• Israel places Jewish extremists in administrative detention for six months without charge

    Israel has expanded its crackdown on Jewish terrorists and their supporters, placing two high-profile extremists in administrative detention for six months – that is, jailing them for six months without charge — and arrested more than a dozen other extremists in West Bank settlement. About two dozen extremists from different West Bank settlements were taken into police stations and their finger prints, DNA, and other identifying markers collected before they were released. They are suspected of being part of the extremist movement, and if they take part in violent actions against Palestinians it would easier for forensic experts to determine whether or not they were on the scene. Following the 31 July arson attack by extremist settlers on a Palestinian family in the village of Duma – the extremists blocked the doors to the house from the outside to make sure the family of four would burn alive – the Israeli government voted to designate Jewish settlers’ violence as terrorism, allowing the security services and police to take steps to combat the extremists which would otherwise not be permitted.

  • D.C. security gaps exposed by gyrocopter landing on Capitol grounds: Senate panel

    A Senate committee has concluded that the Florida man who flew a one-man gyrocopter and landed it on the U.S. Capitol grounds, had exposed security gaps and inadequate coordination among the agencies charged with protecting the Capitol, the White House, and other Washington landmarks. In addition to calling for better coordination among the different agencies responsible for securing important sites in Washington, D.C., the committee strongly recommends seeking new “technological solutions” to spot similar flights in the future, suggesting that Congress should also consider increasing penalties for those who breach the restricted airspace.

  • Israel appears ready to crack down on Jewish terrorists and their sympathizers

    Until now, Israeli law enforcement used measures such as administrative detention — that is, jailing people for long periods without a trial — for Palestinian terrorists, and for many Palestinians who were not terrorists. Israel, in a historic move, is now applying such measures to Jewish terrorists as well. Yesterday, the Israeli security services said they had placed a Jewish extremist in an administrative detention for six months. The move is an indication that, for the first time since 1967, the Israeli police and security services may begin to deal with Jewish terrorists in a manner similar to the way Palestinian terrorists have been dealt with. It may also indicate that Israel may have finally decided to crack down on the militant hard core of about 25,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

  • Nigeria's army rescues 178 people captured and held captive by Boko Haram

    Nigeria’s army said on Sunday that it had rescued 178 people held by Islamist group Boko Haram in Borno state in Nigeria’s north-east. Under the sustained attacks of the armies of four of Nigeria’s neighbors — Chad, Niger, Cameroon, and Benin — Boko Haram was pushed out of most of the vast swathes of Nigerian territory it had come to control at the start of the year. The Islamists, who a year ago appeared to be on the verge of establishing their own state-within-a-state in north-east Nigeria, have since dispersed, and have returned to their earlier guerrilla approach of hitting soft targets with bombs and raiding towns.

  • Israel mulls designating Jewish extremists as “terrorists”

    The State of Israel has been struggling with profound questions about terrorism these past three days – Jewish terrorism, that is. On Friday, Jewish extremists went a step-further: they threw Molotov cocktails into the home of a family of four in the Palestinian village of Duma, killing a toddler and severely injuring the toddler’s sister and her father and mother. All three are in critical condition in an Israeli hospital. To make sure the family would be killed in the attack, the Jewish terrorists blocked the doors to the house from the outside, so the family would not be able to escape and instead burn alive inside. The right-wing coalition government of Benjamin Netanyahu may be especially uncomfortable making this decision because it may alienate the many settlers who are not violent – and who support the government — but who would not like to see fellow settlers designated as terrorists. The extremists, however, may be forcing the Israeli government’s hand.

  • DHS warns local law enforcement to watch for drones used by terrorists, criminals

    DHS has circulated an intelligence assessment to police agencies across the United States warning about drones being used as weapons in an attack. The bulletin went out Friday and warned state and municipal law enforcement agencies that terrorist and criminals may begin to use drones to advance their goals. “Emerging adversary use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems [UAS] present detection and disruption challenges,” the intelligence bulletin warns.

  • U.S. judge: Guantánamo detention is legal even if U.S. winds down Afghanistan involvement

    U.S. district judge Royce Lamberth on Thursday rejected a Guantánamo Bay detainee’s legal challenge, which claimed that his imprisonment was unlawful because President Barack Obama has declared an end to hostilities in Afghanistan. In January 2015 President Obama declared that “our combat mission in Afghanistan is over.” Muktar Yahya Najee Al-Warafi’s lawyers argued that since the United States was no longer involved in the war in Afghanistan, his detention was now unlawful under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, which was the legal basis for the imprisonment of foreign fighters captured on overseas battlefields.

