Paris terror attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has been extradited from Belgium to France and will face judges in Paris later.
The French prosecutor's office said Abdeslam arrived in the French capital at 7.05am (9.05am local time).
Authorities in Belgium confirmed the suspect had been handed
over under a European arrest warrant issued on 19 March - the day after
he was arrested in Brussels after four months on the run.
French prosecutors are expected to request that he be jailed
while he awaits charges over the 13 November attacks in Paris, in which
130 people were killed.
Abdeslam was arrested after four months on the run
Salah Abdeslam reportedly told Belgian investigators he was
supposed to detonate a suicide belt at the Stade de France, where the
attacks - claimed by Islamic State - began.
Later, gunmen armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles shot customers at Le Carillon bar and Petit Cambodge restaurant.
Attackers also opened fire in front of A La Bonne Biere restaurant in the 11th district, and outside La Belle Equipe.
At the Bataclan Concert Hall, several gunmen entered the venue and shot randomly at the crowd.
Salah Abdeslam was the only surviving suspect involved in the attacks - in which 350 people were injured.
STOCKHOLM - Sweden has received intelligence about a possible attack on
the capital by Islamic State militants, local media reported on Tuesday,
and security services said they were investigating undisclosed
"information".
Newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen as well as
public broadcaster Swedish Radio, citing unnamed sources, reported the
information was related to the threat of an attack, possibly in the
capital Stockholm.
Expressen reported Swedish security police
(SAPO) had received intelligence from Iraq that seven or eight Islamic
State fighters had entered Sweden with the intention of attacking
civilian targets.
ISIS militants have lately started using the wives of the killed
militants for intelligence purposes against Iraqi, Peshmerga forces,
according to security sources.
ISIS militants have lately started using the wives of the killed
militants for intelligence purposes against Iraqi, Peshmerga forces,
according to security sources.
ISIS has now started organising
its women, whose husbands have been killed, into a sleeper cell in order
to use them as intelligence agents and send them to Peshmerga-held
territories.
Due to its ineffective intelligence, the terrorist
group is sending women disguised as IDPs to the Kurdish territories to
collect intelligence information about Peshmerga and other Iraqi forces,
the source added.
Halo Najat, the Head of Kirkuk Security
forces, previously said that ISIS has been attempting to send
prostitutes to Kurdish territories to serve as spies.
Facing
successive failures, IS is struggling to use every method against Iraqi
forces in northern Iraq in hopes of causing damage to their frontlines.
EU
countries have previously handed evidences showing that ISIS fighters
are disguising among refugees to reach western territories.
Russia has enlisted some new recruits into its navy - in the form of five bottlenose dolphins.
A
tender for the Ministry of Defence revealed that Russia paid a total of
$26,000 (£18,051) for the marine mammals, which will have 'all teeth in
tact' and 'no mucus from the blowhole.'
However, the country are still refusing to reveal why the mysterious decision has been made.
Russia has enlisted some new recruits into its navy - in the form of five bottlenose dolphins
And there is no suggestion as to what the three male and two female dolphins, from Moscow's Utrish Dolphinarium, will be doing.
But there is the chance that the cute creatures could be used as killers.
For,
in the Cold War, the Soviet Union not only used them for aquatic
investigations and rescues but they also trained them to plant explosive
devices on enemy ships.
Russia has
been training dolphins without explanation since the 1960s and most
recently used them when it conquered Crimea in 2014.
However,
the Washington Post reports that the Defence Ministry denied claims
that the aquatic animals were being trained as killers.
And Russia is not the only country to employ dolphins for its military defence.
Russia has been training dolphins
without explanation since the 1960s and most recently used them when it
conquered Crimea in 2014
According to the New York Daily News, The US navy has also had its own dolphin training programme in place since the Cold War.
But on the website for the training programme, the navy insists that it has no intention of using them for war.
It
reads: 'Since dolphins cannot discern the difference between enemy and
friendly vessels, or enemy and friendly divers and swimmers, it would
not be wise to give that kind of decision authority to an animal.
'The
animals are trained to detect, locate, and mark all mines or all
swimmers in an area of interest or concern, and are not trained to
distinguish between what we would refer to as good or bad.'
In the Cold War, the Soviet Union not
only used dolphins for aquatic investigations and rescues but they also
trained them to plant explosive devices on enemy ships
A pilot looks up from a U.S. F-22 Raptor fighter as it prepares to
refuel in mid-air with a KC-135 refuelling plane over European airspace
during a flight to Britain from Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in Romania
April 25, 2016.
MIHAIL
KOGALNICEANU AIR BASE, Romania (Reuters) - For the squadron of U.S.
fighter pilots standing on the runway of an air base in Romania, the
mission is clear: show that the United States is ready to flex its
military muscles if needed, and don't provoke the Russians.
Two
advanced F-22 U.S. fighters flew to the base on the Black Sea on Monday
for the first time since Washington beefed up military support for
NATO's eastern European allies, who say they are under pressure from an
increasingly aggressive Russia.
The
men behind the exercise, taking smartphone pictures of their planes and
handing out badges and uniform patches to local Romanian crews, know
their job is not to lock horns with President Vladimir Putin's pilots,
but to keep their NATO friends happy.
"We're
not here to provoke anybody, we're here to work with our allies," says
Dan Barina, a 26-year-old pilot on his first trip to a region where
tensions have risen markedly since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula
from Romania's neighbor Ukraine two years ago.
But they also know that the risks of operating in the region are real.
This
month, two Russian warplanes flew simulated close-quarters attack
passes near a U.S. guided missile destroyer in the Baltic Sea.
"I
guess you can watch the video and see for yourself how those intercepts
are," said Dan Naim, another F-22 pilot, smiling wryly as he chewed
cinnamon-flavored gum on board a refueling plane accompanying the
fighters.
