Acc to mediazzzona there is an ongoing hostage situation in a prison in Rostov, Russia - the hostage takers say they are #IS#daesh#isis#IslamicState members. Shootouts at checkpoints and targeting of policemen has been the main method the IS #Caucasus branch has kept active since the loss of the #caliphate
In its latest special, #Theglobaljigsaw has looked into IS' evolution and re-emergence - some quotes to follow in a thread
Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have rounded up eight individuals from Tajikistan who are in the U.S. and have suspected ties to #ISIS, U.S. officials told CBS News.
@flexghost his nation iran, turkey, iraq, saudi arabia, afghanistan, russia, yemen etc have sponsored and still sponsor many terrorist organizations across the world that behead, burn, kidnap, rape, bomb thousands everyday #isis#bokoharam#alqueida etc
Some 52 years ago, when I was in 4th grade of primary school, I found a book "who put glasses on the kid's eyes" in a small book shop in open bazaar of my hometown Ahvaz in khuzestan province of Iran.
A few days later, we had to bring a book to school and read it in front of the class. Happy as I was to have found a great book, I took it to school and read it in front of the class.
I couldn't understand why my teacher was acting so scared and stopped me before I had finished the book and sent me to the principals office.
I was nervous, didn't know what I had done wrong and our principal, who was a really nice man, and went to the same university as my oldest sister took the book and asked me where I had bought it. I knew something was wrong, so I said I bought it at the book store of our local mosque, to protect the guy who was my source of cheap and lovely books and would buy back my old ones to help me afford buying new ones.
In the evening my father came home, agitated and clearly upset. Asked me what I have done and I explained the situation, including the fact that I lied about wher I had bought the book. Told him the highlight of the book about a happy child who was living in a town with happy people who were all wearing glasses.
He was seeing flowers, colorful houses. Nice people and happy children all around him, birds flying in the sky and everyone were so friendly to him.
Until one day he fell of and his glasses broke. He couldn't believe his eyes, the flowers, colorful houses and happy people were all gone. All he could see was a run down city, with piles of garbage everywhere, people wearing worn out clothes, looking hungry and sick.
He was nece happy after that, he couldn't believe that everyone were walking around with glasses and we're happy all the time. But he was sad and miserable, because he had seen his town without those glasses.
Anyway. My father took me to a building close to the main police station on the other side of the Karun river, he spent almost entire day in a room where I could people screaming at him and a few times someone his the table very hard. But couldn't hear what they were saying.
My dad came out. Pulled my hand without saying a word, we walked for an hour to get home, didn't take taxi as we used to do.
He didn't say a word during the whole day and told me to go over my books and bring all the books I had bought from that shop, he through them in a metal bucket and poured some fuel over it, set them on fire and waited until they were completely burned, mixed the ashes to turn them into dust, filled the bucket with water and through it in the toilet.
He told me to never go back to that shop and be careful to take any books to school from now on.
That' was my first interaction with the notorious Savak police of Shah of Iran. In the next days, all the 4 book stores in our town were raided. Books confiscated and doors locked. Never heard about any of them again.
Reading the comments of pro Israeli accounts on mastodon reminded me of that book and that experience that changed my life when I was only 8 years old.
This post specially triggered those memories. Unlike the kid in my book and the people living in the town, these people know very well tat what they are posting is not true, they have seen the horror of the past 76 years of occupation, they have seen the 66 times they were subject to UNSC charges, and 45 that were vetoed by the US..
But they don't care, they see themselves as victims. They don't see the millions of starving palestinians, or the millions living in refuge camps around the world as worthy of their empathy or cause of why Palestinians and some of the world is fed up with their out of control criminal behavior
They don't have glasses on their eyes, they have chosen to be selective and above the laws of the world.
I don't like to share from media discussions, but this is just priceless, the Israeli woman claims that majority of Iranians support Reza Pahlavi (son of Iran's former dictator) and also support Israel bombing their country.
These are the same people who convinced the world that Americans wouldb be greeted with flowers and celebrated as liberators. And it ends up giving us #ISIS and millions of deaths.
Trust them. They know what #Iranian people think and want. They have some #Twitter polls to prove their ponts.
History reminder: #ISIS literally executes people for helping #Hamas
With backing of Israeli airforce and american troops in the region, ISIS is gaining power and increasing their attacks against mostly civilians in Syria and Iraq.
"This is an awkward, to put it mildly, subject for Putin, given the warnings that the West made publicly, through that U.S. Embassy notice that you read, and there were also clearly private warnings that now the U.S. National Security Council is talking about, in which the U.S. shared some intelligence about the prospect or likelihood of an attack."
"And Putin, at a meeting with high-ranking FSB officials, an address he gave to an FSB colloquium, in three days before the attack, dismissed those warnings, as you said, as blackmail, as a provocation, as a kind of ruse by the West. So, all of this is now, again, to put it mildly, and very tragically, quite awkward for Putin, given the scale of destruction in the terror attack last week.
