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Showing posts from August 24, 2014

Yemen clash kills four soldiers, 13 al-Qaeda militants

Military officials in Yemen say clashes between the army and al-Qaeda’s local branch there have killed at least 13 suspected militants and four troops. The officials said the fighting early Saturday started when a suicide car bomber attacked a military camp in the city of al-Qatn in the southern province of Hadramawt. They said militants then assaulted the camp, prompting a gun battle that lasted for more than an hour that killed 10 suspected militants and four troops. The officials said the army also fired artillery at a nearby home believed to hide al-Qaeda fighters, killing three suspected militants inside. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters. The U.S. considers Yemen’s al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula the most dangerous branch of the group. Source http://thehindu.com/news/international/yemen-clash-kills-four-soldiers-13-alqaeda-militants/article6365217.ece/?secid=2782

Seized laptop reveals ISIS’ devious plan to use bubonic plague as weapon

Damascus:   ISIS is planning to use biological weapons against 'non-muslim' population, including resurrection of the deadly bubonic plague, a seized laptop of an ISIS militant revealed. The laptop belongs to a Tunisian rebel and was seized during a raid on ISIS hideout in Syria's Idlib, earlier this year by moderate Syrian rebels. Upon investigation, the laptop was found to be brimming with sensitive information, including information on biological weapons, bomb-making and stealing cars. The commander of the moderate Syrian rebel group, Abu Ali, attacked the building in January this year and confiscated the laptop. The laptop landed with Foreign Policy magazine which revealed the contents of the machine.. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/28/found_the_islamic_state_terror_laptop_of_ doom_bubonic_plague_weapons_of_mass_destruction_exclusive The laptop consisted of 146 GB of data that included 35,347 files and 2,367 folders. Among its content were bundles of ISIS

Naxal arrested in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district

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Representational Image  RNA Research & Archives A Maoist was arrested on Saturday in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district. District superintendent of police Kamalochan Kashyap said that Kosa (30), an active member of Malangir area committee of the Maoists, was arrested by a team of CRPF and district police in Kirandul police station limits of the district. Kosa was involved in Naxal activities for the past ten years, Kashyap said. He was also a member of `Dandakaranya Adiwasi Kisan Mazdoor Sangh' of Maoists, and president of its Tikanpal unit. Kosa's responsibilities included recruitment, spreading the Naxal propaganda among locals and conducting reccee before attacks. He was involved, among other violent incidents, in the February 28, 2014 attack in Shyamgiri, in which five security personnel including police station in-charge Vivek Shukla were killed. Source  http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-naxal-arrested-in-chhattisgarh-s-dantewada-district-2014981

Two Bombings Targeting the Military Kill 13 in Iraq

30 August 2014 Two bombings targeting the Iraqi military killed 13 people, including six soldiers, south of Baghdad today, officials said. Police officials said a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into an army checkpoint in the town of Youssifiyah, killing 11 people, including four soldiers, and wounding at least 24 people. Several cars were burnt in the attack. Youssifiyah is 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Baghdad. Hours later, a roadside bomb targeting an army patrol killed two soldiers and wounded five others in Latifiyah, a town 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad. Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media. Iraq has faced an onslaught by Sunni insurgents since early this year, as the extremist Islamic State group and allied militants have taken over large areas in the country's west and north. Source  http://outlookindia.com/news/article/Two-Bombings-Targ

Taliban suicide bombers hit Afghan intelligence agency

Sat Aug 30, 2014 By Rafiq Shirzad JALALABAD Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban suicide bombs hit an office of the Afghan intelligence agency in an eastern city on Saturday, killing six people, and insurgents shot dead another 11 in the west, in an upsurge of violence as foreign combat troops prepare to withdraw from the country. Seven militants were also killed during several hours of heavy fighting with Afghan security forces at the Jalalabad headquarters of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said Ahmad Zeya Abdulzai, a spokesman for the governor of eastern Nangarhar province near the border with Pakistan. Abdulzai said four NDS agents and two civilians were killed when a truck and a smaller car, both loaded with explosives, were driven into the compound and a gunfight broke out between Afghan forces and the insurgents. Reuters was not able to reach the NDS immediately for comment. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, in which dozens were wounded. A pattern of bold

Angelina Jolie condemns civil war in Syria

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getty  Actress Angelina Jolie, who is special envoy for United Nations High Commission for Refugees, said the reputation and credibility of the international system is at stake because of the ongoing civil war in Syria. Three million people have fled Syria because of the conflict, which began in 2011, according to United Nations, reported US magazine. Jolie, 39, making her first public statement post her weddin g to actor fiance Brad Pitt, 50, said, "Three million refugees is not just another statistic. It is a searing indictment of our collective failure to end the war in Syria," she said. Jolie, who visited Syrian refugees in a Lebanese camp in February this year, said efforts needed to be made to improve the situation in the country. "International stability is steadily bleeding away in Syria. UN Security Council Resolutions are being ignored, war crimes are being committed on a daily basis, regional countries are staggering under the human burden, and Syrian refugees