"If you want to intercept people over international waters, we just want to encourage them to do that in a safe way."
Knowing
that their opponents may want to engage in a high-stakes mid-air
staring contest with the West, how would the pilots handle an airborne
encounter with a Russian jet?
"The
type of missions we run generally are offensive-defensive types of
mission. You're looking to be cool, calm and collected," said Rob
Morgan, a short time after stepping out of the cockpit of his F-22 at
the Romanian base.
"Our
actions definitely do have greater consequences. We're very, very
careful with what we do. The mission planning that went into something
like this was extensive."
But,
laughing, joking and poking around the overgrown cold-war-era
Russian-made MiG-29 jets on display at the base, the pilots wear the
responsibility of flying the frontier between Putin's Russia and the
West lightly.
"Until
you're in that situation, I don't know if you really do know what it
feels like," said Barina - nicknamed 'Scream' because he reminds some of
the figure in Edvard Munch's expressionist painting.
"If
it's got to be done, it's got to be done. I'm not sure I'd think about a
whole lot else ... It's the job we all signed up for."
The head of Germany’s foreign
intelligence agency has been removed from his post in a move described
by observers as surprising. Gerhard Schindler, 63, had led Germany’s
Federal Intelligence Service, known as Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND,
since 2012. Founded 60 years ago with direct input from the United
States Central Intelligence Agency, the BND is today responsible for
collecting intelligence abroad in the service of German national
interests. Headquartered in the southern German city of Pullach, near
Munich, the BND is directly subordinate to the office of German
Chancellor Angela Merkel.
On Tuesday, the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper said
that Chancellor Merkel had ordered Schindler’s removal from the BND.
Several regional television stations followed with similar reports. The Süddeutsche Zeitung
cited unnamed government sources as saying that Schindler’s sudden
removal from his post was unexpected, as the career intelligence officer
was scheduled to retire in two years.
However, intelNews readers will
recall that last year Schindler was severely criticized in Germany,
after the BND was found to have secretly collaborated with the US
National Security Agency in spying on several European governments and
private companies. According to German newsmagazine Der Spiegel,
the BND used its Bad Aibling listening station to help the NSA spy on,
among other targets, the palace of the French president in Paris, the
headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels, as well as
French-based European conglomerate Airbus. In response to the
revelations, Airbus filed a criminal complaint against the German government, while Belgium and Switzerland launched official investigations into the joint BND-NSA activities.
In the months that followed the
revelations, Schindler appeared to have convinced the Chancellery that
he was not personally responsible for the BND-NSA collaboration, which
many political figures in Germany said had subverted Germany’s national
interest. In response to criticism, Schindler said that some departments
inside the BND had taken on “a life of their own” and promised to
reform the agency. On Tuesday, however, his tenure came to an end. It is
believed that he will be replaced by Bruno Kahl, a senior civil servant
in Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance, who is a close associate of
the country’s Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble.
Two British and one Irish citizen, who
fought with Kurdish units against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,
but were imprisoned in Iraqi Kurdistan while they were trying to return
to Europe, have been freed. The three men are Joshua Molloy, from County
Laois in the Republic of Ireland, Jac Holmes from Bournemouth, England,
and Joe Ackerman (pictured), from the West Yorkshire city of Halifax in
England’s northern region. All three joined Kurdish militias and saw
action in Syria and Iraq in recent months.
Holmes, a former information technology
manager, had no military experience when, in early 2015, aged 22, he
entered Syria, aiming to join Kurdish forces. He soon enlisted in the
Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG), a Kurdish group that serves as
the armed wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Syria.
The Englishman from Bournemouth participated in several battles, but
returned to the United Kingdom in June 2015, in order to recover from a
bullet wound to the shoulder, which he suffered while in the
battlefield. As soon as he was cured, he returned to Syria and rejoined
the YPG. His compatriot, Joe Ackerman, is a former member of the British
armed forces who traveled to Kurdistan last year and joined the YPG
after entering Syria illegally. He too was eventually injured when his
patrol was struck by a roadside bomb. The third man, Irishman Joshua
Molloy, is also a former soldier, having served in the British Royal
Irish Regiment, an infantry regiment of the British Army.
Many Western governments, including the
British and Irish governments, maintain that their citizens who fight in
the Syrian civil war may be prosecuted under counterterrorism
legislation, even if they have fought against the Islamic State. But
that has not stopped hundreds of Westerners from traveling to Syria and
Iraq to join mostly Kurdish, Assyrian and other forces. Last December, intelNews reported on a study
that identified over 108 American citizens who had enlisted in the
various militias and armed groups fighting against the Islamic State.
Nearly half of them had joined the YPG in Syria, while others had
enlisted in the peshmerga forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) in Iraq, as well as in an assortment of Christian militias,
including the Nineveh Plains Protection Units and the Dwekh Nawsha.
According to reports,
Holmes, Ackerman and Molloy were on their way back to Europe and trying
to cross from Syria into northern Iraq, when they were captured by
Iraqi Kurdish government forces. They were jailed for over a week in the
Kurdish city of Irbil while their captors tried to verify that they
were not Islamic State volunteers. They were released on Sunday. In a
statement issued last weekend, the British Foreign Office said it was
helping its two citizens return to England as soon as possible.
An explosive ordnance disposal technician provides a mission brief
during radiological detection training at undisclosed location in the
U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet area of responsibility, Sept. 10, 2013.
The U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research
Projects Activity wants to develop a hand-held, laser-based remote
sensor that could detect and identify chemical weapons, explosives,
narcotics and potentially even biological agents – all from up to 100
feet away.
The creative acronym—SILMARILS—comes from “Lord of the Rings” magical lore. IARPA’s goals for the project are anything but fictional.
