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Keyword: shuracouncil

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  • Terror Fears As Iran Frees Al Qaeda Members

    09/19/2015 8:57:39 AM PDT · by Dave346 · 13 replies
    Sky News ^ | 13:08, UK, Monday 14 September 2015
    Some intelligence agencies warn the five men may travel to Syria and make use of its chaotic landscape to plot attacks elsewhere. Iran has released five senior al Qaeda operatives from detention and will soon allow them to leave the country, prompting fears they will join other terrorists in Syria planning attacks on the West. According to intelligence sources, three of the five are members of al Qaeda's ruling committee the Shura Council. Among those released in exchange for the Iranian diplomat was Abu al Kheir al Masri - the former head of al Qaeda's "external relations" committee, who was...
  • The secret to ISIS's success: Over 100 former Saddam Hussein-era officers run jihadi group's

    08/10/2015 4:21:14 PM PDT · by Kid Shelleen · 16 replies
    AP via Daily Mail ^ | 08/08/2015 | TOM WYKE
    Once part of one of the most brutal dictator's army in the Middle East, over 100 former members of Saddam Hussein's military and intelligence officers are now part of ISIS. Now they make up the complex network of ISIS's leadership, helping to build the military strategies which have led the brutal jihadi group to their military gains in Syria and Iraq. The officers gave ISIS the organization and discipline it needed to weld together jihadi fighters drawn from across the globe, integrating terror tactics like suicide bombings with military operation
  • Member of Taliban's elite Supreme Shura among 5 transferred to Qatar

    06/08/2014 1:41:28 PM PDT · by PoloSec · 5 replies
    Long War Journal ^ | June 8 2014 | Thomas Joscelyn
    Two court decisions provide insights into the career of Khairullah Khairkhwa, who was recently transferred from Guantanamo to Qatar along with four other senior Taliban leaders in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. On May 27, 2011, District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina published his opinion rejecting Khairkhwa's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. And, on Dec. 14, 2012, the DC Circuit Court issued its ruling affirming Judge Urbina's opinion. The courts concluded that Khairkhwa was a member of the Taliban's Supreme Shura council, an elite group of 10 leaders who reported directly to Mullah Omar. The Shura oversaw the Taliban's...
  • Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Nusrah Front ( Syria) emerge as rebranded single entity

    04/10/2013 6:05:19 PM PDT · by Ernest_at_the_Beach · 14 replies
    The Long War Journal ^ | April 9, 2013 | Thomas Joscelyn
    Image that accompanied Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's audiotape announcing the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. The flag was originally al Qaeda in Iraq's banner, but has been adopted by other al Qaeda affiliated and associated groups. Image from the SITE Intelligence Group. The emir of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), Abu Bakr al Baghdadi (also known as Abu Dua), has announced a new brand for his organization's efforts: the "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant." The new name replaces all previous brands used by al Qaeda's affiliates in Iraq and Syria, including the...
  • Al Nusrah front spearheads capture of Syrian dam, claims suicide assault

    02/11/2013 8:56:40 PM PST · by neverdem · 6 replies
    The Long War Journal ^ | February 11, 2013 | BILL ROGGIO
    The Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, al Qaeda in Iraq's affiliate in Syria, led an assault today that resulted in the takeover of a major dam on the Euphrates River in northern Syria. Additionally, the terror group claimed credit for a suicide assault on an intelligence headquarters in the city of Palmyra. The Al Nusrah Front spearheaded today's assault on the "strategic" dam in Thawra in Raqqa province, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Nusrah Front led "other factions" of the insurgency to take control of Thawra, which "is considered one of the...
  • Morsi declares expanded powers, bans breakup of assembly penning constitution

    11/22/2012 1:50:57 PM PST · by Founding Father · 10 replies
    RT ^ | 22 November, 2012
    Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi made several decrees Thursday that will shape the country’s constitution and, he says, safeguard its “revolutionary” future. They include a ruling that none of his decisions can be overturned by any authority. Morsi gave the Constituent Assembly a two month deadline to finish drafting a new constitution, ruling that no authority may dissolve it until the country's defining document is completed. He further ruled that no authority may dissolve the Shura Council, the upper house of Egypt's parliament. In a move likely to bring criticism that the Egyptian president is inappropriately expanding his powers, he also...
  • Saudi Arabia: More brutal laws for "insulting" Islam

    07/15/2012 4:35:34 PM PDT · by combat_boots · 19 replies
    Atlas Shrugs ^ | July 15, 2012 | Pam Geller, et al
    So, it wouldn't just be blasphemy (that's already covered by the death sentence), but "insulting Islam" (...and we all know how difficult that is) and those homicidal "clerics"... Once again we see that any accommodation to Islamic law results in demands by and more accommodation of the most brutal, backward and bloody ideology on the face of the earth. Notice the media using "conservative" to describe these savages. More Orwellian language. "Saudi Arabia considers law against insulting Islam" Reuters July 15, 2012 (thanks to David) Saudi Arabia is studying new regulations to criminalise insulting Islam, including in social media, and...
  • Saudi Arabia gives women the vote... but not until 2015

