‘Teenage bomb maker’ bought IED supplies off AMAZON for Pulwama terror attack that killed 40 & nearly triggered India-Pakistan war
FILE PHOTO: Indian security forces at the site of the suicide bombing on the Jammu-Srinagar highway on February 14, 2019 © Hindustan Times via Global Look Press
Two more suspects have been nabbed after the deadly Pulwama terrorist attack – which killed 40 Indian troops and spiked hostilities between India and Pakistan – including a 19-year-old bomb-maker who got chemicals from Amazon.
The two men – Waiz ul Islam, 19, and Mohd Abbas Rather, 32 – were arrested by India’s counterterrorism force, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), on Friday, alleging Islam procured bomb ingredients such as ammonium nitrate from the online retail titan. The teen, whose father is a government employee, is also accused of personally bringing items to the terrorist cell that carried out the attack, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
Rather, for his part, is said to have harbored the militants in his home in the lead-up to last year’s attack, including IED builder Mohammed Umar and the suicide bomber himself, Adil Ahmed Dar.
The two men are set to appear before the NIA Special Court in Jammu on Saturday.
The attack – which took place in the disputed Kashmir territory – brought tensions between India and its nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan to a boiling point, resulting in an Indian bombing raid on a JeM training camp, in turn triggering a reprisal by Islamabad which saw an Indian fighter jet downed and its pilot taken prisoner.
Sudanese prime minister survives assassination attempt
By Don Jacobson
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, seen here last month in Germany, survived unharmed after a bomb targeted his motorcade Monday in Khartoum. File photo by Omer Messinger/EPA-EFE
March 9 (UPI) -- Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok escaped unharmed after his motorcade was targeted by a bomb attack Monday in Khartoum, government officials and state media said.
Hamdok, who took office last year when a pro-democracy movement forced the removal of the autocratic Omar al-Bashir, was traveling in a convoy toward his office in the Sudanese capital when it was hit with an explosion in an apparent assassination attempt, state television reported.
Hamdok later confirmed on Twitter he was safe and unharmed. He reassured the people of Sudan that Monday's incident wouldn't interfere with the country's transition but would serve as an added push toward change.
A previously unknown group calling itself the Sudanese Islamic Youth Movement claimed responsibility for the bombing in a Facebook post while providing no evidence.
Bashir, who had ruled the country since 1989, was brought down last year after a wave of protests. Following his ouster, the military agreed to share power with a civilian government headed by Hamdok.
Pro-democracy groups called the assassination attempt a "terrorist attack" and urged Sudanese to take to the streets to "protect the transitional authority."
Airstrike takes out a top terrorist suspected of involvement in attack on US personnel in Kenya
Diana Stancy Correll
U.S. soldiers assigned to the East Africa Response Force, 101st Airborne Division, exit a C-130J Super Hercules, assigned to the 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, at Manda Bay Airfield, Kenya, on Jan. 5. The EARF deployed to help secure the airfield after an attack by al-Shabab terrorists. (Senior Airman Sean Carnes/Air Force)
Mahamoud, also known as Bashir Qoorgaab, was a member of al-Shabab for more than a decade and had coordinated al-Qaida activity within Somalia, according to the U.S. State Department, which had offered up to a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. AFRICOM officials believe he was involved in terrorist plots within Somalia and neighboring Kenya.
“This terrorist was responsible for the pain and suffering of many innocent people,” Air Force Col. Christopher Karns, AFRICOM’s director of public affairs, told Military Times. “He can no longer inflict physical pain on others, nor export his hate and violence more broadly. What we are doing in Somalia is meaningful basic security insurance for Africa and the long term security of America, the continent and our international partners.”
Karns added that Mahamoud had a “suspected association” with the planning of al-Shabab’s attack on Manda Bay airfield Jan. 5, which resulted in the deaths of Army Spc. Henry Mayfield Jr., 23, and two Defense Department contractors, Dustin Harrison, 47, and Bruce Triplett, 64.
A senior-leader-led investigation evaluating the circumstances leading up to the attack is underway.
AFRICOM had reported Feb. 25 that a senior al-Shabab leader associated with planning the Manda Bay attack — as well as his wife, also a member of al-Shabab — were killed in a Feb. 22 airstrike near Saakow, about 200 miles west of Mogadishu. Karns confirmed Mahamoud was that individual.
Al-Shabab has approximately 5,000 to 7,000 militants in Somalia. AFRICOM officials told reporters in January they believe al-Shabab militants from Somalia entered Kenya with the help of facilitators within that country.
Last year, AFRICOM conducted 63 airstrikes in Somalia — a record for the command. AFRICOM has so far conducted more than 20 airstrikes in Somalia this year, including one conducted in the area of Gandarshe, Somalia, Saturday. The command said in a news release it estimates four militants were killed in that strike.
Manda Bay Lodge may not perfectly describe the US military base there
Venezuela: Nearly 50,000 Voting Machines
Burnt in ‘Terrorist Attack’
An unknown hard-right militant group has claimed responsibility for the fire which destroyed 99 percent of the country’s automated machines
By Paul Dobson
The fire rages at the National Electoral Council warehouses. (@bomberos_dc / Twitter)
In a video message published on Twitter on Sunday, seven masked men calling themselves the Venezuelan Patriotic Front stated that the attack formed part of “Operation Sodom,” a reference to the biblical tale of the city destroyed by “divine judgement” on the Jordan River.
The group goes on to justify the arson by alleging that electoral authorities have “violated the people’s rights through fraudulent elections.” In the same message, it also claimed responsibility for a fire last month at a state-run CANTV telecommunications center used in elections in Valencia, Carabobo State.
