Category Archives: News

Frenchman plotting ‘imminent’ attack is charged with terrorism

The New York Times reports: A suspected Islamic State operative who was arrested last week had amassed a trove of guns and bomb-making equipment, including the type of explosive used in terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, the French authorities announced on Wednesday, reinforcing fears that militants are planning additional assaults on Europe.

The suspect, Reda Kriket, a 34-year-old Frenchman, was arrested on Thursday afternoon in Boulogne-Billancourt, a western suburb of Paris. That evening, the authorities raided a fourth-floor apartment Mr. Kriket had rented under a fake name in Argenteuil, a northwestern suburb that was once a popular weekend getaway and a subject for Impressionist painters.

Inside the apartment, the authorities found “an arsenal of weapons and explosives of an unprecedented size,” which led them to believe Mr. Kriket had been planning an “imminent attack,” the Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said at a news conference on Wednesday evening, describing for the first time the scope of the plot.

The arsenal included explosive materials — among them TATP, which was used in suicide bombs that were set off in Paris on Nov. 13 and in Brussels on March 22 — along with Kalashnikov assault rifles, a submachine gun, pistols, ammunition, four boxes containing thousands of small steel balls, stolen French passports, brand-new cellphones, a tear-gas canister and two computers with instructions to make explosives.

A judge who focuses on terrorism cases charged Mr. Kriket on Wednesday with terrorist conspiracy, possession of weapons and explosives, and falsification of documents, among other offenses, Mr. Molins said.

Mr. Kriket had an extensive criminal record, with multiple convictions for robbery, possession of stolen goods and acts of violence, Mr. Molins added. [Continue reading…]

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Do all roads lead through Italy for ISIS?

The Daily Beast reports: Mohamed Lahlaoui was not supposed to be in Europe when he was arrested in Germany last week on terrorism charges. The 28-year-old Moroccan was deported from the northern Italian city of Brescia back in May 2014 after he violated the conditions of his house arrest, which he was serving for attempted murder, concealing an illegal weapon, and garden-variety drug charges.

But he apparently never left Europe. Or, if he did, it wasn’t much of a getaway, because traces of him in Belgium, France, and Germany date back to the summer he was deported. When Lahlaoui was arrested at a train station in Giessen, Germany, last week, his name wasn’t at the top of any terror watch list, but he was identified as persona non grata in Europe because of his Italian criminal record. Acting out of an abundance of vigilance, German police said they checked his cellphone and found a message from Khalid el-Bakraoui, one of the suicide-bomber brothers who blew himself up along with 20 passengers in a Brussels subway on March 22. The message was sent at 9:08 a.m., just three minutes before the bomb went off. It said, simply, “fin” — French for “the end.”

Now authorities are tying to connect the dots between Lahlaoui and a number of other terror suspects who seem to have an Italian connection. [Continue reading…]

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French minister accused of Islamophobia over veil comments

Hajer M’tiri reports: “There are women who choose [to wear headscarves], there were also American negroes who were for slavery”. This sentence was said by a French government minister on Wednesday. As shocking and offensive as those words are, for people from around the globe, in particular the Muslim and Black communities in France, some activists say they are not surprised, as those words “are just a continuation of the French government’s hypocritical and openly racist policy”.

Speaking on French radio RMC on Wednesday about fashion houses commercializing accessories such as veils or headscarves, Laurence Rossignol, the French minister of families, children and women’s rights, compared women who choose to wear headscarves to the “American Negroes who were for slavery” and blasted the fashion houses.

It all started on her Twitter account, when Rossignol expressed her unhappiness with British brand Marks & Spencer announcing it would offer full-body “burqini” swimsuits in its online store.

Several international clothing and accessories brands recently launched lines for “Islamic modest wear”: the Swedish giant H&M last year used a Muslim hijabi model as their main face for its advertising campaign, while the Japanese brand Uniqlo earlier this month announced it would begin selling hijabs in its London stores.

Last year Zara, Tommy Hilfiger, Oscar de la Renta, and Mango all launched varyingly “modest” collections for Muslim women.

Luxury fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana last January launched a collection of hijabs and abayas targeting wealthy Muslim women in the Middle East.

Abdallah Zekri, president of the National Observatory against Islamophobia, told Anadolu Agency that Rossignol’s remarks “stigmatize Muslim women” and “violate France’s secularist principles.”

He accused Rossignol of not tackling serious and “real” problems such as unemployment and terrorism, and instead choosing to attack Muslim women.

“Instead of choosing the path of dialogue, she is stigmatizing Muslim women. She seems to be sliding a bit to the methods of Daesh recruiters,” Zekri said.

He continued: “It is as if she’s acting as a recruiting sergeant for Daesh with such remarks. You know, it is with these kinds of statements that Daesh recruiters brainwash their victims, saying, ‘Look, they don’t see you as citizens…’.” [Continue reading…]

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Trump attack on Geneva Conventions denounced by ex-officers and advocates

The Guardian reports: Retired senior military officers and human rights advocates are reacting with disgust at Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s description of the Geneva Conventions as a “problem” for the conduct of US wars.