    09/25/2011 6:57:49 PM PDT · by Niuhuru · 10 replies
    Daily Mail ^ | 8:25 PM on 25th September 2011 | By Mail Foreign Service
    Women are to be allowed to vote in Saudi Arabia. K ing Abdullah bin Abdulaziz announced the change yesterday and also said women would be allowed to run in elections. However, the new law will not come into force until 2015. In a speech, the king said the move was in accordance with sharia law.
  • Whipping al-Qaeda into line in Iraq

    06/12/2006 5:50:14 AM PDT · by Coop · 11 replies · 428+ views
    Asia Times ^ | 6/12/06 | Sami Moubayed
    ...possible successors to the [Zarqawi]. One of them, Iraq-based Egyptian terrorist Abu Ayyub al-Masri, was also named by Major-General William Caldwell... The other two are an Iraqi named Abu Aseel and a Syrian named Abu al-Ghadia. Masri (reportedly... born in 1966) is believed to have entered Iraq to join Zarqawi in 2002 and founded a cell for al-Qaeda in Baghdad. ...Masri received his training at military camps in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule and met bin Laden at the Farouk Camp, where Masri was working as an instructor... is also reportedly close to Egyptian Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri... Abu Aseel and...
  • Al-Qaida in Iraq denounces Jordan meet

    11/30/2006 4:48:26 PM PST · by TexKat · 28 replies · 653+ views
    Pioneer Press via Twin Cities.com ^ | November 30, 2006 | MAAMOUN YOUSSEF
    CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida in Iraq on Thursday denounced Iraqi Sunni politicians who met recently with Jordan's King Abdullah II, calling them and the monarch "traitors." The statement, posted on an Islamic militant Web site, did not mention a summit Thursday between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bush. Both leaders met separately with King Abdullah before their talks in Amman, Jordan. Instead, al-Qaida in Iraq - the country's most feared Sunni Muslim militant group - lashed out at a string of Iraqi Sunni Arab politicians who held talks with Abdullah ahead of the summit. "The traitors of Jordan's...
  • Carroll's Captors 'Worshipped' Zarqawi

    08/14/2006 7:57:14 PM PDT · by jmc1969 · 15 replies · 998+ views
    ABC News ^ | Aug. 14, 2006
    The insurgents allowed her to conduct occasional interviews about their organization in which she learned that they belonged to an insurgent council, including members of al Qaeda. "The main captor during all these interviews I would do was anxious to tell me about this. He told me his name was Abdullah Rashid," she said. "He said he had helped form this council … in Iraq that brought together some of the main Sunni insurgent groups, and he was the head of it. One of those groups in that council was al Qaeda and Zarqawi." She was held from Jan. 7...
  • Iraq insurgents offer to stop attacks

    06/28/2006 12:33:12 PM PDT · by NormsRevenge · 51 replies · 1,568+ views
    AP on Yahoo ^ | 6/28/06 | Steven R. Hurst and Qassim Abdul-Zahra - ap
    BAGHDAD, Iraq - Eleven Sunni insurgent groups have offered to halt attacks on the U.S.-led military if the Iraqi government and President Bush set a two-year timetable for withdrawing all foreign troops from the country, insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The demand is part of a broad offer from the groups, who operate north of Baghdad in the heavily Sunni Arab provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala. Although much of the fighting has been to the west, those provinces have become increasingly violent and the attacks there have regularly crippled oil and commerce routes. The groups...
  • Russian Diplomats Executed

    06/25/2006 8:46:25 AM PDT · by Sally'sConcerns · 110 replies · 10,161+ views
    CNN Wolf Blitzer ^ | 062506 | self
    During the discussion of the 'amnesty' announcement it was announced the 4 diplomats from Russia had been executed. Now posted as breaking banner on CNN.com headline.
  • BBC: US soldiers' bodies found in Iraq ~ Bodies Booby Trapped,...Zarqawi successor killed....

    06/20/2006 1:13:20 PM PDT · by Ernest_at_the_Beach · 74 replies · 5,094+ views
    BBC ^ | Tuesday, 20 June 2006, 19:13 GMT 20:13 UK | BBC Staff
    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...
  • Video Shows Another Side of Al-Zarqawi ["Youthful and healthy in the springtime desert"]

    04/26/2006 6:54:10 PM PDT · by Alouette · 23 replies · 884+ views
    AP ^ | Apr. 26, 2006 | Lauren "Terrorist Men Make Me Swoon" Frayer
    CAIRO, Egypt - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's new video marks a shift by the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq toward a less radical image, one that might appeal to the Iraqi insurgency more than the beheadings for which he's become notorious, analysts said Wednesday. The video released Tuesday, the first by al-Zarqawi that shows his face, features scenes of the black-garbed terrorist firing a gun and hunkered over a map plotting strategy. The Sunni Muslim extremist, 39, looks youthful and healthy in the springtime desert. "It's a departure from the past. There's no strident anti-Shiite rhetoric and no beheadings," said Joost...