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U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced Sunday that they used MQ-9 reaper drones to take out ISIS leader Usamah al-Muhajir in Eastern Syria. No civilian casualties have been reported.U.S. airstrike targets ISIS leader in eastern Syria.https://t.co/RtzKlBhXKE pic.twitter.com/A6IFnUGlXB— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 9, 2023“We have made it clear that we remain committed to the defeat of ISIS throughout the region,” said CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Kurilla. “ISIS remains a threat, not only to the region but well beyond.”The CENTCOM press release said that the operation will hurt ISIS’s attempts at further acts of terror:This will disrupt and degrade ISIS’s ability to...

The CIA targeted and killed ISIS spokesman Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir in a separate raid, from the one that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a U.S. official confirmed to The Daily Beast. “We never stopped patrolling, we never stopped analyzing intel and developing targets. We just slowed down during the Turkey invasion,” the official told The Daily Beast’s Spencer Ackerman. Newsweek reports that as Trump announced the death of Baghdadi, Hellfire missiles targeted Muhajir by Ayn al-Bayda, near Jarablus in Aleppo province. The operation that targeted Muhajir comes just one day after a raid targeted ISIS’ leader in the Idlib...

SNIPPET: "Social media is no longer simply a fun way to share updates on the harmless idiosyncrasies of our lives. It can undermine national security, and there ought to be a more robust discussion between the Bay Area technology world and Washington on what to do about it. Cyber-terrorism, especially the potential for electronic tampering with U.S. industrial or military installations, is a paramount national security threat that Washington is working to forestall. We're all working to protect our accounts from hackers. But the cyber-threat getting far less public attention involves the social media networks we use every day and the...

"Transcript: Message from the "Emir" of the "German Taliban Mujahideen" Abu Ishaq al-Muhajir" By Evan Kohlmann SNIPPET: "The NEFA Foundation has obtained a new document from the designated terrorist organization known as the “Islamic Jihad Union” (IJU), offering a message from the “German Taliban Mujahideen.”" T

DUBAI (Reuters) - The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, has been arrested, the Arabic television station al-Arabiya reported on Friday, quoting the Iraqi Defense Ministry. Arabiya said Muhajir had been detained in a joint Iraqi-U.S. operation in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The U.S. military said it had no information on the reports at this stage.

DUBAI, March 9 (Reuters) - The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, has been arrested in Iraq, the Arabic television station al-Arabiya reported on Friday, quoting the Iraqi Defence Ministry. Arabiya said Muhajir, successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been detained in a joint Iraqi-U.S. operation in Mosul in northern Iraq.

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

CAIRO, Egypt — A man claiming to be the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq vowed in an audiotape released Saturday to launch a monthlong offensive against U.S. troops. There was no independent confirmation that the voice belonged to Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, but it sounded exactly like the one heard on previous audiotapes. Al-Muhajir has been the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq since his predecessor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad in 2006. "We call on our beloved ones ... that each unit should present the head...

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — A man claiming to be the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq vowed in an audiotape released Saturday to launch a monthlong offensive against U.S. troops. There was no independent confirmation that the voice belonged to Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, but it sounded exactly like the one heard on previous audiotapes. Al-Muhajir has been the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq since his predecessor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad in 2006. "We call on our beloved ones ... that each unit should present the head of...

Baghdad : Iraqi troopers have killed a prominent militant believed to be a top aide of the Al Qaeda leader in Iraq, an army spokesman told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) Saturday.Mowafaq Yassin, identified as "the right-hand man of Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq Abu Hamza al-Muhajir," was shot after a firefight in the area of Badosh, 40 km west of Mosul, Friday, Brigadier Mutaa al-Khazraji told VOI."After clashes that continued for 30 minutes the soldiers killed him inside his home," said Khazraji. The senior officer said that Yassin specialised in preparing car bombs used in suicide...

He looks like the perfect husband and doting father - but Dr. Mohammed Asha was on a secret al Qaeda terror mission in Britain that was carefully plotted years ago in Iraq, intelligence sources claimed yesterday. New disclosures emerged about the alleged double life of the brilliant 26-year-old neurosurgeon who is a suspected ringleader of the London and Glasgow car-bomb sleeper cell. Asha, born into a Palestinian family originally from the city of Hebron in the West Bank, was destined for a great medical career, scoring the third-highest mark on the University of Jordan's medical-school entrance exam. In 2004, he...

