| Pentagon seeks $583 billion budget for 2017; Republicans say not enough Posted: 09 Feb 2016 04:07 PM PST By David Alexander and Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Tuesday proposed a $582.7 billion defense budget that emphasizes emerging threats from Russia, China and Islamic State rebels, but the plan is already under fire from Republican lawmakers who charge it short-changes the U.S. military. President Barack Obama's last budget would boost spending on the war against Islamic State militants to $7.5 billion during the 2017 fiscal year, a 50 percent jump over the $5 billion approved this year. The budget heralds a strategic shift as Washington looks beyond the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and enters a new period of great power competition from Russia and China as well as threats from smaller rivals like Iran and North Korea, officials said. |
| A look at Obama's final budget proposal Posted: 09 Feb 2016 03:29 PM PST President Barack Obama proposed a record $4.1 trillion budget on Tuesday. Here's a look at each agency and department: AGRICULTURE Up or down? Down 5.3 percent Highlight: —Obama's budget for the Agriculture ... |
| Iraq PM says to bring in technocrats in cabinet reshuffle Posted: 09 Feb 2016 02:47 PM PST  By Ahmed Rasheed and Stephen Kalin BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday he would reshuffle his cabinet to appoint technocrats to replace ministers appointed on the basis of political affiliations. "Out of my responsibility ... to lead the country to safety, I call for a radical cabinet reshuffle to include professionals, technocrats and academics," Abadi said in a televised speech which focused largely on economic challenges facing Iraq, a major OPEC oil exporter. By replacing ministers chosen on the basis of party affiliation or ethnic or sectarian identity, Abadi risks disturbing the delicate balance of Iraq's governing system in place since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 which toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.
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| Turkey summons US ambassador over Syria Kurds row Posted: 09 Feb 2016 02:38 PM PST  Turkey's foreign ministry summoned the US ambassador on Tuesday after a senior American official angered Ankara by saying that Washington did not consider the main Syrian Kurdish party to be a terrorist organisation. The Hurriyet newspaper reported that the Turkish government, which views the Democratic Union Party (PYD) as a terrorist group, expressed its "unease" to US ambassador John Bass over the remarks by State Department spokesman John Kirby. Kirby had told his daily press briefing in Washington on Monday: "We don't, as you know, recognise the PYD as a terrorist organisation.
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| Iraq's troubled finances slow efforts to rebuild Ramadi Posted: 09 Feb 2016 02:36 PM PST  By Stephen Kalin and Ahmed Rasheed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Strain on Iraq's budget from falling oil prices is delaying the removal of Islamic State explosives in Ramadi and the restoration of basic services needed for displaced civilians to return to the western city. The army declared victory in December over Islamic State (IS) after elite counter-terrorism forces seized the Anbar provincial capital's main government building. The recapture of Ramadi was the first major gain for the U.S.-trained army since it collapsed in the face of an assault by the ultra-hardline Sunni militants in 2014.
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| U.S. intelligence chief warns of 'homegrown' security threat Posted: 09 Feb 2016 02:35 PM PST  By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attacks by "homegrown" Islamist extremists are among the most imminent security threats facing the United States in 2016, along with dangers posed overseas by Islamic State and cyber security concerns, the top U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday. In his annual assessment of threats to the United States, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned that fast-moving cyber and technological advances "could lead to widespread vulnerabilities in civilian infrastructures and U.S. government systems." In prepared testimony before the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, Clapper outlined an array of other threats from Russia and North Korean nuclear ambitions to instability caused by the Syrian migrant crisis.
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| 'No shortcuts' in Africa's war against jihadists: US special forces chief Posted: 09 Feb 2016 02:08 PM PST  African states must brace for a long-term fight against jihadist organisations, which are developing new tactics, recruiting more fighters and learning from each other, the US special forces chief in the continent said. You can't underestimate their ability to resurge," General Donald Bolduc told reporters in Dakar. Bolduc's comments late Monday came as the United States launched an annual military exercise dubbed Flintlock, which will see 1,700 special forces personnel from some 30 countries take part.
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| U.S. looks to shore up allies' support to battle Islamic State Posted: 09 Feb 2016 02:07 PM PST  By Phil Stewart BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it hoped allies demonstrate a willingness to ramp up their contributions to the fight against Islamic State and to deterring Russia in eastern Europe during high-level defense talks in Brussels this week. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he plans to outline America's plan to accelerate the campaign against Islamic State to defense chiefs from more than two dozen allies at talks on Thursday. The United States has long-standing concerns that many allies are not contributing nearly enough to combat the jihadist group that has spread beyond its self-declared caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.