Current technologies for detecting narcotics, explosives and other
dangerous chemicals requires physical contact between humans and
X-ray-based machinery like those stationed within major airports that
scan suitcases and luggage.
In other cases, a human must swab samples of a substance and run them
through a similar machine, which is time and labor consuming and risky.
IARPA aims to lower that risk and potentially speed up the detection of dangerous chemicals.
“This machine would use infrared lasers to measure the signature of
chemical agents and different molecules so that it’s much safer,
practical way of interrogating a surface, like the bottom of someone’s
shoe, footprints and those kinds of things,” said Kevin Kelly, chief
executive officer of LGS Innovations, which could earn as much as $11 million over four years through SILMARILS.
Key goals for SILMARILS
indicate the device must produce a steerable “eye-safe, visually
unobservable illumination beam,” and must be of “human-portable size,”
while drawing power at low enough levels to be battery operated.
If the device can be produced and later miniaturized, it may end up resembling a gun or grocery-store scanner, Kelly told Nextgov, and its uses might provide law enforcement major ammunition against crime.
Real-time identification of chemical substances is also a program
goal, although today’s definition of real-time is anything less than a
minute, Kelly said.
Should any of the competing companies get result in reducing time to
mere seconds, the notion of real-time would allow for even more
potential uses, such as a network-connected device that could compare
chemical signatures identified with those in a database.
The device could have the potential to be used in drive-by vehicle
systems with obvious potential users including law enforcement, national
security personnel, airport security officials and others.
Kelly said LGS has also had some success
using lasers to detect pathogens, and a device that can identify
biological agents as well as chemical and explosive substances might
open doors to new markets.
Two Canadian hostages have surfaced in a video to make a “final urgent
appeal” for their government to save them from imminent decapitation by
the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL)-linked jihadist group Abu Sayyaf in the
Philippines.
In a video that emerged Friday, the two Canadians,
identified as John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, speak directly to the camera
with machetes pressed against their throat, reports Canada’s National
Post.
Filipino woman Marites Flor and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad are also being held captive.
“We’re
told this is the absolute final warning, the final urgent appeal to
governments — Philippine, Canadian — and families,” Riddle reportedly
says. “If 300 million [Philippine pesos, or $8.3 million] is not paid
for me by 3 p.m. on April 25th, they will behead me.”
Echoing
Ridsdel, Hall adds, “My specific appeal is to the Canadian government,
who I know has the capacity to get us out of here. I’m wondering what
they’re waiting for.”
The two-minute video concludes with a
masked militant reiterating the April 25 deadline, warning that if it is
ignored, “We will certainly behead one of these four.”
Ridsdel,
Hall, Sekkingstad, and Flor were all taken hostage on September 21, when
armed members of Abu Sayyaf stormed the Holiday Ocean View Samal Resort
off the southern coast of Mindanao, notes The Toronto Star.
The Norwegian worked as the resort’s manager.
Referring
to a previous deadline that had not been met, a masked jihadist,
speaking directly to the camera, says that the “deadline of warning is
over.”
“Still, you procrastinate. So now this is already an
ultimatum. Once you don’t meet the demand, we will certainly behead one
amongst this four,” he adds.
The jihadists are asking for an estimated 1 billion...
An official for the Kurdistan Democratic Party told Iranian news agency ABNA ISIS has been forcing women into arranged marriages with ISIS fighters — and executing women who refuse.
The official said "at least 250 girls have so far been executed ... and sometimes the families of the girls were also executed."
Mosul fell to ISIS in the summer of 2014. Since then, the group has
been taking pains to portray their occupation of the city as benevolent.
But ISIS' reign has been particularly oppressive to women; the group
practices sex slavery and requires women to adhere to a strict set of
rules.
The push to retake Mosul began last month, and President Obama says he expects the city to be ripe for the retaking by the end of the year.
Britain is
under threat from 70 jihadists who have returned from fighting for ISIS
in Syria and Iraq and are currently plotting attacks here, a senior
government official has warned.
In
a chilling warning about the danger posed by the terrorist group, the
national counter terrorism co-ordinator Scott Wilson warned that ISIS
could not be destroyed soon and would pose a threat to national security
for a 'long, long time'.
He
said a fifth of the 350 British jihadists who have returned to the UK
are 'high threat' extremists, who are suspected of plotting or wanting
to carry out attacks or spreading radical propaganda.
Britain is under threat from about 70 jihadists who have returned from
fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq and are currently plotting attacks
here, senior government officials said yesterday
They are also suspected of seeking new recruits for ISIS as they plan further attacks on European soil.
More than 800 British extremists are estimated to have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS.
Those who return are monitored by security services and police or are referred to Prevent, the counter-extremism programme.
ISIS
claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks in Paris last November,
which killed 130 people, and also the Brussels attacks last month, which
killed 32.
The
group has been targeting Britain for months and international security
chiefs warned earlier this week that ISIS terrorists are planning
nuclear and chemical attacks here.
Among
those involved in the Paris and Brussels attacks were EU citizens who
had travelled to Syria. At least one of them posed as a refugee as part
of the migrant crisis last year, which saw more than a million people
fleeing to Europe.
British
security experts have warned that despite Britain not being part of the
border free Schengen zone, its border security is not secure enough.
Former
Metropolitan Police commissioners, an independent reviewer of terror
laws, an ex-border chief and police boss said controls on EU migrants
are inadequate and should be stepped up considerably.
They
said the deadly terror attacks on Brussels and Paris must act as a
'wake up call' for the Government, demanding they tighten border
procedures to 'make Britons safer'.
The
security chiefs called on the Government to 'review security at our
borders' - irrespective of the outcome in June's EU referendum.
