Terrorism Watch

raqi security forces sit in military vehicles in the Nuaimiya suburb of Fallujah. (Reuters Photo) Baghdad:    An Iraqi military official says government forces are clearing mines and explosives left behind by members of the ISIS group in areas recently retaken from the terrorists in the city of Fallujah. Brig. Haider al-Obeidi told The Associated Press today that operations are still ongoing in Fallujah, with the air force hitting targets in the city including ISIS snipers positioned near the main hospital. Al-Obedi's comments came a day after Iraqi special forces swept into Fallujah, recapturing most of the city as ISIS's two-year-old grip crumbled after weeks of fighting. He said troops are advancing toward the hospital cautiously, concerned that militants stationed there may use patients as human shields. The Fallujah offensive began in late May, and ISIS's defenses in much of the city collapsed abruptly.   Source http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/iraqi-troops-

After analyzing the political and social dynamics of American society, those forecasting the elections always emphasize the exceptional influence of a possible terrorist attack on election results. It is possible to see the radical impact of terrorist attacks on the politics of a particular country from innumerous examples, such as France's shift in foreign policy last year. After French President François Holland announced that Bashar Assad was oppressing the Syrian people and that the Syrian leader should be withdrawn from political power, DAESH carried out the horrifying Paris attacks. In the aftermath of those attacks, France joined the coalition forces to fight against DAESH, rendering the political deadlock posed by Assad a secondary issue. Such a fundamental change in the policies of the French state brings forth serious questions. Why did DAESH seem to act in an irrational way by becoming a target for France, which adopted a new attitude against the Assad regime? We al

Shots were fired late on Friday at the two dispatched officers and the shooter was later found dead. (Representational Image) Copenhagen, Denmark:   Authorities in Finland say a shooter has killed a police officer and seriously wounded another after they approached a remote countryside property where gunfire had been reported. Police in Vihti, northwest of Helsinki, say shots were fired late on Friday at the two dispatched officers and the shooter was later found dead. They didn't immediately provide any more details. President Sauli Niinisto said today the Nordic country was "upset" and Interior Minister Petteri Orpo wrote on Twitter that he was "shocked." Finnish broadcaster YLE said the last time a police officer in Finland was killed on duty was in 2007.   Source http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/shooter-kills-police-officer-wounds-another-in-finland-1420587

The attack was the latest in a wave of brutal assaults on secular activists, writers and religious minorities. (AFP Photo) Dhaka,Bangladesh:   A teenage suspected extremist being held in custody in Bangladesh was shot dead today in a gunfight, police said, days after he allegedly hacked and critically wounded a Hindu lecturer. Police said Golam Faizullah Fahim, 19, who was in custody for questioning, was killed when officers under attack in a farmland area after taking him to a river in search of his extremist associates. "Miscreants fired at the police van as we came near a jute farm. A gunfight ensued. After the gunfight we saw Fahim was shot and wounded. He died after we brought him to a hospital," Sarwar Hossain, police chief of Madaripur where the shooting took place, told AFP. Locals in Madaripur caught Fahim on Wednesday after he and two other suspected extremists attacked and wounded 50-year-old mathematics lecturer Ripon Chakrabarti, a Hindu, police said. Th

Belgian police arrested 12 people suspected of planning new attacks after about 40 houses were searched across the country overnight, the federal prosecutor's office said on Saturday, as the prime minister prepared to convene a security meeting. Europe is on high security alert, with the Euro 2016 soccer tournament underway in neighbouring France, after Islamist suicide bombers killed 32 people in Brussels in March following attacks in Paris last November in which 130 people died. "In connection with a criminal investigation concerning terrorism ... 40 persons were taken for questioning. Twelve among them were arrested," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. "The investigating judge will decide on their possible detention later today. The investigatory results necessitated an immediate intervention. The investigation continues." A spokesman for Prime Minister Charles Michel said the government's security council - which includes the ministers

Boko Haram militants kill 7 police in attack in Niger: Military Boko Haram militants killed seven soldiers and injured others in military barracks in southeastern Niger and stole weapons, the Nigeria-based radical group said in a statement on Friday, according to SITE Intelligence Group. Before the statement was issued, military sources had said that militants from Boko Haram attacked a town in Niger while a delegation of ministers were visiting, killing seven gendarmes and wounding 12 in a gun battle. They said none of the ministers had been hurt. The attack happened on Thursday in a region that hosts refugees and internally displaced people who have been forced from their homes by the Islamist insurgents, officials said. Boko Haram said in the statement that "a detachment from the soldiers of the Caliphate carried out an attack on military barracks of the Nigerien apostate army in the town of Ghafam in the area of Diffa ... A quantity of weapons and various ammun