Iraqi Kurds Expand Autonomy as ISIS Reorders the Landscape

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WASHINGTON — The  Islamic State in Iraq and Syria  has thrown  Iraq  into crisis, precipitated the ouster of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki as prime minister and brought the American military back to the country it left more than two years ago. But now Obama administration officials are quietly acknowledging another important consequence: a far more autonomous Kurdistan. The United States still officially opposes Kurdish independence, a decades-old policy that seeks to avoid further inflaming the region and provoking Turkey, Iraq and Iran, three countries with large and restive Kurdish minorities. But the ISIS invasion has fundamentally changed the political geography of Iraq, senior American and Kurdish officials said, physically cutting off most of Iraqi Kurdistan from the rest of Shiite-dominated Iraq and encouraging the Iraqi Kurds in their drive for expanded autonomy. Source  http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/30/world/middleeast/iraqi-kurds-expand-autonomy-as-isis-reorders-the-landscape.htm

Gulf rivals struggle to build anti-jihadist front

Gulf countries, while siding with Washington against Islamic State jihadists, are struggling to build a common front because of differences within their own ranks and with non-Arab Iran. US President Barack Obama is sending his Secretary of State John Kerry to the Middle East to try to build strong regional support against IS, which is rampaging through Iraq and Syria. But "we don't have a strategy yet" to defeat the jihadists, he acknowledged on Thursday. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has over the past week been at the centre of diplomatic efforts to stand up to the challenge posed by IS to the status quo. He and his counterparts from Egypt, Qatar and the Emirates held talks on Syria and "the rise of terrorist extremist ideology", according to an official statement. They agreed on "the need to seriously work to deal with these crises and challenges to preserve security and stability in Arab countries", it said. The Saudi minister also h

War forces half of all Syrians to flee homes

By Stephanie Bebehav  – 30 August 2014 02:30 PM Three million Syrian refugees have fled for their lives to neighbouring countries but many remain trapped by the advance of Islamist militants or are having difficulty in reaching open border crossings, the United Nations says. Syrians desperate to leave their war-engulfed homeland are forced to pay hefty bribes at armed checkpoints proliferating along Syria's borders, or to smugglers, the UN refugee agency said. The record figure is one million refugees more than a year ago, while a further 6.5 million are displaced within Syria, meaning that "almost half of all Syrians have now been forced to abandon their homes and flee for their lives," it said. Emergency "The Syrian crisis has become the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era, yet the world is failing to meet the needs of refugees and the countries hosting them," Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement. Hollywood actress Ang

Noted Muslim cleric in Kerala issues fatwa against Islamic State

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A noted Muslim cleric in Kerala on Saturday issued a fatwa asking his community members to boycott the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other terrorist organisations. In his religious decree, General Secretary of All India Sunni Jam-e-yyathul Ulema, Shaikh Abu Bakr Ahmad said favouring the extremist organisations is antithetical to the Islamic Shariah. "The Muslim world is in dire need to take cognisance of the threats posed by the anti-Islamic outfits. The militant groups among Muslims are causing harm to Islam in the false garb of Islamists. Any support or endorsement to the extremist and terrorist organisations goes completely against the Islamic Shariah," the Sunni-Sufi Islamic scholar said. Stating that the ISIS or their self proclaimed Khalifates does not represent Islam by any means, the fatwa said, "They are not just anti-Islamic but are enemies of the humanity." "Their ruthless activities against people in Iraq and Syria are not meant for hel

Lesotho Prime Minister Confirms Coup, Flees to South Africa

Johannesburg:  Lesotho Prime Minister Tom Thabane confirmed on Saturday that the military had seized power in a coup in the tiny kingdom and that he had fled to neighbouring South Africa in fear of his life. "I have been removed from control not by the people but by the armed forces, and that is illegal," Thabane told the BBC. "I came into South Africa this morning and I will return as soon as my life is not in danger," he said. "I will not go back to Lesotho to get killed." Lesotho's military seized control of police headquarters and the premier's residence in the capital Maseru in the early hours of Saturday, but later withdrew, a government minister told AFP. "The armed forces, the special forces of Lesotho, have taken the headquarters of the police," said sports minister and leader of the Basotho National Party, Thesele Maseribane. "The (military) commander said he was looking for me, the prime minister and the deputy prime minis

The Cyber-Terror Bank Bailout: They're Already Talking About It, and You May Be on the Hook

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Bankers and U.S. officials have warned that cyber-terrorists will try to wreck the financial system’s computer networks. What they aren’t saying publicly is that taxpayers will probably have to cover much of the damage. Facebook   Twitter   LinkedIn   Save Even if customers don’t lose money from a hacking assault on  JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) , the episode is a reminder that banks with the most sophisticated defenses are vulnerable. Treasury Department officials have quietly told bank insurers that in the event of a cataclysmic attack, they would activate a government backstop that doesn’t explicitly cover electronic intrusions, two people briefed on the talks said. “I can’t foresee a situation where the president wouldn’t do something via executive order,” said Edward DeMarco, general counsel of the Risk Management Association, a professional group of the banking industry. “All we’re talking about is the difference between the destruction of tangible property and intangible prope

