Tag: Islamic State

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Uganda school attack: 40 killed by IS-linked militants

The police said the attack was carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — a DRC-based Ugandan rebel group which is a branch of the IS in Central Africa, reports Asian Lite News

At least 40 people, mostly students, were killed and eight others critically injured after militants linked to the Islamic State terror group attacked a school in Uganda located near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), police said on Saturday.

The attack took place at around 11.30 p.m. on Friday night at the Lhubiriha secondary school in Mpondwe, during which a dormitory was burnt and a food store was looted, reports the BBC.

In a statement, the police said the attack was carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — a DRC-based Ugandan rebel group which is a branch of the IS in Central Africa.

Police spokesperson Fred Enang said the Uganda People’s Defence Forces and the police are currently carrying out a search operation for the group who fled towards Virunga National park in the DRC after the attack.

The army has also deployed planes to help track the rebel group.

Enang said many of the bodies were transferred to the Bwera Hospital, where the critically injured persons are also undergoing treatment.

“We do offer our deepest condolences to the families of those who have been killed, and offer our prayers and thoughts to those who have been wounded,” he said, noting that more details will be availed in due course.

Meanwhile, Major General Dick Olum from the Ugandan army told the media that some of the male students were burnt or hacked to death, the BBC reported.

Others at the school, mostly girls, have been abducted by the group, he added.

Some of the bodies are said to have been badly burnt and DNA tests will need to be carried out to identify them.

The latest incident comes a week after suspected ADF fighters attacked a village in the DRC near the Ugandan border.

Over 100 villagers fled to Uganda but have since returned.

The attack on the school, located less than 2 km from the DRC border, is the first in 25 years.

In June 1998, 80 students were burnt to death in their dormitories in an ADF attack on Kichwamba Technical Institute near the border of DRC.

More than 100 students were abducted.

The ADF was created in eastern Uganda in the 1990s and took up arms against long-serving President Yoweri Museveni, reports the BBC.

After its defeat by the Ugandan army in 2001, it relocated to North Kivu province in the DRC.

The group’s principal founder, Jamil Makulu, was arrested in Tanzania in 2015 and is in custody in a Ugandan prison.

ADF rebels have been operating from inside the DRC for the past two decades.

In 2021, suicide bombings in Uganda’s capital Kampala and other parts of the country were blamed on the ADF.

ALSO READ: US mulls visa curbs over Uganda’s anti-gay law

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-Top News Afghanistan USA

Taliban seek to prove legitimacy through anti-IS campaign

Taliban splinters--many from group join hardline ISIS-K to support anti-China Uyghur fighters(indianarrative)

The Taliban regime appears to have weakened the group, whose attacks have waned in recent months, reports Asian Lite News

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan has intensified its war with the rival Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) terror group, killing several senior leaders and commanders in recent months, the media reported.

Among them, according to the US, was the alleged mastermind of a suicide bombing outside Kabul airport in 2021 that killed some 170 Afghans and 13 American soldiers, RFE/RL reported..

The White House on April 26 announced that the alleged mastermind, whose identity has not been revealed, was killed in a recent Taliban operation.

But it did not say when or where he was killed, RFE/RL reported.

The Taliban has waged a brutal war to eliminate IS-K, the biggest threat to its rule in Afghanistan.

The regime appears to have weakened the group, whose attacks have waned in recent months.

But the Taliban also appears to be trying to use its campaign against IS-K to burnish its counterterrorism credentials and boost its legitimacy in the eyes of the international community, RFE/RL reported.

Under the US-Taliban deal signed in 2020, the militants pledged to prevent any group from using Afghan soil to attack other countries.

The international community, particularly Afghanistan’s neighbours, considers IS-K a significant security threat because of the group’s global ambitions.

Despite its efforts to eliminate IS-K, the Taliban is believed to be sheltering members of Al Qaeda and the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terror groups.

That is likely to temper hopes that the Taliban can be a reliable counterterrorism partner, RFE/RL reported.

On April 14, the Foreign Ministers of China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan said the Taliban has links with some extremist groups based in Afghanistan that “pose a serious threat to regional and global security”.

They include the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, the Baloch Liberation Army, Jundallah, Jaish al-Adl, Jamaat Ansarullah, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, RFE/RL reported.

Recently, the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the Taliban’s ban on Afghan women working for the United Nations in Afghanistan and called to “swiftly reverse” a crackdown on the rights of women and girls.

ALSO READ: Neighbours urge Taliban to form inclusive govt

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-Top News Asia News

Islamic State expanding footprint in Pakistan

Experts believe IS-K militants have moved from their bases in Afghanistan and established cells in major Pakistani cities…reports Asian Lite News

The Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) is now shifting its war to neighbouring Pakistan as it comes under mounting pressure from the Taliban in Afghanistan, which has waged a fierce war against IS-K militants since seizing power in August last year, RFE/RL reported.

IS-K has claimed responsibility for a string of high-profile attacks in Pakistan, underscoring the growing threat it poses to the predominately Muslim nation of some 220 million people.

