How Can We Trust ISIS’s Claims of Responsibility?
News outlets have reported that the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack on a London Bridge June 3 as well as attacks inside Iran on June 7. But how do they know? And how reliable are such claims? We asked Monica Duffy Toft, an…
Iran’s Supreme Leader: Attacks Will Increase Hatred of US, Saudis
Iran’s leadership on Friday accused the United States and Saudi Arabia of supporting the attacks on Tehran that killed 17 people this week. As thousands of Iranians attended a funeral for the victims, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday’s attacks would only increase hate for the U.S. and Saudi governments, according to state media.
Two Influential Somali Clerics Reject Violence as Ramadan Begins
Based on confirmed sightings of Ramadan’s new moon crescent, millions of Muslims around the world are fasting on the first day of the holy month. According to Islam, the sighting of the new moon marks the beginning of the Muslim lunar month of Ramadan. Thirty-three countries, mainly those in which the majority of residents are […]
ISIS Calls for ‘All Out War’ on West During Ramadan
The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) called for an “all out war” on the West during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins Saturday, just days after it claimed the Manchester suicide bomb attack that left 22 people dead. The group’s spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, killed in a U.S. airstrike in August 2016, had […]
Yazidi Woman Who Suffered IS Enslavement Lobbies Washington for Help
A Yazidi woman who suffered for 10 months as a sex slave under the Islamic State group (IS) came to Washington to push for help for the traumatized, displaced Yazidi community in northern Iraq and the hundreds of others who remain in IS bondage. Shireen Jardo, 25, met with several U.S. congressmen and federal officials […]
Recent terror attacks in Europe
London (dpa) – Europe’s big cities are increasingly on high alert for terror attacks. Here are some of the most recent. STOCKHOLM, April 7, 2017: A hijacked truck ploughs into a busy pedestrian area in central Stockholm, fatally injuring five people. A 39-year-old Uzbek man is charged over the attack. LONDON, March 22, 2017:
A Look at Islamic State’s Operations in Afghanistan
So-called Islamic State has wreaked havoc in eastern Afghanistan since 2015, mostly through its loose affiliates — attacking government installations and villages, killing and abducting hundreds of people, and keeping schools shuttered and replacing them with IS religious seminaries. It also claimed responsibility for several deadly attacks in the country’s capital, Kabul. Here is a […]
Afghan Forces Kill Up to 50 IS Fighters
Authorities in eastern Afghanistan say counterterrorism army operations have killed up to 50 Islamic State militants, including three senior commanders. The overnight deaths occurred in the district of Achin, an IS stronghold in Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan. A regional military spokesman told VOA’s Afghan service on Wednesday there were 12 foreign militants […]
Massive Bomb Strike Divides Afghan Opinion with Critics Questioning Motives
U.S. use of a massive bomb against Islamic State extemists in Afghanistan has proven divisive in the region, winning support from political and military authorities in Kabul but strong condemnations from former Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan. In a series of three tweets, Karzai said, “I vehemently and in strongest words […]
Q&A: Islamic State has fewer than 1,000 fighters in Afghanistan. So why did Trump drop the ‘mother of all bombs’?
On Thursday night, the U.S. military unleashed a 20,000-pound bomb — one of the largest non-nuclear weapons in its arsenal — on a tunnel complex the Pentagon said was used by Islamic State fighters in eastern Afghanistan. It was a dramatic escalation of American operations against the militant group’s affiliate in South Asia. It also […]