| Illinois man sentenced for trying to join Islamic State Posted: 18 Nov 2016 04:21 PM PST A would-be Islamic State recruit who worked in a Chicago-area hardware store was sentenced on Friday to more than three years in prison for seeking to join the militant group, federal prosecutors said. In exchange for a more lenient sentence than he might otherwise have faced if tried and convicted, Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 21, pleaded guilty last year to a charge of attempting to provide material support, namely himself, to a terrorist organization. Khan's lawyer said at the time of the plea that his client had been brainwashed by online propaganda. |
| Factbox: Contenders for key jobs in Trump administration Posted: 18 Nov 2016 04:19 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New names for possible appointees to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet have emerged, including former CIA chief and retired General David Petraeus as a potential defense secretary, according to a Wall Street Journal report. |
| Trump picks conservative loyalists for top security, law enforcement jobs Posted: 18 Nov 2016 02:39 PM PST  By Steve Holland NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump picked three conservative loyalists to lead his national security and law enforcement teams on Friday, underscoring his campaign promise to take a hard line confronting Islamist militancy and curbing illegal immigration. Trump picked U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions for attorney general, rewarding a staunch supporter whose tough and sometimes inflammatory statements on immigration have reflected his own. The choice was applauded by the top Republican in the Senate but drew sharp criticism from civil rights activists.
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| Mustard gas: a legacy of WWI Posted: 18 Nov 2016 02:36 PM PST  Mustard gas, which a watchdog on Friday said the so-called Islamic State group may have manufactured and used in Syria and Iraq, first terrorised battlefields during World War I. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons also said IS was behind a mustard gas attack in August 2015. A so-called vesicant agent officially identified as bis-(2-chloroethyl)sulfide, mustard gas has also been dubbed Yperite because it was first used near the northwestern Belgian city of Ypres in July 1917 by the German army in WWI.
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| New suspected IS mass grave found near Mosul Posted: 18 Nov 2016 01:56 PM PST  Tal Adh-Dhahab (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi forces have found another suspected mass grave containing the remains of victims of the Islamic State group in territory recaptured from the jihadists near Mosul, AFP journalists reported Friday. An AFP team visited the isolated site that was recaptured recently by elite interior ministry forces down a dirt track outside the village of Tall Adh-Dhahab, some 10 kilometres (6 miles) south of Mosul. An officer from the interior ministry forces said local residents reported an estimated 40 people could be buried at the site, which IS allegedly used as an execution ground.
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| Syria regime steps up fierce Aleppo assault Posted: 18 Nov 2016 01:11 PM PST  Air strikes and ferocious artillery fire pounded rebel-held east Aleppo on Friday as an escalating military offensive underscored the Syrian regime's determination to take full control of the divided city. Streets were deserted and residents took refuge indoors on the fourth straight day of government bombardment of opposition-controlled parts of Syria's second city. The artillery fire was the most intense in east Aleppo in around two years, AFP's correspondent there said, and rescue workers said it was too dangerous to move around bomb-scarred neighbourhoods.
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| Teenager arrested in France for alleged links with IS jihadi Posted: 18 Nov 2016 12:52 PM PST PARIS (AP) — French authorities say a teenager was arrested this week for allegedly being linked to a French jihadi who claimed responsibility for the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice on behalf of the Islamic State group. |
| European leaders, Obama vow to hold fast to NATO Posted: 18 Nov 2016 12:30 PM PST  US President Barack Obama and top European leaders warned Donald Trump on Friday to stick to a strong transatlantic partnership, urging ongoing NATO cooperation and pressure against Russia. Trump's shock election win has sparked fears of drastic policy upheavals as he has challenged a near 70-year-old security shield for US allies under NATO and vowed to withdraw from hard-fought deals on the climate and Iran's nuclear programme. The US president-elect's admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin has also raised questions over his attitude toward Moscow's backing for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as well as Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict.
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| Female warriors worry Trump will roll back their gains Posted: 18 Nov 2016 12:28 PM PST Last year, the women at a conference hosted by the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN) celebrated the first female graduates of the Army's legendary Ranger School and the lifting of the ban on women in combat. President-elect Donald Trump has hinted heavily about "the potential for the future administration to repeal the lifting of the ban on women in ground combat," says retired Lt. Col. Kate Germano, now the chief operating officer at Service Women's Action Network (SWAN). |
| AP PHOTOS: Iraqis flee Mosul fighting Posted: 18 Nov 2016 11:58 AM PST  MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Displaced Iraqi citizens have been fleeing the fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, crossing the Nineveh plains northeast of Mosul to reach the Kurdish-controlled areas.
