[h=2]Jihadi John is 'evaporated' at ISIS' 'crucifixion' clocktower: US drone strike takes out British executioner at site of fanatics' worst crimes - but victims' families say they wanted 'coward to suffer'[/h]
The depraved ISIS militant (left and inset), whose real name is Mohammed Emwazi, has been hunted for more than a year after appearing in a string of sickening beheading videos of Western hostages including two British aid workers. The 27-year-old from London is believed to have been wiped out by a drone missile while getting into a car near a symbolic clock tower (circled, centre, and pictured, bottom right) in the heart of Raqqa where ISIS has staged a number of horrific public executions (top right) since capturing the city two years ago. Bethany Haines, the daughter of one of his British victims, David Haines, today told how she felt 'an instant sense of relief' after hearing reports of his death. Pentagon officials say they are '99 per cent' sure they had killed the executioner. However, ISIS sources in Raqqa are claiming that he survived the attack and was taken badly injured to a hospital which has been placed in lockdown by the Sunni militant
The depraved ISIS militant (left and inset), whose real name is Mohammed Emwazi, has been hunted for more than a year after appearing in a string of sickening beheading videos of Western hostages including two British aid workers. The 27-year-old from London is believed to have been wiped out by a drone missile while getting into a car near a symbolic clock tower (circled, centre, and pictured, bottom right) in the heart of Raqqa where ISIS has staged a number of horrific public executions (top right) since capturing the city two years ago. Bethany Haines, the daughter of one of his British victims, David Haines, today told how she felt 'an instant sense of relief' after hearing reports of his death. Pentagon officials say they are '99 per cent' sure they had killed the executioner. However, ISIS sources in Raqqa are claiming that he survived the attack and was taken badly injured to a hospital which has been placed in lockdown by the Sunni militant
The Pentagon has confirmed that one of ISIS's top commanders in Libya was killed in a U.S. airstrike last month.
The operation to kill Iraqi national Abu Nabil in the eastern port city of Darnah was conceived before terrorists went on a rampage in the French capital, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said.
It is believed the commander had previously been governor of Salah-ad-din province in Iraq before he was dispatched to ISIS's franchise in Libya.
There has also been speculation that Abu Nabil was the man who threatened the West in the ISIS propaganda video in which 21 Coptic Christians were executed on a Libyan beach.
Mr Cook said: 'Nabil's death will degrade ISIS' ability to meet the group's objectives in Libya, including recruiting new ISIS members, establishing bases in Libya and planning external attacks on the United States.
Mr Cook said the strike was the first U.S. raid against an ISIS leader in the country and demonstrates that the will 'go after ISIS leaders wherever they operate'.
The Pentagon has confirmed the death of Abu Nabil
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It has been speculated that the American accented executor in the ISIS propaganda video was Abu Nabil
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ISIS released a propaganda video showing the execution of Coptic Christians on the beaches of Libya
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Strike: The U.S. attack is said to have taken place in Darnah, a coastal city under militant control. ISIS lost control of the city back in June
The operation to kill Iraqi national Abu Nabil in the eastern port city of Darnah was conceived before terrorists went on a rampage in the French capital, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said.
It is believed the commander had previously been governor of Salah-ad-din province in Iraq before he was dispatched to ISIS's franchise in Libya.
There has also been speculation that Abu Nabil was the man who threatened the West in the ISIS propaganda video in which 21 Coptic Christians were executed on a Libyan beach.
Mr Cook said: 'Nabil's death will degrade ISIS' ability to meet the group's objectives in Libya, including recruiting new ISIS members, establishing bases in Libya and planning external attacks on the United States.
Mr Cook said the strike was the first U.S. raid against an ISIS leader in the country and demonstrates that the will 'go after ISIS leaders wherever they operate'.
The Pentagon has confirmed the death of Abu Nabil
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It has been speculated that the American accented executor in the ISIS propaganda video was Abu Nabil
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ISIS released a propaganda video showing the execution of Coptic Christians on the beaches of Libya
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Strike: The U.S. attack is said to have taken place in Darnah, a coastal city under militant control. ISIS lost control of the city back in June
The Pentagon also confirmed that a top al-Shabaab military commander was killed in a U.S. airstrike on December 2.
Abdirhaman Sandhere, also known as 'Ukash', was heavily involved in operations in Barawa, Lower Shebelle and was assassinated in the village of Kunyo Barrow, near Mogadishu.
