• Views of millions of Muslims “fundamentally incompatible with the modern world”: Tony Blair

    Former British prime minister Tony Blair has said that “many millions” of Muslims hold a viewpoint which is “fundamentally incompatible with the modern world.” In comments he made over the weekend, Blair rejected arguments that ISIS is merely “tens of thousands of brainwashed crazies,” saying: “[ISIS] does not seek dialogue but dominance. It cannot therefore be contained. It has to be defeated.”

  • American Airlines cancels all Brussels flights until 7 April

    American Airlines announced it has canceled all flights to and from Brussels until 7 April. The carrier’s decision is in response to the 22 March suicide bombing attack at the Brussels airport. The explosion occurred near the American Airlines counter, and some of the thirty-two people killed in the blast were about to board an AA flight.

  • Proposed bill would ban “burner” phones in the U.S.

    Much of the recent debate revolved around terrorists using devices with end-to-end encryption. The terrorists who perpetrated the 13 November 2015 attacks in Paris used several encrypted phones – but three of them also used burner phones, concealing their communications by not having the owners’ names associated with the phones they used. Representative Jackie Speier (D-California) has proposed a bill which would ban burner phones in the United States.

  • Belgium has divided and decentralized itself almost out of existence

    The 22 march Brussels bombings have called attention to the crisis of security across Europe in the face of terrorism and radicalization. But the incidents also add color to the image of Belgium as a failed nation-state, one that seems egregiously incapable of protecting its own people. As it is, Belgium is no longer a nation-state in any functional sense, but rather a “federation” of three different regions and of three different “linguistic communities.” As a result, it is host to an array of police and juridical districts that don’t map onto each other geographically, demographically, or politically. If Belgians don’t imagine a way to reinvent themselves as a functioning nation-state, despite their linguistic and other differences, the consequences could be dire indeed. Without a state strong enough to keep all its people safe, and cohesive enough to include all its divergent populations as citizens of a common polity, the forces behind what happened in Brussels on 22 March will only fester and grow.

  • Plum Island may be turned into a national park rather than sold to developers

    Members of the New York and Connecticut congressional delegations announced on Friday a plan to launch a study of Plum Island’s natural and historic resources, saying the plan is one step toward halting the sale of the island to developers. In 2009 DHS said the island would be sold to developers to help fund the new BioLab Level 4 on the campus of Kansas State University, which is set to open in 2022.

  • Brussels attackers originally planned to attack a nuclear facility: Belgian authorities

    The terrorists who attacked the airport and a metro station on Tuesday had originally considered targeting a Belgian nuclear site, but that such an attack would have required more time and planning. The terrorists abandoned the nuclear facility attack plan after Belgian security services arrested a number of Islamist militants, forcing the terrorists to act more quickly and focus on soft targets instead of a hardened nuclear facility. EU counterterrorism coordinator said that Belgium’s network of nuclear power stations could become the targets of cyberattacks by terrorists in the near future. “And if [ISIS] ever did turn to nuclear weapons,” one experts says, “they have more people, more money and more territory under their control and more ability to recruit experts globally than Al Qaeda at its best ever had.”

  • Turkey deliberately “unleashing” ISIS terrorists into Europe: King Abdullah

    King Abdullah of Jordan asserted that Turkey is exporting ISIS-linked terrorists to Europe. The king made the remarks in a meeting with members of Congress, in which he said that Islamist militants were being “manufactured in Turkey” and “unleashed” into Europe. He also used the briefing with lawmakers, which was held after the king’s meeting with President Barack Obama was cancelled, to remind the American politicians of Turkey’s complicity in buying ISIS oil.

  • U.K. exit from the EU would weaken the West in the war on terror: David Petraeus

    General David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and commander of the U.S. Central Command, warned on Sunday that Britain’s exit from the EU would weaken the West in the war on terror. Petraeus, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, said that Britain leaving the EU would “deal a significant blow to [it’s] strength and resilience at exactly the moment when the West is under attack from multiple directions.”

  • ISIS second-in-command killed by U.S. Special Forces in Syria

    ISIS second-in-command Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, aka Haji Imam, was killed by U.S. Special Forces operating inside Syria. This is the second time this month that a top leader of ISIS is killed by U.S. forces. ISIS “minister of war,” and the third most senior ISIS leader after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the now-dead al-Qaduliin, died in a hospital two weeks ago after being seriously injured in a U.S. airstrike.

  • Worries in Belgium over ISIS dirty-bomb plot

    Belgian security authorities say that it appears that ISIS-linked terrorists in the country have been planning to build a dirty nuclear bomb for use in a future terrorist attack. Growing concerns over security at nuclear plants have led to the revocation of security passes of eleven workers. A senior Belgian nuclear official was also secretly monitored by individuals linked to the 13 November Paris attacks.

  • Brussels suicide bombers were in U.S. terror suspects database

    U.S. security agencies had the names of the two suicide bombers who attacked Brussels airport in their databases as potential terror threats. The revelation would raise even more questions about the competence and preparedness of the Belgian security authorities, which described the men merely as petty criminals who were not on the radar od the Belgian security counterterrorism agencies. The revelations also raise questions about the scope and quality of intelligence information sharing among Western countries.

  • Terrorists have been targeting transportation hubs for decades

    More than 7,400 terrorist attacks worldwide between 1970 and 2014 targeted some form of transportation, including airports and aircraft, representing 5.3 percent of all terrorist attacks. More than 460 targets of terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2014 were airports, representing 6.4 percent of all transportation targets. More than 130 targets of terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2014 were subway systems, representing 1.9 percent of all attacks on transportation targets.

  • ISIS obtaining nuclear weapons “obviously a concern”: British defense secretary

    British defense secretary Michael Fallon said the prospect of ISIS or another terror group with the “technical know-how” obtaining nuclear weapons is “obviously a concern.” Fallon said it was important to ensure that terror groups could not “get their hands on nuclear weapons” and said the United Kingdom was doing its part by maintaining strict export controls on the necessary technology.

  • U.K. could lose access to terrorism, crime databases if it leaves the EU: Europol

    Rob Wainwright, the director of the EU’s police agency Europol, said that if Britain left the EU, it could lose access to important databases of terror and criminal suspects needed to fight ISIS. Wainwright said databases provided “daily” benefit to UK police in protecting borders. Leaving the EU would put intelligence cooperation in danger, he said.

  • Danish government considering plans to strip radical imams of citizenship

    Denmark’s government is considering a proposal by an anti-immigration party to strip imams who preach ideas contrary to the Danish constitution of their citizenship. The proposal is part of an effort to expel outspoken radical imam Abu Bilal Ismail. Ismail is a leading imam at the Grimhoj mosque in the city of Aarhus, has openly called for the killing of Jews, and also the stoning of adulterous women and the killing of apostates.