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| Iraq PM calls for 'fundamental' change to cabinet Posted: 09 Feb 2016 02:02 PM PST  Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called Tuesday for the inclusion of technocrats and academics in the government in a "fundamental" reshuffle to his cabinet. "I call for fundamental change to the cabinet to include professional and technocratic figures and academics," Abadi said in a speech broadcast on state television. Iraqi ministries are divided up between the country's leading political blocs, which are often more concerned with distributing patronage than on effective governance.
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| Pentagon chief in Europe to drum up anti-IS support Posted: 09 Feb 2016 01:39 PM PST  US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter arrived in Europe on Tuesday ahead of a summit to convince key members of a US-led coalition to expand their roles in the fight against the Islamic State group. Carter has in recent weeks chastised partners in the 65-nation alliance for not helping enough in the fight against the extremists, who despite suffering some significant setbacks remain firmly in control of large parts of Iraq and Syria and have a growing foothold in Libya. "I don't think anybody is satisfied with the pace (of the campaign), that is why we are all looking to accelerate it," Carter told reporters as he flew to Brussels.
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| Iraq's Ramadi retaken, but rebuilding it a huge task Posted: 09 Feb 2016 01:23 PM PST  Iraq has completely retaken Ramadi from the Islamic State group, but now faces the enormous challenges of removing bombs, reestablishing basic services and rebuilding the shattered city, officials said Tuesday. "All of Ramadi is now liberated" and responsibility for security is being handed over to local police, Anbar Governor Sohaib al-Rawi told journalists in Baghdad. Lise Grande, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said that clearing the city of explosives would cost an estimated $15 million.
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| Iraqi government says it fully recaptured Ramadi from IS Posted: 09 Feb 2016 12:57 PM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — In an address to the nation Tuesday night, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi congratulated the Iraqi people on the liberation of Ramadi and the opening of a road connecting the western city to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
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| UN 'Horror' Report: Syrian Government Beats Thousands to Death Posted: 09 Feb 2016 12:54 PM PST  The Syrian government has beaten or tortured to death thousands of detainees since the beginning of the civil war there, "horrors" only rivaled by the war crimes of some rebel Islamist groups like ISIS on the other side of the fight, a new United Nations report says. "In the Syrian Arab Republic, massive and systemized violence – including the killing of detainees in official and makeshift detention centres – has taken place out of sight, far from the battlefield," says a report from the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, published Monday. "The government has committed crimes against humanity of extermination, murder, rape or other forms of sexual violence, torture, imprisonment, enforced disappearance and other inhuman acts.
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| Pentagon seeks funding for Libya, Africa military operations Posted: 09 Feb 2016 12:44 PM PST WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is seeking $200 million in the 2017 budget for counterterrorism operations in Libya and other portions of North and West Africa, but Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday that Libyans must take the lead in eliminating the Islamic State threat in their country. |
| U.S. Air Force veteran accused of Islamic State support faces trial Posted: 09 Feb 2016 12:39 PM PST Jury selection began on Tuesday in the case of a U.S. Air Force veteran accused of trying to travel to Syria to join Islamic State, the first person to face a U.S. trial for attempting to support the militant group. Questionnaires were distributed to the first batch of 500 potential jurors in Brooklyn, New York, in the federal trial of Tairod Pugh, a 48-year-old New Jersey resident charged with attempting to provide material support to Islamic State. Pugh, who wore a blue collared shirt in court, is one of 80 people charged in federal cases related to Islamic State since 2014 as authorities push to identify potential domestic supporters of the group, according to a Reuters analysis. |
| Kuwait backs alliances against Islamic State, but no troops Posted: 09 Feb 2016 12:03 PM PST  By Sylvia Westall DUBAI (Reuters) - Kuwait backs international efforts against hardline Islamist groups in Iraq and Syria although the Gulf Arab state's constitution prevents it from fighting in anything but defensive wars, a senior Kuwaiti official said. Kuwait, a U.S. ally and neighbour of Saudi Arabia and Iraq, is part of a 34-nation alliance announced by Riyadh in December aimed at countering Islamic State and al Qaeda in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan.
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| US Army study: Iraq's Mosul dam at 'higher risk' of failure Posted: 09 Feb 2016 11:54 AM PST  BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's Mosul Dam has long been branded the world's most dangerous dam, at risk of collapsing and sending water crashing over millions of people. That prospect is even greater than was previously believed after the Islamic State group captured the dam briefly in 2014, according to a new report by U.S. Army engineers.
