Al-Baghdadi, who became the world’s most-wanted terrorist after he declared a so-called caliphate in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014, killed himself and three of his children when he detonated a suicide vest during a raid by U.S. forces in northwest Syria’s Idlib region, President Donald Trump announced Sunday
United Nation Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism Vladimir Voronkov said, “we need to remain vigilant to mitigate the risk posed by the evolution of ISIL and its affiliates, deny its new recruits, and prevent its resurgence.”
Authorities in Dushanbe believe Shafiev and his associates are training their Tajik recruits in Afghanistan and sending them back to Tajikistan to create a terrorist sleeper cell
The first indications the fight against IS in Baghuz had ended came early Saturday, SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali using Twitter to announce the “total elimination of so-called caliphate”
The biggest worry: upward of 60,000 people, including more than 5,000 IS fighters, who have surrendered or been captured since the SDF and coalition launched their final assault last month
IS online communication and propaganda over the years has declined as the group lost territory in Iraq and Syria. Nevertheless, the jihadists have continued to recycle old propaganda messages and even create new ones
Both the militants’ claim and that of the Somali military could not be independently verified due to the remoteness of the area
More than 2,400 U.S. troops have died in the Afghan War since 2001. The deadliest year was 2010, with 499 American casualties and a total coalition loss of 711 lives. According to the United Nations, tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have also been killed since the war began. The first six months of 2018 were the deadliest since 2009, when the U.N. started keeping record of civilian casualties, with 1,692 deaths
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, Zabul was a main gateway for the anti-Soviet mujahedin fighters streaming into Afghanistan from Pakistan
According to the CSIS report, compared with 2017, IS attacks against Iraqi government targets increased in 2018. The terror group has been carrying out an average of 78 attacks per month