Armed men on motorbikes kill 34 Niger soldiers, ministry says
Several hundred armed men, many on motorbikes, attacked a Niger army base near the border with Mali, leaving at least 34 soldiers dead and 14 wounded, the Defense Ministry said.
The attackers - described as "mercenaries" by the ministry - used eight vehicles and more than 200 motorbikes in the raid on the base in Bani-bangou on Thursday, according to the statement read out on state TV.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the army base in a statement on its Telegram channel on Friday.
Niger, like other countries in West Africa's Sahel region, is battling Islamist militants linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State.
Troops carried out aerial and ground search operations to secure the area after the attack, the ministry said without going into more detail on the assault.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
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Japan Today
a day ago
- Japan Today
Armed men on motorbikes kill 34 Niger soldiers, ministry says
Several hundred armed men, many on motorbikes, attacked a Niger army base near the border with Mali, leaving at least 34 soldiers dead and 14 wounded, the Defense Ministry said. The attackers - described as "mercenaries" by the ministry - used eight vehicles and more than 200 motorbikes in the raid on the base in Bani-bangou on Thursday, according to the statement read out on state TV. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the army base in a statement on its Telegram channel on Friday. Niger, like other countries in West Africa's Sahel region, is battling Islamist militants linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State. Troops carried out aerial and ground search operations to secure the area after the attack, the ministry said without going into more detail on the assault. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Japan Today
12-06-2025
- Japan Today
Islamic State reactivating fighters, eying comeback in Syria and Iraq
FILE PHOTO: A guard looks at Islamic State fighters through bars at al-Sina'a prison in Hasakah, Syria, January 18, 2025. REUTERS/Orhan Qereman/File Photo By Ahmed Rasheed, Timour Azhari and Michael Georgy Middle East leaders and their Western allies have been warning that Islamic State could exploit the fall of the Assad regime to stage a comeback in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where the extremist group once imposed a reign of terror over millions. Islamic State (IS) has been attempting just that, according to more than 20 sources, including security and political officials from Syria, Iraq, the U.S. and Europe, as well as diplomats in the region. The group has started reactivating fighters in both countries, identifying targets, distributing weapons and stepping up recruitment and propaganda efforts, the sources said. So far, the results of these efforts appear limited. Security operatives in Syria and Iraq, who have been monitoring IS for years, told Reuters they foiled at least a dozen major plots this year. A case in point came in December, the month Syria's Bashar Assad was toppled. As rebels were advancing on Damascus, IS commanders holed up near Raqqa, former capital of their self-declared caliphate, dispatched two envoys to Iraq, five Iraqi counter-terrorism officials told Reuters. The envoys carried verbal instructions to the group's followers to launch attacks. But they were captured at a checkpoint while traveling in northern Iraq on December 2, the officials said. Eleven days later, Iraqi security forces, acting on information from the envoys, tracked a suspected IS suicide bomber to a crowded restaurant in the northern town of Daquq using his cell phone, they said. The forces shot the man dead before he could detonate an explosives belt, they said. The foiled attack confirmed Iraq's suspicions about the group, said Colonel Abdul Ameer al-Bayati, of the Iraqi Army's 8th Division, which is deployed in the area. 'Islamic State elements have begun to reactivate after years of lying low, emboldened by the chaos in Syria,' he said. Still, the number of attacks claimed by IS has dropped since Assad's fall. IS claimed responsibility for 38 attacks in Syria in the first five months of 2025, putting it on track for a little over 90 claims this year, according to data from SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militants' activities online. That would be around a third of last year's claims, the data shows. In Iraq, where IS originated, the group claimed four attacks in the first five months of 2025, versus 61 total last year. Syria's government, led by the country's new Islamist leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, did not answer questions about IS activities. Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra told Reuters in January the country was developing its intelligence-gathering efforts, and its security services would address any threat. A U.S. defense official and a spokesperson for Iraq's prime minister said IS remnants in Syria and Iraq have been dramatically weakened, unable to control territory since a U.S.-led coalition and its local partners drove them from their last stronghold in 2019. The Iraqi spokesperson, Sabah al-Numan, credited pre-emptive operations for keeping the group in check. The coalition and partners hammered militant hideouts with airstrikes and raids after Assad's fall. Such operations captured or killed 'terrorist elements,' while preventing them from regrouping and carrying out operations, Numan said. Iraq's intelligence operations have also become more precise, through drones and other technology, he added. At its peak between 2014 and 2017, IS held sway over roughly a third of Syria and Iraq, where it imposed its extreme interpretation of Islamic sharia law, gaining a reputation for shocking brutality. None of the officials who spoke with Reuters saw a danger of that happening again. But they cautioned against counting the group out, saying it has proven a resilient foe, adept at exploiting a vacuum. Some local and European officials are concerned that foreign fighters might be traveling to Syria to join jihadi groups. For the first time in years, intelligence agencies tracked a small number of suspected foreign fighters coming from Europe to Syria in recent months, two European officials told Reuters, though they could not say whether IS or another group recruited them. EXPLOITING DIVISIONS The IS push comes at a delicate time for Sharaa, as he attempts to unite a diverse country and bring former rebel groups under government control after 13 years of civil war. U.S. President Donald Trump's surprise decision last month to lift sanctions on Syria was widely seen as a win for the Syrian leader, who once led a branch of al Qaeda that battled IS for years. But some Islamist hardliners criticized Sharaa's efforts to woo Western governments, expressing concern he might acquiesce to U.S. demands to expel foreign fighters and normalize relations with Israel. Seizing on such divides, IS condemned the meeting with Trump in a recent issue of its online news publication, al-Naba, and called on foreign fighters in Syria to join its ranks. At a May 14 meeting in Saudi Arabia, Trump asked Sharaa to help prevent an IS resurgence as the U.S. begins a troop consolidation in Syria it says could cut its roughly 2,000-strong military presence by half this year. The U.S. drawdown has heightened concern among allies that IS might find a way to free some 9,000 fighters and their family members, including foreign nationals, held at prisons and camps guarded by the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). There have been at least two attempted jailbreaks since Assad's fall, the SDF has said. Trump and President Tayyip Erdogan of neighboring Turkey want Sharaa's government to assume responsibility for these facilities. Erdogan views the main Kurdish factions as a threat to his country. But some regional analysts question whether Damascus has the manpower needed. Syrian authorities have also been grappling with attacks by suspected Assad loyalists, outbreaks of deadly sectarian violence, Israeli airstrikes and clashes between Turkish-backed groups and the SDF, which controls about a quarter of the country. 'The interim government is stretched thin from a security perspective. They just do not have the manpower to consolidate control in the entire country,' said Charles Lister, who heads the Syria program at the Middle East Institute, a U.S. think tank. Responding to a request for comment, a State Department spokesperson said it is critical for countries to repatriate detained nationals from Syria and shoulder a greater share of the burden for the camps' security and running costs. The U.S. defense official said Washington remains committed to preventing an IS resurgence, and its vetted Syrian partners remain in the field. The U.S. will 'vigilantly monitor' Sharaa's government, which has been 'saying and doing the right things' so far, the official added. Three days after Trump's meeting with Sharaa, Syria announced it had raided IS hideouts in the country's second city, Aleppo, killing three militants, detaining four and seizing weapons and uniforms. The U.S. has exchanged intelligence with Damascus in limited cases, another U.S. defense official and two Syrian officials told Reuters. The news agency could not determine whether it did so in the Aleppo raids. The coalition is expected to wrap up operations in Iraq by September. But the second U.S. official said Baghdad privately expressed interest in slowing down the withdrawal of some 2,500 American troops from Iraq when it became apparent that Assad would fall. A source familiar with the matter confirmed the request. The White House, Baghdad and Damascus did not respond to questions about Trump's plans for U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. REACTIVATING SLEEPER CELLS The United Nations estimates IS, also known as ISIS or Daesh, has 1,500 to 3,000 fighters in the two countries. But its most active branches are in Africa, the SITE data shows. The U.S. military believes the group's secretive leader is Abdulqadir Mumin, who heads the Somalia branch, a senior defence official told reporters in April. Still, SITE's director, Rita Katz, cautioned against seeing the drop in IS attacks in Syria as a sign of weakness. 