Fierce clashes between Al-Shabaab fighters and ISIS turncoats have left at least 20 foreign militants dead in Somalia.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis confirmed that a senior leader of the al Qaeda-affiliated group al Shabaab was killed in a U.S. military air strike in Somalia carried out on December 2.
dancing-santagifHizbollah leader Samir Kantar killed in 'Israeli air strike'
Precision missile destroyed the apartment block where Samir Kantar, who spent almost 30 years in an Israeli prison for murder, was staying
A senior Hizbollah leader and envoy who was once the group's longest serving prisoner in an Israeli jail has been killed in a precision air strike in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
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A bulldozer clearing debris from the site. Photo: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty[/SUP]
Samir Kantar, was on the American list of proscribed global terrorists, and had spent almost 30 years in an Israeli prison on charges of multiple murders dating back to a cross-border raid from Lebanon in the 1970s.
Four missiles launched almost certainly by two Israeli warplanes struck the high-rise building in the district of Jaramana where Mr Kantar had been staying late on Saturday night, the Hizbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV reported. The group later issued a statement confirming his "martyrdom".
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Samir Kantar Photo: AP/Mohammed Zaatari, File[/SUP]
Reports suggest around seven other people were killed in the attack, including Hizbollah field commanders.The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have not commented.
Mr Kantar's brother confirmed the death on social media, writing that his family was "was honoured to join families of martyrs,” the Daily Star of Lebanon reported.
Mr Kantar, a member of the Druze sect, was captured by Israel following a 1979 attack when, along with three other members of the Palestine Liberation Front, he infiltrated the northern part of the country from Lebanon on a rubber boat.
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A bulldozer clearing debris from the site Photo: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty
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Under the cover of night, the group broke into an apartment in the coastal town of Naharia, just 10 kilometres away from the Lebanese border, and kidnapped an Israeli man, Danny Haran, and his four-year-old daughter, Einat.
Mr Haran’s wife managed to hide herself and her 2 year-old-daughter in the apartment at the time of kidnapping, but accidentally smothered the toddler to death in a bid to keep the kidnappers from hearing her whimpers.
The father was shot and his eldest daughter was reportedly bludgeoned to death by Mr Kuntar himself, aged 16 at the time, who was captured in a shoot-out and sentenced to five life terms of imprisonment.
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A bulldozer clearing debris from the site Photo: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty
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In 2008, he was freed along with four other Lebanese militants and the bodies of approximately 200 others following a deal between Israel and Hizbollah in exchange for the dead bodies of the two Israeli soldierswhose capture triggered the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006.
Following his release, Mr Kantar formally joined Hizbollah and was later decorated with a Syrian medal by President Bashar al-Assad, who has increasingly come to rely on the group for his survival in the face of an uprising against his rule.
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Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, shakes hands with Samir Kantar in Damascus, Syria, in 2008. Photo: SANA via AP, File
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In 2009, he was also honoured by the then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran for “supporting the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance”. The same year, the Home Office banned him from entering the UK on account of “seeking to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs and to provoke others to terrorist acts.”
As one of Hizbollah’s top commanders, in the past few years he is said to have been involved in military activities in the northern part of the Syrian Golan Heights, bordering Israel, which in September 2015 landed him a place on the US’s Specially Designated Global Terrorists list.
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The damaged building where Samir Kantar was believed to be killed Photo: SANA via AP
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“Samir Kantar was a pivot in the efforts of Hizbollah to prepare the Golan Heights as the next front against Israel,” a former Israeli national security advisor, Yaakov Amidror, told journalists on Sunday morning.
According to Mr Amidror, Mr Kantar was especially well placed to carry out such preparation due to his strong links with the Syrian Druze community, who are present on both the Syrian and the Israeli-occupied sides of the Golan Heights.
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Syrian soldiers stand in front of a damaged building where Samir Kantar was believed to be killed Photo: SANA via AP
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Many of the Druze residents living on the Israeli side of the contentious mountainous territory, captured from Syria in 1967, maintain strong links with Syria, where many of their family members live.
For decades, they have been refusing to take up Israeli citizenship, and until recently, each year many students would cross the border to study in Syrian universities, aided by scholarship grants from the Assad regime as well as the more lenient entry requirements compared to Israeli universities.
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu notably did not mention the attack which killed Mr Kantar in the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. Although refusing to confirm whether the attack was carried out by Israel, Mr Amidror said the incident was “good news for Israel.”
“Whenever we can prevent those people from building these capabilities, we will try.”