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| MOSUL DAM Posted: 09 Feb 2016 11:37 AM PST Map locates Mosul dam in Iraq.; 2c x 4 inches; 96.3 mm x 101 mm; |
| Obama to propose $200 million to battle Islamist militants in Africa Posted: 09 Feb 2016 11:36 AM PST By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is proposing about $200 million in new military spending to confront Islamist militants in north and west Africa, U.S. defense officials said ahead of Tuesday's budget rollouts for the next fiscal year. U.S. officials declined to specify to which nations the funding would be directed. The disclosure comes as the United States and its allies discuss ways to halt the spread of Islamic State in Libya and elsewhere in Africa from its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq. |
| Controversial trial of Islamic opposition opens in Tajikistan Posted: 09 Feb 2016 11:35 AM PST  Thirteen members of a moderate Islamist opposition party went on trial behind closed doors in volatile Tajikistan on Tuesday, accused of fanning a wave of unrest that killed dozens of people last year. The high-profile proceedings in the ex-Soviet republic could mark the end of any formal opposition to strongman leader Emomali Rakhmon and radicalise his opponents, analysts say. The 13 members of the banned Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) face an array of charges including attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and organising a criminal group, but few expect a fair trial.
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| Facts on the Syrian exodus Posted: 09 Feb 2016 10:57 AM PST  The Syrian conflict, which began in March 2011 and has become more and more complex, has forced more than half of the country's inhabitants to flee their homes. The United Nations on Tuesday urged neighbouring Turkey to open its borders to the tens of thousands of Syrians who have fled a major government offensive backed by Russian air power. The main border crossing north of Syria's second city Aleppo remained closed, forcing huge crowds including women and children to sleep in tents or in the open.
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| Son of Iraqi Kurdish leader calls for aid to battle IS Posted: 09 Feb 2016 10:42 AM PST  SALAHUDDIN, Iraq (AP) — A senior Iraqi Kurdish leader on Tuesday called for international aid to help finance the war against the Islamic State group, saying it's a "miracle" that underpaid Kurdish forces are still on the front lines.
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| Homegrown extremists biggest Islamist threat to US: spy chief Posted: 09 Feb 2016 10:39 AM PST  The global threat posed by the Islamic State group is still rising but US-based homegrown extremists pose the biggest danger to the homeland, Washington's top spy chief said Tuesday. Clapper said "homegrown violent extremists" or HVEs -- "the most significant Sunni terrorist threat" -- may be inspired by the attacks last year on military bases in Chattanooga, Tennessee and a workplace gathering in San Bernardino, California. Separately, responding to questions from lawmakers, Clapper warned that the group had planted fighters among the thousands of Syrian civilians fleeing to neighboring countries and to Europe.
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| Iraq's largest dam at 'higher risk' of failure: US Posted: 09 Feb 2016 10:24 AM PST  Mosul Dam in northern Iraq, the country's largest, is at now at a "higher risk" of failure that could devastate areas to its south, according to a US assessment released by the Iraqi parliament. The dam was built on an unstable foundation that continuously erodes, and a lapse in maintenance after the Islamic State jihadist group briefly seized it in 2014 weakened the already flawed structure. "All information gathered in the last year indicates Mosul Dam is at a signficantly higher risk of failure than originally understood," said the assessment from the US Army Corps of Engineers, cited in an Iraqi parliamentary report on Monday.
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| 'IS recruiter' arrested in northern Nigeria: secret police Posted: 09 Feb 2016 10:20 AM PST  Nigeria's intelligence agency on Tuesday said it had arrested a recruiter for the Islamic State group, as well as seven alleged members of the Boko Haram offshoot Ansaru. The announcement comes nearly a year after the leader of Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria, Abubakar Shekau, pledged allegiance to IS leader in Syria and Iraq, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Speculation has been rife since then on whether closer links would be forged between the two groups, with lawless Libya and the remote Sahel region pinpointed as a possible source of contact.
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| NATO to debate Turkey call for migrant help Posted: 09 Feb 2016 08:00 AM PST  NATO will take any request to help with the refugee crisis "very seriously", chief Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday after Germany and Turkey sought the alliance's assistance in combating human smugglers. Defence ministers from the 28-nation group will discuss the issue at a meeting in Brussels Wednesday and Thursday when they review NATO's response to a more assertive Russia and the security threat posed by the Syria crisis. "I think we will take very seriously the request from Turkey and other allies to look into what NATO can do to help them cope and deal with the crisis and all the challenges they face, not least in Turkey, " Stoltenberg told a news conference.
