UK military to build prototype 'laser weapon'

The UK Ministry of Defence has officially awarded a £30m contract to produce a prototype laser weapon.

The aim is to see whether "directed energy" technology could benefit the armed forces, and is to culminate in a demonstration of the system in 2019.
The contract was picked up by a consortium of European defence firms.
The prototype will be assessed on how it picks up and tracks targets at different distances and in varied weather conditions over land and water.
Peter Cooper, from the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), headquartered at Porton Down, Wiltshire, said the project "draws on innovative research into high power lasers so as to understand the potential of the technology".
He added that this could "provide a more effective response to the emerging threats that could be faced by UK armed forces".
The MoD has been finalising the agreement with the consortium, called UK Dragonfire, for several months, but it has now formally announced them as the winning contractor.

'Ahead of the curve'

A spokesperson for the MoD told BBC News that the demonstrator was not being developed to counter any specific threat, but to assess whether such weaponry could be delivered as a capability for the armed forces.
But in general, directed energy weapons could potentially be used to destroy drone aircraft, missiles, mortars, roadside bombs and a host of other threats.
The US military has been experimenting with high energy lasers for decades. But, until recently, technical hurdles had prevented them from being used on the frontline.
However, the US Navy fielded a laser weapon system called Laws for testing on the USS Ponce during a deployment to the Arabian Gulf starting in 2014.
It hit targets aboard a small boat which was directed to speed towards the navy ship and also shot a small drone out of the sky.
The Minister for Defence Procurement, Harriet Baldwin, said that "truly ground-breaking projects like the Laser Directed Energy Weapon" would "keep this country ahead of the curve".
If the demonstration is successful, the first laser weapons could come into service in the mid-2020s.
The UK Dragonfire consortium comprises the companies MBDA, Qinetiq, Leonardo-Finmeccanica GKN, Arke, BAE Systems and Marshall ADG.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38510344

Taliban-inspired killer who decapitated woman allowed into UK unchallenged

Jamshid Piruz was inspired by a Taliban execution video to behead a woman and was jailed for 12 years for the sick act.

But 34-year-old Piruz was allowed to cross freely into the UK from the Netherlands.

Only days after entering the country, the convicted murderer swung at two police officers investigating a burglary with a deadly claw hammer in Crawley, Sussex.

Both Sussex Police officers, Jessica Chick and Stewart Young, who was treated for head injuries after the incident, were praised for their bravery.

It has also been revealed that Piruz attacked a member of staff at Gatwick Airport upon entering the UK but was released.

Conservative MP Henry Smith who represents Crawley slammed the country's lack of border controls for allowing Piruz into the country.

 
  Henry Smith slammed open borders

 

He told the Mail Online: "A very dangerous individual was allowed to travel here without us having prior knowledge that he'd committed murder in the Netherlands.

"It is staggering that someone could assault staff at Gatwick and then a couple of days later attack two police officers."

He added: "This is an appalling example of the kind of people who are getting into the country

With Piruz being a permanent Dutch resident, the Netherlands was under no obligation to alert UK officials about his past convictions.

Piruz pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to cause GBH with intent, burglary and affray at Hove Crown Court.

He will be sentenced at a later date.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/575480/Taliban-murderer-migrant-Dutch-the-Netherlands-Jamshid-Piruz-Sussex-Police 

 

Afghan Forces Kill Taliban Commanders, IS Terrorists

Afghanistan's National Defense and Security Forces have killed 58 militants, including two local Taliban commanders and 10 members of the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group, the country's Defense Ministry announced.

"In the past 24 hours, Afghan National Defense and Security Forces conducted joint offensive operations in order to protect the lives and properties of people also defeating the insurgents in different parts of the country. As a result, 58 insurgents, including 2 Taliban local commanders and 10 IS members, were killed and 23 others were wounded," the ministry said in a statement issued on Tuesday, Sputnik reported.

The joint operations were held in 18 Afghan provinces, the ministry added.

Afghanistan is suffering from the subversive activities of Taliban, a militant group formed in the 1990s.

