TheNewsGuru

Tag: Shiite

  • ‘I’m alive and well’ El-Zakzaky speaks to journalists

    ‘I’m alive and well’ El-Zakzaky speaks to journalists

    Leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, has made his first public appearance in over two years.

    El-Zakzaky who is in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS), told journalists on Saturday in Abuja that he is alive and well.

    He also thanked Nigerians for their prayers, as well as the DSS for allowing him access to his doctors.

    “It was severe on me on Monday but subsequently it started subsiding and for the first time at least the security allowed me to see my own Doctors.

    “So it was my own doctors who examined me. Before I used to be examined by security doctors, this time I did not agree, and my own doctors came to examine me.

    “I am getting better, thanks to all your prayers,” the IMN leader said.

    This comes after rumours of his death spread on the social media on Friday.

    Despite the ruling of a Federal High Court which ordered his unconditional release in 2016, Mr El-Zakzaky and his wife have remained in detention since December 2015.

    Their continued detention has sparked several reactions from his supporters, the government and even human rights lawyer, Femi Falana.

    Members of the IMN group also known as Shiites have staged series of processions across the northern states demanding the release of their leaders.

    Speaking on the issue, the Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr Lai Muhammad stated earlier that Mr El-Zakzaky was still being held on the grounds of national security.

    He also noted that contrary to reports, the Shiite leader was not in prison, the Department of State Services or police custody but was rather in protective custody with his family.

  • Terrorist leaders rank on Forbes world’s most powerful people list

    Self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of dreadful Al-Qaeda terrorist group have been ranked in the recently published Forbes world’s most powerful people list.

    ImageFile: World’s most powerful people: Terrorist leaders on Forbes’ list1
    Ayman al-Zawahiri
    Leader, Al-Qaeda.

    Among hundreds of candidates from various walks of life all around the globe measured along four dimensions: power over lots of people, financial resources controlled by each person, powerful in multiple spheres and active use of power, the two notorious terrorist leaders happened to fall into the selection criteria of Forbes.

    To calculate the final rankings, Forbes said “a panel of Forbes editors ranked all of our candidates in each of these four dimensions of power, and those individual rankings were averaged into a composite score”.

    Ayman al-Zawahiri, 65, emerging 71 on the list, is an Egyptian-born terrorist leader who succeeded Osama bin Laden as leader of al Qaeda.

    Al-Zawahiri has been indicted for his role in the August 1998 bombings of United States (US) embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and is believed to have participated in the planning of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York.

    According to Forbes, despite a contentious relationship between Al-Zawahiri and other terrorist leaders, the terrorist master still has significant symbolic power, and drives many of his followers to violence.

    In October, al-Zawahri called on Sunnis living in Iraq to wage a long guerrilla war against Shiite forces as they take back land from the Islamic State in Syria.

    ImageFile: World’s most powerful people: Terrorist leaders on Forbes’ list2
    Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Self-proclaimed caliph, Islamic State.

    45 years old Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on the other hand retained his position on the list, a position he occupied in the 2015 edition of the ranking by Forbes.

    The self-declared caliph of the Islamic State (IS), a global terrorist network seeking to establish a radical Islamic empire in Iraq and the Levant, has, in a remarkably short period of time, mobilized ISIS fighters to seize significant portions of eastern Syria and western Iraq.

    Al-Baghdadi has commandeered planet earth’s attention with a series of barbaric beheadings and earned non-negligible amounts of cash, largely through black-market oil sales said to total $1 million a day.

    Propaganda efforts have also helped ISIS mint new extremists capable of carrying out terror attacks throughout the Western world.

    While al-Zawahiri is making the Forbes list for the first time, al-Baghdadi has made the list in 2015 occupying 57th position.

    “This year’s list comes at a time of rapid and profound change, and represents our best guess about who will matter in the year to come,” Forbes said.