Speaking
at the counter-terrorism expo earlier this week, both Nato and the EU
said there are 'justified concerns' that ISIS jihadists are working on
obtaining chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear materials to
carry out attacks on the EU.
'With
CBRN [chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear materials], there
is a justified concern.' Jorge Berto Silva, deputy head of counter
terrorism for the European Commission said.
Dr
Jamie Shea, deputy assistant secretary general for emerging security
threats at Nato, told the annual Security and Counter Terror Expo: 'We
know terrorists are trying to acquire these substances.'
The conference also heard that ISIS is working on trying to implant bombs in human bodies and hack driverless cars.
This
follows warnings earlier today that ISIS is planning on targeting
holidaying tourists by posing as ice cream and T-shirt sellers at
European beach resorts.
German
media reports that ISIS is sending jihadists to pretend to sell
refreshments before detonating suicide vests and bombs buried under sun
loungers at Spanish, French and Italian resorts.
The
BND - Germany's equivalent of MI6 - learned from its Italian
counterpart of the ISIS plots to bring bloodshed to holiday resorts,
popular daily newspaper BILD said on Tuesday.
BILD
said the plans involve the use of automatic weapons on crowded
waterfronts, suicide bombings and explosive devices buried in sand
beneath sun loungers.
According
to BILD the beaches which intelligence chiefs say are definitely
targeted include resorts in southern France, the Costa del Sol in Spain
and both coasts in Italy.
Suspected ISIS
recruiter Mohamed Harrak managed to hide his obsession with guns and
the military as he worked as a hotel chef, serving British tourists
every summer.
He was described as a "threat to national security"
after being arrested in a dawn raid on Tuesday at his home on the
holiday island of Majorca.
And now more images of the 26-year-old
worker have emerged indulging his passion for guns when he wasn't
cooking meals for British and Irish tourists at the four-star hotel he
worked at in the popular resort of Santa Ponsa.
Pals of Harrak
have also claimed he was a fanatic of airsoft, a paintball-style game in
which participants eliminate opponents by hitting each other with
pellets from replica firearms.
Police make a dawn raid at a home in Majorca
His weapon of choice was a replica of a Heckler & Koch G36 assault rife, the standard rifle for the Spanish Armed Forces.
Loner
Harrak, who is being investigated on suspicion of actively recruiting
ISIS fighters as well as promoting terror attacks in Spain and Europe,
bought the gun as well as military fatigues including a flak jacket and
facemark so he could indulge his passion as regularly as possible.
Mohamed Harrak on holiday in Spain
He bragged about his love of the war game on his Facebook
site where he posted photos of himself surrounding a remote stone
building with his gun at the ready and firing his rifle in the woods.
The suspect, apprehended by around 15 masked police who
seized computer equipment they are now analysing, also used social media
to publish a picture of a juggernaut crushing a local police patrol
car.
The hotel chef used to get around the island on a high-powered motorbike he had an accident on last September.
In
a Facebook post last November after the deadly Paris terrorist attacks
which now seems bizarre in the light of the accusations against him, he
chose the French flag as his profile picture and wrote: “Not In My
Name.”
Early this morning Harrak was led into a courtroom in
Majorca for his first court appearance since his arrest amid tight
security.
Harrak has appeared in court following the arrest
A judge at Madrid’s central criminal court the
Audiencia Nacional was due to quiz him via video link in the
behind-closed-doors hearing before deciding whether to release him on
bail or remand him to prison pending an ongoing probe.
Reports in
Majorca claimed Harrak had dreamed of becoming a police officer - but
those dreams were thwarted after his application for Spanish citizenship
was turned down because of an unidentified “family problem.”
Friends
of the Moroccan-born immigrant, who used to live in the rundown Palma
neighbourhood of Es Rafal before moving to a flat in nearby Son Gotleu
where he lived with his parents and three younger siblings spoke of
their astonishment at his arrest.
Palma in Majorca, where the arrest was made
Interior Ministry officials have said the police operation
against him permitted “the rapid neutralisation of a direct threat” and
described him in a statement - without naming him - as a “threat to
national security.”
A spokesman, referring to ISIS by its acronym Daesh
, said in a statement: "The man now under investigation played an
important role in the maintenance of internet groups of a radical
yihadist nature.
"They were structured into groups with perfectly-defined different functions, all of them under his supervision.
"He actively participated in two groups. One of them was
focussed on searching for people on social media who could be vulnerable
to terrorist recruitment.
"Once they’d been selected, the recruiter contaminated them
with radical messages, eliminating those who weren’t receptive and
focussing only on those who responded positively.
"Once
the ideal candidates had been narrowed down, a third phase kicked in.
Investigators will now attempt to determine whether the aim was a
conspiracy to commit terrorist acts.
"In the second group he played an important role as a
catalyst and controller, directing his efforts to the formation of a
small contingent destined for Iraq and Syria with the aim of joining the
ranks of Daesh .
"He advised its members how to operate to avoid being detected by the forces of law and order before arriving."
A pal in Majorca, who asked not to be named, said: “I’m astonished at the accusations being levelled against him.
“He was timid and didn’t speak much but he seemed like a normal bloke to me.”
Toni Sales, president of the technical committee of a Majorca-based
basketball federation, said Harrak had refereed games for eight years
alongside police and Civil Guard officers before claiming last September
he was stopping because he was going to Morocco to get married.
He recalled: “He was very introverted and didn’t mix much with others but he wasn’t at all religious.
Mohamed Harrak was arrested on Tuesday morning
“I know from talking to other refs that he sometimes said
things about internet videos about explosives, and on social media he
had photos of games of men shooting, but I can’t see him placing a bomb
and I struggle to see him as a terrorist.
“We have refs who are
local police and Civil Guard officers and I would have expected them to
act if they had suspected something.”