  • Turkey, U.S. to create “ISIS-free zone” along Syria-Turkey border

    In what should be regarded as a significant victory for Turkey’s approach to the conflict in Syria, Turkey and the United States have agreed on a plan create an “ISIS free” strip inside Syria along the Turkey-Syria border. The deal will see Turkey drawn more deeply into Syria’s civil war and increase the intensity of the U.S. air strikes against ISIS. American officials told the New York Times that the United States would work with Turkey and Syrian rebel fighters to clear a 25-mile-deep strip of land near the border, which would constitute an ISIS-free zone and a safe haven for Syrian refugees.

  • More evidence emerges of ISIS’s use of chemical weapons

    A joint investigation by two independent organizations has found that ISIS has begun to use weapons filled with chemicals against Kurdish forces and civilians in both Iraq and Syria. ISIS is notorious for its skill in creating and adapting weapons and experts are concerned with the group’s access to chemical agents and its experiments with and the use of these agents as weapons.

  • Game changer: Turkey allows U.S. to use of Incirlik air base for attacks on ISIS

    In a dramatic policy change, Turkey has agreed to allow the U.S. military to launch strikes against the Islamic State from the Incirlik air base near the Syrian border. The move — one senior U.S. official described it as a “game changer” — will make coalition airstrikes more effective because jets would reach their targets in Syria more quickly upon receiving actionable intelligence. The move will also draw Turkey deeper into the war in Syria. Turkey appears to have abandoned its studied ambivalence toward IS. Until this week, Turkey prioritized the removal of Bashar al-Assad and its own volatile relations with the Kurds, rather than join in the effort to defeat ISIS, but the Incirlik agreement indicates a significant change in Turkish priorities.

  • Mohammad Abdulazeez exhibited characteristics found in other lone-wolf terrorists: Psychologist

    A researcher of radicalization says that from what has been written about Mohammad Abdulazeez, who shot and killed four Marines and a Navy sailor at two military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he appears to have exhibited the common characteristics of mass killers and lone wolf terrorists. Bryn Mawr Psychology Professor Clark McCauley said one of the common characteristics of lone wolf killers that he has studied is that many have weapons experience and are socially disconnected and stressed with a psychological disorder, what he terms a “disconnected/disordered profile.”

  • Leader of Khorasan Group in Syria killed in U.S. airstrike

    The leader of the Khorasan Group, an al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group in Syria, was killed on 8 July in a U.S. airstrike in Syria, the Pentagon said. Kuwait-born Muhsin al-Fadhli, who had a $7 million bounty on his head from the U.S. government, was killed when a vehicle in which he was traveling near the Syrian town of Sarmada was hit by a missile. Islamic State has captured the headlines, but security experts say that Khorasan may pose a more immediate danger to the United States and Western European countries.

  • Central African Republic on verge of becoming a failed state

    The Central African Republic (CAR), one of the poorest countries in the world, suffers not only from mass atrocities and misrule, but also a dangerous dependence on aid, said the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in a report released the other day. Since early 2013 over half of CAR’s population has been the victim of sectarian violence which has cost over 6,000 deaths, leaving 2.7 million people in need of emergency assistance. Harvests have decreased by 58 percent and 1.52 million people are food insecure.

  • Initiative launched to expose those who fund, profit from wars in Africa

    Oscar-winner actor George Clooney, in an effort to tackle corruption in war zones, on Monday launched an initiative to identify and help bring to justice individuals funding and profiting from Africa’s deadliest conflicts. Clooney and U.S. human rights activist John Prendergast launched the project, called The Sentry, which will investigate money flowing in and out of conflict zones, and pass on the information to policymakers to take action.

  • U.S. thwarted “over 60” ISIS-linked plots, but missed Chattanooga attack: McCaul

    Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the United States was successful in thwarting “over 60” would-be terrorist attacks by “ISIS followers” in the last year. Referring to the attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee, McCaul said: “What keeps us up at night are really the ones that we don’t know about and I’m afraid that this case really falls into that category.” He added: “If it can happen in Chattanooga, it can happen anywhere, anytime, anyplace and that’s our biggest fear.” McCaul also advocated “taking the war” to what he called “cyber commanders” of terrorist groups overseas. “We need to hit these guys, these cyber commanders who are sending these Internet directives out to attack, attack, attack in the United States. We need to identify them and take them out.”