The Long War Journal (Site-Wide) |
Posted: 04 Oct 2014 12:14 PM PDT
Nine United Nations peacekeeping
troops from Niger were killed yesterday in an ambush by unidentified
assailants in the Gao region of Mali. No group has yet claimed the attack,
but the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and the Al Mourabitoun Brigade
have been behind most of the recent attacks in Gao.
According to a
UN spokesman, armed gunmen on motorbikes "were targeting
a convoy that included a fuel truck, knowing full well that an attack on a
fuel truck would cause an even greater number of casualties, which adds to
the horrendous nature of the crime." The attack was tactically different
than other recent operations conducted by jihadist groups in the area.
The ambush came just two weeks
after five Chadian troops were killed
when they drove over a mine in the Kidal region of northern Mali.
Yesterday's attack is the worst on
MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping force, since it assumed
security responsibilities in July 2013 following a French-led
operation to oust jihadists from northern Mali. The latest attack brings the
total number of MINUSMA fatalities in Mali to 20.
In response to the jihadists'
takeover of much of northern Mali in 2012, French forces commenced Operation
Serval in January 2013, a joint French and Malian operation to regain control
of the area. The successful operation pushed the jihadists and their leaders
from the northern cities they had ruled. In July 2014, Operation Serval
officially ended and it was replaced
by a new counterterrorism operation dubbed Operation Barkhan. In this ongoing
effort, 1,000 French troops are currently in Mali assisting MINUSMA, the UN
mission, to maintain the stability and security of the northern portion of
the country.
Although most UN deaths in Mali
have been caused by IEDs or landmines detonated under vehicle convoys, at
least 15 suicide bombing attacks have taken place in Mali since the first one
in February 2013. In addition to the 12 suicide
attacks in Mali tallied by The
Long War Journal as of May 2013, suicide attacks
were also carried out in September
2013 and in July
and August of this year. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al Qaeda's
official affiliate in North Africa, took
responsibility for the Aug. 16 suicide bombing that killed
two UN troops in Ber, a town close to Timbuktu. In the same statement, AQIM
also claimed two other attacks near Timbuktu in June. AQIM is just one of
several jihadist groups known to operate in northern Mali.
Jihadist groups in northern
Mali
The Gao region of northern Mali is
home to the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), an al
Qaeda breakaway faction; MUJAO is also known to operate in Kidal, another
northeastern region. In 2011, the group officially broke away from al Qaeda
in the Islamic Maghreb due to apparent
dissatisfaction over the ethnic makeup of the leaders of AQIM.
The US government added MUJAO and two of its leaders to the list of global
terrorists and entities in December 2012. Two months later, on Feb. 9, 2013,
MUJAO conducted
the first-ever suicide bombing in Mali, targeting a Malian military
checkpoint.
Another group that operates in Gao
is the Al Mourabitoun Brigade. In 2013, the brigade
was formed in a merger between MUJAO forces and the forces of
jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar. A longtime al Qaeda commander who fought in
Afghanistan, Belmokhtar disaffiliated from AQIM after a dispute arose between
him and the top leadership of the group. Belmokhtar bristled at taking orders
from AQIM, and often communicated directly with al Qaeda's central leadership
in the Afghan-Pakistan region. In May of this year, Belmokhtar sided
with al Qaeda central and its emir, Ayman al Zawahiri (whom Belmokhtar
referred to as "his emir"), in the infighting between the group and
the Islamic State.
Despite openly breaking with AQIM,
Belmokhtar continues to take orders from al Qaeda's central leadership and
conducts joint operations with AQIM units in Mali and elsewhere in North and
West Africa. [See LWJ
report, Al Qaeda
central tightened control over hostage operations.] The
official merger between Belmokhtar's forces and MUJAO in the summer of 2013
was not a surprise, as the two groups had previously conducted operations
together. In May 2013, they conducted
joint suicide attacks in Niger, targeting a military barracks in Agadez and a
uranium mine in Arlit that supplies French reactors. Al Mourabitoun and two
other groups affiliated with Mokhtar Belmokhtar were added
to the US State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations in
December 2013.
The Al Mourabitoun Brigade has
claimed a suicide
attack in the Gao region that killed a French soldier in July.
And just a few days ago, four jihadists affiliated with the Al Mourabitoun
were arrested
in a French military raid in Gao.
The al Qaeda-linked group Ansar
Dine is also known to have operated in Gao and Kidal. Throughout 2012, Ansar
Dine worked with AQIM, MUJAO, and local Tuareg separatists to push the Malian
government from control of northern Mali, in an attempt to form a Muslim
state ruled by sharia law. AQIM viewed Ansar Dine as its local arm in Mali;
in a "confidential letter" from AQIM emir Abdelmalek Droukdel that
was found in Timbuktu in early 2013, he instructed
his followers to mask their operations and "pretend to be
a 'domestic' movement" under Ansar Dine so as not to draw international
attention and intervention. Despite being known to operate in Gao and Kidal,
Ansar Dine has not claimed an attack in the region this year.