Harrak is understood to
have worked as a chef the Viva Rey Don Jaime Hotel in Santa Ponsa, an
all-inclusive resort hotel a few minutes’ walk from the beach.
Travel group Thomson describes it on its website as a British
favourite with home-comfort cooking and family-friendly entertainment.
Local
reports said Harrak’s locker at the hotel had been searched after the
raid at his home and scales police are said to suspect he used to weigh
out cocaine for sale were confiscated.
A receptionist said the hotel was not making any comment
about Harrak today after claiming on the phone: “I don’t know who you’re
talking about.”
Regional government vice-president Biel Barcelo
tried to restore calm after the shock arrest by insisting Majorca was a
safe place for tourists.
Going a step further from issuing fatwa to harvest organs from
the bodies of the apostates, the Islamic State group (ISIS) is now
killing its injured fighters to extract their organs to be sold in the
black market abroad, reported PTI citing media reports.
As reported widely over the week, the terror group was going through a
fund crunch for its activities since losing the territory of south
Mosul. It was said the Islamic State's income has dropped sharply by a
whopping 30 percent to $56 million since 2015.
To shore up its ailing resources, ISIS is now killing its own
militants injured in southern Mosul and then pulling the dead to cull
out organs such as hearts and kidneys to sell them in the black market,
the Iranian FARS news agency reported.
"Doctors were threatened to take out the body organs of a wounded
ISIL militant," an unnamed source from the distraught city of Mosul was
quoted by al-Sabah the Arabic-language newspaper.
In similar circumstances last year, Iraqi Ambassador to the United
Nations Mohamed Alhakim said ISIS was trafficking human organs and had
executed over twelve doctors for failing to go along with its diktats.
In a similar exercise, ISIS targeted inmates of both jails and
hospitals in Mosul for the continued supply of blood and organs for its
injured soldiers and finances. While hospitals witnessed 183 corpses
whose organs had been taken out, jails saw death sentences of its
prisoners being postponed to use their blood as much as possible.
PTI, citing US-based consultancy firm IHS, reported that significant
territory losses could mean the number of people living in the Jihadi
caliphate could go down from nine million at the start of 2015 to fewer
than six million now.
ISIS' monthly revenue has fallen by 30% in recent months, according
to information and analysis firm IHS. In March, the group collected only
$56 million, a significant reduction from estimated monthly revenue of
$80 million in mid-2105.
The
decline in revenue is now seriously constraining the ISIS' ability to
fund its reign of terror, according to the U.S. State Department and
several scholars who track the group.
Already, ISIS has been
forced to cut its fighters' salaries in half. Additional pressure is now
forcing ISIS to ration medical supplies, according to counterterrorism
analysts.
It's a major change for a group that became the
world's richest terrorist organization by taxing the people on its
territory, selling oil on the black market, smuggling stolen
archeological artifacts, and demanding kidnapping ransoms.
CNN last month reported
that ISIS was struggling financially, but it was unclear to what
extent. Now there's evidence ISIS is taking major steps to compensate.
Lost land, new taxes
ISIS has ceded 22% of its territory to Kurdish, Syrian and Iraqi forces
over the past 15 months, according to IHS. During that time, the
population living under ISIS rule has fallen from 9 million to 6
million.
"There are fewer people and business activities to
tax. The same applies to properties and land to confiscate," said Columb
Strack, a senior analyst at IHS.
Tax revenue, which provides
roughly half of the group's funding, has fallen by 23% since last
summer, IHS reports. As a result, ISIS is desperately finding new ways
to squeeze money out of the people still living in its territory.
We already know the group imposes a 10% income tax, 15% business tax,
2% sales tax and 5% fee on cash withdrawals from banks. There's also a
mafia-like protection insurance, called jizyah, that Christians are
forced to pay.
New rules require anyone who repairs a broken
satellite dish to pay ISIS a special fee. People must also pay a
religious fine if they are unable to accurately answer questions about
the Quran, IHS analysts said.
ISIS is so strapped for cash it
has also started giving people accused of violating Sharia law the
option of paying a cash fine instead of suffering severe physical
punishments, IHS reports.
"This new stance represents a strong
indicator of the financial difficulties the group is going through,"
Ludovico Carlino, senior analyst at IHS, wrote in his latest report.
More air strikes, less ISIS oil
The U.S.-led coalition bombing campaign is also hurting ISIS' oil business, according to IHS.
Revenue from crude sales is down 26% from last year, IHS reports. And
daily production in the region has dropped from 33,000 barrels last
summer to 21,000 barrels.
Crude oil sales account for 42% of
ISIS' revenue, but experts said the group has not raised the price it
charges smugglers at the wellhead.
Carlino said ISIS cares more
about quick sales -- even if that means lower revenue. Plus, many
people inside its territory -- who buy ISIS oil -- are running short of
spending money.
The terrorist group is also having trouble
recruiting engineers and repair its oil and gas equipment, according to
Jean-Charles Brisard, chairman of the Center for the Analysis of
Terrorism.
"These reasons also explain why ISIS is dedicating large resources to expand itself, notably in Libya," Brisard said.
Even though Libya is 1,400 miles southwest of the ISIS stronghold
between Iraq and Syria, experts say the terrorist group is now shifting
resources to take advantage of poorly policed coastlines in the region.
MADRID (Reuters) - A Moroccan man and a Spanish woman with links to
Islamic State were arrested in the southern Spanish port of Algeciras on
Saturday as they were trying to leave for Morocco with their young son,
the interior ministry said.
The couple were part of a group that supported and recruited Islamic
State fighters, including individuals that had carried out suicide bomb
attacks in Syria, a ministry statement said.
