| Who hacked? Trump challenges intel agencies he'll oversee Posted: 04 Jan 2017 05:09 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday escalated his blunt public challenge to the U.S. intelligence agencies he will soon oversee, appearing to embrace WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's contention that Russia did not provide his group with the hacked Democratic emails that roiled the 2016 election.
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| Trump fills top jobs for his administration Posted: 04 Jan 2017 03:57 PM PST Below is a list of Republican Trump's selections for top jobs in his administration. Senate confirmation is required for all the posts except national security adviser and White House posts. Tillerson, 64, has spent his entire career at Exxon Mobil Corp , where he rose to chairman and chief executive officer in 2006. |
| Judge keeps man in jail until trial on aiding terror charge Posted: 04 Jan 2017 03:23 PM PST NOFOLK, Va. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that a Virginia man must remain in jail until trial on a charge that he tried to aid a terrorist group in Iraq, while his public defender argued that he was "entrapped" by undercover FBI agents over "bravado and talk." |
| US-led coalition boosts Mosul military advisors to 450: official Posted: 04 Jan 2017 02:31 PM PST  The US-led coalition said Wednesday it has doubled to about 450 the number of military advisors assisting Iraqi troops engaged in the fight to retake Mosul from Islamic State fighters. "We have increased the number of advise and assist forces that are there with the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) command elements to help advise them as they move forward and to synchronize operations," coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said in a video conference from Baghdad. While military advisors are behind the frontlines, they have already entered the city several times, he added.
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| Judge keeps man in jail until trial on aiding terror charge Posted: 04 Jan 2017 02:16 PM PST NOFOLK, Va. (AP) — A federal judge says a Virginia man must remain in jail until he's tried on a charge of trying to aid a terrorist group. |
| American Military Advisers Have Entered Mosul at Times, US Official Says Posted: 04 Jan 2017 02:15 PM PST  American military advisers have at times entered the city of Mosul accompanying Iraqi forces fighting to retake the city from ISIS, a U.S. military spokesman said today. Since the start of the Iraqi offensive to retake Mosul in mid-October, U.S. officials have not confirmed whether American advisers would operate in the city accompanying Iraqi forces while remaining behind the front lines. "They have been in the city at different times, yes," said Colonel John Dorrian, the U.S. military spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, in response to a question about whether American military advisers have entered Mosul as part of the Iraqi offensive.
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| US-led coalition doubles number of advisers in Iraq to 450 Posted: 04 Jan 2017 02:11 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq has doubled the size of its adviser corps, reflecting the intensified effort to help Iraqi forces retake the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul, a U.S. officer said Wednesday.
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| Obama calls for seamless transition for US military to Trump Posted: 04 Jan 2017 01:39 PM PST  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama called for a smooth handover of control of the U.S. military to incoming commander in chief Donald Trump, as the outgoing president met Wednesday with military leaders for the last time.
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| Closure of Iraq charity puts rescued Yazidi sex slaves at risk, director warns Posted: 04 Jan 2017 10:37 AM PST By Lin Taylor LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The closure of a charity providing treatment for trauma to Yazidi sex slaves rescued from Islamic State militants in northern Iraq will damage their chances of recovery, the charity's head said on Wednesday. The Yazidi-led charity Yazda, based in the Iraqi Kurdistan city of Dohuk, had been providing aid and mental healthcare since 2014 to Yazidi women and girls who have been raped and enslaved by IS. Executive director of Yazda, Murad Ismael, said its offices were shut down on Monday by Kurdish authorities who accused the group of being illegally involved in "political activities". |
| More than 2,000 Iraqis a day flee Mosul as military advances Posted: 04 Jan 2017 10:10 AM PST  By Stephen Kalin and Isabel Coles NEAR MOSUL/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - More than 2,000 Iraqis a day are fleeing Mosul, several hundred more each day than before U.S.-led coalition forces began a new phase of their battle to retake the city from Islamic State, the United Nations said on Wednesday. After quick initial advances, the operation stalled for several weeks but last Thursday Iraqi forces renewed their push from Mosul's east toward the Tigris River on three fronts.
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| Iraqi forces gaining momentum in Mosul: U.S. coalition chief Posted: 04 Jan 2017 09:30 AM PST  By Stephen Kalin NORTH OF MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi army and security forces are working better together in their battle against Islamic State militants and are gaining momentum in the 11-week campaign to retake Mosul, the commander of the U.S.-led coalition backing them said on Wednesday. During a helicopter tour over recently recaptured areas, U.S. Army Lieutenant-General Steve Townsend said coordination had been largely absent in the first two months of the campaign, when Iraqi forces made slow progress after breaching the city. Elite counter-terrorism troops entered Mosul from the east and seized a quarter of the city but troops on other fronts stalled, leading to a military pause last month.
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| At Mosul front, Iraqis fleeing and returning cross paths Posted: 04 Jan 2017 09:09 AM PST  MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — The two teenage sisters hid at home for most of the 2 ½ years of rule by the Islamic State group. This week, as fighting engulfed their neighborhood in the northern city of Mosul, Rusul and Doha Ghanem and their family made a run for it.
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| Turkey identifies Istanbul gunman, makes new arrests Posted: 04 Jan 2017 07:36 AM PST  Turkey said Wednesday it had identified the gunman behind the New Year's massacre on an elite Istanbul nightclub that killed 39, as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the attack aimed to polarise Turkish society. "The identity of the person responsible for the attack has been established," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said during an interview with state-run Anadolu news agency, without giving any name. IS took responsibility for the massacre in a statement on Monday, marking the first time it has issued a clear and undisputed claim for a major attack inside Turkey.
