An al-Qaeda linked rebel group in Syria was in such a rush to post a violent video, they accidentally beheaded a commander of a fellow rebel group.
The members of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham asked fellow rebel groups for “understanding and forgiveness” for the killing of their ally and putting his head on display.
A spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq said that Mohammed Fares had believed he had been captured by pro-Assad fighters and asked them to kill him.
Meanwhile, the Syrian government announced they were working with Russia to bring all sides to the table in Geneva for a second major peace conference. The U.S. and Russia have been trying to broker a peace conference since May.
The United States has officially designated the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram as a “foreign terrorist organization” in a step designed to help Nigeria eliminate the group.
The move means that U.S. regulatory agencies can block business and financial transactions with the group. They can also seize assets of the organization that are found in U.S. owned companies or banks.
The state department said in a press statement that this is “only one tool in what must be a comprehensive approach by the Nigerian government to counter these groups.”
The group had not been given the official designation because the U.S. had considered the group only a domestic terror group. The move by the state department comes from the belief that the group has been working on an international agenda since connecting with al-Qaeda.
Kenya’s air force destroyed a training base for the al-Qaeda related Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabab.
Kenyan Defense Force spokesman Col. Cyrus Oguna said that the training camp housed about 300 recruits but he was unable to confirm the number of deaths. He speculated that the total number of terrorists killed and wounded would be available by early next week.
Al-Shabab is responsible for an attack on a Nairobi mall last month that killed 67 people.
Col. Oguna said that the attack on the terrorist camp is the first in a planned series of military actions against training camps of the terrorist group.
Terrorist group al-Qaeda is seeing a resurgence in Iraq.
The terror group and its affiliates detonated nine separate car bombs on Sunday at various markets and police checkpoints in Baghdad killing dozens.
The campaign of violence by the terrorists has resulted in more than 5,300 Iraqis being killed in 2013. Local officials worry of worsening security conditions, as the government appears unable to stop the terrorist network in the two years since American troops withdrew from the country.
An interior ministry official told the Washington Post that 40 people died in attacks on neighborhoods in Baghdad while 14 soldiers were killed in Mosul when a homicide bomber drove a car into a group of troops.
The violence from terrorists was on the wane after a US troop surge in the 2000s helped Sunni fighters turn the tide against al-Qaeda but over the last year violence has escalated as sectarian groups choose sides.
The terrorist groups have been strengthened by the release of hundreds of captured members through various prison raids.
A large scale military operation has been launched in northern Mali in an attempt to keep Islamic terrorists from being able to regroup and attack the country’s government.
French, Malian and United Nations forces are working through the north of the country after a series of terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The terror group last launched a homicide bombing of a United Nations Stabilization Mission at a Malian military base. Civilians and two Chadian peacekeepers were killed.
A U.N. spokesman said the offensive against the terrorists is aimed at preventing a resurgence of the terrorist group. French troops drove the terrorists out of the major cities in northern Mali earlier this year just before the terrorists could attack the nation’s capital.
French military staff said that today’s action was the first major combined effort of the three military groups. They also said this was the first in a regular series of actions that will be taken to keep the terrorist group from being able to establish any kind of permanent influence in the region.
The capture of an al-Qaeda terrorist in Libya by U.S. Special Forces has caused a stir among Islamic extremists to the point they’re declaring open season on Americans.
“Over the past few days, we picked up significant chatter related to the kidnapping of American citizens in response to the abduction of Abu Anas al-Libi,” a source told Fox News.
One of the terrorists being monitored by analysts told followers on Twitter there was no need to consult with anyone if you wanted to kidnap an American.
According to multiple jihadist websites, the general plan is to kidnap a number of Americans to use as bargaining chips to get terrorists released from jails across the world. Specifically mentioned was Omar Abd Al-Rahman, convicted for his part in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described creator of the 9/11 attacks.
While there is nothing explicitly saying al-Qaeda is supporting the evolving plan, no leaders from the group have taken any steps to stop it.
Turkey has raised concerns about the number of al-Qaeda related terrorists in northern Syria.
Turkish officials say that the “indiscriminate terror” which is the normal tactics of the al-Qaeda related fighters could be turned north toward Turkish military troops and U.S. soldiers who are based their to help protect Turkish airspace.
The al-Qaeda fighters call themselves ISIS, which they translate into “Greater Syria”. They have aligned with the Free Syrian Army to oust President Bashir al-Assad. However, the group has stated a goal of turning the nation into a key piece of a radical Sunni Islamic empire.
The group sees Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as not a “real Muslim” because he is a moderate leader.
The group has also been fighting against rebel groups that are pro-west in nature. Last month they destroyed a pro-western rebel group called Northern Storm in the city of Azaz. ISIS has repeatedly torn down churches and Christian symbols.
An accused al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Anas al-Liby has been brought to New York to face charges.
Al-Liby, whose real name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was questioned on a Navy ship while being transported to New York. He is facing charges connected to bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Over 220 people were killed in the two terrorist attacks.
Al-Liby has been on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for over a decade and had a $5 million bounty on his head.
U.S. prosecutors have evidence stretching back decades of al-Liby’s work conducting surveillance of terrorist targets and planning attacks on Western targets in Africa.
Al-Liby was captured by U.S. special forces in a raid inside Libya on October 5th.
A French citizen believed to have links with a German al-Qaeda cell connected to the September 11th attacks in New York is in custody in Paris.
Naamen Meziche has been placed under “formal investigation”. He was deported from Pakistan on Tuesday on charges of criminal conspiracy regarding a terrorist enterprise. Meziche is believed an associate of al-Qaeda commander Younis al-Mauritani who planned attacks for Osama Bin Laden in Australia, Europe and the U.S.
“This is a big fish, at the historic heart of al-Qaeda,” a French anti-terrorism officer told AFP news agency.
Meziche recruited jihadists at a mosque in Hamburg, Germany where the 9/11 hijackers regularly met before moving to the United States.
A source inside the court told French media outlets that evidence against Meziche will date back into the 1990s.
Andrew Parker, the new head of Britain’s MI5 security service, is warning that the British general public is now a legitimate target for attacks by Islamic extremists.
In an address to the Royal United Services Institute, Parker said that al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Pakistan and Yemen present “direct and immediate threats to the UK.”
“It remains the case that there are several thousand Islamist extremists here who see the British public as a legitimate target,” Parker said.
Parker said that 330 people had been convicted of terrorism offenses in the last decade and that in the first few months of 2013 at least four major trials were connected to terrorist plots. In those cases, 24 terrorists were sent to prison.
Parker said the increase in technology is allowing terrorists to communicate in ways difficult for their intelligence services to track under current laws. He called for lawmakers to allow services to use the same tools the terrorists use to track terror plots.
