| Australia says Islamic State recruiter arrested in Turkey Posted: 25 Nov 2016 05:01 PM PST An Australian citizen believed to be a top recruiter for Islamic State has been arrested by Turkish authorities and will be subject to a formal extradition request from Australia, the Australian government said on Saturday. A man believed to be Neil Prakash, who was linked to several Australia-based attack plans, has been detained in Turkey and was being interrogated by Turkish authorities, a government spokesperson said in an emailed statement. |
| Three Decades of bi-Partisan Congressional Support for the Iranian Opposition, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) Posted: 25 Nov 2016 03:32 PM PST WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The grass roots efforts in over 40 states by the Iranian American communities has generated bi-partisan support for the parliament-in-exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, its main component, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and its members in camps Ashraf and Liberty since the 1980s. S.Con.Res.42 regarding the safe and expeditious resettlement to Albania of all residents of Camp Liberty unanimously passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee presided by Chairman Bob Corker and Ranking member Ben Cardin. |
| French prosecutor says 4 friends plotted imminent attack Posted: 25 Nov 2016 02:38 PM PST  PARIS (AP) — Four long-time friends in their 30s, living in the same French city and communicating through a closed phone line, were planning a terror attack in France as early as next week on orders from an Islamic State group member in Iraq or Syria, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Friday.
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| Death toll in Iraq bombing claimed by IS rises to 73 Posted: 25 Nov 2016 01:15 PM PST  The death toll from a car bombing south of Baghdad claimed by the Islamic State group rose to 73 on Friday, including about 40 Iranian pilgrims, as Iraqi forces fought house to house to dislodge the extremist ...
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| Iraq's Najaf cemetery swells as fight against IS escalates Posted: 25 Nov 2016 01:13 PM PST  NAJAF, Iraq (AP) — Wailing and pounding their chests in grief, a dozen women clad in mourning black gathered around a tomb in the massive cemetery in Iraq's holy Shiite city of Najaf. A short distance away, a grief-stricken man cried silently inside his car, parked next to a friend's tomb.
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| Iraq forces must open safe routes for Mosul residents: NGO Posted: 25 Nov 2016 11:40 AM PST  Iraqi forces should create safe exits for Mosul residents because they cannot protect civilians and wage fierce battles with jihadists at the same time, an aid group said on Friday. The International Rescue Committee also predicted that the fighting to retake the Islamic State group's northern stronghold would last until the spring of 2017 and worried that the trapped population would run out of supplies or take huge risks to flee. "Even with the best efforts of the Iraqi forces to keep residents out of harm's way, the fighting is just too intense," IRC's Iraq director Alex Milutinovic said.
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| In eastern Mosul, residents fret over security and supplies Posted: 25 Nov 2016 10:16 AM PST  By Ulf Laessing MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces have pushed Islamic State out of the street where Yaqdhan Abdelnabi lives in Mosul, but the former sales manager is moving his five children to another part of the city because it is still dangerous. Women hang laundry on balconies and men chat at the few shops that have reopened in the Zahra district of eastern Mosul since it was retaken more than a week ago by Iraqi forces. With food and water in short supply, life remains far from normal in Zahra, even if Islamic State is on the back foot in Mosul after more than two years of brutal rule.
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| Talks, not war may solve Philippine conflict: Duterte Posted: 25 Nov 2016 09:35 AM PST  Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte raised the prospect Friday of holding peace talks with Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic militant group which has abducted dozens of foreign sailors in recent months, offering federalism as a possible solution. In an apparent about-face, Duterte appealed to the Abu Sayyaf, who are also blamed for the country's deadliest terror attacks, to come to the negotiating table. "We cannot be forever treating human beings here, seriously wounded," he told reporters at a military hospital in the southern port of Zamboanga where he visited troops wounded in an offensive he had ordered against the militants.
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| Saudi wants OPEC to solve own problems before meeting non-OPEC Posted: 25 Nov 2016 09:20 AM PST  DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) - Top OPEC oil exporter Saudi Arabia has told the producer group it will not attend talks on Monday with non-OPEC producers to discuss limiting supply, OPEC sources said, as it wants to focus on having consensus within the organization first. The Nov. 28 meeting in Vienna was planned to discuss the contribution that producers outside OPEC will make to a proposed supply-limiting agreement. OPEC oil ministers meet on Wednesday in an effort to finalize their deal.
