• 10 years after Second Lebanon War, Israel concerned next round will be far worse

    On the ten-year anniversary of the beginning of the Second Lebanon War, Israeli officials continued to warn that any future conflict with Hezbollah will result in unprecedented damage to the group. A senior IDF official said that the difference between the next war and 2006 “will be the difference between an operation and a war. 2006 was an operation, and we didn’t use all of our power. Next time it won’t just be planes flying around. … We will use all of our power to destroy Hezbollah militarily.”

  • ISIS prepares followers for end of caliphate

    In the face of an ever-more-effective campaign by the U.S.-led coalition — a campaign which has substantialy reduced the size of the ISIS-controlled areas in Iraq and Syria; decimated ISIS’s oil-production and distribution infrastructure; killed many senior commanders and operatives; and, with the help of Turkey, choked off the flow of foreign fighters to replenish the organization’s dwindling ranks – ISIS leaders have begun to prepare followers of the Islamist organization for the fall of the ISIS-established caliphate.

  • ISIS boasts killing 5,200 people during the month of Ramadan

    ISIS has boasted that its Islamist fighters have killed 5,200 people in “military operations” during the holy month of Ramadan. An infographic in the group’s Arabic-language weekly magazine al-Naba, ISIS lists fourteen terrorist attacks group followers carried out in Europe, the United States, Asia, Africa, Syria, and Iraq. ISIS claims the victims include nearly 2,000 Shiites, 1,000 Kurds, 600 Syrian Alawites, and 300 Christians.

  • U.S. terror victims file suit against Facebook for failing to block Palestinian incitement

    The families of five Americans recently killed or injured by Palestinian terrorists have filed a lawsuit against Facebook for allowing the terrorist group Hamas to incite violence on its network. The plaintiffs are seeking $1 billion in punitive damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows American citizens who are victims of overseas terrorist attacks to sue in U.S. federal courts.

  • ISIS's finances have been damaged, but U.K. can do more

    In their report on ISIS’s finances, MPs on the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee say ISIS faces an increasingly desperate struggle to raise money. The so-called “richest terrorist group” may have generated more money than any other terrorist organizations but it also incurs unprecedented costs.

  • Banning Muslim face veil at the work place not discriminatory: Austria’s Supreme Court

    Rejecting employees’ requests to wear a veil at work is not discriminating against them, Austria’s highest courts has ruled. In the landmark decision, Austria’s Supreme Court (OGH) ruled that if items of clothing prevent communication, an employer may legally ban them at the work place. The question of whether or not Muslim women should be allowed to wear the Islamic veil at the work place or public schools – or even at public — is the subject of intense debate in Europe, and many states have legislated against it.

  • ISIS using drones with explosives, spy cameras: Pentagon

    The Pentagon says that ISIS fighters are have been posing a growing threat to U.S. and Iraqi forces by using small commercial drones to carry improvised explosives devices (IEDs) or surveillance cameras. These drones are especially threatening because they can evade detection. The growing threat led the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Agency, the Pentagon’s office charged with keeping tab on and countering IEDs, to ask Congress for permission to reallocate $20 million to provide money for a counter-drone program.

  • ISIS caliphate shrinks a further 12 percent in 2016

    Territory controlled by ISIS shrunk by 12 percent in the first six months of 2016. In 2015 the ISIS caliphate shrunk by 12,800 km2 to 78,000 km2, a net loss of 14 percent. In the first six months of 2016, that territory shrunk again by 12 percent. As of 4 July 2016, ISIS controls roughly 68,300 km2 in Iraq and Syria, which is roughly the size of Ireland or West Virginia.

  • ISIS uses Whatsapp, Telegram to sell girls and women as sex slaves

    ISIS has been using instant messenger apps Whatsapp and Telegram to advertise Yazidi women and girls as young as 12 for sale as sex slaves. These apps are also being used to share photos databases of women held by ISIS as sex slaves. ISIS uses the apps to distribute these of photographs to ISIS militants manning the group’s checkpoints so that these women can be identified if they try to escape ISIS-controlled territory. Telegram and Facebook-owned Whatsapp both use end-to-end encryption, preventing the two companies from accessing users’ communications.

  • Five officers killed by a sniper in Dallas (updated)

    Five police officers were killed, and seven officers and two civilians injured, on Thursday by 25-year old Micha Xavier Johnson, who opened fire on the officers during a protest march in Dallas. During a 3-hour standoff with the police, Johnson said he was not associated with any group or organization, and that his only purpose was to kill White people – especially White police officers. It was the deadliest attack on law enforcement officers since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

  • U.S. decision to dismantle Saddam’s army led to ISIS emergence: U.K. foreign secretary

    Philip Hammond, the British foreign secretary, said that the single most disastrous mistake relating to the U.S. 2003 invasion of Iraq was the mass removal of supporters of the Ba’ath party from the Iraqi army. Hammond said this decision led directly to the creation of ISIS.

  • DHS announces the Countering Violent Extremism grant program

    Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson on Wednesday announced the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Grant Program, with $10 million in available funds. DHS snotes that this is the first federal assistance program devoted exclusively to providing local communities with the resources to counter violent extremism in the homeland.

  • DHS announces the Countering Violent Extremism grant program

    Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson on Wednesday announced the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Grant Program, with $10 million in available funds. DHS snotes that this is the first federal assistance program devoted exclusively to providing local communities with the resources to counter violent extremism in the homeland.

  • Schengen agreement allows free movement of terrorists: French security panel

    A French parliamentary committee said on Tuesday that potential terrorists can move too freely in the Schengen open-border area, and that EU member-states should more systematically flag up suspects on a shared police database. The committee also called for reforming France’s six intelligence services and recommended merging them into a single counterterrorism agency. The committee’s 300-page report focused on the debilitating effects of poor coordination among French police and intelligence services, and among the twenty-six European countries which are members of the Schengen agreement.

  • Planning terrorist attacks must be made a crime in all EU members states: MEPs

    Travelling abroad for terrorist purposes, training or being trained, incitement to terrorism, or financing of terrorist activities must be made a crime in all EU member states, urge Civil Liberties Committee MEPs in a resolution voted on Monday night.