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| Battle for strategic hilltop near IS-held Raqa Posted: 18 Nov 2016 11:28 AM PST  A US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance on Friday fought fiercely to drive the Islamic State group from a hilltop north of the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital of Raqa. The fighting took place as a senior official with the Syrian Democratic Forces told AFP that US-led coalition forces had not only provided weapons to the alliance but was also engaged in combat on the ground. The SDF -- which on November 5 launched an offensive to retake Raqa city with support from the coalition -- encircled the village of Tal Saman, 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Raqa.
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| Uprooted by IS, Iraq's Yazidis yearn to rebuild lives Posted: 18 Nov 2016 10:54 AM PST  Cramped in a tarpaulin tent with his family of nine, Ali Mahmud remembers his spacious ancestral home in the northern Iraqi town of Bashiqa he last set foot in more than two years ago. Now Ali and his family are among the tens of thousands of Yazidis scattered around camps for their displaced community in Kurdish-controlled territory. "They did a lot of bad things to the Yazidi community and especially to the women, they took them as slaves," Mahmud's sister-in-law, Solaf Hossein, said.
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| Canada May Approve an Oil Pipeline That Threatens the World's Most Endangered Killer Whales Posted: 18 Nov 2016 10:53 AM PST  Environmentalists are making a last-ditch effort to thwart a Canadian oil pipeline plan that they say will further degrade the fragile habitat of endangered killer whales. On Saturday, activists will take to the streets of Vancouver, British Columbia, to urge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reject the Trans-Mountain expansion, a $5 billion, 620-mile pipeline that would carry oil from the Alberta tar sands to the British Columbia coast for export to foreign markets. Trudeau's cabinet has until Dec. 19 to make a final decision on whether to approve Trans-Mountain, which is a project of the Houston, Texas–based energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan.
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| Exclusive: Glencore seeks $550 million to raise stakes in Kurdish oil game Posted: 18 Nov 2016 10:41 AM PST  By Dmitry Zhdannikov LONDON (Reuters) - Glencore is seeking to raise $550 million from investors via a debt issue guaranteed by oil from Iraqi Kurdistan in an attempt to secure a big slice of the high-risk - and high-reward - market in a region at war with Islamic State. Kurdish oil has been targeted by European traders over the past two years, during an industry downturn, since Erbil began selling oil independently from Baghdad. The government of the autonomous Kurdish region in Erbil has borrowed around $2 billion from Glencore's rivals such as Vitol, Petraco and Trafigura to be repaid in oil.
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| Iraqi troops expand foothold in Mosul as Islamic State pledges more suicide attacks Posted: 18 Nov 2016 10:15 AM PST  By Isabel Coles MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S.-backed Iraqi troops expanded their foothold on the eastern side of Islamic State's stronghold of Mosul on Friday, as the group pledged to mount more suicide attacks on their offensive to take the city. The elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) stormed the Tahrir district on the northeastern edge of Mosul, the last major city under control of the Sunni hard-line group in Iraq. Militants have been steadily retreating from areas around Mosul into the city since the battle started on Oct. 17, with air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition.
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| No compromise in sight, EU ministers at odds over immigration Posted: 18 Nov 2016 10:13 AM PST  By Gabriela Baczynska BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union interior ministers were at odds on Friday over how to handle immigration, with heated discussions between states who want more burden sharing and those who oppose any kind of obligatory relocation. "We are looking for compromises but at the moment they are not there," said Thomas De Maiziere of Germany, which last year took in about 900,000 migrants and refugees. The ministers disagreed over a proposal by the EU's current chair Slovakia on reforming the bloc's asylum system, which collapsed last year as 1.3 million refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa reached Europe and member states quarreled over how to handle the influx.
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| Trump eyes retired generals Keane and Mattis for Pentagon: Report Posted: 18 Nov 2016 10:08 AM PST  Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis and Ret. Army Gen. Jack Keane are reportedly on the Trump transition team's shortlist for secretary of defense. Major appointments are coming fast and furious from the Trump transition team, including attorney general, national security adviser and CIA director.
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| Profiles of first three Trump cabinet appointees Posted: 18 Nov 2016 10:07 AM PST  President-elect Donald Trump announced three important cabinet appointments Friday, for the posts of CIA director, attorney general and national security advisor. Mike Pompeo, the Republican legislator nominated to lead the CIA, is a well-known hawk and strident critic of the Iran nuclear deal. A graduate of the West Point military academy and later Harvard Law School, Pompeo worked in the powerful Republican-oriented law firm Williams and Connolly and ran, then sold, an aerospace components firm, Thayer Aerospace.
