| Islamic State among world's richest militant groups: US Posted: 23 Oct 2014 04:53 PM PDT  The Islamic State has fast become one of the world's wealthiest terror groups, generating tens of millions of dollars a month from black market oil sales, ransoms and extortion, officials said Thursday. It earns $1 million a day alone by selling crude oil from fields captured when the group swept across Iraq and Syria earlier this year, said David Cohen, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Because the group, also known as ISIL, has "amassed wealth at an unprecedented pace" from different sources than most terror groups, it presents a particular challenge to the US working to choke off money flows. IS is now "considered the world's wealthiest and most financially sophisticated terrorist organization," said Marwan Muasher, vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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| Latest White House intruder charged Posted: 23 Oct 2014 04:18 PM PDT  A man who jumped the White House fence was charged Thursday with two felony counts for allegedly kicking and punching two guard dogs that were hailed for their bravery in tackling him. Dominic Adesanya, 23, scaled the north fence of the presidential mansion on Wednesday evening in yet another security breach, before lashing out at the animals when they ran to intercept him. Adesanya was charged with two felony counts of assaulting a police officer -- in this case the dogs -- four misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest and unlawful entry, and a felony count of making threats, the Secret Service said. Adesanya's father Victor told CNN affiliate WMAR that his son suffers mental health problems and was arrested near the White House about two months ago.
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| Canada gunman wanted a passport to go to Mideast Posted: 23 Oct 2014 04:06 PM PDT OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — He seemed lost, "did not fit in," had drug problems, and went more than five years without seeing his mother. In recent weeks, he had been living at a homeless shelter and had talked about wanting to go to Libya — or Syria — but became agitated when he couldn't get a passport. |
| Iraqi army months away from major offensive: US officials Posted: 23 Oct 2014 04:01 PM PDT  The Iraqi army is still months away from staging a major offensive against the Islamist State group to retake large areas lost to the jihadists, US military officials said Thursday. Iraqi security forces were now able to stage small-scale attacks against the IS group but still needed time to plan and train for a larger operation, even with the aid of US-led air strikes, one military official told reporters. Asked when the Iraqi army might be ready to launch an operation to push the IS group out of the northern town of Mosul, the official said it could be up to a year. Officials at the US military's Central Command headquarters acknowledged the pace of the bombing raids by American and allied warplanes has been limited because the Iraqi army was not on the move and mainly in a defensive position.
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| Canada Parliament gunman had planned to travel to Syria: police Posted: 23 Oct 2014 04:01 PM PDT  By Randall Palmer, David Ljunggren and Leah Schnurr OTTAWA (Reuters) - The gunman in Wednesday's attack on Canada's capital had a criminal record and recently applied for a passport, planning to travel to Syria after undergoing a "radicalization process," police said on Thursday. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, was a Canadian who may also have held Libyan citizenship, said Bob Paulson, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). He said the suspect had no apparent links to another Canadian who killed a soldier in Quebec earlier in the week. ...
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| US officials: Iraqi army regrouping slowly Posted: 23 Oct 2014 03:51 PM PDT  MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AP) — Iraq's fractured army has begun to regroup and stage modest, localized attacks on the Islamic State militants who routed them last spring and summer, but they are unlikely to be ready to launch a major counteroffensive for many months, senior U.S. military officials said Thursday.
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| Syria's Kobani less at risk but could still fall: U.S. officials Posted: 23 Oct 2014 03:49 PM PDT  By Phil Stewart MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE Fla. (Reuters) - The Syrian border town of Kobani appears in less danger of falling to the Islamic State, but the threat still remains, U.S. officials said on Thursday, offering a measured view of a key battle against the militant group. Officials at the U.S. military's Central Command warned the Islamic State could ultimately capture the town, even after coalition air strikes and air drops of weapons and medical supplies to help Syrian Kurdish fighters fend off the militants in street battles. One U.S. ...
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| Lebanon to ask UN to stop registering Syria refugees Posted: 23 Oct 2014 03:39 PM PDT  Lebanon said Thursday it will ask the UN to stop registering refugees who enter the country from war-torn Syria, as it formalised a decision to all but close its borders to them. "As far as the issue of restricting the number of (refugee) cases is concerned, the government agreed to stop welcoming displaced people, barring exceptional cases, and to ask the UN refugee agency to stop registering the displaced," Information Minister Ramzi Jreij said. Only refugees whose files had been approved by the government would be given refugee status in Lebanon, he told reporters. The announcement came less than a week after Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas was quoted as saying that Lebanon "no longer officially receives any displaced Syrians".