Precision missile destroyed the apartment block where Samir Kantar, who spent almost 30 years in an Israeli prison for murder, was staying
A senior Hizbollah leader and envoy who was once the group's longest serving prisoner in an Israeli jail has been killed in a precision air strike in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
[SUP]
A bulldozer clearing debris from the site. Photo: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty[/SUP]
Samir Kantar, was on the American list of proscribed global terrorists, and had spent almost 30 years in an Israeli prison on charges of multiple murders dating back to a cross-border raid from Lebanon in the 1970s.
Four missiles launched almost certainly by two Israeli warplanes struck the high-rise building in the district of Jaramana where Mr Kantar had been staying late on Saturday night, the Hizbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV reported. The group later issued a statement confirming his "martyrdom".
[SUP]
Samir Kantar Photo: AP/Mohammed Zaatari, File[/SUP]
Reports suggest around seven other people were killed in the attack, including Hizbollah field commanders.The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have not commented.
Mr Kantar's brother confirmed the death on social media, writing that his family was "was honoured to join families of martyrs,” the Daily Star of Lebanon reported.
Mr Kantar, a member of the Druze sect, was captured by Israel following a 1979 attack when, along with three other members of the Palestine Liberation Front, he infiltrated the northern part of the country from Lebanon on a rubber boat.
[SUP]
A bulldozer clearing debris from the site Photo: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty
[/SUP]
Under the cover of night, the group broke into an apartment in the coastal town of Naharia, just 10 kilometres away from the Lebanese border, and kidnapped an Israeli man, Danny Haran, and his four-year-old daughter, Einat.
Mr Haran’s wife managed to hide herself and her 2 year-old-daughter in the apartment at the time of kidnapping, but accidentally smothered the toddler to death in a bid to keep the kidnappers from hearing her whimpers.
The father was shot and his eldest daughter was reportedly bludgeoned to death by Mr Kuntar himself, aged 16 at the time, who was captured in a shoot-out and sentenced to five life terms of imprisonment.
[SUP]
A bulldozer clearing debris from the site Photo: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty
[/SUP]
In 2008, he was freed along with four other Lebanese militants and the bodies of approximately 200 others following a deal between Israel and Hizbollah in exchange for the dead bodies of the two Israeli soldierswhose capture triggered the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006.
Following his release, Mr Kantar formally joined Hizbollah and was later decorated with a Syrian medal by President Bashar al-Assad, who has increasingly come to rely on the group for his survival in the face of an uprising against his rule.
[SUP]
Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, shakes hands with Samir Kantar in Damascus, Syria, in 2008. Photo: SANA via AP, File
[/SUP]
In 2009, he was also honoured by the then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran for “supporting the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance”. The same year, the Home Office banned him from entering the UK on account of “seeking to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs and to provoke others to terrorist acts.”
As one of Hizbollah’s top commanders, in the past few years he is said to have been involved in military activities in the northern part of the Syrian Golan Heights, bordering Israel, which in September 2015 landed him a place on the US’s Specially Designated Global Terrorists list.
[SUP]
The damaged building where Samir Kantar was believed to be killed Photo: SANA via AP
[/SUP]
“Samir Kantar was a pivot in the efforts of Hizbollah to prepare the Golan Heights as the next front against Israel,” a former Israeli national security advisor, Yaakov Amidror, told journalists on Sunday morning.
According to Mr Amidror, Mr Kantar was especially well placed to carry out such preparation due to his strong links with the Syrian Druze community, who are present on both the Syrian and the Israeli-occupied sides of the Golan Heights.
[SUP]
Syrian soldiers stand in front of a damaged building where Samir Kantar was believed to be killed Photo: SANA via AP
[/SUP]
Many of the Druze residents living on the Israeli side of the contentious mountainous territory, captured from Syria in 1967, maintain strong links with Syria, where many of their family members live.
For decades, they have been refusing to take up Israeli citizenship, and until recently, each year many students would cross the border to study in Syrian universities, aided by scholarship grants from the Assad regime as well as the more lenient entry requirements compared to Israeli universities.
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu notably did not mention the attack which killed Mr Kantar in the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. Although refusing to confirm whether the attack was carried out by Israel, Mr Amidror said the incident was “good news for Israel.”
“Whenever we can prevent those people from building these capabilities, we will try.”
Some 10 terrorists ‘neutralized’ by French forces in Mali
Published time: 23 Dec, 2015 05:10
© Joe Penney / Reuters
French troops engaged in an anti-terrorist operation in Mali have “neutralized” around 10 jihadist fighters of the Al-Mourabitoun Islamist group that was allegedly responsible for a violent attack on a luxury hotel in the capital last month.
