Spate of Iraq attacks kills 13.

Spate of Iraq attacks kills 13.

BAGHDAD | AFP | 03 Sep 2013 ::  Attacks in Baghdad and mostly Sunni areas of Iraq killed 13 people Monday, including eight in a coordinated attack on the home of an anti-Qaeda militia chief, officials said.

The Turkish consul to the northern city of Mosul and a top criminal judge in executed dictator Saddam Hussein's home town were also caught in bomb attacks.

The violence was the latest in a surge of unrest that has killed more than 3,800 people since the start of the year and sparked widespread concern that Iraq is slipping back towards the all-out bloodshed which plagued it in 2006 and 2007.

Authorities have pushed a massive security campaign targeting militants, but analysts and diplomats have cautioned that the government must also address the root causes of the violence.

Monday's deadliest attack was against the west Baghdad home of Wissam al-Hardan, who was appointed earlier this year by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to lead the Sahwa, a collection of Sunni tribal militias.

Officials said two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside Hardan's home at around 3:00 pm (1200 GMT), followed by a car bomb that went off as emergency responders arrived at the scene.

In all, eight people were killed and 14 were wounded, including Hardan himself.

The militia chief was taken to a hospital inside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the US and British embassies and parliament.

From late 2006 onwards, Sunni tribal militias turned against their co-religionists in Al-Qaeda and sided with the US military, helping to turn the tide of Iraq's bloody insurgency.

As a result, however, Sunni militants view them as traitors and frequently target them in attacks.(Courtesy:The Nation)

Bombs, shootings kill at least 47 across Iraq, say police.

Bombs, shootings kill at least 47 across Iraq, say police.

Another police officer said a bomb exploded near
a car ferrying a judge in the northern town of Balad,
killing three nurses walking nearby. The judge, his
brother and the driver were wounded. — Photo by AP

BAGHDAD | REUTERS | 26 Aug 2013 ::  Car bombs, roadside bombs and shootings killed at least 47 people in Iraq on Sunday, police and medical sources said, as tensions intensify between Sunni and Shia Muslims across the Middle East.

Sunni Muslim insurgents and the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq have significantly increased their attacks this year.

More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in July, the highest monthly death toll since 2008, according to the United Nations.

More than two years of civil war in neighbouring Syria have aggravated deep-rooted sectarian divisions and shaken Iraq's fragile coalition of Shia, Kurdish and Sunni factions.

The renewed violence, eighteen months after the last US troops withdrew from Iraq, has sparked fears of a return to the scale sectarian slaughter in 2006 and 2007.

Iraqis have suffered extreme violence for years, but since the start of 2013 the intensity of attacks on civilians has dramatically increased.

Bomb attacks have increasingly targeted cafes and other places where families gather, as well as the usual targets of military facilities and checkpoints.

The biggest of Sunday's attacks took place in central Baquba, 65 km northeast of Baghdad when a car bomb blew up near a housing complex, killing at least 11 people and wounding 34, police said.(Courtesy:Dawn)

Syria Militant Vows Revenge for Alleged Gas Attack.

Syria Militant Vows Revenge for Alleged Gas Attack.

In this photo taken on a government organized media tour,

Syrian army soldiers are seen deployed in the Jobar

neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2013.

Syrian state media accused rebels of using chemical arms on

Saturday against government troops trying to storm a contested

neighborhood of Damascus, claiming a major army offensive

in recent days had forced the opposition fighters to resort to

such weapons "as their last card." State TV broadcast images

of plastic jugs, gas masks, vials of an unspecified medication,

explosives and other items that it said were seized from rebel

hideouts. It did not, however, show any video of soldiers

reportedly affected by toxic gas in the fighting in the Jobar

neighborhood of Damascus. (AP Photo)

AMMAN | Jordan | 26 Aug 2013 ::  The leader of an al-Qaida linked militia fighting to overthrow the Syrian government has vowed to take revenge for what he says was Damascus’ use of chemical weapons that killed hundreds of people.

Jabhat al-Nusra leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani’s comments came in an audio recording posted Sunday on a militant website that usually carries al-Qaida and similar groups’ statements. It also appeared on the group’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The authenticity of the claim could not be immediately verified.

Al-Golani said he plans to target Shiite Muslim villages. President Bashar Assad’s regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Last Wednesday’s alleged chemical attack in a suburb of Damascus prompted U.S. naval forces to move closer to Syria as President Barack Obama considers a military response.(Courtesy:Epoch Time)

Officials: Bomb kills pro-Qaeda commander in Pakistan.

