| White House campaign casts a shadow over 9/11 anniversary Posted: 11 Sep 2016 05:22 PM PDT  The U.S. marked the 15th anniversary of 9/11 with the solemn roll call of the dead Sunday but couldn't keep the presidential campaign from intruding on what is traditionally a politics-free moment of remembrance. ...
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| Amnesty condemns detention of Yazidi woman in Iraqi Kurdistan Posted: 11 Sep 2016 05:19 PM PDT Rights group Amnesty International called on Monday for the release of a Yazidi woman detained by Iraqi Kurdish authorities for nearly two years following her escape from Islamic State enslavement. Bassema Darwish, a 34-year-old mother, has been held without trial since October 2014 on charges of cooperating with Islamic State in the killing of three Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who stormed a house in northern Iraq where she was being held captive, Amnesty said in a report. Kurdish forces backed by U.S. air strikes seized the nearby town of Sinjar, home to the Yazidi minority, from Islamic State about a year later. |
| American women sweep in triathlon's Paralympic debut Posted: 11 Sep 2016 03:30 PM PDT Before racing in the women's Paralympic triathlon Sunday, U.S. athletes Allysa Seely, Hailey Danisewicz and Melissa Stockwell talked about it being the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. ... |
| Syria rebels guardedly agree on truce but battles persist Posted: 11 Sep 2016 03:30 PM PDT  By Angus McDowall and Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - Government troops and insurgents fought in several parts of Syria on Sunday, apparently seeking to strengthen their positions on the eve of a ceasefire that Free Syrian Army rebels said they would observe but with major reservations. The Free Syrian Army groups wrote to the United States on Sunday about the deal it agreed on with Russia, saying that while they would "cooperate positively" with the ceasefire, they were concerned it would benefit the government. The influential hardline Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham issued a statement late on Sunday attacking the ceasefire deal, but stopping short of explicitly saying it would not abide by its terms.
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| United States mourns on 15th anniversary of 9/11 Posted: 11 Sep 2016 01:15 PM PDT  America commemorated the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Sunday with emotional services of remembrance in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania to honor those who perished in the world's deadliest terror strikes. On September 11, 2001, 19 Al-Qaeda operatives crashed four passenger jets into the Twin Towers in Manhattan, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania -- killing nearly 3,000 people and changing the world forever. This year's anniversary comes with the United States locked in a bruising White House election battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who both attended the New York service, although Clinton left early after feeling unwell.
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| Has Saudi Arabia done enough to keep pilgrims safe? Iran says no. Posted: 11 Sep 2016 12:57 PM PDT As nearly 2 million pilgrims ascended Mount Arafat in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, officials kept a watchful eye from above with the help of drones. The increased surveillance is part of the government's response to a stampede that killed more than 2,400 participants last year in the Hajj, an annual Muslim rite, according to an unofficial count cited by BBC News. Saudi officials report that nearly 800 pilgrims were crushed to death, but bodies returned to their home countries following the tragedy numbered more than 2,000, including more than 400 from Iran. |
| Families remember 9/11 victims 15 years after attacks Posted: 11 Sep 2016 12:02 PM PDT  Americans remembered the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on Sunday at a ceremony marking 15 years, with the recital of their names, tolling church bells and a tribute in lights at the site where New York City's massive twin towers collapsed. As classical music drifted across the 9/11 Memorial plaza in lower Manhattan, family members and first responders slowly read the names and delivered personal memories of the almost 3,000 victims killed in the worst attack on U.S. soil since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. Tom Acquarviva's 29-year-old son Paul was one of 658 employees of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald who perished after the first plane struck the north tower just below where they worked on the 101st to 105th floors.
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| US response to 9/11 increased terror threat: Hollande Posted: 11 Sep 2016 11:27 AM PDT  America's response to the 9/11 attacks augmented rather than defeated the jihadist threat, with the consequences of the Iraq war now being felt in terror-scarred France, President Francois Hollande said Sunday. In a Facebook post commemorating the victims of the attacks Hollande echoed a famous front-page headline from Le Monde newspaper on the day after the suicide plane strikes. Namely to Iraq," he wrote.
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| 'Shock and awe' response to 9/11 helped jihad's spread: analysts Posted: 11 Sep 2016 10:40 AM PDT  While 9/11 failed to bring America to its knees as Al-Qaeda hoped, it ushered in an era of instability, especially in the Middle East, that Islamic extremists have skilfully exploited, analysts say. By reacting with a doctrine of "Shock and Awe" and invading Iraq in 2003, the US committed a series of missteps that indirectly helped foment jihadism, say critics. Founded in the 1980s, Al-Qaeda was gravely weakened after being expelled from Afghanistan in 2001 by the US-led invasion of the country that had harboured the terror group's leader Osama bin Laden.