"Putin’s first instinctual reaction, I think, both based on political calculation but also, I think, kind of genuine — his genuine paranoid read of how things work, was to try and cast a shadow on Ukraine, suggesting that somehow these ISIS-K terrorists had links to Ukraine, that Ukraine and perhaps the West were behind this attack."
While the U.S. is trying to spin its abstention, rather than veto, of the UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as not representing a shift in policy, it most certainly is.
Of course, this is not the result of some change of heart by the U.S. regime, but rather due to the relentless efforts of innumerable folks around the country to lift up the Palestinian cause, to demand an immediate ceasefire, and to demonstrate the political cost to those in charge of continuing with the status quo.
It is disheartening beyond belief that the notion of opposing genocide should require such mobilization, but such are the fascistic times we live in. And while a victory, it is not time to let up the pressure. Nonetheless, much love to those organizing and mobilizing and acting for Palestinian liberation in whatever ways you are able.
"[The Moscow terrorist attack] exposes how far adrift and overstretched Putin now is. The safety of his muted, urban electorate in the capital has been entirely sacrificed to his war of choice in Ukraine. Special forces did not race in; they are dead, or busy elsewhere. Even some police have been deployed to the frontlines."
TV editor Simonyan published a video showing a suspect, a young bearded man, being interrogated aggressively by a roadside, replying in heavily accented Russian to a series of barked questions. He said he’d flown from Turkey Mar4 & received instructions from unknown people via Telegram to carry out the attack in exchange for money.
The man was trembling throughout the questioning. He was initially shown lying on his stomach w/his hands bound behind his back, his chin resting on the boot of a figure in camouflage uniform. Later he was hauled up onto his knees.
Another man w/cuts & bruises to his face was shown being questioned via an interpreter while sitting on a bench w/bound hands & feet.
At the peak of its #power, the group controlled an area the size of Britain, & systematically killed or enslaved members of the Yazidi religious minority, carried out torture & mass killings, & filmed gruesome videos of the executions of its captives, including Westerners. Militants in other regions also pledged allegiance to the group & formed local offshoots.
An #explosion rocked a concert hall in the Moscow region & several #gunmen opened fire on theatergoers Fri evening, acc/to Russian authorities & videos from the scene, a deadly attack >1 week after #Putin was re-elected.
#ISIS has claimed responsibility for an attack at a popular concert venue complex near #Moscow Friday that left at least 40 dead & >100 wounded after assailants stormed the venue w/guns & incendiary devices.
The #terror group took responsibility for the attack in a short statement published by ISIS-affiliated news agency #Amaq on Telegram on Fri. The group did not provide evidence to support the claim.
The #US collected #intelligence in March that Islamic State-#Khorasan, known as #ISISK, the branch of the group based in #Afghanistan, had been planning an attack on #Moscow, acc/to ofcls. ISIS members have been active in #Russia, one US ofcl said.
Today in Labor History March 20, 2014: The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) and Free Syrian Army broke the Siege of Kobani. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had attacked the autonomous, libertarian-socialist enclave in September, 2014. The 6-month battle killed 560-740 YPG and YPJ combatants, up to 2,000 ISIL combatants, and hundreds of civilians. It also caused 400,000 civilians to flee to Turkey.
In the past decade, #Putin has taught the world a master class on using #homophobia as a political weapon. Now he is showing us what #homophobia looks like as a #WeaponOfWar.
Investigators have a chance to build a case in #Ukraine unlike anything ever seen under international law: that persecuting #LGBTQ+ people constitutes a #CrimeAgainstHumanity.
The targeting of #LGBTQ+ people in #conflict — such as #ISIS making a spectacle of executing men accused of homosexuality by throwing them off buildings — has received much attn in recent yrs, but no #international#tribunal has ever held that this kind of persecution violates #InternationalLaw.
Jurists have done painstaking work to make clear how existing international #law gives the #ICC the power to investigate persecution on the basis of #sexuality & #gender identity. #Russia#Putin#Ukraine
The top U.S. #intelligence ofcl on Mon warned that the #war in #Gaza could embolden #terrorist groups, which are aligned in their opposition to the #UnitedStates for its support of #Israel.
“The crisis has galvanized #violence by a range of actors around the world. And while it is too early to tell, it is likely that the Gaza conflict will have a generational impact on #terrorism,” #ODNI#AvrilHaines, told an annual hearing on #GlobalSecurity#threats.
The Oct 7 attack on #Israel by #Hamas has inspired fresh threats to the #UnitedStates by #alQaeda & #ISIS-affiliated groups, #AvrilHaines said, while #Iran-backed militant groups have used “the conflict as an opportunity to pursue their own agenda” against the United States. “And we have seen how it is inspiring individuals to conduct acts of #antisemitism & #Islamophobic#terror worldwide,” she added.