The crisis in the country has prompted the emergence of local cells of other terrorist organizations such as IS.

https://financialtribune.com/articles/international/56922/afghan-forces-kill-taliban-commanders-is-terrorists

Suffolk man charged with trying to support Islamic State wanted shootout with FBI, feds say

A self-proclaimed supporter of the Islamic State living in Suffolk told FBI agents last month after his arrest they were lucky they picked him up outside his home, according to a federal prosecutor.
Lionel Nelson Williams, who had a loaded AK-47 and 9 mm handgun inside the house, said he would have been happy to shoot it out with the agents.
But what about his elderly grandmother, with whom he lived?
“She knows when to duck,” Williams said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph DePadilla revealed more of the government’s case Wednesday during a detention hearing in U.S. District Court in Norfolk. DePadilla said Williams confessed to the FBI after his Dec. 21 arrest that he supported the Islamic State terror group and that he told an undercover federal agent during a nine-month investigation he wanted to martyr himself in Hampton Roads.
“It’s the only way,” Williams told the undercover agent, according to DePadilla.
The prosecutor did not say where Williams planned to attack but stressed that he said it would be local. DePadilla took that to mean Suffolk or the surrounding area.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Keith Kimball argued that the FBI entrapped his client. He said the First Amendment allows Williams to express support for the Islamic State, and he questioned whether his client started talking about martyrdom only because the FBI led him that way.
“Entrapment is flowing throughout this case,” Kimball said.
In light of the defendant’s interest in martyring himself, Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard ordered Williams – also known as Harun Ash-Shababi – to stay incarcerated pending his trial.
Williams, 26, was arrested last month and indicted Wednesday on one charge of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.
According to court documents, a former associate of Williams contacted the FBI in March to report that Williams had been posting statements on Facebook that indicated his support for the Islamic State. The associate said Williams had recently acquired an AK-47 rifle.
The report prompted the FBI to check Williams’ publicly viewable Facebook page. The agency then secretly reached out to him in April, posing online as someone connected to the Islamic State.
Following several online conversations and at least one in-person meeting, Williams contacted a man he believed was an Islamic State financier. He provided that person, who was actually with the FBI, account information for a $200 prepaid cash card.
Williams later provided the agent another $50, court documents said.
Before accepting the money, the undercover FBI agent went so far as tell Williams the money was “going to kill people.”
In November, Williams told the FBI he feared he was not “pure” enough to carry out an attack in the United States, court documents said. In December, however, he said he felt he was ready to “go forth.”
DePadilla said Williams told the FBI he was working to acquire “tools.” And, he said, Williams said he would soon see his fiancée – a Muslim woman from Brazil he’d met online – in heaven.
Two days later, the FBI moved in – securing a search warrant for Williams’ home and arresting him outside.
Kimball downplayed Williams connection to the Islamic State, arguing that $250 was not a lot of money.
“In the grand scheme of things, I don’t know how much support that would have provided,” he said.
Kimball also argued the martyrdom statements were not important.
“It was simply talk. Bravado, if you will,” he said, asking the court to release his client to the custody of his grandmother or uncle.
He noted that Williams’ uncle, who lived on the same property as Williams, works at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and has a security clearance.
Leonard said he could not release Williams. He argued Williams didn’t need a gun to carry out an attack on U.S. soil, noting recent terrorist incidents in France and Germany that involved trucks. The risk, he said, was too great.
“This is more than speech,” the judge said.

http://pilotonline.com/news/local/crime/suffolk-man-charged-with-trying-to-support-islamic-state-wanted/article_dfba14b1-8b54-58e3-8cf4-2adc069376cb.html

Police foil UK terror plot by arresting six people after raids in London, Burton and Derby

Police have foiled an alleged Islamist terror plot in the UK after raiding a suspected bomb making factory in the East Midlands.
Six people were arrested when counter-terrorism officers swooped on addresses in Derby, Burton upon Trent and London in the early hours of Monday morning.
Bomb disposal experts also attended one property amid fears that the alleged plotters were storing chemicals and other explosive materials ahead of a planned attack on a UK target.
Five men, aged 22, 27, 35 and 36 and a 32-year-old woman were held and were being questioned on suspicion of engaging in the preparation of an act of terrorism, while six addresses were being searched for evidence.
Security chiefs ordered the raids after receiving intelligence that a terror plot was being planned in the East Midlands region.

Police confirmed the arrests were all linked to "international related terrorism"  and it is thought they were inspired by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil), which has increasingly sought to export its murderous tactics to Britain.
The first arrest took place on Sunday night when a worker at a chicken factory was arrested at a warehouse in the Ashbourne area of Derby.
Workers at the Moy Park Poultry factory described how armed police had stormed into the unit and detained the worker, who was described as "popular but quiet".
One fellow worker said: "It's incredibly shocking to come into work and here about the arrest. This is just a normal factory. We have seen CCTV footage from it happening last night.
"Everybody at the factory is talking about it. The CCTV shows him being held down on the floor. It's even more shocking because the man is a really nice bloke. Everybody likes him. He works hard and just gets on with it."