Deputies found the boy with a gunshot wound to his head in Elgin after two 911 calls on Friday afternoon. (Representational Image) Elgin, Iowa:    A 4-year-old boy has died after being shot in the head in a small town in Iowa. The Fayette County Sheriff's Office says deputies found the boy with a gunshot wound to his head in Elgin after two 911 calls on Friday afternoon. The child was pronounced dead at a hospital in West Union. Two adults and two small children were also at the scene. Authorities haven't released any additional details about the shooting, including how it happened or the boy's name. The Sheriff's Office has asked the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation for assistance. Elgin is a town of about 680 people that's about 170 miles northeast of Des Moines. Source http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/4-year-old-iowa-boy-dies-after-being-shot-in-the-head-1420605

Jo Cox murder has left Britain in shock and campaigning for next week's referendum on European Union membership has been suspended as a mark of respect. (AFP Photo) Birstall, England:   British police said on Friday that right-wing extremism was an important line of inquiry in the murder of lawmaker Jo Cox, after a man with suspected neo-Nazi links and a history of mental illness was arrested over the killing. Cox, 41, a supporter of Britain staying in the EU, was shot and stabbed on Thursday by a man who witnesses said shouted "Britain first", in her own electoral district near Leeds in the county of West Yorkshire in northern England. Her murder has left Britain in shock and campaigning for next week's referendum on European Union membership has been suspended as a mark of respect. Officers arrested a 52-year-old man, named by British media as Thomas Mair, near the murder scene and he remains in custody where he is being questioned by detectives. He has not

A software tool unveiled Friday aims to help online firms quickly find and eliminate extremist content used to spread and incite violence and attacks. The Counter Extremism Project, a non-government group based in Washington, proposed its software be used in a system similar to one used to prevent the spread on online child pornography. The software was developed by Dartmouth University computer scientist Hany Farid, who also worked on the PhotoDNA system now widely used by Internet companies to stop the spread of content showing sexual exploitation or pornography involving children. But social media firms have yet to commit to using the tool for extremist content, and some are skeptical about it, according to an industry source. The announcement comes amid growing concerns about radical jihadists using social networks to diffuse violent and gruesome content and recruit people for attacks. "We think this is the technological solution to combat online extremism,"

Source http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-democrats-new-line-on-gun-control-do-it-for-national-security-1420611 The names of Pulse night club shooting victims are embroidered on a US flag at a makeshift memorial in Orlando, Florida, US, June 17, 2016. (Reuters Photo) Washington:   Democrats pushing for gun curbs after the latest mass shooting in the United States are co-opting a Republican mantra to build public support and defang opposition: it's time to get tough on national security. Shoring up national security has long been a pillar of Republican orthodoxy, as has staunch opposition to gun control. But the massacre of 49 people in Orlando, Florida, last Sunday, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, by a gunman who pledged loyalty to Islamist militants may be leaving Republicans on shakier ground.

Barack Obama's Syria policy has been predicated on the goal of avoiding deeper military entanglements in the chaotic Middle East. (File Photo) WASHINGTON:   The US administration sought on Friday to contain fallout from a leaked internal memo critical of its Syria policy, but showed no sign it was willing to consider military strikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces called for in the letter signed by dozens of US diplomats. Several US officials said that while the White House is prepared to hear the diplomats' dissenting viewpoint, it is not expected to spur any changes in President Barack Obama's approach to Syria in his final seven months in office. One senior official said that the test for whether these proposals for more aggressive action are given high-level consideration will be whether they "fall in line with our contention that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria." The document -- sent through the State Department&#

The Pentagon in a blunt message to Pakistan said the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region remained a sanctuary for various groups. (Reuters) The continued existence of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan and its inability to take action against them affect the US-Pakistan bilateral ties, including security assistance, the Pentagon has said. “The US continues to be clear with Pakistan about steps it should take to improve the security environment and deny safe haven to terrorist and extremist groups,” the Pentagon said in its six-monthly report on Afghanistan sent to the  Congress  yesterday. “These conversations continue to affect not only US dialogue with Pakistan on security and stability in Afghanistan but also during discussion of other issues in the US-Pakistan bilateral relationship such as security assistance,” the Pentagon said in its reports to the Congress. Also Read:  Relations with Pakistan are important, says US US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has not given certification th