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| Police question Iraqi journalist freed by her abductors Posted: 04 Jan 2017 07:16 AM PST BAGHDAD (AP) — Police on Wednesday questioned an Iraqi journalist who was abducted last week from her Baghdad home, after she was released by her captors the previous night. |
| 'We need to talk', Bavarian CSU tells Merkel on migrants Posted: 04 Jan 2017 06:49 AM PST  Insisting "this is serious", the leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Bavarian sister party stood by his demand for a refugee cap and said the conservative allies still have differences to resolve before campaigning for September's election. Horst Seehofer, the leader of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), said on Wednesday a "reconciliation summit" he is due to hold with Merkel in Munich in February was still planned but that the program was not finalized. The CSU has long bristled at Merkel's open-door policies that allowed into Germany about 1.1 million refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere since mid-2015.
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| Kidnapped Iraqi woman journalist released unharmed after a week Posted: 04 Jan 2017 03:24 AM PST  Iraqi journalist Afrah al-Qaisi, known in her country for criticizing the government in satirical articles for local media, has been released unharmed after being kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Baghdad a week ago. The head of the Iraqi Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, Ziyad al-Ajili, said on Wednesday the kidnappers had returned the car, telephone, laptop and gold jewelry they took when they broke into her home and that she drove back overnight around midnight. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi telephoned Qaisi to check on her well-being after her release, his media office said.
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| Number of displaced in Mosul op passes 125,000: UN Posted: 04 Jan 2017 03:07 AM PST  More than 125,000 Iraqis have been displaced since the start in October of an offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, the United Nations said Wednesday. "Following the intensification of military operations in Mosul city on 29 December, the rate of displacement from Mosul has increased markedly, with over 9,000 people having fled the city in the space of four days," said the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. After a lull in the offensive launched on October 17 to retake what is now the Islamic State group's last major stronghold in the country, Iraqi forces started a fresh push last week, engaging in heavy fighting in eastern Mosul.
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| Yazidi NGO says Iraq HQ closed by Kurdish forces Posted: 04 Jan 2017 02:39 AM PST  Kurdish security forces closed the Iraqi headquarters of an organisation that aids members of the Yazidi religious minority, which has been brutally targeted by jihadists, the group said on Wednesday. The move by the Iraqi Kurdish asayesh forces to close the Yazda organisation's offices in the northern city of Dohuk drew criticism from Human Rights Watch (HRW) as well as Nadia Murad, a Yazidi survivor of enslavement by the Islamic State group. "A force from the asayesh raided the main Yazda headquarters in Dohuk on Monday afternoon... and ordered the closure of the headquarters and all Yazda projects in camps" for displaced people, the group said in an online statement.
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| A network of smugglers rescues women from ISIS Posted: 04 Jan 2017 02:00 AM PST  A Yazidi family recently gathered near a peshmerga checkpoint on the road to Shingal in Iraq, anxiously awaiting a woman who had been rescued from the Islamic State in Syria. As the sun set over northern Iraq, a truck approached and the sobs and cries from the family grew louder. Wahida, 35, stepped out of the truck with her young daughter, who looked frail and stricken in a little pink dress, showing no emotion.
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| WikiLeaks urges leaks of departing Obama White House docs Posted: 03 Jan 2017 10:17 PM PST  WikiLeaks appealed Tuesday for leaked White House documents before President Barack Obama leaves office, as its founder Julian Assange again denied Russia was the source of hacked Democratic party emails that hurt Hillary Clinton's bid for the US presidency. "System admins: Don't let the White House destroy US history again! Copy now, then send to WikiLeaks at your leisure," the secret-spilling website announced on Twitter, shortly before Assange gave an in-depth interview to US network Fox.
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| Pentagon scraps Iraq, Afghan enlistment bonus repayments Posted: 03 Jan 2017 07:36 PM PST  The Pentagon said Tuesday it was dropping its efforts to recoup recruitment bonuses paid to more than 15,000 California National Guard staff a decade ago to get more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan battlefields. In all, a Pentagon review found that some 17,500 California National Guard soldiers faced potential recoupment of bonuses used as inducements during recruitment drives to overcome a shortage of troops to send to the two conflict zones. The Defense Department's top personnel official Peter Levine told reporters that the Pentagon would begin notifying soldiers over the next month that the repayments were being waived, with that process due to be completed before July 1.
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| Suspected IS scout for Berlin attack sites goes on trial Posted: 03 Jan 2017 04:41 PM PST  An alleged Islamic State jihadist accused of scoping out potential targets for an attack in Berlin, including the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag building, went on trial in Germany on Wednesday. It was the country's first trial of a suspected IS militant deployed to Germany from Syria during the chaotic 2015 refugee influx -- in contrast to "lone wolf" attacks or plots by extremists who were radicalised elsewhere. The defendant, 20-year-old Syrian national Shaas al-Mohammad, allegedly fought with the Islamist militia in his war-torn homeland for two years before arriving in Germany as a refugee in August 2015.
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| Tunisia dismantles 'terrorist cell' in growing crackdown Posted: 03 Jan 2017 04:06 PM PST  Tunisian security forces have dismantled a 13-member "terrorist cell" that was funnelling young recruits to jihadist groups, authorities said Wednesday, as part of a growing crackdown on extremists. Members of the cell held "secret meetings in a mosque" and admitted to recruiting and sending 12 youths to fight with jihadist groups abroad, it said, linking it to the Okba Ibn Nafaa Battalion, a group connected to Al-Qaeda. It was the seventh announcement in less than a week of arrests of alleged "terrorists" in Tunisia, which has detained more than 70 people in a widening crackdown on jihadists since December 25.
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