'Far more likely that it has entered a restrategizing phase,' she said. Since Assad's fall, IS has been activating sleeper cells, surveilling potential targets and distributing guns, silencers and explosives, three security sources and three Syrian political officials told Reuters. It has also moved fighters from the Syrian desert, a focus of coalition airstrikes, to cities including Aleppo, Homs and Damascus, according to the security sources. "Of the challenges we face, Daesh is at the top of the list," Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab told state-owned Ekhbariya TV last week. In Iraq, aerial surveillance and intelligence sources on the ground have picked up increased IS activity in the northern Hamrin Mountains, a longtime refuge, and along key roads, Ali al-Saidi, an advisor to Iraqi security forces, told Reuters. Iraqi officials believe IS seized large stockpiles of weapons left behind by Assad's forces and worry some could be smuggled into Iraq. Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said Baghdad was in contact with Damascus about IS, which he told Reuters in January was growing and spreading into more areas. "We hope that Syria, in the first place, will be stable, and Syria will not be a place for terrorists," he said, 'especially ISIS terrorists." © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Japan Times
11-06-2025
- Japan Times
Chinese fighter jets in close encounters with MSDF patrol plane over Pacific
Chinese fighter jets risked collisions with a Maritime Self-Defense Force P-3C surveillance plane over the high seas in the Pacific Ocean in two close calls over the weekend that the Defense Ministry in Tokyo has characterized as 'abnormal approaches.' The ministry said late Wednesday that a MSDF P-3C patrol plane monitoring China's Shandong aircraft carrier in the Pacific was followed by a Chinese J-15 that took off from the carrier for about 40 minutes Saturday and 80 minutes Sunday. On Saturday, a J-15 fighter, which images showed was armed with missiles, flew to within 45 meters parallel of the surveillance plane — a short enough distance to risk a collision. The following day, a J-15 crossed approximately 900 meters in front of the P-3C's flight path, a distance covered in a matter of seconds. 'These kinds of unusual approaches by Chinese military aircraft pose a risk of accidental collisions,' the ministry said. Although there was no damage to the Japanese plane or injuries among its crew, officials said it had 'raised serious concerns' with the Chinese side, urging them to prevent such incidents from recurring. A Chinese J-15 fighter jet conducts what Japan's Defense Ministry said was an "abnormal approach" to a Maritime Self-Defense Force P-3C surveillance plane over the high seas in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday. | DEFENSE MINISTRY / VIA JIJI This was believed to be the third time since 2014 that Chinese aircraft have made such close approaches to Self-Defense Forces planes. All previous incidents occurred over the East China Sea. The public disclosure of the latest incidents was delayed for several days in order to interview the P-3C's crew and analyze the flight data, media reports citing ministry officials said. The incidents came as China's two operating aircraft carriers — the Shandong and Liaoning — were spotted conducting simultaneous operations in the Pacific for the first time, the ministry announced earlier in the week. Beijing confirmed late Tuesday that the two carriers had conducted the training "to test the forces' capabilities in far seas defense and joint operations," Chinese Navy spokesperson Senior Capt. Wang Xuemeng said, calling the exercises "routine training" that did not target any specific country. Beijing has ramped up military exercises and training in recent months, highlighting its growing prowess ever farther from its shores. The vast waters of the western Pacific Ocean have long been seen as one weak point in Japan's defense architecture, and the government, as part of its 2022 Defense Buildup Program, is working to deploy mobile early warning and control radars to the area to strengthen air defense capabilities there.