Jihadists Buy 'Islam for Dummies' on Amazon

C an you guess which books the wannabe jihadists Yusuf Sarwar and Mohammed Ahmed ordered online from Amazon before they set out from Birmingham to fight in Syria last May? A copy of  Milestones  by the Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb? No. How about  Messages to the World: the Statements of Osama Bin Laden ? Guess again. Wait,  The Anarchist Cookbook , right? Wrong. Sarwar and Ahmed, both of whom pleaded guilty to terrorism offences last month, purchased  Islam for Dummies  and  The Koran for Dummies . You could not ask for better evidence to bolster the argument that the 1,400-year-old Islamic faith has little to do with the modern jihadist movement. The swivel-eyed young men who take sadistic pleasure in bombings and beheadings may try to justify their violence with recourse to religious rhetoric —  think the killers of Lee Rigby screaming “Allahu Akbar” at their trial; think of Islamic State beheading the photojournalist James Foley as part of its “holy war” — but religious fervour isn

Salman Rushdie says fatwa novel The Satanic Verses ‘was worth dying for’

THE controversial novel The Satanic Verses would have been worth dying for, its author Salman Rushdie said yesterday. Rushdie, who was sentenced to death over the 1988 novel under a fatwa issued by Iran’s then supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini, dismissed suggestions he might have disowned the book. “That would have been cowardly, craven, disgusting and shameful,” he said during an appearance at the Melbourne Writers Festival. Source  http://theaustralian.com.au/arts/books/salman-rushdie-says-fatwa-novel-the-satanic-verses-was-worth-dying-for/story-e6frg8nf-1227041848776#

US voices surprise as UAE hits militia in Libya

TRIPOLI — United Arab Emirates (UAE) warplanes secretly bombed Islamist militia targets in Libya, apparently catching Washington off guard, as turmoil in the North African country deepened with the Islamists naming a rival premier. American officials said on Monday that the UAE’s aircraft launched two attacks in seven days on the Islamists in Tripoli, using bases in Egypt. The strikes signalled a step towards direct action by regional Arab states that previously have fought proxy wars in Libya, Syria and Iraq in a struggle for power and influence. The bombing raids were first reported by The New York Times, and Islamist forces in Libya had also alleged the strikes had taken place. "The UAE carried out those strikes," one US official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Asked about the account, a senior US official said "the report is accurate". The US did not take part or provide any assistance in the bombing raids, said the two officials, who could not confirm that

Here's What Radical Islam Looks Like In The UK

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Reuters / David Bebber A British police officer watches British Muslims undertaking Friday prayers outside the Finsbury Park Mosque, London, May 28, 2004. The United Kingdom raised its terror threat level to  "severe"  on Friday in response to the rise militant Islamists in Iraq and Syria, some of whom came from Britain. Around 500 British Muslims are estimated to have  joined groups like ISIS , along with more than a thousand volunteers from other Western countries. Notably, the murderer of American James Foley in video released by ISIS appeared to have a British accent. Twitter This popular meme on twitter appears to show British Police overseeing a pro-ISIS rally in London. In a statement delivered from Downing Street in London Friday afternoon, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain was facing a "greater and deeper threat to our security than we have known before." He said confronting ISIS was part of a generational struggle that he thought could last de

Saudi king warns of terrorism threat to U.S., Europe

DOHA (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah said terrorism would soon spread to Europe and the United States unless it is quickly dealt with in the Middle East, the Saudi state news agency reported late on Friday. The king made the statement during a reception for foreign ambassadors held in Jeddah. "I ask you to convey this message to your leaders... Terrorism at this time is an evil force that must be fought with wisdom and speed," said King Abdullah. "And if neglected I'm sure after a month it will arrive in Europe and a month after that in America." The world's top oil exporter shares an 800-km (500-mile) border with Iraq, where Islamic State militants and other Sunni Islamist groups have seized towns and cities. Riyadh has long expressed fears of being targeted by jihadists, including some of its own citizens, who have taken part in conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Earlier this year, it decreed long jail terms for those who travel abroad to fight. Bri

Putin likens Ukraine's forces to Nazis and threatens standoff in the Arctic

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The Russian president,  Vladimir Putin , has hit back at accusations that he has effectively invaded Ukraine, accusing Kiev's forces of behaving like Nazis in the conflict in the east and ominously threatening to take his standoff with the west into the disputed Arctic. Hours after  Barack Obama accused Russia of sending troops into Ukraine and fuelling an escalation in the battle , and as the government in Kiev indicated that it wanted to join Nato, Putin retorted that the Ukrainian army was the real villain, targeting residential areas of towns and cities as German troops had done in the former Soviet Union. He added that Russians and Ukrainians "are practically one people", reprising a theme of an earlier statement in which he referred to the disputed areas of south-eastern  Ukraine  as Novorossiya, harking back to tsarist times, when the area was ruled from Moscow. Russian soldiers near the border with Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters He answered ques