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ISIS fanatics ‘behead 50 men and boys on Mozambique football pitch
before chopping them up and kidnapping every woman’
Imogen Braddick, The Sun
10 Nov 2020, 9:55
ISIS-linked militants have beheaded more than 50 people and chopped up the bodies of the victims in a brutal attack in northern Mozambique, according to reports.
The militants turned a football pitch into an "execution ground" as they decapitated and chopped up the bodies of villagers in the Cabo Delgado province, state media reports.
The militants have killed more than 2,000 people in the province since 2017
Militants have been stepping up attacks across Africa in recent monthsCredit: AFP - Getty
Jihadis brutally attacked villages in the Cabo Delgado province
Scores of women and children were abducted in Nanjaba village, while more than 50 were killed in a gruesome attack on Muatide village, the BBC reports.
"They burned the houses then went after the population who had fled to the woods and started with their macabre actions," Bernardino Rafael, commander-general of Mozambique’s police said during a media briefing on Monday, according to Al Jazeera.
Villagers who tried to flee were reportedly taken to a nearby football pitch where they were beheaded and chopped to pieces in the atrocity which from lasted from Friday night to Sunday.
Jihadists have wreaked havoc in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado province over the past three years, ravaging villages and towns as part of a campaign to establish an Islamist caliphate.
TERROR IN THE WOODS
The militants have stepped up their offensive in recent months and violently seized swathes of territory, terrorising citizens in the process.
Counter-terrorism and organised crime expert David Otto told the Daily Star said: "State forces and suspected spies have been captured and beheaded by the jihadist group to send a warning message.
“Women have been the subject of targeted kidnapping. Sources say the jihadists keep the women as sex slaves."
He added: "The complex terrain of deep forest and easy access to the Indian ocean makes the province of Cabo Delgado and the district of Mocimboa da Praia perfect for any armed group to hide.
"They can launch hit and run ambush tactics, escape to the high-sea to neighbouring states and have an ideal logistics route for smuggling of illegal goods, arms and ammunition."
Last week, suspected militants beheaded at least 20 men and teenagers in a male initiation ceremony in the Muidumbe district.
The dismembered bodies of at least five adults and 15 boys were found.
"Police learnt of the massacre committed by the insurgents through reports of people who found corpses in the woods," an officer said.
"It was possible to count 20 bodies spread over an area of about 500 metres. These were young people who were at an initiation rite ceremony accompanied by their advisers."
In April, jihadists shot dead and beheaded more than 50 youths for allegedly refusing to join their ranks.
In March, they occupied the centre of Mocimboa da Praia and set fire to government buildings.
In another town they launched an attack on a police station and raised the ISIS flag.
Jihadis have carried out attacks in at least 13 countries in Africa
‘A strike against breeding ground for extremism’: Austrian police arrest 30 people with suspected links to Islamist groups
9 Nov, 2020 09:53
FILE PHOTO: Austrian policemen stand near a mosque in Vienna on November 6, 2020.
© BMI / Austrian Interior Ministry / AFP
The Austrian authorities have conducted sweeping raids across the country against people with suspected ties to extremist groups. The operation took place a week after a deadly terrorist attack in Vienna.
As part of the action, dubbed Operation Ramses, police searched 60 apartments, houses, and businesses early on Monday morning. The raids were carried out in Vienna and the regions of Styria, Carinthia, and Lower Austria.
The authorities have arrested 30 people with suspected links to the Islamist groups Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the prosecutor’s office in the city of Graz, more than 70 suspects are being investigated for possible ties to terrorist organizations.
“We have succeeded in striking against the breeding ground for extremism,” Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told reporters after the raids.
Integration Minister Susanne Raab said the action against the Muslim Brotherhood was aimed at preventing “the spread of extremist ideas in Austria,” and showed that the country is “serious about the fight against radical, extremist ideologies.”