Joby Warrick ’s Pulitzer prize-winning study of the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, better known as Isis, has the narrative drive of a thriller. He begins with the emergence of the ruthless Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who pioneered the use of filmed beheadings after the 2003 Iraq invasion: “His brand of jihadism was utterly, brutally original.” In contrast to the leader of al-Qaida, Osama Bin Laden, who regarded himself “as a unifier of Muslims”, Zarqawi also targeted Iraq’s Shias. Such “calculated barbarism” was aimed at provoking civil war, but it was the bitter internal strife of another country – Syria – that provided the ideal environment for Isis to emerge under Zarqawi’s successor, the scholarly son of an Iraqi imam: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In war-torn Syria, Baghdadi was able to go further than even al-Qaida, by founding a caliphate, a 7th-century theocracy, in the heart of the Middle East. From the mistakes made before and after the invasion o

Anonymous has launched another wave of hacking attacks against  Islamic State  (Isis), taking over social media accounts associated with the group and giving them an LGBT-flavoured makeover. The loose hacking collective, which grew out of the infamous 4Chan forum in the late 2000s, announced its war on Isis in 2015,  taking control of almost 100 twitter accounts following the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris that year . Now, after the murder of 49 people in a gay club in Orlando, Florida, a hacker who goes by the name WauchulaGhost says he has taken control of more than 200 accounts belonging to Isis supporters. This time, rather than simply lock the users out of the accounts or report them to Twitter, the cybervigilante has given the accounts a gay-friendly makeover. — WauchulaGhost (@WauchulaGhost)   June 16, 2016 #Daesh  in  #Irag   @dygft9uy4 Still remembering those we lost.  #Orlando   #OpDaesh #Anonymous #GhostOfNoNation pic.twitter.com/ZdxXL4y6Y6 While some of th

President Barack Obama on Thursday met survivors of a  massacre at an Orlando gay nightclub   and relatives of the 49 people killed and said the United States (US) must act to control gun violence and fight what he called homegrown terrorism. "I held and hugged grieving family members and parents, and they asked, 'Why does this keep happening?'," Obama told reporters, before urging Congress to pass measures to make it harder to legally acquire high-powered weapons like the semi-automatic rifle used in the attack on Sunday. "I'm pleased to hear that the Senate will hold votes on preventing individuals with possible terrorist ties from buying guns," he said. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Orlando, Florida, four days after a US-born gunman claiming allegiance to various Islamist militant groups carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. During the shooting rampage the gunman,  Omar Mateen , exchanged text message

(CNN) More than 200 Muslims, including dozens of American imams and scholars, have issued  a joint statement  condemning the attacks on a gay night club in Orlando on Sunday that killed 49 people.  The motives of  Omar Mateen , a 29-year-old security guard accused of the massacre, are unclear. But authorities say he was  radicalized online  and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before he was killed by police early Sunday morning.  The attack again put American Muslims on the defensive, just days after they had mourned the passing and celebrated the life of  Muhammad Ali , the charismatic boxer who, many hoped, had definitively answered the question of whether Muslim-Americans can successfully embrace multiple identities. In their statement, the Muslim scholars, imams and community leaders, most from the United States, said Ali, not ISIS, embodies the values of their faith. They also decry the concept of "collective guilt" that holds all Muslims responsibl

It’s been just a year since the mass shooting of churchgoers in Charleston sparked national soul-searching and, in Georgia, a burst of noise from Confederate sympathizers and white supremacists. But here’s the good news: The fire lit with that bloodshed is out, and people who keep an eye on hate groups say these groups appear to be no larger or better organized than they were a year ago. “The whole entire white supremacist movement is struggling. The Klan movement is struggling and the whole neo-Nazi movement almost died,” said Carla Hill, an investigative researcher for the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. White extremists rally at Stone Mountain as heritage gives way to hate Not much ‘white power,’ but Stone Mountain protest turns violent That’s a big change from when extremist groups pounced on the backlash against the Confederate flag last year and tried to recruit new members at a series of public rallies, beginning with  one in August at Stone