• Veils, headscarves may improve observers' ability to judge truthfulness

    Judges in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada have ruled that witnesses may not wear the niqab, which covers everything but the eyes, when testifying, in part because they believe that it is necessary to see a person’s face to detect deception. Contrary to the opinions of these courts, it is easier to determine the truthfulness of a woman wearing a headscarf or even a veil that leaves only her eyes exposed than a woman wearing no head covering at all, according to new research.

  • French beaches to be patrolled by armed police lifeguards

    The vacation season in France is about the start, and the French authorities have decided to place armed police lifeguards – who will also wear bullet-proof vests — on the country’s busiest beaches amid fears that terrorists may target beachgoers and vacationing families. Islamist terrorists have recently attacked beach resorts in Tunisia and Ivory Coast.

  • Jordaniana stole CIA weapons shipped to Syrian rebels -- and sold them on the black market

    Jordanian intelligence chiefs stole millions of dollars worth of weapons sent by the CIA to Jordan for Syrian rebels — and sold on the black market. Jordanian intelligence officers were able to steal the weapons because they had direct access to the cargo. These officers “regularly siphoned truckloads” of the arms, delivering only a tiny fraction of them to the moderate Syrian rebels. Experts say the stolen weapons ended up in the possession of criminal networks or ISIS sympathizers.

  • Iran’s use of civilian planes to arm Assad could jeopardize $25B Boeing deal

    The $25 billion aircraft deal that Boeing recently struck with Iran could be jeopardized by Tehran’s continued support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Boeing’s jets will be sold to the state-owned Iran Air, which was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2011 partially due to its transport of “potentially dangerous Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-related cargo” and “missile or rocket components” to Syria. A Western intelligence report seen by Reuters in 2012 noted that Iran continued using civilian aircraft to transport large amounts of arms and personnel to aid Assad.

  • State Department holds competition for social media apps challenging terrorism

    Can the obsession millennials have with smart technology be capitalized on as a weapon against terrorist propaganda? The U.S. Department of State thinks so, and has selected three teams of student finalists — chosen from fifty-six universities around the world — to its headquarters in Washington, D.C., next week for the “Peer-to-Peer: Challenging Extremism challenge.”

  • Bin Laden’s bodyguard released from Guantanamo after 14 years in custody

    Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab al-Rahabi, a Yemenite who was one of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards, has been released from Guantanamo after being held for fourteen years in custody without charges filed against him. The Department of Defense cleared al-Rahabi for release in March 2014, but he release was delayed because of the war in Yemen. Instead of Yemen, al-Rahabi has been sent to Montenegro to be resettled there. Al-Rahabi is the second former Gitmo inmate to be resettled in Montenegro.

  • Colombian government, FARC announce end to Latin America’s longest war

    In a historic move, the Colombian government and Marxist FARC guerrilla movement have announced that they have reached a deal on a bilateral ceasefire — the last major step toward ending one of the world’s longest wars. The cease fire agreement will be signed on Thursday in Havana by President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC rebel leader Rodrigo Londono, better known by his nom de guerre Timochenko. The war between the Marxist FARC and successive Colombian governments began in 1964. It has claimed 220,000 lives and forced 6.6 million out of their homes. ”Un sueño que comienza a ser realidad,” tweeted Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s president.

  • Community policing practices to prevent violent extremism

    A new manual designed for police departments identifies a set of promising practices for using community policing to prevent violent extremism. “Creating a comprehensive community outreach program can build the kind of trust necessary to combat violent extremism,” said the manual’s lead author.

  • Brexit will not weaken European security: Expert

    On Thursday U.K. citizens will vote in a referendum on whether Britain should remain a member of the European Union or exit the EU (“Brexit”). The most recent polls show a slight advantage for the “Remain” campaign, but pollsters say the vote is too close to call. Some security experts have argued that British exit from the EU would weaken Britain’s – and Europe’s – capabilities in the fight against terrorism, but Thorsten Benner, the director of the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) in Berlin, disagrees. He argues that it is unlikely we will see a fundamental weakening of European security should U.K. voters choose to leave the European Union.

  • Tips on how to avoid ransomware attacks

    Individuals and businesses have become targets to a growing online fraud scheme known as ransomware. Ransomware is a form of malware used by cyber criminals to freeze your computer or mobile device, steal your data and demand that a “ransom” — typically anywhere from a couple of hundreds to thousands of dollars — be paid. The FBI, ransomware victims lost more than $18 million between April 2014 and June 2015.

  • Preparing for the worst case scenario

    The number of incidents involving armed attackers (active shooter incidents) has been on the rise over recent years with attacks taking place around the world — from the United States to India, from Norway to France to Kenya. Control Risks says that its Active Shooter training helps increase awareness of the threat and, in the worst case scenario, how best they can protect themselves.

  • Trump calls for profiling of Muslims, surveillance of mosques

    Providing more details about his response to the Orlando shooting, Donald Trump on Sunday proposed the profiling of Muslims by law enforcement, and the nation-wide implementing of a Muslim surveillance programs which was used for a while by the NYPD, but which was discontinued after it had failed to yield a single useful lead.

  • 2015 global forced displacement breaks records

    Wars and persecution have driven more people from their homes than at any time since the UN began keeping refugee records. A new, detailed study which tracks forced displacement worldwide found a total 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, compared to 59.5 million just twelve months earlier. The report found that, measured against the world’s population of 7.4 billion people, one in every 113 people globally is now either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced, or a refugee.

  • Tracking, analyzing how ISIS recruits through social media

    A team of researchers has developed a model to identify behavioral patterns among serious online groups of ISIS supporters that could provide cyber police and other anti-terror watchdogs a roadmap to their activity and indicators when conditions are ripe for the onset of real-world attacks. The researchers apply the laws of physics to study how terrorist support groups grow online, and how law enforcement can track activities.

  • U.S. diplomats call for "targeted military air strikes" against Assad's government

    More than fifty U.S. diplomats have circulated an internal memo to fellow Department of State employees, criticizing the administration’s policies in Syria and calling for air strikes against President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces. The “dissent channel cable” was signed by fifty-one mid-to high-level State Department officials involved in advising on Syria policy. The document calls for “targeted military air strikes” against Assad’s government.