At an appearance in Wisconsin on Wednesday that was obscured by his suggestion that women who choose abortion should face punishment, Donald Trump was also quoted as saying: “The problem is we have the Geneva Conventions, all sorts of rules and regulations, so the soldiers are afraid to fight.”

Trump has previously advocated killing the families of terror suspects; torture “a hell of a lot worse” than waterboarding; and widespread bombing campaigns against Islamic State, which operates in civilian-packed areas. The Geneva Conventions provide the basis for protections against war crimes, privileging the status of civilians and detainees during wartime.

Several retired officers said the comments called into question Trump’s fitness to serve as commander-in-chief, saying that service members operating in line with his predilections would be tasked with behavior ranging from the disgraceful to the illegal.

“Donald Trump cannot possibly understand [Geneva] because he has neither the experience, the expertise or the moral compass to grasp it,” said Steve Kleinman, an air force reserve colonel and an interrogations expert. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. and Russia reach ‘agreement’ that some day Assad will leave Syria

Middle East Eye reports: The US and Russia have reached an understanding that Syrian President Bashar Assad will leave to another country as part of the future peace process, according to the Lebanese Al-Hayat newspaper.

A diplomatic source on the Security Council told al-Hayat in reports published on Thursday that US Secretary of State John Kerry had “informed concerned Arab countries that the US and Russia have reached an agreement on the future of the political process in Syria, including the transfer of President Bashar al-Assad to another country.”

The source said the US-Russian agreement was “clear” in diplomatic back channels, though he said that “the timing and context of that in the political process remains unclear to everyone at the moment”. [Continue reading…]

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Assad, buoyed by a win over ISIS, dismisses opposition’s demands

The Washington Post reports: Fresh from a major victory over Islamic State militants, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday expressed support for peace talks next month in Geneva but still firmly rejected the opposition’s key demands.

In an interview with Russian media, the embattled leader discussed his vision for eventual reconstruction from a devastating civil war and his desire to let Moscow, a key ally, maintain an indefinite military presence in Syria.

Assad’s comments come just days after his forces drove Islamic State extremists out of Palmyra. Seizing the archaeologically rich city was a big success for his government and its foreign military backers, most notably Russia, which bombed the militants in the desert city.

In his remarks, Assad appeared buoyed by that battlefield win, strongly dismissing as “illogical and unconstitutional” the idea of forming a transitional government to end a civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people, displaced millions and fueled the rise of the Islamic State. [Continue reading…]

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I’m from Palmyra, and I can tell you after what I’ve seen that the Assad regime is no better than Isis

Mohamed Alkhateb writes: I was born and raised in Palmyra. I went to university in Homs, but when noises started to be made about a revolutionary movement, I knew I had to return to my home city.

At the beginning of the Revolution, my friends and I established what we called the “Palmyra Coordination” – essentially a group to coordinate and lead peaceful demonstrations calling for freedom. But the situation quickly spiralled out of control. Security forces within the city were unable to control the escalating revolution or withstand the flood of demonstrations. Tens of protesters were killed during their efforts.

After months of protests, the Assad regime sent a huge deployment of about 50 tanks and 3000 soldiers to take control of the city. After Palmyra was stormed by the SAA [Syrian Arab Army], some friends and I knew we had to flee.

After six days, however, we were captured by a group of around 30 SAA soldiers in the surrounding countryside and detained.

Needless to say, we were badly treated by these soldiers. They slapped us and beat us, and then marched us to a security branch in Palmyra to begin our interrogation. Worse was to come. [Continue reading…]

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How Russian special forces are shaping the fight in Syria

The Washington Post reports: The troops that recently recaptured Palmyra, Syria, from the Islamic State included Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah forces. And on Monday, Russian officials said there was another group that contributed to the victory: Russia’s elite special forces, also known as Spetsnaz.

Russian troops are nothing new to the Syrian ground war. Since their arrival in September, the Russians have used naval infantry to secure a key port in Tartus and the perimeter of an airfield in Latakia. But Russian special forces operating on the front — aside from a small number of artillery and tank units — have remained mostly out of the public eye.

With the seizure of Palmyra, though, that is no longer the case. Russian officials announced Monday that Palmyra was “liberated with participation of Spetsnaz and military advisers.” The Islamic State took Palmyra in May and shortly after partially destroyed a number of the city’s historic sites.

Russian special forces have come to the forefront of Russia’s Syria narrative because the battle for Palmyra plays directly into the anti-Islamic State rhetoric that Russia used as a pretense to initially intervene, said Chris Kozak, a research analyst at the Institute of the Study of War.

Involvement of Russian special forces in Palmyra “looks great,” Kozak said. “Whereas their involvement against opposition groups in Aleppo or Latakia doesn’t fit the narrative.”