In addition to MUJAO, Al
Mourabitoun, and Ansar Dine, AQIM is also known to operate in Gao and Kidal,
but its attacks in Mali this year have been located near Timbuktu.
The Long War Journal has compiled a map of the major attacks in Mali against UN or
French troops this year based on reporting from Malian news or wire services
such as Reuters.
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Posted: 03 Oct 2014 08:42 PM PDT
The Islamic State carried through on its Sept. 13 threat to execute British aid worker Alan Henning if Britain did not cease airstrikes against the jihadist group. Afterward, the jihadist group threatened to kill a former US Army Ranger who was captured while running an aid group in Syria.
Today the Islamic State released a
short video that showed the execution of Henning. The video opens with a news
clip that announces Britain's involvement in US-led airstrikes against the
Islamic State. After the news video is played, the words "Another
message to America and its allies" is displayed.
Henning, whose hands are cuffed
behind his back and is wearing an orange shirt and pants, is shown kneeling
in the desert. A masked Islamic State fighter dressed in black and wielding a
knife stands to the hostage's side.
Henning issues a brief statement
before he is killed.
"I am Alan Henning. Because
of our Parliament's decision to attack the Islamic State, I, as a member of
the British public, will now pay the price for that decision," he says.
His jihadist executioner, who is
certainly the same man who killed two other Americans and a British citizen
in the same fashion in previous videos, then speaks.
"The blood of David Haines
was on your hands Cameron. Alan Henning will also be slaughtered, but his
blood is on the hands of the British Parliament," the jihadist says, and
then proceeds to behead Henning.
Henning's bloody body is
subsequently displayed, with his head placed on his back.
The executioner is then shown with
American hostage Peter Edward Kassig, who, like Henning, is also wearing an
orange shirt and pants and is kneeling on the ground with his hands bound
behind his back.
"Obama, you have started your
aerial bombardment in Sham [Syria], which keeps on striking our people. So it
is only right that we continue to strike the necks of your people," the
jihadist says, threatening Kassig.
Kassig is a former US Army Ranger
who founded Special Emergency Response
and Assistance, an aid group that operated in Syria and
Lebanon. The group "temporarily ceased its operations" sometime
after Kassig was kidnapped, according to a statement on SERA's home page.
Henning is the fourth Western
hostage executed by the Islamic State since the US opened its air campaign
against the group in Iraq on Aug. 7.
Kassig may only have a few weeks
to live unless US forces are able to identify his location and rescue him. If
the past is any indication, the Islamic State will execute Kassig within the
next two to three weeks. The Islamic State released its
first execution video, of American James Wright Foley, on Aug.
19, and in it threatened Steven Joel Sotloff, another US citizen. The video of
Sotloff's beheading was released on Sept. 2, and British
citizen David Cawthorne Haines was threatened. Haines'
beheading video was released on Sept. 13, and Henning was
threatened in that video.
The Islamic State is also known to
be holding British journalist John Cantlie and an unidentified female
American citizen. Cantlie has been featured in a series of Islamic State
videos called "Lend Me Your Ears," which discusses the jihadist
group's perspective on the US-led military intervention in Iraq and Syria.
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Posted: 03 Oct 2014 02:33 PM PDT
The Islamic State has released
pictures showing the graduation of fighters from the "Shaykh Abu Omar al
Baghdadi" training camp in Kirkuk. The camp is named after Abu Omar al
Baghdadi, the former leader and founder of the Islamic State of Iraq. Abu
Omar was killed in a US military raid in Tikrit; the same raid also killed
Abu Ayyub al Masri, the successor to al Qaeda in Iraq's founder Abu Musab al
Zarqawi. Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the current head of the Islamic State,
replaced Abu Omar and Abu Ayyub.
The Islamic State has released
images of two other camps in Iraq and Syria. In July, the Islamic State released
pictures of a training camp in Ninewa province, Iraq. Before that, the
Islamic State announced the existence of
the Zarqawi Camp, which is named after the slain founder of al
Qaeda in Iraq, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus in May.
These pictures and training camps
are reminiscent of others released by al Qaeda from the network of camps in
Afghanistan during the 1990s. Al Qaeda used camps such as Khalden and Al
Farouq to churn out thousands of foreign fighters who fought alongside the
Taliban in the 55th Arab Brigade. But al Qaeda also selected graduates of the
camps to conduct attacks in the West, including the Sept. 11, 2001 operation
against the US.
The US has targeted five Islamic
State training centers in six airstrikes since Aug. 7, when it began its
campaign in Iraq. Islamic State training camps were hit in US airstrikes in Raqqah,
Abu Kamal,
Dier al Zour,
and Hasakah
on Sept. 22; Manjib
on Sept. 29; and again in Raqqah
on Oct. 3.
Pictures from the Islamic
State's training camp in Kirkuk:
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