Posts

Showing posts from May 5, 2019

US has 'missile' with six BLADES that kill terrorists not civilians

A secret 'Ninja' missile that shreds targets with six swords has been secretly developed by the CIA. The weapon called the R9X is designed to smash through buildings and cars with the help of large blades that deploy seconds before impact. The devastating so called 'flying Ginsu', named after a knife brand, does not have an explosive warhead to minimize civilian casualties. Abu Khayr al-Masri, the deputy leader of Al-Qaeda was reportedly killed by one of these missiles in February 2017. His car was shredded by the 'Ninja missile' as he drove through Idlib in northern Syria. According to the  Wall Street Journal , the goal of the weapon is to reduce unintended casualties caused by other more conventional missiles that detonate and engulf both targets and their surroundings.    The CIA developed the 'Ninja' missile that instead of exploding, deploys six blades to rip through vehicles and kill its target  Abu

When terrorist groups add cyber-capabilities to their bombs and bullets - AIJAC

In the midst of the most recent hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist organisations running Gaza, Israel claimed that the IDF had collaborated with Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, to thwart a Hamas cyber-attack. Israeli forces then subsequently bombed the the headquarters of Hamas’ cyber unit. Israel hasn’t revealed the nature or target of the attack, claiming that Hamas might be able to gather information on Israel’s cyber capabilities if the information were released, although the chief of the IDF’s Cyber Division noted the attack would have harmed “the quality of life of Israeli citizens,” suggesting the target may have been infrastructure. According to IDF spokesperson Ronen Monelis, “ Hamas no longer has cyber capabilities after our strike.” Excitement in some circles over the potential precedent of military force being used to counter cyber attackers is unwarranted , because the Israeli strike took place in the midst of actual

Five suspected militants killed in US drone attack near Pak-Afghan border

PESHAWAR:   At least five people were killed in a drone strike on the Afghanistan side of the Pak-Afghan border. According to sources, the drone fired two missiles at a house in the Laman area of Afghanistan. Those killed in the drone strike were affiliated with the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group including a commander Asadullah alias Shingri. Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump revoked a policy that required the Central Intelligence Agency to account for civilian deaths from drone strikes. The move reversed a two-year-old order by his predecessor Barack Obama, who came under pressure for greater transparency after sharply increasing the use of drones for targeted attacks in military and counterterrorism operations. It could give the CIA greater latitude to conduct strikes as Trump increasingly relies on the spy agency, rather than the military, for lethal drone operations. Rights groups immediately criticised the move, saying it reverses a hard-fought

Sri Lanka orders mosques to clamp down on extremists after Easter bombings

Image
The country has been on edge since the April 21 attacks by jihadist bombers who attacked three churches and three Colombo hotels which also left 500 people injured. world Updated: May 10, 2019 18:33 IST The Sri Lankan government on Friday ordered mosques to clamp down on extremists and to submit copies of sermons in new fallout from the Easter suicide bombings that left 258 dead.(AP) The Sri Lankan government on Friday ordered mosques to clamp down on extremists and to submit copies of sermons in new fallout from the Easter suicide bombings that left 258 dead. The country has been on edge since the April 21 attacks by jihadist bombers who attacked three churches and three Colombo hotels which also left 500 people injured. The Ministry of Muslim Religious and Cultural Affairs said mosques must not be used for radicalising congregations. “In view of the

RSF slams move to charge Pakistani reporter with 'cyber-terrorism'

A reporter critical of Pakistan's powerful army and intelligence services is being prosecuted for "cyber-terrorism," global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Tuesday, slamming the case for trying to "intimidate" Pakistan's journalists". RSF said Shahzeb Jillani, who works for Pakistani television station Dunya News and has worked for the BBC and Deutsche Welle in the past, faces charges under a controversial electronic crimes act and two criminal code provisions. The charges include "defamatory remarks against the respected institutions of Pakistan" and "cyber-terrorism", the watchdog said, calling on a Karachi court to dismiss the charges. "Pakistan's authorities are yet again manipulating the laws in order to silence a journalist who dared to cross a red line by criticizing certain institutions," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk. "It is shocking to see how,

‘Can’t Stop US Drone Strikes On Pak Territory’: Pakistan Supreme Court Expresses Helplessness

Upholding an earlier verdict of the Peshawar High Court, The Pakistani Supreme Court said that it cannot stop American drone strikes on Pakistani soil, reports Defence News. The petitioner’s lawyer said that innocent people were being killed in the drone attacks and sought to an end to the American strikes. However, the petition was dismissed by a three-member bench, led by Chief Justice Asif Saeeda Khosa which stated such issues are overseen by the government. The US is said to have carried out its last drone strike on Pakistan in December 2017 along the Af-Pak border. A diplomatic spat broke out between Islamabad and Washington in Janua

Islamic State J&K commander Ishfaq Ahmad Sofi, who praised Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed in Shopian encounter