Officials: Bomb kills pro-Qaeda commander in Pakistan.

Policemen and Ranger soldiers stand outside a prison following
 an attack in Dera Ismail Khan prison on July 30, 2013. (Reuters)

Peshawar | AFP | 23 Aug 2013 ::  A militant commander who sheltered Al-Qaeda fighters was killed on Thursday by a roadside bomb along with four associates in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt, security officials said.

Ghulam Jan Wazir died on the spot when his vehicle hit the bomb in the Sholam area, five kilometers (three miles) west of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan district on the Afghan border.

A senior security official told AFP that Wazir had for several years sheltered Arab and Central Asian fighters in South Waziristan.

“He was anti-government and well known for his support to foreigners,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Local residents also said Wazir had a reputation for harboring Uzbek, Tajik and Central Asian militants in the past.

He was among a group of fighters forced to leave South Waziristan when Maulvi Nazir, a prominent warlord allied to the government, launched an armed campaign in 2007 against foreign fighters.

Wazir returned to South Waziristan last year after reaching a deal with the Nazir group, before Nazir was killed in a U.S. drone strike in January.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wazir’s death. He is the third pro Qaeda militant commander killed in similar circumstances in South Waziristan in the last two years.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)

American al-Qaeda militant urges attacks on U.S. diplomats.

American al-Qaeda militant urges attacks on U.S. diplomats.

American al Qaeda militant Adam Gadahn has called for more
 attacks on Western diplomats in the Arab world. (File Photo: Reuters)

Dubai | Reuters | 18 Aug 2013 ::  An American al-Qaeda militant has called for more attacks on Western diplomats in the Arab world, praising the killers of the U.S. ambassador to Libya on September 11 last year, a U.S.-based monitoring group said on Sunday.

Western nations shut embassies across the Middle East and North Africa early this month, after a warning of a possible militant attack. Many have reopened, and Britain said its Yemen embassy would open on Sunday after being closed for 12 days.

Adam Gadahn, a California-born convert to Islam with a $1 million U.S. price on his head, appealed to wealthy Muslims to offer militants rewards to kill ambassadors in the region, citing bounty set for killing the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Washington-based SITE monitoring group said.

“These prizes have a great effect in instilling fear in the hearts of our cowardly enemies,” Gadahn said in the 39-minute video recording in Arabic posted on websites used by Islamist militants, according to SITE.

“They also encourage hesitant individuals to carry out important and great deeds in the path of Allah,” he said, in an English transcript on SITE.

The Yemen-based branch of al-Qaeda last year offered 3 kg (106 ounces) of gold for the killing of the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa or 5 million rials ($23,350) for an American soldier in the impoverished Arab state.

U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in Libya’s Benghazi in 2012 when Islamist gunmen attacked the U.S. consulate during a protest by a mob angry over a film they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad.

Gadahn has called for attacks on U.S. diplomats before. In August 2007, he said al-Qaeda would target diplomats and embassies in retaliation for U.S.-led military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The FBI has been trying to question Gadahn - believed to be in Pakistan - since 2004 and the U.S. government has offered up to $1 million in cash for information leading to his arrest.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)

Iraq Kurds reach out to Baghdad to fight surging al-Qaeda.

Iraq Kurds reach out to Baghdad to fight surging al-Qaeda.

Distrust between the security forces of Iraq’s central government and
 forces in Kurdistan help increase al-Qaeda's power in the country.
(File photo: AFP)

Reture | 16 Aug 2013 :: When hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters in armored trucks attacked the northern Iraqi town of Shirqat with machine guns last week, the local army unit called for backup and set off in pursuit.

But after a two-hour chase through searing desert heat, most militants vanished into a cluster of Kurdish villages where the Iraqi army cannot enter without a nod from regional authorities.

It was just one example of how distrust between the security forces of Iraq’s central government and of its autonomous Kurdish zone helps the local wing of al-Qaeda, the once-defeated Sunni Islamist insurgents who are again rapidly gaining ground, a year and a half after U.S. troops pulled out.

“We had to wait more than two hours to get the required permission to go after them,” an Iraqi military officer who took part in the operation 300 Kilometers (190 miles) north of Baghdad said.

“While were we waiting, they simply disappeared.”

The Shi’ite-led Iraqi government and Kurdish authorities are now looking at examples like the Shirqat attack and considering the once unthinkable - launching joint security operations and sharing intelligence - to combat the common enemy of al-Qaeda.

