SITREP – Week Ending 3-12-2017

     

 

 

 

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Imphal Update

As elections in the beleaguered state of Manipur concluded on the 11th, it has emerged that the Indian National Congress has only won 28 seats in the state Congress, falling short of the 31 needed to ensure a continuing lock on the state government. The up and coming BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) - whose leader, Narendra Modi, is the Prime Minister of India - won 21 seats, forcing the creation of the first coalition government in the state decades.

However, the underlying tensions of the ongoing economic blockade - which MilitaryGazette has been following closely since January, due to the threat of sectarian and ethnic cleansing - have not disappeared, as a series of IED attacks occurred this week throughout the state capital of Imphal, as nine people were injured in a bomb blast in the Thangal Bazar, near the Kasturi bridge, on the the 8th. On the 9th, an apparent attempt was made to detonate an IED planted in a road median in southern Imphal, targeting a military vehicle, outside the Singjamei Super Market. Later the same day, an IED weighing 5kg (11lbs) was thrown at police in the Wangoi  District.

Given the tensions in the area, MilitaryGazette will maintain a close eye on the region.

[Source 1] [Source 2]

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Elsewhere in India...

The rest of India was busy, as fierce firefights occurred in the states of Chattisgarh and Bihar this week.

In Chattisgarh, eleven officers of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)  were killed in an ambush by Naxalite rebels, in the Sukma District; three other officers were injured in the attack. The security force personnel were apparently on foot, sweeping a road in the district, when the Maoist guerrillas opened fire. A massive manhunt is underway, in an attempt to run the Naxalites to ground.

In Bihar, meanwhile, four Naxalites were killed in a ferocious firefight with commandos of the CRPF's elite counter-insurgency CoBRA 205 Battalion near the village of Thamkola, in the Nawada District.

Near India's capital of New Delhi, security units are on high alert, claiming that they have firm intelligence of the presence of a Khorasan unit of ISIL in the city. Meanwhile, in nearby Lucknow, an IED attack on a train far to the south - near Ujjain, in Madhya Pradesh state - led to an 11-hour standoff with police in Lucknow, that resulted in the suspected terrorist being killed by police. Three other members of what police are describing as a "self-radicalized cell" were arrested.

 

 

 

[Source 1] [Source 2] [Source 3] [Source 4] [Source 5]

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Pakistan

 
Security personnel killed at least fifteen suspected Islamic militants in two separate firefights near Peshawar - the capital of the country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)  region, long plagued by terrorist groups - on Wednesday. Two security personnel were killed in one of the shootouts.

[Source]

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Arc of Fire - Syria and Iraq

The seesaw grind that is the War on Terror in the Middle East continued this week, with the Forces of Civilization continually trying to grind down the barbarians of the so-called "Islamic State".

On the plus side, no cultural heritage sites were reported destroyed this week -- that's a win, at least.

 

 

 

 

 
[Source 1] [Source 2] [Source 3] [Source 4]
[Source 5] [Source 6] [Source 7]

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Africa

Morocco

 

Police arrested two men in the storied city of Casablanca on Thursday, alleging links to ISIL. Police have also claimed to have dismantled a bomb-making lab.

[Source]

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Algeria

In neighboring Algeria, police and Army units destroyed at least seven rural hideouts reportedly used by ISIL-linked terrorists, and recovered significant bomb-making materials, including 150 liters (about 39 gallons) of nitric acid, one of the key components in explosive manufacture.

 

 

 

 

 

 
[Source 1] [Source 2]

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Nigeria

Nigerian troops, in the continuing fight against the ISIL-linked Boko Haram terrorists, have rescued upwards of seven hundred people - mostly young girls - while killing or capturing roughly a dozen terrorists. The terror campaign has continued since 2009, but Nigerian forces are finally making solid headway against the terror group.

[Source 1] [Source 2]

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Europe and North America

United Kingdom and United States

In what appears to be a now-predictable migration, thousands of British schoolchildren were evacuated from classes throughout the south of the country this week, as the robo-call/email bomb hoax begins migrating from the United States to England, again, although numerous threats against schools and Jewish centers throughout the United States continue.

 

 
[Source 1] [Source 2] [Source 3] [Source 4]
[Source 5] [Source 6] [Source 7] [Source 8]

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