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Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, at the White House on Tuesday. Mr. Spicer denied reports that the purpose of the attack in Yemen was to capture or kill any specific Qaeda leader. WASHINGTON — Angry at the civilian casualties incurred last month in the  first commando raid authorized by President Trump ,  Yemen  has withdrawn permission for the United States to run Special Operations ground missions against suspected terrorist groups in the country, according to American officials. Grisly photographs of children apparently killed in the crossfire of a 50-minute firefight during the raid caused outrage in Yemen. A member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, Chief Petty Officer William Owens, was also killed in the operation. While the White House continues to insist that the attack was a “success” — a characterization it repeated on Tuesday — the suspension of commando operations is a setback for Mr. Trump, who has made it clear he plans to take a far more aggressive approach aga

The governor of Borno State, Mr. Kashim Shettima, has attributed the rise in the number of children used as suicide bombers in the Northeastern part of the country on  hard drugs given to them by the Boko Haram  sect. Mr. Shettima made this known at a press conference he addressed on Friday. The governor also warned that the celebrated capture of the infamous Sambisa Forest does not indicate an end to the insurgency that has troubled the zone since 2009. “In this criminal endeavor, they resort to the use of teenagers and children as young as seven years. “More recently, they even strap babies on the back of their recruits in order to slip through our security dragnets. “They also use hard drugs on these innocent children, who do not know what they are doing when they kill their own parents, relations, and fellow countrymen and women.  Many precious lives have been lost, hundreds of citizens, including school girls, were abducted. Many more people have suffered serious injuries as a res

An 18-year-old Boko Haram suicide bomber, Amina, who was intercepted by men of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, on Tuesday in Maiduguri, said she was given N200 for the mission. She told the News Agency of Nigeria in Maiduguri that she was abducted two years ago by the sect members in Madagali, Adamawa, and taken to Sambisa forest. “They gave us N200 each which they said we should use to buy food for ourselves. “It took us three days to come to Maiduguri on a motorcycle. We were directed by the sect members to detonate our explosives any where we saw any form of gathering. “They said if we press the button, the bomb would explode and we will automatically go to heaven. “I was scared, so, I told them that I could not detonate any explosive. So, they said if Zainab detonated her own, it would serve the purpose. “On our way to Maiduguri, we encountered the military and they were shooting. I was very scared and the people that brought us ran away. “I am from Imam Sh

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani says   the Syria conflict cannot be resolved through political approaches as long as terrorist groups, including Daesh and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, an affiliate of al-Qaeda formerly known as al-Nusra Front, are operating in the Arab state and supported by certain regional countries. He said some regional countries have expressed concern over the political initiatives of Iran, Russia and Turkey in Syria and do not have any sympathy for people in war-ravaged countries, but are worried that the terrorist groups they have been supporting are losing ground and on the decline. An author and journalist believes as long as the United States supports the terrorists groups in Syria, there is no possibility of a political solution to the conflict in the war-torn country. “I have said many times and I have wrote in many articles that as long as Obama remained in power, there was no possibility of a political solution to the