Image
Srinagar: Security forces gunned down a top commander of Islamic State in Jammu and Kashmir (ISJK) in a pre-dawn gun battle in southern Kashmir area of Shopian. The 34-year-old militant, Ishfaq Ahmad Sofi, had recently featured in the IS mouthpiece, al-Risalah , in which he asserted the need for jihad in Kashmir and owed allegiance to the IS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Police officials said that he was killed during a gun battle in Amshipora area of Shopian which lasted from around 3:30 am to 4 am in an orchard. The forces had acted on a specific tip-off about his presence in the area. Representational image. Reuters The death comes close on the heels of the first video appearance of al-Baghdadi last month in which he claimed the responsibility for a string of bomb blasts in Sri Lanka at some high-end hotels and cathedrals in which scores of people were killed. Deputy Inspector General of Police, South Kashmir, Atul Kumar Goel, said that the militant hailed fr

Twitter has suspended more than 166,000 accounts related to promotion of terrorism

Image
Twitter has been taking steps to ramp up its efforts in enforcing its rules and policies against harmful content. The micro-blogging platform classifies Twitter Rules policy into six categories including abuse, child sexual exploitation (CSE), hateful conduct, private information, sensitive media, and violent threats. Twitter logos. Representational Image. Following the same efforts, Twitter has revealed that it has suspended 166,513 unique accounts for promoting terrorism. In the company’s latest Transparency Report , 11,000,257 unique accounts were reported for potential violations of the rules. Out of these, 612,563 unique accounts were found to have violated one of the six Twitter Rules categories. According to Twitter’s report , “We surfaced for review 91 percent of the unique accounts suspended using our internal, proprietary tools. While this total number of unique accounts suspended during the reporting period has decreased 19 percent since the previous re

UN says Houthis to redeploy from Yemen ports

GENEVA (Reuters) - Yemen's Houthi group agreed on Friday to unilaterally redeploy forces out of three key ports between May 11 and May 14, a U.N. statement said, a move needed to pave the way for political negotiations to end Yemen's four-year war. The statement from the Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) said the Houthis would make an "initial unilateral redeployment" from the ports of Saleef, which is used for grain, and Ras Isa, used for oil, as well as the major port of Hodeidah The committee, led by Danish general Michael Lollesgaard, head of the U.N. observer team in Hodeidah, drew up the redeployment plans under a pact agreed last December in Sweden, the first major breakthrough in peace efforts to end a war that has killed tens of thousands and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. The U.N. mission will monitor the redeployment, a first step towards concluding the peace agreement, the statement said, adding that it must be followed by

Post-ISIS Narrative

Image
Serial blasts on Easter Sunday on April 21 in Sri Lanka sent jitters all through the globe. These suicide bomb blasts occurred within a span of about 30 minutes in three Churches where a large number of devotees had congregated and three luxury hotels where foreign tourists frequented in large numbers. Well-coordinated blasts killed no less than 350 people and injured hundreds. About eleven Indian citizens succumbed to death. These blasts were targeted against the Christian community and foreign tourists, who are vital to the economy. It reminded of well-planned serial blasts in Mumbai in 1993 and 2006.   Sri Lanka declared Emergency all over the island to prevent retaliatory mob attacks by local Sinhalese Christian fringe groups on the Muslim enclaves. Police swung into action to track down the mastermind behind the blasts. Two truckloads of explosives were tracked. It was also anticipated that such coordinated action, with ample supply of ammunition, could not ha

Amnesty urges Yemen's Houthi to release 10 journalists

Image
Cairo A rights group is calling on Yemen's Houthi rebels to release 10 journalists detained nearly four years ago on "trumped-up" spying charges. Amnesty International says Wednesday that "these men are being punished for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression." It says nine journalists were arrested in a raid on a hotel in the rebel-held capital in June 2015, and the 10th was detained at his home in Sanaa that August. Abdelkhaleq Amran, Hisham Tarmoom, Tawfiq al-Mansouri, Hareth Hamid, Hasan Annab, Akram Al Walidi, Haytham al-Shihab, Hisham Al Yousefi and Essam Balgheeth were working at the hotel as it was one of the few places in the city that had an internet connection and electricity. The 10th journalist, Salah al-Qaedi, was detained at his home in Sana’a by members of Huthi forces on 28 August 2015 according to an eyewitness. Five minutes later, they returned to t

Anti-Boko Haram militia in Nigeria frees 900 children: UN

Image
CJTF released a similar number of children from its ranks in October last year [File: Reuters TV] Almost 900 children held by a pro-government force fighting the Boko Haram armed group in northeastern Nigeria have been freed, according to the United Nations . The 894 children, including 106 girls, had been in the ranks of the government-backed Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), a local group which supports regular soldiers battling Boko Haram. At a ceremony in the northeastern town of Maiduguri, they were released on Friday as part of the CJTF's "commitment to end and prevent the recruitment and use of children", the UN children's agency ( UNICEF ) said. "Children of north-east Nigeria have borne the brunt of this conflict," said Mohamed Fall, UNICEF chief in Nigeria. "They have been used by armed groups in combatant and non-combatant roles and witnessed death, killing and violence." The CJTF is a group formed in 2013 to prot