Several hours later armed officers moved into the Normanton area of Derby, close to the city centre, where they raided a semi-detached property, which was thought to consist of four rented bedsits.
The property is just half-a-mile from the former home of British suicide bomber Kabir Ahmed.
In February 2012 he became the first person in the UK to be convicted of "distributing threatening written material to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation."
He was jailed for 15 months after he handed out leaflets outside a mosque showing a mannequin hanging from a tree in relation to gay people. In November 2014 Ahmed killed himself in a suicide bombing attack on a police station in Iraq.

Residents on Leopold Street described waking up to find bomb disposal experts and forensic officers crawling all over the area, which had been sealed off by armed officers.
While no adjoining properties were evacuated, locals leaving their homes were told to leave the area quickly and quietly while searches were taking place.
The landlord of the house, Ravi Kumar, was unaware of the arrests when contacted on Monday night, but claimed that the property was occupied by an ever-changing list of asylum seekers put there by a housing association.
Mr Kumar, who is the brother of Ashok Kumar, the former Labour MP who died suddenly at the age of 53 shortly before the 2010 general election, said there was a "constant change of people" and that the terms of the housing association's lease meant that he had little to do with them.
Brett Granger, 26, who lives just yards from the scene, said: "I went to go to work this morning around 5:30am and had two men in army uniforms, a man in a white forensic suit, and a police officer who wasn't in uniform just outside the front of my house.
"There was a huge white van and two police cars blocking the street from both ends. Police told me to leave the area quickly.
"From what I could see and because of the army presence I assumed the huge white truck was a bomb squad truck.
"When I opened the door I was a bit shocked as I only live a few doors down from where it was all happening. Scary to think things like this are happening so close to home."

Local councillor Fareed Hussain said: "It's a shock to the system to hear of these arrests in my ward. There were terror-related arrests in the Arboretum ward around eight years ago but I don't think there has been anything since then.
"The banned Al-Muhajiroun group were quite visible six or seven years ago and they were causing problems by preaching in the street and outside mosques in the city.
"They were quite intimidating. However, we as the Muslim community, have not heard anything of them or other extremism activity for a number of years.  I think they have been driven underground and operating more discreetly."
Other properties were also being searched in Burton upon Trent, around ten miles away and in London, where a 32-year-old woman was arrested.
The investigation was being led by the North East counter terrorism unit (Nectu) supported by officers from Derbyshire, Staffordshire and the Metropolitan Police.
In a statement, Nectu said: "All six arrests were carried out under terrorism legislation, meaning officers have an initial 48 hours to charge, release or apply for a warrant of further detention. The arrests are linked to International-related terrorism."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/12/six-held-anti-terror-raids-london-burton-derby/

Cairo Coptic church bomber has ties to ISIS in Sinai

The terrorist who carried out the bombing at the Coptic church in Cairo was reportedly affiliated with the Sinai branch of ISIS, Egyptian security officials told the London-based newspaper Al Hayat on Tuesday.

According to the report, the terrorist was involved in attacks against the Egyptian military in the peninsula and his name was tied last night to a legal case that pertains to the terror organization.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4892285,00.html 

ISIS militants cut off regime supply route in Syria’s Homs

Militants of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Tuesday made new gains in their fight with the Syrian Army forces in the central governorate of Homs.
ISIS fighters captured the main road between al-Qaryatain town and Homs city, which used to be a key supply route for the Syrian regime’s army forces.
The radical group seized control of the supply-line after capturing military checkpoints that were previously held by the Syrian regime’s troops.
“Subsequent to clashes with the Syrian Army forces, ISIS fighters took over four checkpoints in the vicinity of al-Qaryatain, which enabled the group to block the army’s supply route,” local media activist Amro al-Hussein told ARA News.
“The route was a main supply line for the Syrian Army in Homs Governorate. The army forces have been relying on this route to send military reinforcements from al-Qaryatain town to the T4 Airbase and further into Homs city,” al-Hussein reported.
This comes just one day after the Islamic State militants assaulted the T4 Military Airport, breaching its defenses with mortar batteries and heavy machine guns. Located in the Homs’ eastern countryside, the T4 Airport is a critical security installation, providing regime forces with close air support.
Earlier on Sunday, the hardline group recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra in Homs Governorate. Activists and military sources confirmed the rout, reporting that the army had been forced to withdraw under fire.
“The army withdrew after the clashes reached the city center and it became impossible for them to push ISIS back,” media activist Abas al-Omar reported.
Russia had supported the Syrian Army in Palmyra, with airstrikes and logistical support but their efforts were apparently insufficient to save the city.

http://aranews.net/2016/12/isis-militants-cut-off-regime-supply-route-in-syrias-homs/