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| French police arrest 15-year-old suspected of planning attack Posted: 11 Sep 2016 09:53 AM PDT  French police have arrested a 15-year-old boy suspected of planning an attack, investigators said Sunday, as Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned that the country faced a threat from 15,000 homegrown radicals. The teenager was arrested in eastern Paris on Saturday and had been under house arrest since April for suspected links to Islamic extremists. The police suspect him of plotting "in response to calls from Syria to attack France," one of the sources said, just days after a separate plot to blow up a car packed with gas cannisters was allegedly foiled in central Paris.
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| CIA Director John Brennan warns of Russian hacking Posted: 11 Sep 2016 09:53 AM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA Director John Brennan warned on Sunday that Russia has "exceptionally capable and sophisticated" computer capabilities and that the U.S. must be on guard.
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| Saudi launches Persian hajj TV after tensions with Iran Posted: 11 Sep 2016 08:47 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia has launched Persian-language television broadcasts from this year's hajj, the information minister said on Sunday, following tensions with Iran over the annual pilgrimage. Minister of Information and Culture Adel al-Turaifi said the 24-hour satellite channel would cover hajj rituals and prayers from the Grand Mosque in Mecca. "The channel aims to broadcast the message of the hajj, the eternal meanings of Islam and to show what is being provided by the kingdom" during the pilgrimage, the Saudi Press Agency quoted Turaifi as saying.
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| Turkish warplanes kill 20 Islamic State group fighters Posted: 11 Sep 2016 08:28 AM PDT  ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey's military said Sunday that its warplanes killed 20 Islamic State group fighters in an attack on targets in northern Syria, while Turkey's president renewed a pledge to destroy the group.
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| Turkey ousts 28 mayors under post-coup emergency Posted: 11 Sep 2016 08:04 AM PDT  Turkey on Sunday removed 28 mayors accused of links to Kurdish militants or US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, using emergency powers to replace them with state-appointed trustees in a move that sparked accusations of trampling on democracy. The mayors have been suspended from their posts on suspicion of links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which is waging a deadly insurgency in the southeast, or Gulen, who is blamed for the July 15 failed coup, an interior ministry statement said. Using special powers under the state of emergency imposed in the wake of the abortive putsch, they have been replaced by state-appointed trustees, similar to administrators appointed to head a company that goes into bankruptcy.
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| Turkey removes two dozen elected mayors in Kurdish militant crackdown Posted: 11 Sep 2016 06:51 AM PDT  Turkey appointed new administrators in two dozen Kurdish-run municipalities on Sunday after removing their elected mayors over suspected links to militants, triggering pockets of protest in its volatile southeastern region bordering Syria and Iraq. President Tayyip Erdogan said this week the campaign against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, who have waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, was now Turkey's largest ever. The 24 municipalities had been run by the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest in parliament, which denies direct links to the militants.
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| France's premier warns of new attacks, 15,000 people on police radar Posted: 11 Sep 2016 04:51 AM PDT  French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Sunday there would be new attacks in France but proposals by former president Nicolas Sarkozy to boost security was not the right way to deal with threats. "This week at least two attacks were foiled," Manuel Valls said in an interview with Europe 1 radio and Itele television on Sunday. Valls said there were 15,000 people on the radar of police and intelligent services who were in the process of being radicalized.
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| Saudi launches Farsi-language hajj TV amid dispute with Iran Posted: 11 Sep 2016 04:08 AM PDT RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia has launched a Farsi-language satellite television channel broadcasting the hajj as Iranians abstain from the pilgrimage amid a dispute between the two regional rivals. |
| Today in History Posted: 10 Sep 2016 09:02 PM PDT Today in History |
| United States marks 15th anniversary of 9/11 Posted: 10 Sep 2016 06:44 PM PDT  The United States marks the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Sunday with solemn services to commemorate the victims of the deadliest terror strikes on US soil, which changed the world forever. Nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001 when 19 Al-Qaeda suicide bombers hijacked four passenger jets, crashing them into the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The names of the dead will be read out in a remembrance service at Ground Zero in New York on the site of the rebuilt World Trade Center, and President Barack Obama will address a ceremony at the Pentagon.
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| 'IS-inspired' Australian charged with terrorism after stabbing Posted: 10 Sep 2016 06:24 PM PDT A Sydney man was charged on Sunday with committing a terrorist attack and attempted murder that police said seemed to have been inspired by Islamic State, after he repeatedly stabbed a stranger on the street. "We know this person has strong extremist beliefs inspired by ISIS," New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn said at a news conference, using an acronym for the militant group originally known as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. There have been several "lone wolf" assaults, including a 2014 cafe siege in Sydney that left two hostages and the gunman dead. |
| American Designer With Iraqi Roots Stuns New York Fashion Week Posted: 10 Sep 2016 12:13 PM PDT  Oday Shakar is still young but he has already lived through more than your average American fashion designer: childhood bullying, two years in Iraq after the Gulf War and cancer.
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