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| Contenders, picks for key jobs in Trump's administration Posted: 25 Nov 2016 08:43 AM PST (Reuters) - Donald Trump is not expected to make additional high-level appointments on Friday, his transition team told reporters, adding that more meetings are planned for Monday. Below are people mentioned as contenders for senior roles as the Republican president-elect works to form his administration before taking office on Jan. 20, according to Reuters sources and media reports. See end of list for posts already filled. TREASURY SECRETARY * Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive and Trump's campaign finance chairman * Jeb Hensarling, Republican U.S. ... |
| Hunger and desperation: Aleppo siege tests limits of endurance Posted: 25 Nov 2016 08:14 AM PST  By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - As Syria's government presses a fierce assault on eastern Aleppo, its siege is making life ever harder for civilians who are being forced to sift through garbage for food and scavenge firewood from bombed-out buildings. With winter setting in, shortages of food, medicine and fuel coupled with intense air strikes and artillery bombardment are testing the limits of endurance among a population the United Nations estimates at 270,000 people. "People are worn out ... there are people today in Aleppo who are eating out of the trash," said Mustafa Hamami, who lost two of his children and four other relatives when a six-storey apartment building was destroyed this week.
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| After riot, Bulgaria to send migrants to closed camps, plans extraditions Posted: 25 Nov 2016 07:53 AM PST  By Dimitar Kyosemarliev HARMANLI, Bulgaria (Reuters) - Bulgaria will move migrants who clashed with police at a refugee camp to closed camps and hopes to start extraditing some to their native Afghanistan next month, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said on Friday. More than 400 asylum seekers, angered at being confined at the camp in the southern town of Harmanli near the border with Turkey over a health scare, were arrested after clashes with riot police late on Thursday. Three migrants sought medical help after the riot, it added.
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| Erdogan warns Europe that Turkey could open migrant gates Posted: 25 Nov 2016 06:38 AM PST  By Tulay Karadeniz and Nick Tattersall ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan threatened on Friday to unleash a new wave of migrants on Europe after lawmakers there voted for a temporary halt to Turkey's EU membership negotiations, but behind the fighting talk, neither side wants a collapse in ties. Europe's deteriorating relations with Turkey, a buffer against the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, are endangering a deal which has helped to significantly reduce a migrant influx which saw more than 1.3 million people arrive in Europe last year. "You clamored when 50,000 refugees came to Kapikule, and started wondering what would happen if the border gates were opened," Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul, referring to a Bulgarian border checkpoint where migrants massed last year.
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| Former PM Tony Blair says Brexit can be stopped if voters decide Posted: 25 Nov 2016 06:04 AM PST  By Guy Faulconbridge LONDON (Reuters) - Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that Britain's exit from the European Union can be stopped if voters decide the pain of leaving the world's biggest trading bloc outweighs the benefits of leaving. In Britain's June 23 referendum, 51.9 percent, or 17.4 million people, voted to leave the EU while 48.1 percent, or 16.1 million people, voted to stay. Blair, who is pro-European, compared Brexit to "agreeing to a house swap without having seen the other house" and said access to the EU single market would define Brexit.
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| Iraq readies force to storm flashpoint town near Mosul Posted: 25 Nov 2016 05:07 AM PST  By Saif Hameed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq is readying a special force tasked with storming Tal Afar, a bastion of Islamic State west of Mosul, in a way that would avoid revenge killings against the town's Sunni population. Capturing or isolating Tal Afar from Mosul is a key part of the U.S-backed offensive to take back Islamic State's last major city stronghold in Iraq, by allowing the ground forces taking part in the campaign to complete Mosul's encirclement. The army and police forces planning to storm Tal Afar will include Sunni and Shi'ite Turkmens, reflecting the main mix of the town's population, said Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based analyst who advises the government on Islamic State affairs.
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| Islamic State directed suspects in planning attacks in France: prosecutor Posted: 25 Nov 2016 04:49 AM PST  Five suspects, arrested in France on suspicion of planning attacks on security targets in and around the French capital, were directed remotely by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Paris prosecutor said on Friday. Authorities said earlier this week that attacks had been planned for Dec. 1 against police and intelligence headquarters in Paris as well as the Disneyland Paris theme park. The prosecutor's emphasis that France was under direct threat of attacks from Islamic State militants raised tension as the country went into a weekend of political campaigning and a vote on Sunday for a center-right candidate for next year's presidential election.
