ISIS attacks surge in Africa even as Trump boasts of a ‘100-percent’ defeated caliphate

...The two attacks on opposite sides of Africa are among the scores of violent episodes to shake the continent in what experts are calling a breakout year for extremist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. ....

The spike in terrorist attacks mirrors a steady, if less dramatic, increase in Islamist violence in parts of Syria and Iraq, driven by Islamic State fighters who slipped away after the caliphate’s defeat and have now regrouped....

The resurgence threatens to undermine one facet of President Trump’s reelection pitch to voters: his oft-repeated claim of victory over the Islamic State. ...The rise in violence comes as the Trump administration moves to slash U.S. troop deployments and threatens to curtail support for local governments on the front lines of the battle against Islamist militants.....

“We destroyed the caliphate, but they’re now popping up in numerous places. Meanwhile, the worldwide coalition to fight ISIS doesn’t really exist anymore.”.....

since the fall of the Islamic State’s last Syrian stronghold, the group’s African affiliates have seen dramatic gains in territory and recruits, as well as in firepower, according to a study published in August in CTC Sentinel, a journal published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point....

“Instead of an asymmetric, opportunistic insurgency, it’s large numbers of fighters, attacking large numbers of soldiers using weapons that are of a similar or greater caliber,”.....

But even as U.S. and allied forces tightened the noose on Baghdadi’s followers in Iraq and Syria, other White House policies undermined the effort to defeat violent Islamist militant ideology globally,....

Trump’s anti-Islam rhetoric and ban on Muslim immigrants handed the militants a propaganda win, reinforcing a “fundamental al-Qaeda message, which is that America is against Islam,”....

I wondered that sparked interview with Max Abrahms on ABC Australia yesterday (Australia time). clearly it was the anti-Trump WaPo piece, in which he apparently is quoted.

Tweet: Max Abrahms
I did an interview about ISIS in Africa and called out the Washington Post for politicizing this threat. In their piece, they tried to implicate Trump for the terrorism in Africa without mentioning the role of removing Gaddafi, a counterterrorism disaster.
LINK ABC Australia (see below)
20 Oct 2020
https://twitter.com/MaxAbrahms/status/1318569831516561419

ABC’s obnoxious, TDS-infected Fran Kelly won’t give up on trying to get Abrahms to call it all ISIS:
(PARAPHRASING) ABRAHMS calls them jihadists, Al Qaeda, militants, terrorists, not all linked up;
FRAN: so let’s talk about the rise ISIS, because Donald Trump famously declared victory over ISIS, pulling back troops from Syria and Iraq.
ABRAHMS: WaPo - it’s really no secret Bezos is opposed to Donald TrumP and Trump, very stupidly, a couple of years ago declared ISIS defeated. he campaigns on having defeated ISIS and that they are a shadow of themselves, and their Caliphate has been destroyed ***AND ALL OF THAT IS TRUE, but WaPo wants to stick it to Trump. I’m not denying Africa is awash in terrorism. the removal of Gaddafi led to etc etc.
there’s certainly a lot of blame to go around, but I certainly wouldn’t begin with Donald Trump, because we were involved in that regime change in Libya, which really destabilised that country.
ABC’S FRAN: in terms of the here and now, is ISIS still recruiting? hearing ISIS attacks in Africa, by and large, are not on Western targets particularly... is ISIS still a threat?
ABRAHMS: think back to 9/11. Bush declared a global war on terrorism. that forced US to fight terrorism all over the place. there’s a growing sense now that US needs to be more selective. we can’t fight terrorists everywhere. in general, the militants in Africa, have not been as Internationally-minded as the ones that were based in the Caliphate. Somalia - al Shabaab. I do appreciate prioritising which type of terrorists are most likely to strike us and they tend not to be the ones in Africa, compared to the ones that were in Syria.

AUDIO: 10m12s: 20 Oct: ABC Radio National Australia: ISIS attacks Surge in Africa
On RN Breakfast with Fran Kelly
South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Nigeria and Namibia are all reporting terror activity from ISIS.
And there are warnings that ISIS has formed a base hub of operations in Northern Mozambique/.
Guest:
***MAX ABRAHMS, terror expert, Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University, Boston
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/isis-attacks-surge/12785166

More WP Marxist, anti-Trump bullshit. Trump said he destroyed the Islamic caliphate state, not affinity groups which these writers know absolutely nothing about. They only read something and are regurgitating it without any context.

Much of Africa which is under ISIS/Al Qaeda affiliates attack is French former colonial territory with whom they still have military ties and/or treaties of aid.

Nigeria was British.

America never had “colonies” in Africa, PERIOD.

Some writers are stupid. Some are evil. Some write for the Wash. Post and are both.

How do these writers address Islamic extremists/terrorism in Algeria which is just as bloody against an Islamic government in Algiers as is that of ISIS and affiliated against other Moslem/Christian run countries?

The same for Al Qaeda in the Magreb/Sinai.

I hate stupid people!!!

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