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| Kuwait talks to counter militants' online campaign Posted: 23 Oct 2014 03:30 PM PDT  Kuwait will host international talks next week aimed at finding ways to undermine the slick online campaign attracting foreign fighters to the ranks of Islamic militants battling in Iraq and Syria. "The conference will present an opportunity for an in-depth exchange of ideas for increasing cooperation among coalition partners," US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday. The US delegation to Monday's talks is being led by Undersecretary of State for public affairs Rick Stengel, and special US envoy, the retired general John Allen, will give an address. "I think every country coming will be asked to do more," Psaki said, as the US leads efforts to build a coalition against the Islamic State (IS) group.
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| Canada faces jihadist threat after home-grown attacks Posted: 23 Oct 2014 03:25 PM PDT  Two young Canadian men who launched deadly attacks in their own homeland were extremists tempted by war in Syria but police have found no evidence of a wider plot, officials said Thursday. "These are difficult threats to detect," Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Bob Paulson said. In the House of Commons, members applauded Sergeant-at-Arms Kevin Vickers, who on Wednesday fired the shot that halted the attacker, identified as 32-year-old Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. "The objective of these attacks was to instill fear and panic in our country and to interrupt the business of government," Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the chamber as business resumed.
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| IS propaganda strategy 'evolving': experts Posted: 23 Oct 2014 03:12 PM PDT  From online videos to the social network postings of their fighters, the propaganda of the Islamic State jihadist group is evolving to prevent the leaking of strategic information while at the same time maintaining its impact. After making extensive use of social networks and different Internet platforms to publicise their activities, IS seems to have realised that some of the images being posted by their fighters could also be used against them by foreign intelligence services. Abdelasiem El Difraoui, author of "Al-Qaida par l'image" ("Al-Qaeda through images") and an expert in radical Islam, told AFP the group had responded to the potential dangers created by this earlier strategy. "The social networks helped greatly with recruitment.
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| Canada attackers were recent converts to Islam Posted: 23 Oct 2014 02:59 PM PDT  The two men accused of carrying out separate deadly attacks in Canada this week had recently converted to Islam and wanted to join the extremist fight, officials and local media said Thursday. Both men were killed during the violence, which officials called "terrorist attacks," the first such incidents tied to Islamic extremism ever to take place in Canada. On Monday, 25-year-old Martin Couture-Rouleau, from Quebec, used his car as a weapon when he mowed down two soldiers near Montreal, killing one of them, before being shot dead by police as he emerged from his wrecked vehicle holding a knife. Then on Wednesday, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, 32, shot and killed a soldier who was on ceremonial guard at a war memorial in downtown Ottawa before storming into the nearby parliament building, where he was shot dead.
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| Smuggled oil, sex slaves, kidnappings, crime: Inside the Islamic State’s million-dollar money stream Posted: 23 Oct 2014 02:41 PM PDT The Islamic State militants got rich off smuggled oil, kidnappings for ransom, and extortion. Here is how the United States is responding. |
| UN launches $2.2 billion appeal for Iraq Posted: 23 Oct 2014 02:37 PM PDT  The United Nations on Thursday launched a $2.2 billion (1.7 billion euros) appeal to assist 5.2 million people who need protection and assistance in conflict-torn Iraq. "The needs of the Iraqi people are immense," Neill Wright, the UN's acting humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in Baghdad. "An estimated 2.8 million people are in need of food assistance and approximately 800,000 people are in urgent need of emergency shelter assistance," a UN statement said.
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| The World's Wealthiest Terrorists Posted: 23 Oct 2014 02:26 PM PDT  The Islamic State makes about $1 million a day from sales of oil it has seized at war. It has generated $20 million this year alone in ransom. And it has taken untold sums of additional cash at gunpoint in the Syrian and Iraqi towns it controls, and through donations it solicits from sympathizers through social media.
