• Iran began dismantling its nuclear program, but has way to go to come into full compliance: IAEA

    The IAEA says that Iran has begun dismantling parts of its nuclear program, as agreed in a deal with the P5+1 powers – but that it has some way to go before coming into full compliance with the agreement. Iran has removed 4,500 centrifuges from the Natanz and Fordo site – but it has to remove 10,000 more before 15 December. Iran has added 460 kg low-enriched uranium to its stock – it now has 8.3 tons of low-enriched uranium – but that stock must be slashed to just 300kg by 15 December. If Iran does not meet in full these, and other, clauses in the agreement by 15 December, the economic sanctions will not be lifted.

  • Fate of suspected mastermind of Paris attacks still unclear

    The fate of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind of Friday’s attacks in Paris, is still unclear after a massive early morning raid by the French police on an apartment building in the Paris suburb of Saint-Dennis. The Washington Post reported that the 27-years old Belgian of Moroccan origins was one of the two people killed in the raid, but other news outlets in France and the United States – including all leading French media — report that Abaaoud’s fate is unknown. The French authorities say that forensics experts have been combing the partially destroyed, seeking DNA and other evidence. Since the Friday attacks, the French police have launched 414 raids on sites where terrorists and terrorist supporters were suspected to be hiding.

  • 2 dead, 7 arrested in French police raid on apartment building in search of attacks’ mastermind

    About 200 members of the special units of the French police early Wednesday morning (Paris time) swooped on the Parisian banlieue, or suburb, of Saint-Denis – where the Stade de France, one of the sites of Friday’s terrorist attacks, is located – and arrested seven people. Two people were killed. One of the dead was a young woman who blew herself up with a suicide vest. French Prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters that the operation was a result of a credible tip — in all likelihood, a police informer who resides in the neighborhood — suggesting Abdelhamid Abbaaoud, a 27-year-old Belgian of Moroccan origin, was holed up in an apartment in a residential building.

  • Visa Waiver program more serious threat than refugees: Senate Intel. Comm. chair

    Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said that terrorists who are citizens of Visa Waiver countries – and who, therefore, can travel from Europe to the United States without a visa — pose a more serious threat to U.S. security than refugees from Syria. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), vice-chairman of the intelligence committee, said that around 13 million people enter the United States each year through the Visa Waiver program, but she also understands that more than 40 million stolen travel documents are on the black market in Europe.

  • NATO should invade ISIS-held territory

    In response to the terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, NATO should invade ISIS-held territory with the goal of creating two semiautonomous, predominantly Sunni Arab regions under restored Syrian and Iraqi sovereignty. This would be difficult and costly. But it is perhaps the only path to long-term solutions of both the Syrian refugee crisis and the threat of ISIS. No options are good, but this is the least bad alternative, and it will give all relevant regional and international actors something they want. Diplomacy is essential to a long-term solution to the Syrian civil war. But someone needs to take over ISIS’ territory, and local forces cannot do it alone. President Obama should reconsider his refusal to contribute ground forces. If he won’t, additional American advisers, special operations forces, air strikes, and intelligence could help troops from other NATO countries and local actors defeat ISIS and reach a lasting solution.

  • Boko Haram has destroyed 1,100 schools so far this year: UN

    So far this year, the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram has destroyed an estimated 1,100 schools in north-east Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, the UN said. Analyst estimate the Boko Haram has killed about 17,000 people since it began its insurgency in 2009.

  • Paris terrorist attacks reignite debate over end-to-end encryption, back doors

    The exact way the terrorists who attacked France last Friday communicated with each other, and their handlers, in the run-up to the attack is not yet clear, but the attack has prompted law enforcement and intelligence agencies in Europe and the United States to renew their call to regulate the use of new encryption technologies which allow users to “go dark” and make it difficult, if not altogether impossible, to retrieve the contents of communication.