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| President should have more than just military security at first briefing every day, argue Robert Weiner, ex- White House spokesman & sr policy analyst Thekla Truebenbach, if Trump wants to stay out of wars as he says Posted: 18 Nov 2016 09:54 AM PST WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- If Donald Trump is serious about not wanting unnecessary wars, as he says, he should change the President's Daily Briefing, usually the first scheduled action each morning, from being solely military based and focus on more domestic issues, say Robert Weiner, former spokesman for the Clinton White House and the U.S. House Government Operations Committee and Thekla Truebenbach, policy analyst at Robert Weiner Associates and Solutions for Change. ... |
| Trump top security nominee fixated on Islamic extremism Posted: 18 Nov 2016 09:53 AM PST  US President-elect Donald Trump's choice to be his powerful national security advisor, Michael Flynn, is a former military intelligence chief who sees militant Islam as the biggest threat to global stability. The retired three-star general, a veteran of America's recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has courted controversy with extreme statements that critics say border on Islamophobia. Meanwhile, he has taken a more flexible line on Russia and China -- countries the outgoing administration of Barack Obama regards as the country's principal strategic opponents.
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| Watchdog probing over 20 reports of alleged Syria chemical attacks Posted: 18 Nov 2016 09:49 AM PST  The global watchdog tasked with destroying chemical weapons is probing more than 20 reports of the alleged use of toxic arms in Syria since August, its chief told AFP Friday. Experts with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons also believe the so-called Islamic State group may have itself manufactured mustard gas used in attacks in Syria and Iraq, the body's director general Ahmet Uzumcu said. It was an "extremely worrying" development for the OPCW, he said, as the organisation marks its 20th anniversary in 2017 having overseen the destruction of 94 per cent of the world's declared chemical weapons.
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| Factbox: Trump makes picks to fill security, legal posts Posted: 18 Nov 2016 08:57 AM PST Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday announced his selections for his top security posts, including the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), his national security adviser and attorney general. An official with Trump's transition team told Reuters that Trump had chosen retired General Michael Flynn as national security adviser, U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as attorney general, and U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo to lead the CIA. |
| Far from Mosul, Islamic State close to defeat in Libya's Sirte Posted: 18 Nov 2016 08:39 AM PST  By Patrick Markey SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - After six months of heavy fighting, Libyan forces have advanced so deep into the strategic city of Sirte that they can pick out the Tunisian and Egyptian accents of their Islamic State enemies as they trade insults over the frontline. Victory is imminent on this remote front of the war against Islamic State, with the last few militants staging a last stand in a small area of just one square kilometer (0.4 square mile), U.S. and Libyan officials say. "They know they will die anyway so they fight well." Defeat in Sirte will damage Islamic State's ability to show it is expanding globally and deprive it of a foothold outside Iraq and Syria.
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| IS jihadists likely made mustard gas used in Syria: OPCW chief Posted: 18 Nov 2016 07:26 AM PST  The Hague (AFP) - Jihadists belonging to the so-called Islamic State group may have manufactured sulphur mustard gas used in attacks in Syria and Iraq themselves, the head of a global watchdog told AFP Friday.
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| Wounded Warrior Project Takes Veterans on Houston Memorial Tour Posted: 18 Nov 2016 07:18 AM PST HOUSTON, Nov. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) took a group of warriors and their families to pay tribute to the fallen on Veterans Day. In a WWP survey of the injured warriors it serves, more than half of survey respondents (51.7 percent) talked with fellow Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, or Operation New Dawn veterans to address their mental health issues. The Fallen Warriors Memorial pays homage to service members from Texas who gave their lives in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, or Operation New Dawn. |
| To Mosul and back: Sunni Arabs seek place in a shifting Iraq Posted: 18 Nov 2016 06:42 AM PST  By John Davison NEAR BASHIQA, Iraq (Reuters) - When Kurdish forces began rounding up his relatives and friends, 23-year-old Iraqi Omar Abdallah fled with his pregnant wife and four brothers to Mosul. At the time, life under Islamic State seemed preferable for the Sunni Arab to indefinite detention. Now, Abdallah, Maha and their two infant children have fled again.
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| Prosecutors seek former Italy resident as IS fighter in Iraq Posted: 18 Nov 2016 05:31 AM PST  MILAN (AP) — Italian prosecutors say they are investigating a former resident of Italy, now living in Iraq, as a foreign fighter for the Islamic State group.
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| With Trump at the Helm, Could Republicans Fast-Track Privatizing Public Lands? Posted: 18 Nov 2016 04:11 AM PST The federal government (and by proxy, U.S. citizens) owns 47 percent of America's 11 contiguous Western states. "There are a lot of questions in what he'll do with public lands," said Sharon Buccino, land and wildlife program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. At the same time, Trump has pledged to save the nations' coal industry in part by nixing the Obama administration's freeze on new coal mines on federal land. |
| Mosul mechanics fight IS with wrenches Posted: 18 Nov 2016 02:55 AM PST  They are armed with wrenches instead of rifles and are rarely found on the front lines, but Mosul's mechanics say they are indispensable to the fight against the Islamic State group. "If the Humvees break down and the weapons stop working without anyone to repair them, how could we advance against IS?" says Lieutenant Colonel Anwar Rajdi, who heads the mechanics unit of the elite Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS). The tall commander proudly says his unit is "the most important part" of the month-long fight for Iraq's second city, the last one in the country still held by IS.