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| Saudi Arabia's Women Problem Posted: 23 Oct 2014 02:16 PM PDT  One of the lesser-noted tendrils of the Arab Spring, which kicked off in earnest in 2011 and has been all but declared over, is the ongoing movement to end the ban on female drivers in Saudi Arabia.
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| U.S. Says a No-Ransom Policy Could Weaken ISIS Posted: 23 Oct 2014 02:10 PM PDT  "Very simply, if we are to protect our citizens and avoid bankrolling our adversary, every country must adopt and implement a no-ransoms policy," said David S. Cohen, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in remarks delivered in Washington at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "To the contrary, at the president's direction, we use all of our military, intelligence, law enforcement, and diplomatic capabilities to secure the release of American hostages. After the murder of journalist James Foley, one of the Americans, his family revealed that the Obama administration had actively dissuaded them from negotiating ransom payments. Last month, British Prime Minister David Cameron took to the floor in Parliament to criticize Germany, France, and Spain for failing to abide by a two-year-old statement of principles signed by the G-8 countries that condemned paying hostage takers.
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| Canada shooter planned to go to Syria: police Posted: 23 Oct 2014 02:07 PM PDT  The shooter who rampaged through Canada's parliament was in Ottawa applying for a passport to travel to war-torn Syria and there was no connection to an attack earlier this week, the federal police commissioner said Thursday. The man's killing of a soldier at a cenotaph in the city's downtown and storming of nearby parliament Wednesday were not linked to the deadly attack on a soldier in Quebec two days earlier, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Bob Paulson told a news conference. Investigators determined that the suspect in Wednesday's shooting, identified by Paulson as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, had been in Ottawa since October 2 "to deal with a passport issue." "He was... hoping to leave for Syria," the nation's top cop said, adding that Zehaf-Bibeau's travel plans were gleaned from the man's estranged mother.
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| Learning from Canada after Ottawa attack Posted: 23 Oct 2014 01:32 PM PDT As is often the case, Canada provides valuable lessons to the world, this time in its reaction to the jihadist attack in its capital, Ottawa, on Wednesday. |
| US-led strikes kill more than 500 militants in Syria Posted: 23 Oct 2014 01:16 PM PDT  US-led air strikes in Syria were reported Thursday to have killed more than 500 jihadists in a month, as Kurdish fighters readied to reinforce the embattled border town of Kobane. The battle for Kobane has become crucial for both the Islamic State (IS) group and its opponents, with a senior US official saying the Kurds there were inflicting heavy losses on the jihadists. IS, which declared in June a "caliphate" over territory it seized in Iraq and Syria, was described Thursday as the world's wealthiest "terror" group, earning $1 million a day from black market oil sales alone. The Kurds in Kobane have been holding out against it for more than a month, buoyed by a promise of Iraqi Kurd reinforcements and by US air drops of weapons.
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| Secret Service Cited Again for Embarrassing Lapse Posted: 23 Oct 2014 01:15 PM PDT  It's been a rough couple of months for the Secret Service. Last month, for example, a 42-year-old Iraq War veteran with a knife in his pocket was able to leap over the White House fence, elude security and make it as far as the East Room. Now a scathing report released this week by a federal auditor puts the Secret Service back under the spotlight. The report said that on at least one occasion, the agency "improperly" diverted the Secret Service "Prowler" team away from its post at the White House to protect an employee in her Maryland home some 50 miles away from D.C.
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| Coalition airstrikes in Syria killed over 500 Posted: 23 Oct 2014 01:01 PM PDT  MURSITPINAR, Turkey (AP) — U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Syria have killed more than 500 people since they began last month, mainly Islamic militants, activists said Thursday, as fighting flared yet again in the northern Syrian border town of Kobani.
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| Canada attacks follow Al-Qaeda, IS instructions to a tee Posted: 23 Oct 2014 12:57 PM PDT  While they may not have officially been designated as jihadists, two suspected extremists who killed Canadian soldiers in shooting and driving rampages followed instructions issued by Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group to the letter. These deadly acts appear to follow what Al-Qaeda has been preaching for years through articles or videos posted online, calling on recruits and volunteers to go it alone without specific orders or training. Members of the group founded by Osama bin Laden had always been scattered across parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan among other nations and were the regular target of US drone attacks, making it hard to group together all those who wanted to volunteer for jihad.