  • Increasing toll: Terrorists killed 32,658 people in 2014 compared to 18,111 in 2013

    New report finds that finds that the number of lives lost to terrorism increased by 80 percent in 2014, reaching 32,658 — the highest level ever recorded. This compares to 18,111 deaths in 2013. The global economic cost of terrorism reached an all-time high at $52.9billion, compared to $32.9 billion in 2013, and a tenfold increase since 2000. Terrorism is highly concentrated, with 78 percent of all deaths and 57 percent of all attacks occurring in just five countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, andSyria. Boko Haram and ISIS were jointly responsible for 51 percent of all claimed global fatalities in 2014. Lone wolf attackers are the main perpetrators of terrorist activity in the West, causing 70 percent of all deaths over the past ten years. Islamic fundamentalism was not the main driver of terrorism in Western countries: 80 percent of lone wolf deaths were by political extremists, nationalists, and racial and religious supremacists.

  • Mass-casualty terrorist attacks on the rise, with 11 attacks in first half of 2015

    Mass casualty terrorist attacks, defined as attacks which kill more than 100 people (excluding perpetrators) in a particular country on a particular day, are on the rise. Between 1970 and 2014 there have been 176 such attacks. Between 2000 and 2014, there were mass casualty attacks in twenty-five countries, but most of them occurred in Iraq and Nigeria. Between January and June 2015 there were eleven attacks in which terrorists killed more than 100 people in a single country on a single day.

  • France’s invokes EU treaty’s mutual defense assistance article

    Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s defense minister, has formally asked other EU members for help in fighting ISIS — the first time ever that the EU treaty’s article 42.7, the EU mutual assistance article, has been invoked. Article 42.7 of the EU treaty states that in the event of “armed aggression” EU countries have “an obligation of aid and assistance by all means in their power.” Article 42.7 has been added to the Lisbon Treaty in the wake of the 2004 attack by al-Qaeda terrorists on a train in Madrid, an attack in which 192 people were killed.

  • EU explores ways to bolster European defenses against terrorism

    European interior and home-affairs ministers will meet in an emergency session in Brussels this Friday to explore measures to strengthen the RU zone’s defenses against terrorism. The main topics to be discussed on Friday will include a Europe-wide database of airline passengers, firearms security, and the bolstering of security of external borders, that is, the borders between the Schengen Agreement countries and those European countries not members of the treaty. France said that it would also insist on reintroducing national border checks within the Schengen zone – in effect, suspending the Schengen Agreement.

  • GOP lawmakers try to block funding for Syrian refugees settlement in U.S.

    Republican lawmakers in the House are drafting a bill which would block federal funding for resettling Syrian refugees in the United States until the federal government adopts a “processes to ensure that refugee and related programs are not able to be co-opted by would-be terrorists.” The draft bill also requires that the administration create a “longer-term monitoring process” to track Syrian refugees in the United States.

  • Growing number of states say they would not accept Syrian refugees

    A growing number of states have said they would not accept Syrian refugees because of security worries in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris. So far, the governors of seventeen states have announced they would refuse to allow Syrian refugees to settle in their states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin.

  • France demands effective suspension of the Schengen open borders agreement

    France will this week call for an effective suspension of the Schengen Agreement on open borders across Europe. The agreement was in 1985 in the town of Schengen in Luxembourg. It removes border checks within Europe, meaning that anyone. France will not call for a formal abrogation of the agreement, but would rather demand that all members of the Schengen Zone begin border identity checks, a move which amount to an effective suspension of the 30-year old agreement

  • France attacks ISIS targets in Raqqa, says more retaliatory actions will follow

    French warplanes have launched thirty airstrikes on more than a dozen Islamic State targets in Raqqa, the capital of the self-proclaimed caliphate. The raids were France’s first – but likely not the last — retaliation to Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris. The French Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the sites attacked by the French planes had previously been identified on reconnaissance flights. The bombing raids were launched simultaneously from bases in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan in coordination with U.S. forces.