Tarad Mohammad Aljarba, the man believed to be responsible for helping the attackers behind the November 13 Paris attacks enter and leave Syria has been personally involved in moving Australian IS recruits into the conflict zone, The Australian reports.
Western intelligence agencies have evidence that Aljarba, a 36-year-old Saudi Arabian also known as Abu-Muhammad al-Shimali, was appointed “border emir” and facilitated the entry of several Australian, European and other Middle Eastern recruits into Syria from Turkey throughout last year.
As of mid-2014, he was also Islamic State’s “leader for operations outside Syria and Iraq”, according to U.S. agencies and the UN Security Council, which placed economic and arms sanctions against him just weeks before the November 13 Paris attacks.
AFP has spoken with Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov during a press trip to the Hmeymim base in Syria.
Konashenkov said that sorties are usually carried out within 30 minutes.
"From the time the pilot gets the order to when the plane takes off and the target is destroyed -- all that is normally completed in just some thirty minutes," spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said as he looks at another plane gearing up for a mission.
"If the objective is in Deir [al-Zor] province then it can take some 25 minutes to get there, if it's near Idlib, then just 10," Konashenkov told AFP as part of a tightly controlled press trip to Hmeimim organised by the defense ministry in Moscow.
The U.S. Department of Defense says that the U.S.-led coalition against IS has trained 15,892 members of the Iraqi Security Forces so far.
The "optimistic view" of the Saudi-led Islamic coalition against terrorism is that it is a "is a badly needed first step towards a more local approach to the many systemic drivers of violent extremism," intelligence consultancy the Soufan Group says.
Saudi Arabia announced the formation of a 34-member "Islamic military coalition" on December 14 -- to the surprise of some of the countries it listed as participants.
Despite the rushed nature of the announcement and the subsequent confusion, the Soufan Group argues that:
A truly unified approach to countering the violent ideologies tearing many countries apart would be a far greater accomplishment than any feasible military option. A more realistic view is that the initiative will struggle to avoid what has ailed so many Arab coalitions; sectarianism, parochialism, and competing self-interests.
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Investigators of the Paris attacks have found evidence they believe shows some of the attackers used encrypted apps to conceal their plotting for the attacks, officials briefed on the investigation have told CNN.
Officials found that the attackers used apps like WhatsApp and Telegram, which use end-to-end encryption that protects user privacy.
CNN says that the officials have not revealed what specific evidence shows that these apps were used for planning the Paris attacks, but they did say that the attackers used the apps to communicate among themselves for a period before the attacks.
Libya's warring factions have met in Morocco to sign a U.N.-brokered peace deal to form a national government that Western powers hope will bring stability and help fight a growing Islamic State presence, Reuters reports.
IS militants, exploiting the growing chaos in Libya since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi four years ago, have expanded their presence in the country, including by taking over the city of Sirte, ransacking oil fields to the south of that city and killing a group of Egyptian Christians.
Turkey has stopped more than 36,500 terror suspects heading to join the IS group in Syria, Interior Minister Efkan Ala has said.
Ala told the Anadolu Agency that most of the suspects had been stopped from entering Turkey at the border but that almost 2,800 people from 89 countries had been arrested and later deported.
Turkey has stopped more than 36,500 terror suspects heading to join the IS group in Syria, Interior Minister Efkan Ala has said.
Ala told the Anadolu Agency that most of the suspects had been stopped from entering Turkey at the border but that almost 2,800 people from 89 countries had been arrested and later deported.
Putin says that "Moscow and Riyadh have different approaches to settling the Syrian conflict in a number of areas but there are overlaps."
"For the war on terror, we have to unite all our forces, the alliance created by Saudi Arabia must act in the common interest," Putin said of the coalition against terrorism announced by Riyadh this week.