MIAMI -- It's been nearly five years since then-Attorney General John Ashcroft declared the United States had thwarted an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major city and had arrested a "known terrorist," Jose Padilla. Ashcroft suggested the plot could have caused "mass death and injury" and said President Bush had designated Padilla, a U.S. citizen, as an enemy combatant who would be held in indefinite military custody rather than face civilian charges. "He was involved in planning future terrorist attacks on American civilians in the United States," Ashcroft said in June 2002, while the jittery...

MIAMI - A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a key terrorism charge, the only one carrying a potential life sentence, against alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with federal prosecutors in Miami that the charge that the U.S. citizen and his two co-defendants conspired to "murder, kidnap and maim" people overseas did not duplicate other counts in the indictment. The Atlanta-based court reversed a decision last summer by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke, who said the three charges in the indictment contained nearly identical elements and could subject...

It may well be that the Republican Congress deserved to be turned out. It may well be that grievous mistakes have been made in Iraq. (Churchill once said that war is a series of blunders and catastrophes until one side is exhausted and the other side wins. Look up what happened at Dieppe or at Kasserine Pass.) The fact remains that the terrorists are still out there, Iraq is still critical and still needs our support, and if we abandon them, we’ll never again get anyone to throw in with us.

IRAQ: AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ'S NEW LEADER ISSUES MESSAGE Baghdad, 28 Sept. (AKI) - The proclaimed heir to al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has urged his supporters to capture foreigners and use them as bargaining chips to free a Muslim cleric in the US. "I call on every holy fighter in Iraq to strive during this holy month (Ramadan)... to capture some dogs of the Christians so that we can liberate our imprisoned sheikh," said the speaker, identified as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, referring to sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, in jail in the US since 1995 for the attack two...

US soldiers' bodies found in Iraq Kristian Menchaca and flags raised at Thomas Tucker's Oregon home Two US soldiers missing in Iraq since Friday have been found dead south of Baghdad, the US military has said.The bodies were found in the Yusifiya area on Monday. An Iraqi defence ministry spokesman said the bodies had shown signs of torture. An insurgent group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq, which claimed it abducted the men, has now said that it killed them. The missing men have been named as Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker, both from the 101st Airborne Division. Another US...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military said Thursday the man claiming to be the new al-Qaida in Iraq leader is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian with ties to Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said al-Masri apparently is the same person that al-Qaida in Iraq identified in a Web posting last week as its new leader — Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, a nom de guerre. Al-Muhajer claimed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a June 7 U.S. airstrike, and vowed to avenge him in threatening Web statements...

London, Asharq Al-Awsat- Al Qaeda in Iraq’s new leader is more violent than his predecessor, warned an Egyptian Islamist on Monday. Following the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and five others after two 500-pound bombs were dropped in a US air raid on a safe house near the restive northern Iraqi city of Baquba on Wednesday, al Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers appointed Abu Hamza al Muhajir (the immigrant) as its new leader. An Islamist leader told Asharq al Awsat on Monday, on condition of anonymity, that Abu Hamza is renowned for his knowledge of Shariaa and...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday sided with the Bush administration and reversed a judge’s order that the government charge or free “dirty bomb” suspect Jose Padilla. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the president has the authority to detain a U.S. citizen closely associated with al Qaeda. U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd in Spartanburg, S.C., ruled in March that the government cannot hold Padilla indefinitely as an “enemy combatant,” a designation President Bush gave him in 2002. The government views Padilla as a militant who planned attacks on...

SPARTANBURG -- A federal judge in Spartanburg has ordered that an American citizen held as an enemy combatant in a Navy brig in Charleston should be charged with a crime or released. U.S. District Judge Henry F. Floyd ruled Monday that the president of the United States does not have the authority to order Jose Padilla to be held indefinitely without being charged. "If the law in its current state is found by the president to be insufficient to protect this country from terrorist plots, such as the one alleged here, then the president should prevail upon Congress to remedy...