The man's brother had recently died in a suicide bomb attack and that
was why the couple were traveling to Morocco in a hurry, the ministry
said without giving further details.
Their son has been put in care, it said.
Authorities are searching the couple's house in Granada and the investigation remains open.
Spain has arrested 18 people so far this year on charges of being linked to Islamist militants.
AhlulBayt News Agency
- Russian and Syrian Air Forces have reportedly carried out several
coordinated air strikes on ISIL near a strategic military airbase in the
northeastern province of Raqqa, west of the de facto capital of the
self-proclaimed caliphate.
Syrian and Russian warplanes conducted
a spate of coordinated air strikes against ISIL (Arabic acronym for
Daesh) near Tabqa Air Base which resulted in the destruction of many of
the terrorists’ military and logistics vehicles, according to the
Iranian news agency FARS.
The attacks have impaired ISIL’s
ability to supply its forces near the recently-liberated city of Palmyra
with arms, medical equipment and food, FARS reported.
The
airstrikes came shortly after sources said that scores of ISIL
terrorists had been killed and many more wounded after the
pro-government battalions of Raqqa province's tribal forces clashed with
the terrorists in the area.
"The tribal forces and the Syrian
Army have advanced against the ISIL terrorists in Qabaqeb and al-Tim oil
well and are pushing towards the city of Raqqa," the sources said.
Meanwhile,
fighting has erupted between a militant group and ISIL near Damascus,
where Jaysh al-Islam (the Brigade of Islam) stormed ISIL positions to
the northeast of the capital, according to the sources, which cited a
heavy death toll from the fighting.
BEIRUT: Syrian opposition activists say the Daesh group has captured
several villages in the northern province of Aleppo during clashes with
government forces.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights says the fighting is concentrated in areas east of the town of
Khanaser, which has exchanged hands several times in recent months.
An
activist based in Aleppo says Daesh launched its latest offensive in
the area a day earlier and by Saturday was in control of some 18 small
villages.
The activist spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from IS.
Khanaser is strategic since it’s on the highway that links government-held parts of Aleppo with the rest of the country
ANBAR — Iraqi Security forces have shot down two drones allegedly belonging to Islamic State (IS) in the west of the country.
On Saturday April 16, Ismael Mahlawi, an
army commander, revealed that his men shot down an IS surveillance
drone in Amriyah district of western Anbar province, using light and
standard arms only.
He also confirmed that they had
previously brought down another IS drone in the same area which was
surveying the Iraqi army movements.
A Kurdish Peshmerga commander previously
warned that IS insurgents, especially in their stronghold of Mosul,
have the technical capacity to develop ordinary drones into surveillance
drone to monitor Peshmerga and Iraqi forces’ positions.
The Peshmerga forces have also shot down few IS drones in northern Iraq.
The U.S. military says there has
been another close encounter between a Russian warplane and a U.S. Air
Force reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea – the second such
incident within a week.
U.S. Navy Captain Danny Hernandez, a spokesman for the U.S. European
Command, told CNN that the latest incident took place on April 14 when a
Russian Su-27 fighter jet "performed erratic and aggressive maneuvers"
dangerously close to the U.S. plane during a routine flight in
international airspace.
He said the Russian jet barrel-rolled near the U.S. RC-135, coming within 16 meters of the U.S. plane’s wing tip.
Russia's Defense Ministry said on April 17 that the Su-27's flight "complied with international regulations."
Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said the Russian fighter took
off to identify "an unknown aerial target which was heading at a great
speed toward the Russian border" and "flew around" the RC-135.
On April 12, two Russian Su-24 warplanes buzzed a U.S. guided-missile destroyer in the Baltic Sea.
That incident prompted condemnation from U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry, who accused Russia’s military of a "dangerous" and "reckless"
provocation.
Kerry said on April 14 that the U.S. warship, which was in
international waters, could have shot down the Russian Su-24 fighter
jets under rules of engagement.
Kerry said on April 14 that he was communicating with officials in
Moscow in the hope that such a close encounter would not be repeated.
Russia’s Defense Ministry defended the actions of those Russian pilots, saying they had respected all safety rules.
U.S. military officials said the Russian warplanes were not armed,
but flew so close to the USS Donald Cook and at such a low altitude that
they created a "wake in the water."
Reducing the risk of deadly military confrontations is on the agenda
of NATO and Russian diplomats due to meet in Brussels on April 20.
The meeting will be the first of the NATO-Russia Council since June
2014 when NATO suspended all practical cooperation with Moscow over its
illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support for
Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
A woman walks past election posters in Molenbeek, one of the Brussels nineteen communes October 5, 2006.
A man with a bushy beard and round belly is thought to have
radicalized a network of young people in a Belgian neighborhood that's
notorious for being a center of jihadist activity.
He's become known as the "Santa Claus of jihad," and Belgium's
federal prosecutor says he has "perverted an entire generation of
youngsters," The New York Times reports.
The 42-year-old Moroccan man, Khalid Zerkani, reportedly has
connections to the terrorists who carried out recent attacks in Paris
and Brussels. AFP called him a "central
figure in the jihadist super-cell behind the attacks." He was sentenced
to 12 years in prison in July for participating in the activities of a
terrorist organization, according to The Times.
Zerkani seemed to target vulnerable young people for radicalization,
introducing them to a violent interpretation of Islam. The Washington
Post characterized these young terror recruits as "a new breed of jihadists" that blur "the line between organized crime and Islamist extremism."
These recruits often have criminal backgrounds and lawbreaking
experience that proves useful in funding and carrying out attacks.
Zerkani's gang relied on petty crimes like theft to help finance his
radicalization ring, which provided money to recruits who wanted to go
fight in Syria for groups like ISIS (also known as the Islamic State,
ISIL, or Daesh).