US air attack kills 13 ISIL fighters in Somalia

The US military has killed 13 ISIL fighters in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region in an  air attack , it said, days after another raid killed three. The US military has stepped up its campaign of air raids in Somalia since President Donald Trump took office, saying it has killed more than 800 fighters in two years. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL , also known as ISIS)  has gathered recruits in Puntland, although experts say the scale of its force is unclear and it remains a small player compared with the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab  group that once controlled much of Somalia. US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said late on Thursday that the latest raid on Wednesday  targeted an ISIL-Somalia camp in the Golis Mountains. "At this time, it is assessed the air strike on May 8 killed 13 terrorists," it said. In April, AFRICOM had said it killed Abdulhakim Dhuqub, identifying him as ISIL's deputy leader in Somalia. Last month, AFRICOM  also

Prominent Saudi preacher apologises on TV for years of ‘hardline’ Islam

Image
Dubai: Aaidh Al Qarni has caused a lot of noise after he appeared on a talk show and apologized for his hardline interpretations of Islam and called for a more modernised Islam. "I apologise in the name of the Sahwa to the Saudi society for the mistakes that were not related to Islam and for the extreme fatwas," Al Qarni told Saudi TV show Al Laiwan airing on Rotana Khaleej on Monday evening. Al Sahwa movement was a faction of Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia. They demanded a bigger role for clergy in governing and a more conservative society as a defense against Western cultural influences. They also opposed the presence of US troops on “Muslim land.” "Our religion is a religion of peace, safety and mercy. Thanks to God, we discovered this in the texts and interpretations of our scholars," Al Qarni said. "You cannot compare my ideas that I had when I was only 24 or 26 ye

10 million displaced internally by conflict in 2018: Report

Conflict forced more than 10 million people to flee their homes to live elsewhere within their own country last year, bringing the total number of people internally displaced by violence to a record high, monitors say. The new figure brings the total number of people currently living in internal displacement due to violence to 41.3 million, an all-time high, according to a report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). "It is really a mind-boggling figure," NRC chief Jan Egeland told reporters in Geneva. "It takes extreme violence and fear of disasters to force a family out of their home, their land, their property, their community." Including those uprooted from their homes by natural disasters as well as conflicts, a total of 28 million people were displaced internally in 2018, the report said. A full 10.8 million new internally displaced people (IDPs) last year were fleeing c

UAE denies moving Yemen separatists to island

Image
Dubai: A report claiming that Yemen accused the United Arab Emirates of sending separatists to an island off the Arabian Sea is false, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash has said. The official was commenting on a Reuters report alleging that the Yemeni government had accused the UAE of landing around 100 southern separatist fighters in the remote island of Socotra this week. “This is one of the false news items I read today,” Gargash said in a terse tweet late Wednesday. Yemeni officials said around 100 separatist fighters had disembarked in civilian clothes on Monday from a UAE naval vessel on Socotra, the main island in a sparsely populated Yemeni archipelago in the Arabian Sea. The island, part of Yemen but closer to the African coast than the Yemeni mainland, is a UNESCO world natural heritage site protected by the UN body for its unique flora and fauna.

French troops rescue four hostages in Burkina Faso raid

French special forces have freed four foreign hostages in northern Burkina Faso in a military raid that cost the lives of two soldiers.  Those freed in the overnight raid on Friday included two French tourists, an American woman and a South Korean woman, the French presidency said in a statement. All four were safe, it added.  President Emmanuel Macron congratulated the French armed forces for freeing the hostages and expressed condolences for the soldiers killed in the operation, saying he "bows with emotion and solemnity before the sacrifice of our two soldiers".  In a separate statement, Defence Minister Florence Parly thanked authorities in Burkina Faso and neighbouring Benin for their help with the "complex operation", as well as the United States for its "precious support" in the operation. Four kidnappers were killed in the raid, the French army said, adding that the US military had provided intelligence.  The French st

Why Afghan refugee women in Pakistan fear repatriation

Image
Islamabad, Pakistan - Female refugees in Pakistan have told Al Jazeera that they are reluctant to return to Afghanistan because they fear violence and the forced recruitment of their children as child soldiers. They also cited the lack of access to education and poor healthcare facilities as further reasons why they do not want to go back, as the UN refugee agency 's voluntary repatriation programme targets some of Pakistan's 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees. Khor Bibi, a 50-year-old widow from Kabul, told Al Jazeera that she worries for her family's safety. "My husband died in a blast in Kabul in 2015 which terrified me and made me to think about the security of my children. After my husband's death, [we] migrated to Pakistan for survival," she said, adding that her husband was the family's breadwinner and his death had "perished my life completely". "I don't have the courage to lose my children in the