afghan officials ignoring calls to break down the tally it gave of more than 100 soldiers killed or wounded. Speaking … Read more
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called on the armed Syrian opposition to wage guerrilla warfare against the government of Bashar al-Assad and its allies. In an audio tape titled “Syria will only bow to God”, released on the internet on Sunday, Zawahiri urged Syrian rebels to “have patience and prepare themselves for a long war … Read more
Afghanistan is holding a day of national mourning after the Taliban attacked an army base, killing or wounding more than 100 soldiers. President Ashraf Ghani said the assault near the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif had been contrary to all human values and Islamic teachings. Insurgents targeted those leaving Friday prayers at the base’s mosque and … Read more
US forces operating in Syria have killed a senior member of the Islamic State group blamed for an attack on a nightclub that left 39 dead, officials said Friday. “We will reach you anywhere,” Brett McGurk, the US diplomat who coordinates the coalition fighting the jihadist group in Iraq and Syria, said in a tweet … Read more
At least eight Afghan soldiers have been killed and 11 wounded during an ongoing Taliban attack on their base in northern Afghanistan Friday, the defence ministry said. “Gunmen wearing Afghan army uniforms have launched a complex attack on an army compound in the outskirts of Mazar-e-Sharif”,capital of Balkh province, ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri told AFP. … Read more
Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad on Friday blamed the country’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate for a deadly bombing against buses carrying evacuees outside Aleppo at the weekend. “It was Jabhat al-Nusra, they haven’t hidden it from the very start, and I think that everyone agrees that it was Nusra,” Assad told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency in … Read more
The president of war-torn Afghanistan is creating a tourism ministry in a bid to attract visitors to the country endowed with stunning landscapes and archaeological sites, but wracked by nearly four decades of conflict. Ashraf Ghani issued a presidential decree this week ordering the ministry be established and naming Ghulam Nabi Farahi, a former parliamentary … Read more
Three young Pakistani women have confessed to killing a man accused of blasphemy, police said Thursday, after he was gunned down at home in what his family have called a sectarian hate crime. Fazal Abbas, who was in his fifties and belonged to the minority Shi’ite sect, had fled Pakistan in 2004 after being charged … Read more
US National Security Advisor Gen. H. R McMaster arrived in Kabul on Sunday days after the American military dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on Islamic State group hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, killing nearly a hundred militants. On his first visit to the country as President Donald Trump’s envoy, McMaster said on Twitter he was set … Read more
At least five people were killed Wednesday when a suicide bomber on foot struck near the Afghan defense ministry in Kabul, officials said, in an attack that was claimed by the Islamic State group. Three other people were left wounded in the explosion, which occurred during afternoon rush hour when employees of the ministry were … Read more
The northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, site of a presumed chemical attack, is the last remaining rebel bastion after six years of civil war. Idlib city has taken in masses of displaced Syrians, swelling its population from nearly 120,000 people before the war began in 2011 to around 200,000 today. Before fighting broke out, the … Read more
Autopsy results have revealed that chemical weapons were used in an attack which killed more than 80 people in Syria’s Idlib province, according to Turkey’s justice minister. Thirty-two victims of Tuesday’s attack were brought to Turkey where three subsequently died. “Autopsies were carried out on three of the bodies after they were brought from Idlib. … Read more