US adds Islamic State leader, external operations planners to global terrorist list

[Valin]

Long War Journal:

Bill Roggio

November 22, 2016

 

The US State Department added a senior Islamic State leader and two external operations planners to its list of specially designated global terrorists today. The US government has identified the Islamic State’s external operations network, which is assigned to conduct attacks against the West and its interests abroad, as a significant threat and has targeted its leadership in Iraq and Syria.

 

The US government identified the three Islamic State commanders as Abdullah Ahmed al Meshedani, Abdelilah Himich, and Basil Hassan.

 

Meshedani, who is also known as Abu Qassim, is a “leader who manages arriving foreign terrorist fighters, handles guesthouses for them, and transports suicide bombers on behalf of ISIL,” or the Islamic State, according to the designation. State also noted that Meshedani is an “an advisor who reports to” Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the emir of the Islamic State.

 

Himich, who is also known as Abu Sulayman al Faransi, is a “senior foreign terrorist fighter and external operations figure” who is thought to have planned both the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, France in November 2015 and Brussels, Belgium in March 2016. One hundred and thirty people were killed and more than 360 were wounded in the Paris attacks, which included suicide bombers and a suicide assault team. Thirty two civilians were killed and more than 300 were wounded in bombings at the airport and train station in Brussels.

 

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Hassan is described as “an external operations plotter” who “was accused of shooting Lars Hedegaard, a 70-year old Danish author and journalist” in 2013. Hedegaard, a vocal critic of Islam, was shot at his home in Copenhagen, Denmark, but survived. Hassan presumably fled Denmark undetected and wound up in Turkey, where he was arrested by Turkish police in 2014. According to State, he was freed as part of a prisoner exchange with the Islamic State and went to Syria.

 

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