Terrorism Watch

Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Director General Ronald Dela Rosa and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Isidro Lapena (Right), display to the members of the media plastic bags full of methamphetamine hydrochloride, locally known as Shabu, during the destruction of confiscated illegal drugs at a waste management facility in Trece Martires town, Cavite, south of Manila on July 14, 2016. (REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco) 2 / 25 Philippines’ deadly drug war Protesters stage a “die-in” to dramatize the rising number of extra judicial killings related to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “War on Drugs” Friday, Aug. 26, 2016 outside the Philippine National Police headquarters in suburban Quezon city northeast of Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) 3 / 25 Philippines’ deadly drug war Relatives of slain people take the oath at a Senate hearing investigating drug-related killings at the Senate headquarters in Pasay city, metro Manila

With a string of terrorist attacks in France over the past months, Paris has expelled two Moroccans after evidence was found that they could pose serious security threats by “their continuous stay on French soil.” “Given the serious threat posed by their continuous stay on French soil, the interior ministry has decided to expel them immediately,” a statement by the French Interior Ministry said without giving any further details about the individuals. Officials would not elaborate on the evidence which they said could prove radical inclinations in the two Moroccan nationals. France has been in a state of emergency since January last year after a series of high-profile terror attacks began to rattle the country. Officials say over 235 people have been killed with the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group claiming responsibility for the bulk of them. Officials say most of those involved in suspected terror activities in France are from countries such as Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.   A timeline

Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement has rejected an initiative put forth by US Secretary of State John Kerry to resolve the crisis in the war-torn country. Mohammed Abdulsalam, the Ansarullah spokesman, said Saturday that the offer aims at depriving the Houthis of their arms in their fight of resistance against the Saudi invasion. “Whoever has a greedy eye on our weapons, we will have a greedy eye on his life,” Abdulsalam wrote in a message posted on Facebook. Kerry earlier called on Houthis to hand over their weapons including ballistic missiles and to pull back from the capital Sana’a. In return, the US secretary of state said Houthis and allies can have a share in Yemen’s future unity government. The proposal comes amid reports that Houthis have stepped up missile attacks on border regions in Saudi Arabia over the past weeks. The attacks are carried out in reaction to deadly Saudi airstrikes that the regime in Riyadh says are meant to undermine Houthis and allies and to restore power

BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest developments in the Syrian civil war (all times local): 5:15 p.m. Turkey's state news agency says the Turkish Military Joint Special Task Forces and coalition airplanes have targeted the bases of suspected "terror groups" south of the Syrian town of Jarablus. The Saturday statement, citing military sources, comes hours after Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria said Turkish airstrikes had hit their bases near Jarablus, a town seized by Turkey-backed rebels earlier this week. It said the target was an ammunition depot and a command center for "terror groups" but didn't name the area or the group. The Jarablus Military Council, supported by the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syria Democratic Forces, said the airstrikes on their bases in the village of Amarneh marked an "unprecedented and dangerous escalation." Turkey sent tanks across the border to help Syrian rebels capture Jarablus from the Islamic State group,

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Nearly half a million children in areas affected by Nigeria's Boko Haram insurgency could suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year, a figure that has more than doubled since the beginning of the year, the United Nations children's agency said Thursday. Years of conflict have aggravated malnutrition in a region that was already one of the poorest in the world. In Nigeria's northeastern Borno state, 49,000 children "will die if they do not receive treatment," the agency, known as UNICEF, said in a report. "The Lake Chad crisis is a children's crisis that should rank high on the global migration and displacement agenda," said Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa. "Humanitarian needs are outpacing the response, especially now that new areas previously unreachable in northeast Nigeria become accessible." Boko Haram's seven-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000 peo

BASHIR, Iraq —A group of Kurdish men arrive at sunrise, at an undisclosed location in Kirkuk Province, just steps behind the front lines of battle. They work quickly in the sweltering heat. Explosives are carefully piled in trenches and tied together so they will all blow up at once. Then, after a successful detonation, the men bow their heads for a moment of silence, to remember a colleague who died the day before, more than 180 miles away. But these men aren’t soldiers. They are a demining team made up mostly of Kurdish civilians. An Iraqi official checks in on progress made by the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action in its efforts to demolish explosives left by ISIS. He walks along the trenches and hills behind the frontline, and a hill fortified by Peshmerga forces to prevent ISIS from getting a view of the demining teams. (Photo: Ash Gallagher for Yahoo News) More The man they remembered was a British national who had been in Ramadi, a city west of Baghdad, who had been attempting to

Bangladeshis gather near the scene of the raid Saturday in Narayanganj, on the outskirts of Dhaka. AP Bangladeshi police say they have killed the suspected "mastermind" of an armed attack on a café in the capital last month that left at least 22 people dead. They say two other suspected militants were killed in the standoff. As top counterterrorism official Monirul Islam told The Associated Press, "police sharpshooters raided a two-story house in Narayanganj district near the capital, Dhaka, after receiving a tip that Tamim Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi-born Canadian, and others were hiding there." As we reported last month , gunmen stormed into the Holey Artisan Bakery café on a busy Friday night and took a group hostage, including foreigners. An hours-long standoff followed, ultimately resulting in the deaths of 2 police officers and 20 civilians. Six gunmen were also killed. Bangladesh has seen a recent wave of attacks targeting individuals, particularly secular write

Maiduguri (Nigeria) (AFP) - Starving and alone, five-year-old Umar was left for dead in a camp for internally displaced people in northeast Nigeria. The reason? He is the son of a Boko Haram fighter. It took a Boko Haram widow to rescue Umar. Fatima Salisu had been held captive by the insurgents for 16 months and was forced to marry an Islamist fighter before she escaped to the camp outside the northeastern city of Maiduguri. Like Umar, the 25-year-old native of Cameroon is an outcast. Salisu says the other women never share food or board with her and they refuse to call her anything but a "Boko Haram wife". "They don't allow us to come near them. Everyone treats us with contempt," Salisu told AFP, speaking outside the camp to avoid attracting attention. "We are not wanted." She can tolerate the jeers, but she worries about Umar and other children who are bullied. Salisu said one Nigerian soldier had told her to "let him die. He i

Turkey is conceding it has not sent any evidence to Washington linking Fethullah Gulen to the  failed  July 15 coup attempt, despite increasingly angry calls by Ankara for the United States to extradite the Pennsylvania-based cleric or suffer a severe downgrade in diplomatic relations.  In a statement to  Foreign Policy , Turkish Embassy spokesman Naci Aydan  Karamanoğlu said evidence linking Gulen to the coup “will be submitted in due time.”  He added that “it would be impossible to send so much evidence on the coup attempt just days after it happened.” But top Turkish officials have not been similarly patient when demanding the immediate deportation of Gulen, whom they call a “terrorist.” Ahead of Joe Biden’s visit to Turkey on Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to tell the vice president that the U.S. does not “have the right to hem and haw. You have to hand him over.” He previously warned the White House that it had to “choose between Turkey a