Worldcrunch
Journalists Daham Al-Assad and Guillaume Perrier visited French jihadist Omar Diaby, also known as “Omsen,” in Harem, Syria, where he resides with a small community of foreign-born jihadists (muhajireen), and condemns the action of Syria’s current leader who broke with his radical roots.
Many parties in Syria have resorted to foreign fighters. Following the Assad regime’s downfall, the country’s new government has two options to tackle the issue of thousands of foreign fighters there: either abandoning them, or integrating them into Syrian society.
Updated August 11, 2024 at 11:50 a.m. Al-Qaeda was formed on this day in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and other key individuals. What was the purpose or ideology of al-Qaeda? Al-Qaeda’s main objective was to establish a global jihadist movement based on its extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam. It aimed to resist […]
Iranian authorities are enforcing Islamic dress norms with renewed vigor and the backing of a new law, and insist a “hostile West” is goading Iranian women into living indecent lives.
Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza have given Islamists new momentum and a new outlook on their recent political setbacks.
Tajiks are responsible for numerous Islamist terrorist attacks in recent months. Suspects in the devastating attack in Moscow also come from the Central Asian country. Open access to Russia, difficult economic conditions, and a secular dictatorship that has repressed religion at home are among the factors that contribute to the radicalization of Tajiks.
Both Hamas and Israel should stop manipulating the language of faith and morals to justify extreme and indiscriminate violence, writes Islamic theologian Marwan Sarwar Gill. Religion (in good faith) ultimately offers a way out of conflict the bad faith has fueled.
The Middle East is ablaze. Many have blamed this “endless war” on the seemingly eternal fight between Islam and Judaism, which are both religions without an intermediary to God. But there are key differences both within and between the two faiths.
Hamas’ unprecedented onslaught has hit Israel at a moment of weakness. But the attack could unite a divided Israeli society against a common enemy — and finally end the terrorist organization’s rule.
Hindu nationalist groups want to force the cancellation of Netflix shows that celebrate inter-religious romance with Muslims — it’s both censorship and ethnic prejudice.
French commandos are practically invisible as they carry out high-tech operations across Mali to track down Salafist fighters and other terrorists.
They were the brides of ISIS. These days, they are detained in a camp for the internally displaced north of Raqqa city. They speak about life in the caliphate, and their hopes for the future.
PARIS — European nations are bracing themselves for the return of their citizens who had left to fight the wars in Syria and Iraq. “The EU member states most affected expect a slow but gradual rise of returnees,” noted a recent Radicalization Awareness Network (RAN) report submitted to the European Commissioner for Security, Julian King. […]
MOSUL — Ziyad loaded his wife and three children in the big German sedan that used to serve as his taxi between Baghdad and Mosul. That was in June 2014. The jihadists had just captured Iraq’s second-largest city and Ziyad, built like a late-career wrestler, with a big smile and spoiled teeth, was fleeing towards […]
This Aleppo neighborhood divides government and rebel forces, and the only things the two sides exchange are hostages and dead bodies.
JAKARTA — Teuku Akbar Maulana, 17, is from the westernmost Indonesian province of Aceh. He was a brilliant student and was offered a scholarship to study in Turkey. Akbar left for the Turkish city of Kayseri in 2013 to attend the International Imam Khatip High School but grew tired of it after a few months. “We were studying something that I had learned before so I wasn’t getting what I wanted,” he says. Bored, Akbar, who was 15 at the time, started to spend more time on social media, including Facebook. His feed was flooded with brutal videos of what […]
The days without reports of a terrorist attack, somewhere in the world, have become rare. And no, today is not one of them. Details are emerging this morning of three veiled women attacking a police station in the Kenyan city of Mombasa, reportedly wounding two officers before they were shot dead. What stands out in […]
ISTANBUL — Since Turkey made conciliatory moves towards Russia and Israel last week, critics have pointed to the inconsistencies between what has been said before and what is being said now. But that is not the real issue here: The real issue is about the roots, the true nature and the costs of these changes […]
-Analysis- The “caliphate” of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi will not last. His self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS), announced two years ago, is on the defensive. It will vanish as quickly as the morning mist on the Euphrates River. But what about jihadism, Islamist terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Syria — all factors that feed this Middle […]
An estimated 150 Kenyan soldiers were killed five months ago in an al-Shabab ambush in Somalia, a tragedy made all the more troubling by the fact that authorities in Nairobi are mysteriously mum about it.