The prosecutor’s office clarified that Monday’s raids had “no connection” with the terrorist attack in Vienna last week. On November 2, a gunman killed four people in the Austrian capital before being shot dead by police. The perpetrator was a 20-year-old man of Albanian origin and an Islamic State sympathizer who had previously been convicted for trying to join the militants in Syria.
Sixteen people were arrested in Austria immediately after the attack. Similar raids were carried out in neighboring Germany and Switzerland, where police detained several people with links to the perpetrator in the Vienna shooting.
Austria confirms reports that Vienna shooter hosted ‘Islamist summit’
with extremists from Germany and Switzerland in July
9 Nov, 2020 13:24
A woman places flowers at the site of a terrorist attack in Vienna, Austria, November 5, 2020.
© Reuters / Leonhard Foeger
The Austrian Interior Ministry has confirmed earlier reports that the gunman behind the deadly Vienna attack met with a group of fellow jihadists from Germany and Switzerland in the country’s capital several months ago.
“A meeting took place in Vienna among the people … from Germany and Switzerland, but there were also people present at the meeting with the later assailant who were arrested in the context of the investigation,” Interior Ministry’s Director General for Public Security Franz Ruf said at a news conference.
Austrian media reported earlier that more than a dozen of “young jihadists” from Austria, Germany and Switzerland gathered for what was described as “a three-country Islamist summit” in Vienna in mid-July. The meeting was said to have been organized by Kujtim Fejzullai, a 20-year-old Austrian native of Albanian origin who killed four people and wounded 23 more in the country’s capital on November 2.
Fejzullai, an Islamic State sympathizer, was shot dead by police during the attack. Last year, he was sentenced to 22 months in prison for trying to join the militants in Syria but was released on parole shortly afterward.
According to the Kronen Zeitung newspaper, some of the Islamists were staying in Fejzullai’s apartment during their trip to Vienna, and they all were under constant surveillance by Austrian police. Shortly after the meeting, Fejzullai went to Slovakia in an attempt to buy bullets for his AK-47 assault rifle.
German and Swiss police conducted raids and arrested several people with ties to Fejzullai after the attack in Vienna. Swiss media reported that two men, aged 18 and 24, who were arrested in the country last week had travelled to Vienna between July 16 and July 20 to meet Fejzullai at an undisclosed location.
Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer admitted that officials had made “intolerable mistakes” and failed to act on the tip from their Slovak colleagues about the “suspects from Austria” trying to buy ammunition in the country. “Something obviously went wrong in communication,” he said last week. An investigation was launched into how the main Austrian anti-terrorism agency handled the information on Fejzullai.
Afghan security forces kill Al-Qaeda leader &
accuse Taliban of having ‘protected’ him
10 Nov, 2020 14:02
FILE PHOTO: Security forces in Kabul, Afghanistan on November 2, 2020. © Wakil Kohsar / AFP
Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) says it has killed an Al-Qaeda chief responsible for the group in the South Asian region, claiming the Taliban had harbored him, despite its promises to cut ties with Al-Qaeda.
Mohammed Haneef, nicknamed ‘Abdullah’, was killed in a raid in the western Farah Province, the Afghan officials said. Haneef was described as a senior leader of Al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent (AQIS), and a former aide and deputy to Asim Umar, the head of AQIS, who was killed in Afghanistan last year.
According to the NDS, Haneef was initially a Taliban member but had joined Al-Qaeda this year and was training Taliban militants to make bombs and place them on vehicles. Hannef was given “safe haven and protection” by the Taliban, the NDS said.
A spokesperson for the Taliban told Reuters that the group was investigating the allegations.
The Taliban had pledged to cut ties with Al-Qaeda as part of a peace deal with the US signed in February. However, a UN extremist watchdog warned in October that Al-Qaeda operatives were still “heavily embedded” with the Taliban and were doing “a good deal” of training and fighting together.
Last week, the Afghan military reported that several Al-Qaeda fighters were killed in Taliban-controlled areas. Afghan Army Chief of Staff General Yasin Zia said that “the Taliban still have close coordination and conduct operations with other terrorist organizations, including Al-Qaeda.”
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