Islamic State Claims Responsibility for Murders in France

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack by an armed man that killed two people last night in Magnanville, France, northwest of Paris. The attacker has been identified as Larossi Abballa, a 25-year-old who had previously served time in prison for facilitating travel to Pakistan for Muslim extremist militants looking to join jihadist groups. Abballa stabbed the first victim, an off-duty police officer, to death before barricading himself in the officer’s home and murdering his partner, who worked at the French Ministry of the Interior. Police responding to the attack shot and killed Abballa at the scene and have rescued the the victims’ 3-year-old son.

Abballa posted a video to Facebook in which he pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State and recorded part of the attack. In the video, Abballa states that the attack is a response to the Islamic State’s open call for terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe during Ramadan. Al-Amaq, the Islamic State’s media group, claimed Abballa was a “fighter” for the terrorist group, though it is unclear as of yet whether he had any direct ties to the organization. At least two people associated with Abballa have been arrested by French authorities. “It’s unquestionably a terrorist act,” French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday.

Islamic State Leader Baghdadi Believed Alive Despite Reports

Experts on the Islamic State say reports that the terrorist group claimed yesterday that the organization’s self-appointed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in an airstrike in Raqqa are false and that rumors of Baghdadi’s death did not come from official Islamic State channels. A separate report by Iraqi media suggested that he was wounded on Sunday in a strike west of Mosul. U.S. officials said recently that they do not know Baghdadi’s whereabouts and that he is believed to be moving constantly to avoid being targeted and exercising “extraordinary operational security.”

Correction: The Mideast Brief inaccurately stated yesterday that a woman was prosecuted for reporting being raped in the United Arab Emirates. The incident took place in Qatar. We regret the error.

Headlines

• The Bahraini government announced today that it has suspended activities by al-Wefaq, the largest political opposition organization in the country, and frozen its assets as part of a growing crackdown on dissent.
• Assad regime forces have effectively closed the Castello Road, the last point of access to rebel-held districts of Aleppo, with increased air and artillery strikes, placing an estimated 350,000 people under siege.
• Libya’s national investment fund, established by Muammar Gaddafi in 2006, began a court case in London this week seeking to recover $1.2 billion in losses from deals in 2008 which it says are attributable to “undue influence” and knowingly bad advice from Goldman Sachs.
• A second Emirati helicopter crashed yesterday in Aden while participating in operations as part of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen; another helicopter also crashed at sea on Sunday.
• Palestinians have begun moving into the new city of Rawabi, the first Palestinian town in the West Bank to be centrally planned according to principles of modern urban design.

Arguments and Analysis

“Saudi Pressure on Child Rights Report Undermines UN’s Credibility” (Peter Salisbury, Chatham House)

“If Saudi Arabia can undermine the credibility of the UN reporting on such a crucial issue, then why should other countries pay attention to the norms they are meant to uphold? By caving in to Saudi pressure, Ban has hurt the UN’s ability to speak definitively on the protection of children in conflict, and undermined his own efforts to bring human rights into the mainstream — a core tenet of his early platform as secretary general. That a UN member state has been able to so nakedly use its influence and financial firepower to influence reporting on such an important issue signals that, for the UN and the international community, humanitarian law and the rights of children come second to political and financial expediency. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has done little to improve its international standing. Most human rights groups are incandescent with rage over the move, and are likely to redouble already fierce criticism of the Saudis’ conduct in Yemen — and of Western indifference to the actions of a major oil producer and weapons market. The suspension of the designation is hardly likely to convince anyone that the contents of the report are wrong; if anything, the opposite is true.”

“American attitudes on refugees from the Middle East” (Shibley Telhami, Brookings Institution)

“With conflicts in the Middle East continuing unabated, refugees continue to flow out of several war-torn countries in massive numbers. The question of whether to admit more refugees into the United States has not only been a source of debate among Washington policymakers, it has also become a central question within the U.S. presidential race. Nonresident Senior Fellow Shibley Telhami conducted a survey on American public attitudes toward refugees from the Middle East, in particular from Syria, Iraq, and Libya. Below are several key findings from the poll and a download link to the survey’s full results.

In general, do you support or oppose the United States taking in refugees from the conflicts in Syria and other Middle Eastern countries after screening them for security risks?

Support: 59%   Oppose: 41%”

-J. Dana Stuster

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