Such cooperation has been extremely rare since U.S. troops left at the end of 2011, while the central government and the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region in the north have been locked in an increasingly hostile dispute over land and oil.

That the two sides are publicly contemplating working together underlines how worried they are about the insurgency and the threat of Iraq slipping back into all-out sectarian war.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)

Al-Qaeda’s center of gravity ‘shifting’ from Pakistan to Yemen.

Al-Qaeda’s center of gravity ‘shifting’ from Pakistan to Yemen.

A police trooper guards a checkpoint on a street in Sanaa,
 Yemen August 10, 2013. Analysts say the recent terrorist
threat in Yemen suggests al-Qaeda is moving its
 powerbase away from Pakistan. (Reuters)

 Islamabad | AFP | 14 Aug 2013 :: As al-Qaeda marks its 25th anniversary this month, analysts say the recent security threat in Yemen shows the organization’s center of gravity is shifting away from its historic base in Pakistan.

U.S. President Barack Obama has cautioned that affiliates such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a unit of the extremist group that effectively controls parts of Yemen, still pose a threat despite successful efforts to disrupt the organization’s core leadership.

His warning came after the United States closed 19 diplomatic missions in the Middle East and Africa last week after reported intelligence intercepts from al-Qaeda suggested an attack was imminent.

Reports indicated the intercepts involved some kind of group communication between al-Qaeda supremo Ayman al-Zawahiri, and AQAP leader Nasser al-Wuhayshi.

Zawahiri assumed al-Qaeda leadership when Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. Special Forces raid in Pakistan in 2011 and the 62-year-old Egyptian is believed to be hiding in the border region with Afghanistan.

Rahimullah Yusufzai, an expert on Islamist groups in Pakistan, said that while the traditional core leadership of al-Qaeda -- which was founded in Peshawar, northwest Pakistan, in 1988 -- still retains symbolic importance, its operational center of gravity has moved.

“In terms of strength, of power, of effectiveness, we can say it has shifted,” he told AFP.

“It is no longer Pakistan or Afganistan, so most of the fighters, most of the affiliates, are not in Pakistan and Afghanistan. By and large, the plans are not coming from Zawahiri.”

Zawahiri, who has a $25 million U.S. government bounty on him, lacks the charisma of bin Laden but has long been seen as the brains of al-Qaeda.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)Read More>>>

Al-Qaeda attackers’ shoot dead five Yemeni soldiers before fleeing.

Al-Qaeda attackers’ shoot dead five Yemeni soldiers before fleeing.

A Yemeni soldier stands guard at the Balhaf gas terminal
 on the Gulf of Aden. (File photo: AFP)

Aden | AFP | 11 Aug 2013 :: An attack by “al-Qaeda elements” at a gas terminal in Yemen killed five soldiers on Sunday, a military source said, as Washington kept its embassy in Sana’a closed. 

“The attackers arrived in a car at the army checkpoint near the Balhaf terminal. They opened fire with automatic weapons, killing five soldiers before fleeing,” the source told AFP on condition of anonymity. 

The soldiers belonged to an army unit responsible for security at the Balhaf terminal in Yemen’s Shabwa province, part of which is run by French company Total. 

The terminal, through which the bulk of Yemen’s gas exports pass, was not among the reported targets of a large-scale Al-Qaeda plot that Yemeni authorities say they foiled in recent days.

But a government spokesman said that pipelines leading to the terminal were among the targets. 

Al-Qaeda also plotted to assault the Canadian-run Mina al-Dhaba oil terminal in Hadramawt province further east and take staff hostage, including Western expatriates, spokesman Rajeh Badi told AFP.

A nearby export facility for oil derivatives was also targeted, Badi said.

Sunday’s attack follows a wave of U.S. drone strikes against suspected al-Qaeda militants in Yemen that has killed 38 people since July 28. 

The latest strike hit late on Saturday north of the port city of Aden, killing two people and wounding one. 

The intensification of the U.S. drone war in Yemen came as a security alert prompted Washington to close 19 embassies and consulates in the Middle East and Africa.

Communications intercepts reportedly included an attack order from al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

AQAP is considered by Washington to be the deadliest branch of the global extremist network.

Both Washington and London pulled out diplomatic personnel from Sana’a on Tuesday, citing intelligence reports of an imminent AQAP attack.

The United States said on Friday that all of the embassies it shut would reopen this week, except the mission in Yemen.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Washington would also keep its consulate in the Pakistani city of Lahore closed, after pulling out staff on Thursday.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)