Hans-Georg Maassen, Germany’s director of domestic intelligence, said his intelligence agency should be given more resources to fight threats from militant Islamists and right-wing extremists. He was speaking in a symposium on the growing threat of terror attacks in Germany. He said the political climate in Germany was “a lot rougher” than it used to be, as former non-voters and disaffected supporters of the established parties become radicalized against the backdrop of the refugee crisis.

The terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, just as the earlier ones in Madrid (2004) and London (2005), were a reminder that central pillars of the EU, such as the “area of freedom, security, and justice,” are being challenged. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission — the executive branch of the European Union (EU) – said that the EU member states’ mindsets and willingness to cooperate – crucial ingredients in the fight against terror – have not lived up to the challenge. The enduring lack of coordination between security services, police, and judicial authorities, at the national and the European levels, needs to be urgently tackled to reduce Europe’s vulnerability to such risks. To address and resolve these problems, and bolster European security in the face of terrorism, Juncker has proposed a European “Security Union.”

Amid the global threat of terrorism, the actual attacks that occur can vary widely. Terrorists aim at different targets in different locations, and tend to be either shooting or bombing or both. There is, however, a central point of connection linking all these events: the use of technology to coordinate and organize the incident. Taken as a whole, we must recognize that technology use by extremist groups extends well beyond any one type of device, across the continuum of both hardware and software communication platforms. As technologies continue to evolve, extremists will continue to stay on the cutting edge of communications, whether they are encrypted or completely open. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies must be able to adapt investigative resources to these various platforms and do so quickly in order to better respond to these threats. Otherwise, gaps in collection and analysis may lead to intelligence failures and successful attacks.

The U.S.-led coalition’s air strike have crippled the ISIS oil-smuggling-based economy, forcing the organization to rely on fish farming and car dealing as alternative money generating resources, a new report has revealed. In order to close a yawning gap in the organization’s once-lucrative $2.9 billion oil trading scheme, ISIS has now increasingly turned to other revenue streams.

The U.S. military is now employing a controversial air strike technique called “roof-knocking,” which was widely used by Israel during the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip in summer 2014. The approach involves dropping small munitions in the roof of a house in which terrorists are suspected to be hiding, or which is suspected of being a storing facility for terrorists weapons. The purpose of dropping the small, harmless munitions on the roof is to alert civilians in the house that they have a few minutes to escape to safety.

For the fourth year in a row, 2015 saw a rise in the number of civilian casualties from explosive violence around the world: 33,307 civilians having been killed or injured by explosive weapons – up 2 percent from 2014, and 54 percent more than when Action on Armed Violence’s (AOAV) monitoring began in 2011.

The Obama administration will release at least part of a 28-page classified chapter from the 9/11 Commission report which implicates high-level Saudis, both inside and outside government, in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Former Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), a co-chair of the commission, said he believed the Obama administration would make a decision on the issue by June.

Mass killing of hundreds of men, women, and children by soldiers in Zaria and the attempted cover-up of this killing demonstrates a contempt for human life and accountability, said Amnesty International as it publishes evidence gathered on the ground showing how the Nigerian military burned people alive, razed buildings, and dumped victims’ bodies in mass graves.

There are around 1,000 practicing Muslims living in Latvia, a small Baltic country with a population of two million, and only three women living in Latvia wear the Islamic full-face veil in public. The Latvian government has decided to ban the practice anyway. The government says the new legislation is necessary to protect Latvian culture and prevent terrorists from smuggling weapons under garments.