Islamic State - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

Russia demands Ukraine hand over head of security service, others

RUSSIA is demanding that Ukraine hand over all people connected with terrorist acts committed in Russia, including the head of the country's SBU Security Service, the foreign ministry said. A ministry statement listed violent incidents that have occurred in Russia since the Kremlin's forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, including bombings that killed the daughter of a prominent nationalist and a war blogger, and another incident in which a writer was seriously hurt. It said investigation of these incidents showed that "the traces of these crimes lead to Ukraine." "Russia has turned over to Ukrainian authorities its demands ... for the immediate arrest…

Mar

2024

By The African Mirror

Nigeria to free 313 suspected Boko Haram insurgents for lack of evidence

NEWS

NIGERIA'S military will free more than 300 people suspected of being part of the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency after a court ruled there was no evidence they committed any crimes, a defence spokesperson said. In 2009 jihadist group Boko Haram launched an insurgency seeking to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state. The insurgency has killed tens of thousands and forced more than 2 million people to flee their homes, spawning one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The 313 people, who had been suspected of being members of Boko Haram, will be released after a ruling by a…

Mar

2024

By The African Mirror

Macron says intelligence shows Islamic State was behind Russia concert attack

WORLD

FRANCE joined the United States in saying intelligence indicated Islamic State was responsible for an attack on a concert hall outside Moscow that killed 137 people, while Russia continued to suggest that Ukraine was to blame. In the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades, four men burst into the Crocus City Hall on Friday night, spraying bullets during a concert by the Soviet-era rock group Picnic. Alongside the dead, 182 people were wounded. Four men, at least one a Tajik, were remanded in custody on terrorism charges. They were led separately into a cage at Moscow's Basmanny district court. Islamic State…

Mar

2024

By The African Mirror

Russians lower flags, lay flowers to honour concert hall attack victims

WORLD

RUSSIA lowered flags to half-mast for a day of mourning after scores of people were gunned down with automatic weapons at a rock concert outside Moscow in the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades. President Vladimir Putin declared a national day of mourning after pledging to track down and punish all those behind the attack on Friday evening, in which 137 people were killed, including three children, and 180 were injured. Over 100 people remained in hospital, some of them in a serious condition. Putin lit a candle at a church at his residence outside Moscow on Sunday evening to honour those who…

Mar

2024

By GUY FAULCONBRIDGE, ALEXANDER MARROW and MARK TREVELYAN

Putin vows to punish those behind concert massacre

WORLD

RUSSIA said that it had arrested all four gunmen suspected of carrying out a shooting massacre in a concert hall near Moscow, and President Vladimir Putin pledged to track down and punish those behind the attack. Militant Islamist group Islamic State claimed responsibility for Friday's rampage but there were indications that Russia was pursuing a Ukrainian link, despite emphatic denials from Ukrainian officials that Kyiv had anything to do with it. Russia's state Investigative Committee said 133 people had been killed. State TV editor Margarita Simonyan, without citing a source, had earlier given a toll of 143. In a televised address, Putin said 11 people had…

Mar

2024

By The African Mirror

Junta-led Sahel states to form joint force to fight insurgents

NEWS

JUNTA-LED Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali have agreed to set up a joint force to tackle security threats across their territories, Niger's armed forces chief Moussa Salaou Barmou said after a meeting with his counterparts. The decision is the latest sign of closer alignment to emerge since the three neighbours in West Africa's insurgency-torn central Sahel region severed military ties with longstanding allies including France and formed a cooperation pact known as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). In a televised statement, Barmou said the new task force would be "operational as soon as possible to meet the security challenges," but did…

Jan

2024

By The African Mirror

Iran arrests suspects over bomb blasts, mourners demand revenge – state TV

WORLD

MOURNERS wept over the coffins of victims of two deadly blasts in Iran, and the interior minister said a number of suspects had been arrested over the attacks claimed by Islamic State. Crowds chanted "revenge, revenge" in state TV footage of the funerals in the city of Kerman, the scene of Wednesday's explosions, the bloodiest such attacks in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Nearly 100 people were killed in the blasts at a memorial service for military commander General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in Iraq in 2020 by a U.S. drone. The explosions took place amid a tense…

Dec

2023

By MARIA GERTH-NICULESCU

In Burkina Faso’s blockaded towns, war crimes and mutual aid

NEWS

AROUND a million people in Burkina Faso are living under suffocating blockades imposed by jihadist groups on dozens of towns and villages – a tool of war that is destroying local economies and leading to mass hunger and deaths from treatable diseases. Insurgents have used siege tactics for several years against communities they accuse of supporting government forces, but the number of blockades has increased since a junta seized power from different military leaders late last year. The new junta has ramped up military operations and enrolled tens of thousands of civilians into a nationwide anti-jihadist volunteer force. Jihadist groups…

Nov

2023

By The African Mirror

Burkina Faso junta’s conscription of critics rattles civil society and unions

NEWS

BURKINA Faso's military junta is abusing an emergency law to conscript perceived dissidents and critics to join a deadly fight against militants linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State, warned lawyers, journalists and watchdog Human Rights Watch this week. In a series of statements, civil society groups and unions for journalists and lawyers accused the junta of seeking to silence peaceful dissent as it struggled to contain the security crisis as promised when it seized power in a September 2022 coup. "We see that it (the junta) is revealing its true face and that it has not necessarily come to…

Apr

2023

By The African Mirror

Kyiv compares Russia to Islamic State after beheading video

WORLD

UKRAINE compared Russia to Islamic State and called on the International Criminal Court to investigate after a video emerged online showing apparent Russian soldiers filming themselves beheading a Ukrainian captive with a knife. Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity or provenance of the video on social media, which showed a man in uniform beheading a man who wears the yellow arm band used by Ukrainian soldiers. The Kremlin described the video as "awful" but said its authenticity needed to be checked. Moscow has denied in the past that its troops carry out atrocities during the conflict. "There is something…