Zerkani's recruits are known to rob tourists and steal luggage to fund the "Islamist cause," according to The Post.
"Many of them live lives as hoodlums, had an epiphany, and turned
religious, but these connections to criminality are not meant to
disappear," Peter Neumann, a radicalization expert at King's College
London, told The Post.
Zerkani's brand of extremism is known as "gangster Islam," a way of
life that marries criminal activity to a radical ideology. Unlike many
Al Qaeda recruits, who were known to be pious, fundamentalist Islamists,
Zerkani's recruits aren't typically well-versed in Islam.
Hind Fraihi, who wrote a book on Molenbeek, the Brussels neighborhood
where Zerkani was based, told The Times that ISIS attracts "bandits and
gangsters because it needs them for their knowledge of guns, safe
houses and the underground scene."
Whereas other fundamentalist extremists might have had a hard time
attracting young people to a way of life that required them to turn away
from alcohol and partying, Zerkani convinced his recruits that "past
criminal convictions were not an obstacle to the Islamic cause, but a
vital foundation," according to the Times.
And since Molenbeek has been struggling with crime for years, there was no shortage of young people for Zerkani to target.
Zerkani "did not lecture these recruits on arcane theological
justifications for violence ... but instead used a few crude religious
ideas to give legitimacy to the criminal path they had already chosen,"
The Times wrote.
He often targeted immigrants who shared his Moroccan heritage and
drew them closer to him by cutting them off from their families and
other social ties in Belgium, according to Belgian prosecutors.
Officials have tied him to 30 to 40 people who have left Belgium to
fight in the Middle East, The Post said.
Young people with immigrant backgrounds as well as a criminal history
make particularly easy targets for Zerkani, because they're more likely
to feel isolated from the rest of Belgian society.
One such young man in his 20s — Farid, the son of Moroccan immigrants
— said many young Muslims in Molenbeek feel hopeless and struggle to
find opportunities for work in an area with high unemployment rates.
"We are revolting against this state and this society that never
accepted us as Belgian," he told The Post. "We are revolting against our
parents and also their countries of origin. "I don’t feel Belgian. I
don’t feel Moroccan. I think of myself as a Muslim."
A U.S. Navy officer charged with spying for a foreign power worked at
one of the service's most elite reconnaissance squadrons, whose
operations are shrouded in secrecy.
Lt. Cmdr. Edward Lin, a naval
flight officer, worked for Special Projects Patrol Squadron 2 for a year
before being arrested last summer, according to his Navy record. The
Kaneohe, Hawaii-based VPU-2 is one of two special projects squadrons
that sources say are made up of the fleet's top maritime patrol
officers, who fly the P-3 Orion and P-8A Poseidon.
“VPU guys are
generally the top 25 percent of the program,” said an aviation officer
who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive maritime surveillance
programs. “They are specially screened.”
Lin faces charges for
sharing classified information with sources in the Asia-Pacific region.
His placement inside the shadowy world of VPU-2 could give foreign
spymasters unparalleled access into classified
reconnaissance capabilities and intelligence from the region.
Very
little is public about the VPUs, including details about the aircraft
they fly. The outfit has access to Joint Urgent Operational Needs funds,
which sidesteps and speeds the normal acquisitions process, the officer
said.
Generally speaking, the VPU officers are those who earned the highest evaluations during their first tour, the officer said.
“In
the P-3 community they are known as ‘Jerry’s Kids’ because they are
special,” the officer said, referring to the charity run by comedian
Jerry Lewis that aided children with special needs. “Basically what that
means is that whatever the special projects guys need, they get.”
The
squadrons are set aside for “national-level tasking,” the officer said,
which could mean any number of things but the details of their missions
are highly classified.
These squadrons fly
specially outfitted maritime patrol airplanes designed to collect
signals and electronic intelligence, among other types of surveillance.
“They have the coolest stuff, as much of it as they need and what they do with it is classified,” the officer said.
The
squadrons have been known to fly planes with high-tech electronic
surveillance gear designed to look like standard maritime patrol and
anti-submarine warfare aircraft, according to a website dedicated to P-3 Orions and their missions. Who is Edward Lin?
Lin
went before a preliminary hearing Friday on charges of espionage,
attempted espionage and communicating defense information, according to
his charge sheet released to Navy Times.
Investigators believe Lin
was spying for Taiwan or the People’s Republic of China, or both,
according to U.S. officials who asked for anonymity to discuss an
ongoing legal case.
Lin enlisted in the Navy in 1999 and was in
the nuclear power training pipeline until he was picked up for officer
candidate school in 2002, according to his bio.
He
was commissioned in May of that year and went on to flight training and
then NFO school. Over the next 11 years he joined a handful of
squadrons around the country, did a sea tour on the carrier Dwight
D. Eisenhower and a shore tour at the Navy’s comptroller’s office at the
Pentagon.
Lin moved to the U.S. when he was 14 from Taiwan,
according to a Navy release that covered his naturalization ceremony in
2008. In his speech, he said he grew up dreaming of coming to America.
"I
always dreamt about coming to America, the 'promised land,'" he said.
"I grew up believing that all the roads in America lead to Disneyland."
He joined the special projects unit in the spring of 2014, according to his bio.
The judge has 10 days from the Article 32 hearing to recommend whether the case should be referred to court-martial.
Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) has taken back a key supply
town at the Syria-Turkey border after losing the town last week to a
rebel alliance that includes Al Qaida’s Syria affiliate.
ISIL jihadists on April 11 recaptured Al-Rai from rebel forces who
are allied with Al Qaida affiliate Nusra Front, according to the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights. The town serves as a key access point for
ISIL’s supply lines from Turkey.
Al-Rai is located close to the border with Turkey and is a key supply route into ISIL-held territory. /Islamic Front
ISIL lost Al-Rai after heavy fighting on April 7.