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| Knights of Columbus '40 Bucks for Lent' Campaign to Help Persecuted Middle Eastern Christians Posted: 09 Feb 2016 07:36 AM PST NEW HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Knights of Columbus is asking those considering a Lenten sacrifice to give "40 Bucks for Lent" and use the hashtag #40BucksForLent to help Middle Eastern Christians and other religious minorities suffering religious persecution there. The Knights began its Christian Refugee Relief Fund in 2014. To date nearly $10 million has been raised to provide housing, food, medical aid, education and general relief to persecuted Christians and other religious minorities especially from Iraq and Syria, and to raise awareness about their plight. |
| Sweden arrests 14 Polish activists for planning asylum centre attack Posted: 09 Feb 2016 06:39 AM PST  Authorities said they detained the men on Monday after being tipped off about a planned attack against a migrant centre in Nynashamn, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of Stockholm. "They are Polish citizens and they belong to the far-right sphere," police spokesman Lars Alvarsjo told state broadcaster Swedish Radio. "We believe that the migrant centre was the target of the attack," another police spokesman, Hesam Akbari, told AFP.
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| Chechen strongman claims Russian spies in Syria to infiltrate IS Posted: 09 Feb 2016 05:59 AM PST  Pro-Kremlin Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has claimed spies from his region of Russia are being sent to infiltrate the Islamic State group and assist Moscow in its bombing campaign in Syria. Kadyrov, who has led the North Caucasus region of Chechnya since 2007, made the claims in a preview of a documentary set to air on state television on Wednesday. The documentary claims that "agents from special forces from Chechnya were embedded" in IS training camps to collect intelligence and help identify targets for Russian air strikes.
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| Indonesia sentences 7 for IS links, as Bashir files appeal Posted: 09 Feb 2016 05:09 AM PST  JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An Indonesian court on Tuesday sentenced seven men for conspiring with the Islamic State group, the first time the country has sent anyone to prison for IS links, as radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir appealed his conviction.
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| Protests intensify in Iraqi Kurdistan amid economic crisis Posted: 09 Feb 2016 04:12 AM PST Protests intensified in Iraq's Kurdistan region on Tuesday after the government unveiled new austerity measures to avert an economic collapse that officials warn could undermine the war effort against Islamic State. Some Kurdish peshmerga fighters blocked the main road outside their base in the city of Sulaimaniyah on a third day of strikes and demonstrations by police and other government employees demanding their salaries. Hit hard by the global slump in oil prices, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) last week said it would pay only part of state workers' salaries until its fiscal health improved. |
| US faces shortcomings in coalition-building for anti-IS war Posted: 09 Feb 2016 12:51 AM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — To doubters of its strategy for defeating the Islamic State, the Obama administration likes to tout its coalition of 66 nations and claim strength in numbers. But a year and a half into the war, some administration officials are acknowledging that this supposed source of strength has its own weaknesses.
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| U.S. military seeks to prepare Africa for shifting terror threat Posted: 08 Feb 2016 11:13 PM PST  By Emma Farge THIES, Senegal (Reuters) - African forces began a U.S.-led counter-terrorism training programme in Senegal on Monday amid what a U.S. commander said were rising signs of collaboration between Islamist militant groups across north Africa and the Sahel. The annual "Flintlock" exercises started only weeks after an attack in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou left 30 people dead. The assault on a hotel used by foreigners raised concerns that militants were expanding from a stronghold in north Mali towards stable, Western allies like Senegal.
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| EU reluctance sinking refugee relocation plan Posted: 08 Feb 2016 09:28 PM PST  European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker's flagship plan to stem Europe's migration crisis by redistributing refugees around the bloc risks crumbling as EU states balk at sharing the burden, diplomats, officials and experts have told AFP. Since adopting the scheme last September to relocate 160,000 asylum seekers from frontline states Greece and Italy, European Union countries have moved at a snail's pace, taking in just 500 people. Having pushed through his pet project for easing a crisis that saw more than one million people flood Europe's shores last year, former Luxembourg premier Juncker last month vowed "not to give up" on the scheme.
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| Amy Schumer Joins PTSD Drama 'Thank You For Your Service' Posted: 08 Feb 2016 09:00 PM PST The 'Trainwreck' star joins Miles Teller in adaptation of the David Finkel book. |
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