The operation by the French forces took place on the night of December 19-20,the French defense ministry announced on Tuesday. The battle with the militants lasted for over four hours.
“French forces carried out an operation in the region of Menaka in Mali against an element of the terrorist group al Mourabitoun responsible for numerous attacks,” the statement said. “Some 10 terrorists were neutralized. A large quantity of arms and explosives were seized.”
The statement said Al-Murabitoun had been “responsible for many attacks on civilians of Mali and Niger, as well as local army forces and international forces.”
The cell was one of the jihadist groups that claimed responsibility for the attack on Bamako’s Radisson Blu hotel last month. Nineteen people died in the November 20 assault. The victims included six Russians, three Chinese, an American, a Belgian, a Senegalese and an Israeli.
Al-Murabitoun was formed in 2013 and is now headed by Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said the Radisson attack was a joint operation between the two groups. In addition a Malian Islamist group, the Massina Liberation Front, also claimed responsibility for the November attack.
Some 3,000 French troops are taking part in the anti-terrorist Operation Barkhane that commenced in August last year. It follows on from Operation Serval in Mali that started in 2013, with an aim of rooting out Islamic militants in the north of Mali.
Northern Mali fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012. France sent troops to the former French colony in following United Nations Security Council Resolution 2085 and an official request by the Malian interim government for French military assistance.
In addition to the French, the African Union (AU) sanctioned an African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) to restore peace and security in Mali.
While a peace agreement was signed between Mali’s rival parties in February, terrorist groups are still perpetrating attacks threatening the shaky peace in the region.
On Monday the government of Mali decreed a national emergency which is to last until January 1, as a preventive measure against terrorist attacks.
Published time: 23 Dec, 2015 05:10
© Joe Penney / Reuters
French troops engaged in an anti-terrorist operation in Mali have “neutralized” around 10 jihadist fighters of the Al-Mourabitoun Islamist group that was allegedly responsible for a violent attack on a luxury hotel in the capital last month.
The operation by the French forces took place on the night of December 19-20,the French defense ministry announced on Tuesday. The battle with the militants lasted for over four hours.
“French forces carried out an operation in the region of Menaka in Mali against an element of the terrorist group al Mourabitoun responsible for numerous attacks,” the statement said. “Some 10 terrorists were neutralized. A large quantity of arms and explosives were seized.”
The statement said Al-Murabitoun had been “responsible for many attacks on civilians of Mali and Niger, as well as local army forces and international forces.”
The cell was one of the jihadist groups that claimed responsibility for the attack on Bamako’s Radisson Blu hotel last month. Nineteen people died in the November 20 assault. The victims included six Russians, three Chinese, an American, a Belgian, a Senegalese and an Israeli.
Al-Murabitoun was formed in 2013 and is now headed by Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said the Radisson attack was a joint operation between the two groups. In addition a Malian Islamist group, the Massina Liberation Front, also claimed responsibility for the November attack.
Some 3,000 French troops are taking part in the anti-terrorist Operation Barkhane that commenced in August last year. It follows on from Operation Serval in Mali that started in 2013, with an aim of rooting out Islamic militants in the north of Mali.
Northern Mali fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012. France sent troops to the former French colony in following United Nations Security Council Resolution 2085 and an official request by the Malian interim government for French military assistance.
In addition to the French, the African Union (AU) sanctioned an African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) to restore peace and security in Mali.
While a peace agreement was signed between Mali’s rival parties in February, terrorist groups are still perpetrating attacks threatening the shaky peace in the region.
On Monday the government of Mali decreed a national emergency which is to last until January 1, as a preventive measure against terrorist attacks.
Bin Laden's former bodyguard Nasser al-Bahri dies
- Nasser al-Bahri - Osama Bin Laden's former bodyguard - has died after a long illness, medical sources in Yemen have told the BBC.
They said Mr Bahri, a Yemeni national, passed away on Saturday in a hospital in the southern city of Mukalla. He is believed to have been in his 40s.
Mr Bahri, also known as Abu Jandal, was also a driver for the late al-Qaeda leader, when he was in Afghanistan.
Mr Bahri was freed from the Guantanamo Bay jail and returned to Yemen in 2008.
He was involved in attacks by Islamist militants in Bosnia, Somalia and Afghanistan during the 1990s, but later renounced al-Qaeda.
In a 2010 interview to the BBC's Newsnight programme Mr Bahri warned that young people in his native Yemen were susceptible to the lure of extremism.
