Afghanistan – More than 700 Taliban fighters are reported to have launched a major assault on Afghan government and security forces' positions in the province of Logar, which is just south of Kabul it was reported on the 19 Aug 14. "There are some 700 of them and they are fighting Afghan forces for territorial control and they have also brought with them makeshift mobile (health) clinics," Niaz Mohammad Amiri, the provincial governor of Logar province. The Taliban have dug-in in Logar, which lies about an hour's drive south of Kabul, and nearby Wardak province to the west, in recent years. They have used the provinces - gateways to the capital - as launch pads for hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings on Kabul. The main roads into the capital are all tightly controlled, but the militants have still been able to breach the checkpoints and staged dozens of attacks, killing scores of civilians and soldiers in the city of about five million this year. The Taliban are clearly preparing to battle the Afghan military in the open after the US and NATO forces draw down to levels at which they cannot provide meaningful support. The Taliban have launched similar massed attacks in the provinces of Helmand, Nangarhar, and Ghor over the past several months. Coalition forces have done little to turn the tide in those engagements. The Taliban are said to control Sangin district in Helmand months after launching their attack in mid-June 14. The Afghan military and government have been unable to dislodge the Taliban from Sangin, and are now conducting peace talks with the group. Logar province is a known haven for al Qaeda and allied terror groups, including the Haqqani Network. The presence of al Qaeda cells has been detected in the district of Pul-e 'Alam; or one of Logar's five districts, according to an investigation by The Long War Journal.
Insurgents early on the 30 Aug 14 attacked the headquarters of the Afghan intelligence service in this eastern city of Jalalabad, setting off a huge bomb that killed at least six people and wounded 45 others, Afghan officials reported. The attackers, who included suicide bombers, were believed to have taken up positions in a nearby building to continue the assault. The initial bomb, which the authorities described as huge, was hidden in a car and detonated outside the provincial headquarters of the National Directorate of Security at about 0500 hrs. It was not immediately clear if the victims were intelligence employees or civilians.
Malaysia – Malaysian police have foiled plans for a wave of bombings drawn up by radical Islamic militants inspired by Iraq's extremist jihad group ISIL, a top counter-terrorism official said on the 19 Aug 14. The 19 suspected militants arrested from Apr-Jun 14 were formulating plans to bomb pubs, discos and a Malaysian brewery of Danish beer producer Carlsberg, said Ayob Khan Mydin, deputy chief of the Malaysian police counter-terrorism division. Ayob Khan said all Malaysians, had visions of establishing a hard-line Southeast Asian Islamic caliphate spanning Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore, and planned to travel to Syria to learn from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). They were only in the early stages of discussing their plans and did not have heavy weapons or bomb-making knowledge. They planned "a campaign of violence and armed struggle and to die as martyrs", Ayob Khan said, adding police believe there could still be co-plotters at large in Malaysia. Some of those arrested were apprehended at airports on the way to Turkey and Syria to seek training and other support from ISIL. Some had begun raising money -- including via Facebook -- to travel to Syria, typically under the pretext of "humanitarian work", Ayob Khan said.
Pakistan – Ten Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants were killed and 13 security force personnel were wounded in separate attacks on the Samungli and Khalid air force bases, both close to the international airport in the city of Quetta in Pakistan's Balochistan province late on the 14 Aug 14. Provincial officials confirmed that two suicide bombers detonated their explosives and rocket-propelled grenades were fired in an unsuccessful attempt to force entry into the Samungli base, and that four improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were defused at the Khalid air base. The Ghalib Mehsud faction of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as Fidayeen Islam, immediately claimed responsibility for both attacks.
A group of commanders from the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan has broken away from the organization and formed Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. The creation of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar is a blow to the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, as a top commander and his followers are among those who have defected. The announcement of the formation of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan) was posted on the Twitter pages of Ihsanullah Ihsan, the former spokesman of the TTP, and Omar Khorasani, the "Personal Assistant" of Omar Khalid Khorasani, the former emir of the TTP in Mohmand. Omar Khalid was a senior leader in the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar released a lengthy video (1:25) that was published on YouTube as well as Ihsan and Omar's Twitter pages. The new group includes Taliban factions from the tribal agencies of Mohmand, Bajaur, Khyber, and Arakzai, and the districts of Charsadda, Peshawar, and Swat. The group is headed by emir Maulana Qasim Khorasani, and Ihsan is its spokesman. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar's shura, or executive council, includes: Omar Khalid al Khorasani, the powerful commander from Mohmand; Mansoor Nazim Shura and Maulana Haidar from Arakzai; Maulana Adbullah from Bajaur; Qari Ismail from Khyber; Qari Shakil Haqqani from Charsadda; Mufti Misbah from Peshawar; and Maulana Yasin from Swat. Qasim, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar's emir, says that "the leadership of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan is a victim of narrow, personal objectives." One of the commanders "says the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan was formed for a purpose but the organization made mistakes and there were some internal differences," Arif Rafiq, an Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute, told The Long War Journal. "So they are forming a new group to serve its original purpose of establishing an Islamic state."