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| In retaken areas of Mosul, Islamic State still inflicts pain Posted: 25 Nov 2016 04:44 AM PST  By Isabel Coles ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - A medic peeled blood-soaked bandages from the arm of a boy in the emergency room of a hospital in northern Iraq, revealing the full extent of the damage inflicted by an Islamic State mortar attack. Around them were dozens of other civilians who have been wounded in areas of Mosul since they were retaken from Islamic State by Iraqi forces trying to dislodge the militants from their largest urban stronghold in Iraq. The civilians say are not accidental victims caught in the crossfire and that Islamic State has been targeting them.
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| Cold weather kills 20 in north Afghanistan; 2 die in attacks Posted: 25 Nov 2016 12:55 AM PST KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Cold weather and freezing temperatures that engulfed a remote northern province in Afghanistan this week killed at least 20 people, all of them internally displaced and including several children, Afghan officials said Friday. |
| Supplies running out for Iraqis left in embattled Mosul Posted: 25 Nov 2016 12:30 AM PST  A few blocks away from the home in the densely packed Aden neighbourhood, Iraqi special forces are battling Islamic State (IS) jihadists in grinding house-to-house fighting to oust the group from Mosul, the last major population centre it controlled in the country. While aid agencies estimated that some 200,000 residents could flee the city in the first weeks of the fighting, five weeks into the operation only around 70,000 civilians have fled their homes.
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| Australian IS recruiter, believed killed in Iraq in April, 'under arrest': media Posted: 25 Nov 2016 12:16 AM PST An Australian citizen believed to be a top recruiter for Islamic State is under arrest, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing an unnamed U.S. military official, months after Australia said he had been killed in a U.S. air strike. Australia said in May that Neil Prakash, who was linked to several Australia-based attack plans, was killed in an air strike in Mosul, Iraq, on April 29. The Australian Broadcasting Corp, citing Turkish and Australian officials, said he was arrested in Turkey. |
| Jihadist siege chokes Syria's Deir Ezzor Posted: 24 Nov 2016 11:01 PM PST  In the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor, a two-year siege by the Islamic State group has forced taxi driver Mohammed al-Obeid to find a new job and turned its park into a cemetery. Instead of ferrying customers around the eastern city with its fuel shortages, he now buys old furniture and breaks it up for resale as firewood for cooking and heating. IS jihadists seized parts of Deir Ezzor in 2014 after a lightning advance across large areas of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
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| Syrian forces aim to split east Aleppo in two: rebel commander Posted: 24 Nov 2016 08:34 PM PST By Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government forces are trying to split opposition-held eastern Aleppo in two in a fierce ground and air assault that is taking a heavy toll on besieged civilians and rebel fighters who are battling hard to stop them, a rebel commander said. Abu Abdelrahman Nour, Aleppo commander of the Jabha Shamiya, one of the biggest groups fighting against President Bashar al-Assad in northern Syria, called for more help from countries such as France and Turkey, saying it would be a "catastrophe" if the government forces managed to bisect eastern Aleppo. Aleppo, Syria's biggest city before the start of a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, is already divided into the government-held west and rebel-held east, where U.N. officials say at least 250,000 people are under siege. |
| US service member killed in blast in Syria: official Posted: 24 Nov 2016 06:48 PM PST  A member of the US military died from his wounds after a blast caused by an improvised explosive device in northern Syria, the US military's central command said. The man was wounded by the explosion in the vicinity of Ayn Issa, Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, commander of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, was quoted as saying in a CENTCOM statement. "The entire counter-ISIL Coalition sends our condolences to this hero's family, friends and teammates," Townsend, using another acronym for the Islamic State.
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| As 'caliphate' shrinks, IS struggles in Egypt Posted: 24 Nov 2016 04:43 PM PST  As the Islamic State group loses territory in Iraq and Syria, one of its deadliest branches is struggling against Egypt's powerful army to maintain a foothold in the Sinai Peninsula. The affiliate, known as Sinai Province, has waged a murky war in the north of the peninsula bordering Israel that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen. It also claimed the bombing of a Russian airliner carrying holidaymakers from a south Sinai resort in October 2015 that killed all 224 people on board.
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