The Russian military General Staff said on April 11 that Nusra Front
was massing its forces around the Syrian city of Aleppo and are planning
a large-scale offensive. Sergei Rudskoy, head of the General Staff’s
main operations command, said Nusra Front intends to cut off the road
between Aleppo and the Syrian capital of Damascus.
“Nusra and allied rebel groups are waging three synchronized
offensives” on front lines in Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces,
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Nusra jihadists recently seized a hilltop in Latakia province, the
heartland of President Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect, Abdel Rahman said.
“This is the offensive that Nusra warned it would carry out several
weeks ago.”
Meanwhile, reports are surfacing of the slaughter of Syrian
Christians by ISIL jihadists in the Syrian town of al-Qaryatain, which
was retaken by Russian-backed Syrian forces and their allies last week.
Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II, head of the Syrian Orthodox Church,
told the BBC that 21 Christians were murdered when ISIL captured the
city last August. The patriarch said 300 Christians remained in
al-Qaryatain after ISIL moved in.
He said some died while trying to escape while others were killed for
breaking the terms of their “dhimmi contracts,” which require them to
submit to the rule of Islam. ISIL also abducted dozens of Christians and
ransomed them to their families.
The key remaining suspect in November's Paris terror attacks, Mohamed Abrini, has been arrested, media and police sources say.
Belgian
media say Abrini is also likely to be the "man in the hat" seen on CCTV
before the blasts in the Brussels airport departure hall on 22 March.
Prosecutors have confirmed that several arrests have been made in connection with the Brussels attacks.
The attacks on the airport and a metro station left 32 dead.
The gun and bomb attacks in Paris on 13 November killed 130 people.
Although
the Belgian federal prosecutor confirmed that "there have been several
arrests in the course of the day in connection with the attacks on the
airport and metro", they would give no further details.
But a Paris police source confirmed to the BBC that Mohamed Abrini had been detained.
Local media reports suggest that Abrini, on the run for five months, was arrested in the Anderlecht district of Brussels.
Abrini had not been directly linked to the Brussels attacks until today.
Some media say that one of the other men arrested is
suspected of helping suicide bomber Khalid el-Bakraoui at the Maelbeek
metro station, but this has not been confirmed.
Belgian
authorities had on Thursday released new video footage of the "man in
the hat", appealing for the public's help in finding him.
The
individual in the footage was seen beside the two suicide bombers at
Brussels airport. He left the airport shortly before the blasts.
Abrini,
31, a Belgian national of Moroccan origin, is believed to have been
filmed at a petrol station with Salah Abdeslam, another arrested Paris
attacks suspect, two days before the attacks there.
Abrini and brothers Salah and Brahim Abdeslam were all childhood friends from Brussels.
Abrini is believed to have driven twice with the brothers from Belgium to Paris and back on 10 and 11 November.
Salah Abdeslam was detained in Brussels in March, days before militants launched attacks in the Belgian capital.
Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up at the Comptoir Voltaire restaurant after a shooting spree.
Revealing new insight into Britain's most infamous spy has finally
come to light following the publication of a secret video showing his
long-term career as a double agent for the Soviet Union.
In previously unseen footage recovered by the BBC, Kim Philby, the
ex-MI6 officer who rose up the ranks of British intelligence before
defecting to become a Russian spy, said he regularly passed on top
secret information to his Soviet contacts "year in, year out".
The new footage is taken from a secret lecture given by Philby in
1981, where he is seen briefing the East German Intelligence Service,
the Stasi, about his life as a double agent.
It is the first time that footage of the former MI6 officer has been
released to the public, and reveals Philby talking about his career
rising up through the ranks of MI6 while secretly passing on
intelligence to Soviet contacts in the KGB.
During the video, Philby, who was known during the Cold War as
Britain's biggest traitor, warns the audience that he is "no public
speaker", adding that he "spent most of my life trying to avoid
publicity of any kind".
"You have probably all heard stories that the SIS (Secret
Intelligence Service) is an organisation of mythical efficiency, a very,
very dangerous thing indeed," he said.
"Well, in a time of war, it honestly was not.
"Every evening I left the office with a big briefcase full of reports
which I had written myself, full of files taken out of the actual
documents, out of the actual archives.
"I used to hand them to my Soviet contact in the evening. The next
morning I would get the file back, the contents having been
photographed, and take them back early in the morning and put the files
back in their place.
"That I did regularly, year in, year out."
Until the BBC made the discovery at the official archives of the
Stasi in Berlin, only one video of Philby speaking was known to exist.
Born in the Punjab, India, on January 1 1912, Philby was first
recruited by Britain as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in
1946. He was only exposed as a Russian double agent in 1963, by which
time he is believed to have spent years passing on top secret documents
to the KGB.
Educated at Cambridge University, Philby reveals in the video that he
was first drawn to communism during his days as an undergraduate.
He would later be exposed as a member of the spy ring known as the
Cambridge Five - a group educated at Cambridge and recruited by the
Soviet Union during the Second World War.
Philby also discloses that despite being born into the "British
governing class", it was his belief that he had spent "30 years in the
enemy camp".
Before his public exposure, Philby rose to become a high-ranking
figure in MI6's Anti-Soviet division, where he was encouraged by his KGB
employers to unseat his boss in order to become "head of that new
department".
In an admission never aired before, the Soviet turncoat revealed that
he "set about the business of removing my own chief", drawing laughter
from the audience.
"It's a very, very dirty story, but after all our work does imply getting dirty hands from time to time," he added.
The video ends with Philby answering a number of questions from East
German spies, during which he advises them to never confess during
interrogation.
Created and archived in secrecy, the footage is the first and only evidence of Philby coming close to a full confession.