How a former fighter lost both his brothers: one to Bashar Al-Assad’s forces and the other to the Islamic State
SAO PAULO — João left Brazil to study abroad and expand his horizons thanks to the national program Science Without Borders. He intended to return home afterwards, but something unexpected changed the script: While he was studying in Europe, his dreams, his ambitions and his beliefs changed as Islamic militants tried to recruit him for […]
ISIS has launched a radio program on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, airing programs that target jobless youths and encourage them to adopt extremist views and join the fight in Syria.
-Editorial- PARIS — This time, it’s Brussels, the heart of Europe, that was hit by Islamist terrorists. They targeted this free city, where humor, impertinence, a Belgian way of not taking yourself too seriously, is the opposite of what these barbarians have in mind: cheap certainties, hatred towards others, the violence of the “pure.” The […]
LUNEL — Tac trimmed his beard and cut his hair short. He also stopped wearing his long prayer shirt. After the Paris attacks in November, he thought, the police were bound to come looking for him. Even his family had gotten into the habit of calling him “Daesh” (acronym for ISIS) as a joke about […]
The Muslim majority Balkan nation, liberated from Serbia with the help of Western forces in 1999, is no longer immune to the worldwide nexus of radical Islamic forces.
-Analysis- France is at war! Perhaps. But at war against whom, or what? The Islamic State (ISIS) isn’t sending Syrians to commit attacks in France in order to dissuade the French government from bombing it. ISIS instead is tapping into a pool of young radicalized French who, whatever happens in the Middle East, are already […]
Inside the de-radicalization program that began last year in France to undo the indoctrination that pushed young Muslims toward extremism.
-Analysis- PARIS — The Nov. 13 attacks that saw jihadists slaughter at least 129 people in Paris raise two crucial questions: Who ordered these attacks? And who carried them out? The answer to the first is ISIS, the so-called Islamic State that spreads terror, slaughters Muslims and non-Muslims, destroys treasured monuments inherited from centuries and […]
-Editorial- PARIS — France is at war. At war against a terrorism that is totalitarian, blind and horribly murderous. We’ve known it since the attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket in Paris in January. And yet, despite the French population’s exceptional show of unity four days after those attacks, despite the shows of […]
Born in Egypt and educated in journalism at university, Mohannad Ghallab became an extremist and joined al-Qaeda after 9/11. He went on to become an influential voice for the terror group before being killed by a U.S. drone strike.
MOUNT ALFAF — Seven eagles are swirling in the blue sky above Mar Mattai, Iraq’s oldest monastery. Can they see Mosul? The northern Iraqi city that has been occupied by ISIS since last year is only 20 kilometers away. Perched alongside Mount Alfaf, this orthodox Syriac monastery founded in the 4th century by hermit Matthew […]
SIDI ALI BEN AOUN — Ali Chadli opens his eyes wide, incredulous even now. No, he had no idea his sons were planning to leave for Syria, where they eventually died. “They were praying as usual,” he says. “I hadn’t noticed anything particular.” The aging man invites us to take a seat next to the […]
After last week’s foiled Thalys train attack, citizens must get used to playing their part in the fight against the jihadist threat, a former French intelligence agent warns.
The bloody dispersal of Cairo’s sit-ins two years ago marked a decisive end to the Muslim Brotherhood’s political ascendancy. The group now is in crisis, its membership divided over its ultimate direction.
MINKEBE — Seen from the helicopter, the canopy of Minkébé National Park, in northern Gabon, looks like a green carpet that stretches to the horizon. The immobile uniformity is only broken up here and there by the veins of muddy rivers or a flock of birds flying. There’s no road or village here near the […]
The biggest threat to murderous Islamists are Muslims who believe in democracy.
Tunisia is in a state of shock Thursday after the terror attack on the National Bardo Museum in the capital, which left 19 people dead and 44 wounded, most of them foreign tourists. Wednesday’s attack in Tunis was a devastating reminder, both inside and outside the North African country where the Arab Spring started more […]
Syria’s tangled web grows even more intricate. Hezbollah is key to Assad’s strategy, moderate rebels avoid ISIS and al-Nusra at all cost, and Israel helps the Free Syrian Army.
-OpEd- TURIN — Geography is inexorable: Italy can never be isolated from Libya, which is just 300 miles from the coast of Sicily. Still, the Italian public tends to be isolated from the rest of the world. The government knows both these truths. Unlike any other European or Western country, Italy kept its Libyan embassy […]