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| 'Children Are Not Children Anymore' Posted: 23 Oct 2014 12:54 PM PDT  Since the beheading of American journalist James Foley this past summer, the Islamic State has managed to successfully recruit young people from around the world to join their cause, including three American teenage girls, who attempted to travel to Turkey and cross into Syria. (Their efforts were quickly thwarted by the FBI and their parents.) Though the terrorist group proudly boasts about its Western members on social media, most of its recruitment remains focused on locals, particularly young boys, in the areas it has taken over. @Hano1_4
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| Billionaire Soros urges Europe to 'wake up' and save Ukraine Posted: 23 Oct 2014 12:53 PM PDT  US billionaire investor George Soros warned Thursday that Europe's very existence was being threatened by Russia, in a scathing criticism of the EU's response to the Ukraine crisis. The 84-year-old, in an article published in Le Monde daily and the New York Review of Books, said European reluctance to provide military and financial assistance to Ukraine could be its downfall and urged member states to make an immediate $20 billion (16 billion euros) cash injection to the struggling country. "It is high time for the members of the European Union to wake up and behave as countries indirectly at war," said the financial wizard whose often spot-on predictions on crises are carefully scrutinised. Not only the survival of the new Ukraine but the future of NATO and the European Union itself is at risk.
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| IS militants targeted in fiery air strike seen from Turkey border Posted: 23 Oct 2014 12:44 PM PDT  Coalition aircraft targeted Islamic State (IS) militants near the town of Kobane in an airstrike seen from the Turkish border Thursday, with the jihadists running away from the bombing raid, an AFP photographer reported. Four IS militants were walking around the Tilsehir hill in the western part of the besieged Syrian town before the air raid at around 6:00 pm local time, the photographer said. Having heard the sound of fighter jets overhead, the militants could be clearly seen running down the hill to hide in trenches most probably dug by Kurdish fighters who previously controlled the territory. After the bombardment, the photographer saw militants running away in a sign that Kurdish fighters had taken back control of the hill.
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| Ebola: A crash course in fear and how it hurts us Posted: 23 Oct 2014 12:33 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — Ebola is giving Americans a crash course in fear.
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| U.S. warns of sanctions on buyers of Islamic State oil Posted: 23 Oct 2014 12:16 PM PDT By Anna Yukhananov WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Thursday threatened to slap sanctions on anyone buying oil from Islamic State militants in an effort to disrupt what it said was a $1-million-a-day funding source. Islamic State has seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria in a brutal campaign, and could pose a threat to the United States and its allies if it is not stopped, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen said. ... |
| Women, children caught in deadly firefight near Tunis Posted: 23 Oct 2014 12:01 PM PDT  Women and children were caught up Thursday in a police siege of a home near the Tunisian capital where security forces were fighting a gun battle with "terrorists" in which a policeman died. The shootout came amid heightened security for fear of an upsurge in jihadist violence ahead of Sunday's parliamentary elections, the first since Tunisia's 2011 revolution. At least two women and an unknown number of children were inside the house in Oued Ellil, a town on the outskirts of Tunis where a group was exchanging gunfire with security forces, the interior ministry said. "We are not storming the house because there are women and children inside," said ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui.
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| Lebanon says it won't accept more Syrian refugees Posted: 23 Oct 2014 11:25 AM PDT  BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon announced on Thursday it will not accept any more refugees from neighboring war-torn Syria, except in what authorities deem to be "exceptional" cases — a move that could prevent tens of thousands of Syrians from escaping the civil war.
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| Islamic State militants seize Iraq village, press assault on Yazidis Posted: 23 Oct 2014 11:03 AM PDT  By Saif Sameer and Ned Parker BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State wrested a Sunni Muslim village in western Iraq on Thursday from tribal defenders who put up weeks of fierce resistance, and the insurgents tightened a siege of the Yazidi minority on a mountain in the north. The attacks showed Islamic State's continued operating resilience despite air strikes by U.S. ...