Insurgents early on the 30 Aug 14 attacked the headquarters of the Afghan intelligence service in this eastern city of Jalalabad, setting off a huge bomb that killed at least six people and wounded 45 others, Afghan officials reported. The attackers, who included suicide bombers, were believed to have taken up positions in a nearby building to continue the assault. The initial bomb, which the authorities described as huge, was hidden in a car and detonated outside the provincial headquarters of the National Directorate of Security at about 0500 hrs. It was not immediately clear if the victims were intelligence employees or civilians.
Malaysia – Malaysian police have foiled plans for a wave of bombings drawn up by radical Islamic militants inspired by Iraq's extremist jihad group ISIL, a top counter-terrorism official said on the 19 Aug 14. The 19 suspected militants arrested from Apr-Jun 14 were formulating plans to bomb pubs, discos and a Malaysian brewery of Danish beer producer Carlsberg, said Ayob Khan Mydin, deputy chief of the Malaysian police counter-terrorism division. Ayob Khan said all Malaysians, had visions of establishing a hard-line Southeast Asian Islamic caliphate spanning Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore, and planned to travel to Syria to learn from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). They were only in the early stages of discussing their plans and did not have heavy weapons or bomb-making knowledge. They planned "a campaign of violence and armed struggle and to die as martyrs", Ayob Khan said, adding police believe there could still be co-plotters at large in Malaysia. Some of those arrested were apprehended at airports on the way to Turkey and Syria to seek training and other support from ISIL. Some had begun raising money -- including via Facebook -- to travel to Syria, typically under the pretext of "humanitarian work", Ayob Khan said.
Pakistan – Ten Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants were killed and 13 security force personnel were wounded in separate attacks on the Samungli and Khalid air force bases, both close to the international airport in the city of Quetta in Pakistan's Balochistan province late on the 14 Aug 14. Provincial officials confirmed that two suicide bombers detonated their explosives and rocket-propelled grenades were fired in an unsuccessful attempt to force entry into the Samungli base, and that four improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were defused at the Khalid air base. The Ghalib Mehsud faction of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as Fidayeen Islam, immediately claimed responsibility for both attacks.
A group of commanders from the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan has broken away from the organization and formed Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. The creation of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar is a blow to the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, as a top commander and his followers are among those who have defected. The announcement of the formation of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar TTP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan) was posted on the Twitter pages of Ihsanullah Ihsan, the former spokesman of the TTP, and Omar Khorasani, the "Personal Assistant" of Omar Khalid Khorasani, the former emir of the TTP in Mohmand. Omar Khalid was a senior leader in the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar released a lengthy video (1:25) that was published on YouTube as well as Ihsan and Omar's Twitter pages. The new group includes Taliban factions from the tribal agencies of Mohmand, Bajaur, Khyber, and Arakzai, and the districts of Charsadda, Peshawar, and Swat. The group is headed by emir Maulana Qasim Khorasani, and Ihsan is its spokesman. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar's shura, or executive council, includes: Omar Khalid al Khorasani, the powerful commander from Mohmand; Mansoor Nazim Shura and Maulana Haidar from Arakzai; Maulana Adbullah from Bajaur; Qari Ismail from Khyber; Qari Shakil Haqqani from Charsadda; Mufti Misbah from Peshawar; and Maulana Yasin from Swat. Qasim, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar's emir, says that "the leadership of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan is a victim of narrow, personal objectives." One of the commanders "says the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan was formed for a purpose but the organization made mistakes and there were some internal differences," Arif Rafiq, an Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute, told The Long War Journal. "So they are forming a new group to serve its original purpose of establishing an Islamic state."
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