In the deadliest attack, an IS-K suicide bomber blew himself up inside a Shiite mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar on March 4, killing at least 64 people and wounding scores of others. It was the most lethal attack in Pakistan in nearly four years.

Since it first emerged in 2015, Islamic State’s local affiliate in Afghanistan has focused its violent campaign within that country, fighting against Afghan and foreign forces as well as the Taliban, a rival militant group.

Experts believe IS-K militants have moved from their bases in Afghanistan and established cells in major Pakistani cities, RFE/RL reported.

The IS-K assaults have provoked fear and alarm in Pakistan, which has also witnessed a dramatic surge in attacks by the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a rival extremist group that has close ties with the Afghan Taliban.

IS-K has already carried out five attacks this year. On March 8, IS-K claimed responsibility for a roadside bomb that killed five members of the security forces and wounded 28 people others in southwestern Pakistan.

The growing attacks prompted Moazzam Jah Ansari, the police chief in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to declare IS-K a “bigger threat to peace and security in the province compared to the TTP”.

Many IS-K fighters are former members of the TTP, which was thrown into disarray and driven out of its bases in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt by a massive military offensive in 2014.

But the TTP soon found itself fighting turf wars with the Afghan Taliban. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the rivalry has intensified.

The Afghan militants have waged a nationwide hunt for IS-K members and even targeted the country’s small Salafi minority to curb alleged support for the group from among its members.

Underscoring the rivalry, the Afghan Taliban condemned IS-K’s deadly attack in Peshawar. The TTP, meanwhile, said that such attacks do not align with its jihad, or holy war, in Pakistan.

ALSO READ: India accidentally fired missile into Pakistan

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Arab News Iraq Syria

Iraq tightens security measures on border with Syria after Islamic State jail break

Iraq tightens security measures on border with Syria after Islamic State jail break

Iraq has tightened security measures on the border with neighbouring Syria after a jailbreak by Islamic State (IS) terrorists in a Kurdish-controlled prison located in the latter country’s Hasakah province…reports Asian Lite News

On January 20, a group of IS militants escaped from the Sina’a prison in the Gweiran neighbourhood of Hasakah, followed by violent clashes between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the terror group, reports Xinhua news agency.

“There are directives issued by the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi forces to double the security measures on the Iraqi-Syrian border,” Yahia Rasoul, spokesman of the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi forces, told the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) on Saturday.

The Iraqi security forces are ready to confront any attempt by IS militants to infiltrate Iraqi territory, Rasoul was quoted as saying by INA.

ALSO READ: Rockets hit Iraqi base housing US advisers

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the IS militants blew off the gate of the Sina’a prison with a booby-trapped car and an explosive-laden fuel tanker.

It said a number of inmates fled the prison while many Kurdish security members were wounded.

Captured IS militants have repeatedly tried to break free from the prison in Hasakah.

A number of IS militants have been imprisoned by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) following the defeat of the terror group in Hasakah and parts of Deir al-Zour province.

Categories
-Top News Afghanistan

IS Claims Responsibility For Kandahar Mosque Bombings

Photo taken on Oct. 15, 2021 shows the site of an explosion at a mosque in Kandahar city, southern Afghanistan. (Photo by Sanaullah Seiam /Xinhua/IANS)

The three back-to-back explosions hit the mosque, one of the biggest in Kandahar city, reports Asian Lite News

The Islamic State (IS) terror group on Saturday claimed responsibility for the bombings inside a mosque in Afghanistan’s Kandahar city, which claimed the lives of 47 persons and injured 90 others, a local official has confirmed.

The official from Kandahar’s Cultural and Information Directorate confirmed the updated death toll.

In a statement, the IS claimed responsibility and said that two assailants were involved in the deadly attacks which took place on Friday inside the Bibi Fatima Shia mosque in police district one (PD1) when hundreds of worshippers were offering prayers.

Witnesses told TOLO News that three back-to-back explosions hit the mosque, one of the biggest in Kandahar city.

Kandahar
Photo taken on Oct. 15, 2021 shows the site of an explosion at a mosque in Kandahar city, southern Afghanistan. (Photo by Sanaullah Seiam /Xinhua/IANS)

The Taliban government has condemned the attack.

Zabihullah Mujahid, deputy minister for the Ministry of Information and Culture, called it a “major crime”.

The UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan said that those behind the incident should be brought to justice.

Friday’s attack came exactly after a week when another Shia mosque in Kunduz city was hit by a suicide bombing which claimed the lives of at least 50 people.

(Photo: Xinhua/Rahmat Alizadah/IANS)

The IS-K, a local branch of the IS, had claimed responsibility for the attack, which was the deadliest since the US forces left Afghanistan at the end of August.

Following the Taliban takeover, the security situation in Afghanistan has remained calm yet uncertain.

A series of bombings were launched by the IS affiliated militants in recent weeks.

On Thursday, a Taliban district police chief was killed and 11 people were wounded when a vehicle came under attack in Kunar province.

ALSO READ – Terrorists entering Afghanistan from Syria, Iraq: Putin