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| Iraqi defense chief tells Hagel offensive vs militants a priority: Pentagon Posted: 23 Oct 2014 11:01 AM PDT By David Alexander WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraq's new defense minister affirmed his commitment to military reform and said going on the offensive against Islamic State fighters is a priority, the Pentagon said on Thursday after U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke to his counterpart by phone. Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said Hagel and Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi spoke for about 20 minutes on Thursday morning in their first phone call since al-Obeidi was approved as the Iraq's defense chief. "The minister was quite clear, ... ... |
| How Will Canada React to Its First Terror Attack? Posted: 23 Oct 2014 11:00 AM PDT  If there was a sort of aesthetic justice in this world, certain nations – certain nice ones – should be exempt from the nasty bits of international life. Yes, perhaps America has to do Dad-things like hold irredentist Al-Qaeda members in Guantanamo Bay in a messy indeterminate status; Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, an Islamic convert and radical, attacked multiple targets yesterday in Canada's capital of Ottawa. He killed a soldier guarding the National War Memorial and then opened fire in the parliament buildings, before being killed by the legislature's sergeant-at-arms. This attack came just days after two soldiers were run down by another Islamic convert in the parking lot of a shopping mall, and two weeks after Canada voted to join the war against ISIS.
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| Marseille's cultural clash: Will a tide of Islamophobia produce more jihadis? Posted: 23 Oct 2014 10:55 AM PDT France, like much of Europe these days, is in a period of social tumult. Far-right parties like the National Front are gaining ground and influencing local governments. Muslims face worsening Islamophobia. And the outrage that many Muslims feel about Western and Israeli policies in the Mideast is fostering a very old problem: anti-Semitism. Marseille, a multicultural city on the Mediterranean, offers a vantage point onto these related issues. |
| US: IS earns $1M per day in black market oil sales Posted: 23 Oct 2014 10:46 AM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — Islamic State militants are amassing wealth at an unprecedented pace, earning about $1 million a day from black market oil sales alone, a U.S. Treasury Department official said Thursday.
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| Relatives of Iraqi victims: Blackwater guards deserve death Posted: 23 Oct 2014 10:13 AM PDT  Four former Blackwater guards found guilty for their role in the 2007 massacre of at least 14 civilians in Baghdad's busy Nisur Square should be executed, relatives of victims said Thursday. Their convictions followed a two-month trial that heard how they opened fire with sniper rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers in Baghdad's bustling Nisur Square as they escorted a diplomatic convoy. The shooting exacerbated Iraqi resentment toward Americans and exemplified the impunity enjoyed by private security firms on the US payroll in Iraq. "They should be executed in the same place in Nisur Square where they committed the crime," said Hussein Ali Abbas, the brother of one of the victims.
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| Yazidi commander killed on Iraq's Mount Sinjar Posted: 23 Oct 2014 10:00 AM PDT  Islamic State group jihadists besieging Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq have killed a commander of forces from the Yazidi religious minority defending the area, a fighter said on Thursday. The commander, Al-Sheikh Khayri, had returned from Germany, which has large Yazidi community, to fight, and was killed on Wednesday night, Khalaf Mamu told AFP by telephone. Mamu put the number of fighters defending Mount Sinjar at about 1,200. The Islamic State (IS) group began a renewed push for the mountain on Monday after besieging it earlier in the year.
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| Bayern players visit youth refugee centre Posted: 23 Oct 2014 09:53 AM PDT  Berlin (AFP) - Bayern Munich players have paid a visit to a refugee centre in their southern German city, the club said Thursday, as the country faces a large influx of asylum seekers.
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| Turkey's U.S. relations show strain as Washington's patience wears thin Posted: 23 Oct 2014 09:11 AM PDT  By Jonny Hogg ANKARA (Reuters) - The U.S. decision to air-drop weapons to Kurdish forces in Syria on the same day Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan dismissed them as terrorists is the latest false note in the increasingly discordant mood music coming out of Washington and Ankara. No matter how much officials on both sides publicly insist there is harmony, differences in strategy over the fight against Islamic State and the fate of the beleaguered Syrian border town of Kobani are straining relations between the Washington and its key regional ally, leaving Turkey increasingly isolated. ...
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| Islamist preacher rejects link to Ottawa shootings, warns of threat to Britain Posted: 23 Oct 2014 08:13 AM PDT By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's most high-profile Islamist preacher rejected suggestions on Thursday he had influenced the man believed to have shot dead a soldier in Ottawa, but warned there could be similar attacks in Britain from angry radicalized Muslims. Canadian police are investigating a man named as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a Muslim convert, as a possible suspect in the shootings around Canada's parliament building on Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the matter. ... |
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