While the origins and connections of the group remain unclear, its video message pledged further actions against government supporters and leaders, which it defined as being “military targets,” as well as issuing warnings about “what may occur” at the upcoming opposition march on Tuesday.
Speaking Monday, National Constituent Assembly President Diosdado Cabello condemned the fire as a “terrorist attack.” Opposition leaders are yet to comment.
Another hard-right militant opposition group called the T-Shirt Soldiers endorsed the Patriotic Front’s actions and claimed they “were not finished.” The T-Shirt Soldiers claimed responsibility for the August 2018 C4-carrying drone assassination attempt against President Maduro.
There is more on this story at Venezuela Analysis.
Germany: Alleged IS terrorist, mother, goes on trial
The German convert is accused of taking her three children to Syria without the knowledge or consent of their father. The eldest son, trained as a child soldier aged 7, is thought to have died in a 2018 rocket attack.
A court in the western city of Düsseldorf court was scheduled Friday to hear a set of charges filed by federal prosecutors against a 32-year-old mother, accused of joining the Islamic State ('IS') terrorist group.
The woman, originally from Oberhausen in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) of which Düsseldorf is the regional capital, is said to have traveled to Syria in 2015 with her three small children.
The six-item charge sheet includes alleged revocation of parential duties. It describes the accused handing over her son, Hamza, then aged 7, at a Islamic State (IS) military training camp as a war crime.
Prosecutors also allege she forced the three children to witness a public execution and to be indoctrinated by so-called religious police. Her joining a women's unit "Katiba Nusaiba" in Syria amounted to becoming an IS terrorist, prosecutors assert.
File photo - invisible woman in internment camp
If convicted, the accused, named as only Carla-Josephine S. under German law restraints on reporting, faces up to 15 years in jail.
The trial in the Düsseldorf Regional Court is scheduled to proceed over 11 hearing days, spread through to April 24.
The mother is thought to be the first suspected IS affiliate returned from the Middle East under consular rules applied cautiously by Germany's Foreign Office. Arriving at Stuttgart Airport in April 2019, she was immediately arrested, then at the request of NRW prosecutors.
Because of the severity of the charges, the case was taken over by federal prosecutors.
Further child born in Syria
On arrival in Syria in 2015, the woman also married an IS fighter, since deceased, with whom she had a further child.
Tough position for the father of the other two children, who, it would appear will get custody of his children. Does he have the compassion to take the third child?
Some 50 German men and even more German women nationals are presumed to be at camps in Syria, including al-Hol in northern Syria, near its border with Iraq.
The number of children with German nationality there is thought to be around 170.
Do you take them back? Under current German laws it would be insane to do so for those who are radicalized. They must be kept away from the general population. Those willing to drop Islam, totally and completely should be given the opportunity to reenter Germany after facing prosecution for their crimes. But they must be watched to see if they are genuinely abandoning the Religion of Peace.
German laws will never allow such sanity to take hold.
Delhi Police nabs Islamic State-linked terrorist couple from Jamia Nagar for motivating Muslims to unite against CAA and carry out terror strikes
The couple had been in touch with senior ISKP members in Afghanistan and were trying to exploit the ongoing riots to incite Muslims to carry out terror strikes inside the country.
OpIndia Staff
https://www.opindia.com
A couple from Kashmir accused of having links with the terrorist organisation Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISKP), has been nabbed by Delhi Police from south Delhi’s Jamia Nagar on Sunday morning, as per reports. The ISKP is a branch of ISIS which is active in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to the reports, the couple had been in touch with senior ISKP members in Afghanistan and were trying to exploit the ongoing riots to incite Muslims to carry out terror strikes inside the country. The Delhi police had intelligence regarding the IS terrorist presence in Jamia Nagar and carried out an operation on Sunday morning.
Jahanzaib Sami was under (on?) the radar of the Indian intelligence operatives some time back for his association with senior members of ISKP in Afghanistan. It appears that he intended to carry out terror strikes including a suicide attack and had also been attempting to procure weapons for this purpose.However, lately, Jahanzaib Sami’s activities were largely confined to propaganda for the Islamic terror group on cyberspace and had been advocating that the group should expand its focus to the Indian hinterland, and not just Jammu and Kashmir.
According to intelligence officials, Jahanzaib Sami was also in touch with Huzaifa al-Bakistani, the Pakistani commander of the Islamic State’s Khorasan wing who played a key role in efforts to radicalise Kashmiri youngsters to join the terror group. Huzaifa al-Bakistani, a Pakistani national who first joined the Lashkar-e-Taiba before upgrading to the IS, is a well-known online recruiter for IS.
Jahanzaib Sami’s wife Hina Bashir Beigh was also active on pro-IS handles on social media and facilitated in spotting what the group considered ‘talent’ for its terror activities, a senior Police officer said.
In his initial questioning, Jahanzaib Sami is alleged to have told a group of interrogators about his role in publishing and publicising the February edition of the IS magazine Sawt al-Hind (Voice of India). In this edition of the digital magazine, the Islamic State’s subcontinental branch had called on Indian Muslims angered by the Citizenship Amendment Act to abandon political protest, and instead turn to jihadist violence.
“Democracy is not going to save you,” the terrorist group’s magazine released online on 24 February said.
The official said Jahanzaib Sami had spoken about the role of some other people in connection with the magazine that had attempted to provoke the youth to join ‘jihadi violence’.
It is pertinent to note that Jamia Nagar, from where the terrorists have been arrested, falls under Okhla constituency. Aam Aadmi Party leader Amanatullah Khan represents Okhla in Delhi government.
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