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| Contenders for key jobs in Trump administration Posted: 18 Nov 2016 02:33 AM PST By Ginger Gibson and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New names for possible appointees to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet have emerged, including 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney as secretary of state, as he works to fill administration positions ahead of his inauguration on Jan. 20. A senior Trump official said the job of national security adviser has been offered to retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn. ... |
| Iraqi children dump Islamic State's books of violence Posted: 18 Nov 2016 01:22 AM PST  By Isabel Coles QAYYARA, Iraq (Reuters) - The school walls have a fresh coat of paint and classrooms are crammed, but it will take longer to undo the damage done to thousands of Iraqi children who lived under Islamic State for more than two years. Islamic State was driven from the town three months ago in the early stages of a campaign to recapture the city of Mosul, which lies about 60 km (40 miles) to north and is now under assault by Iraqi security forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition. As Islamic State's self-proclaimed caliphate is eroded, a clearer picture is emerging of the group's project and the enduring mark left on those who lived through it.
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| Iraqi forces advance into Mosul under fire, 1 soldier killed Posted: 18 Nov 2016 12:56 AM PST  MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi troops advanced cautiously into eastern districts of Mosul on Friday, facing stiff resistance from Islamic State militants a day after they paused their assault due to poor visibility, officers said.
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| Iraq's oil contracts make joining OPEC output cut more painful Posted: 18 Nov 2016 12:36 AM PST  By Ahmad Ghaddar and Ahmed Rasheed LONDON/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq would have to compensate international oil companies for limits placed on their production, according to industry sources and documents seen by Reuters, further reducing the prospect it will join any OPEC deal to curb the group's output. The compensation - stipulated in contracts - would compound the financial hit of losing much-needed revenue from crude sales, if the cash-strapped country were to yield to OPEC entreaties to curtail national production. OPEC member Iraq pays developers a fixed dollar-denominated fee for every barrel of oil produced in the south of the country - home to its biggest reserves - under technical service contracts agreed between the international firms and the state-owned South Oil Company (SOC).
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| With Trump victory, blunt U.S. general gets second chance Posted: 17 Nov 2016 11:37 PM PST  By Phil Stewart and Jonathan Landay WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On his way to the polls on election day, Michael Flynn pulled out his phone and took a video of himself saying his vote for Donald Trump was part of a larger fight against "the dishonesty and deceit of our government." For Flynn, a retired U.S. Army three-star general and one of Trump's closest advisers, it was another parting shot at an administration he thinks unfairly fired him from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 2014 for telling hard truths about the war on Islamist extremism. Named on Thursday to become Trump's national security adviser, Flynn is now poised for a second act in public life – and he has promised nothing short of an upheaval. "This is probably the biggest election in our nation's history, since bringing on George Washington when he decided not to be a king.
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| In Israel, famed pre-WWII ship survivors relate to refugees Posted: 17 Nov 2016 10:09 PM PST  JERUSALEM (AP) — While the European refugee crisis has captured the world's attention, Sol Messinger is one of the few who can personally relate to the harrowing images of desperate families fleeing to safety by sea.
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| Trump offers national security adviser post to Flynn: reports Posted: 17 Nov 2016 09:47 PM PST  President-elect Donald Trump has offered the influential post of national security adviser to his controversial campaign adviser, former general Michael Flynn, US media reported Trump officials as saying. Highly respected as a decorated military intelligence officer helping combat insurgent networks in Afghanistan and Iraq, Flynn, 57, later generated widespread criticism for his strident backing of the Republican's campaign. It was not immediately clear whether Flynn had accepted the offer to become what many believe to be the country's top national security official.
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| Scandal-hit Jeonbuk looking for redemption in Asian final Posted: 17 Nov 2016 08:53 PM PST SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Scandal-hit Jeonbuk Motors of South Korea is looking to end a troubled year on a high by defeating Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates in the Asian Champions League final, the first leg of which takes place on Saturday at Jeonju World Cup Stadium. |
| UN extends Syria gas attacks probe Posted: 17 Nov 2016 06:57 PM PST  The UN Security Council on Thursday unanimously decided to extend for another year the mandate of a panel tasked with investigating chemical attacks in Syria and identifying those responsible. Backed by Russia, the council adopted a US-drafted resolution to prolong the joint investigation by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) until November 2017. US Ambassador Samantha Power said the work of the panel, known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), was "far from finished" and pointed to reports of alleged chlorine gas attacks in east Aleppo.
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