It is unclear exactly when Russian special forces began operating in Syria, though prior to Russia’s intervention there, Russian troops had long helped advise and train Syrian forces. According to Michael Kofman, an analyst at CNA who focuses on Russian military operations, Russia currently operates several special forces units in Syria, Zaslon, KSO and detachments of reconnaissance teams. [Continue reading…]

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In Iraq 21 generals lead 5,000 U.S. troops — about what a colonel usually commands

Nancy Youssef reports: In the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the U.S. military is notably short on soldiers, but apparently not on generals.

There are at least 12 U.S. generals in Iraq, a stunningly high number for a war that, if you believe the White House talking points, doesn’t involve American troops in combat. And that number is, if anything, a conservative estimate, not taking into account the flag officers running the U.S. air war, the admirals helping wage the war from the sea, or their superiors back at the Pentagon.

At U.S. headquarters inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, even majors and colonels frequently find themselves saluting superiors at a pace that outranks the Pentagon and certainly any normal military installation. With about 5,000 troops deployed to Iraq and Syria ISIS war, that means there’s a general for every 416 troops, give or take. To compare, there are some captains in the U.S. Army in charge of that many people.

Moreover, many of those generals come with staffs and bureaucracy that some argue slows decision-making against an agile terror group.

The Obama administration has frequently argued that the U.S. maintains a so-called light footprint in Iraq to reassure the American public that its military is not back in Iraq. Indeed, at times, the United States has not acknowledged where it has deployed troops until one of them died.

But if the U.S. footprint is so small, why does the war demand so many generals? [Continue reading…]

In an editorial, the New York Times says: With the military campaign against the Islamic State making some progress, American officials have begun to sharpen plans to expel the terrorist organization from two major cities it still controls.

Recapturing Raqqa, in northern Syria, and Mosul, in northern Iraq, from the Islamic State is critical. But President Obama has not made the case for expanding America’s role in the fighting, nor has he given a forthright assessment of the resources that would be required.

Since Mr. Obama authorized the first airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in 2014 to curb the rise of the Islamic State, administration officials have been vague and at times disingenuous about the evolution of a military campaign that has escalated sharply. [Continue reading…]

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Earthquakes caused by oil drillers place 7 million Americans at risk

Grist reports: Earthquake risk is on the rise, and we mostly have ourselves to blame — or, more specifically, the oil and gas industry.

In a new report, the U.S. Geological Survey maps out earthquake hazards for the coming year, and for the first time, its assessment includes the risk of human-induced earthquakes. There’s now so much earthquake activity caused by the oil industry injecting wastewater underground that 7 million Americans in the central and eastern U.S. are at risk of experiencing a damaging tremor this year.

In parts of north-central Oklahoma and southern Kansas, the risk of dangerous shaking is now about 5–12 percent per year — a riskiness on par with traditionally earthquake-prone California. The difference, of course, is that the Californian quakes as we currently understand them mostly stem from natural processes.

Fracking itself is not to blame for the increased earthquake risk, USGS says. Rather, it’s the oil and gas industry’s disposal of wastewater that can cause problems. Sometimes that wastewater is the result of fracking, and sometimes it’s the result of traditional drilling processes. After water is pumped into the earth to help extract oil and gas, it comes back up polluted, salty, and altogether undrinkable. To keep it away from people and other critters, it’s often injected back into the earth into deeper formations (below the aquifers we tap for drinking water). This kind of injection can lead to increased pressure at fault zones, which can cause the kind of slippage associated with earthquakes. [Continue reading…]

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Activating the sleepers: ISIS adopts a new strategy in Europe

Christoph Reuter reports: They chose the perfect moment. Just as Europe was letting out a sigh of relief, having captured one of the Paris terrorists after months of pursuit, the bombers detonated their explosives. The signal sent by the arrest was that Islamic State (IS) is defeatable. But the Brussels attack tells us that isn’t the case. Just when you think you’ve beaten us, we’ll strike you right in the heart.

Investigators and intelligence agencies both agree that preparations for the attacks in Brussels must have begun long ago. The Belgian bombs thus heralded a new approach for Islamic State in Europe — one that does not bode well for those trying to prevent acts of terrorism — because the threat is no longer limited to individuals known to the police or already on wanted lists, but also comes from those in the shadows in the second or third rank. Even jihadists who have not yet been identified by officials are now capable of striking.

This approach reflects the one used in IS’ main battle grounds of Syria and Iraq. For some time there, unsuspected aggressors, who have been discreetly trained, have infiltrated targeted circles and built up long-term sleeper cells. Or men from regions neighboring a target are recruited to wait and attack at the right moment.

This is a modus operandi that has been employed by terrorists against prominent and often well-defended opponents multiple times — it’s how Abu Khalid al Suri, the Syrian emissary for al-Qaida boss Aiman al-Zawahiri, was betrayed by one of his own employees and killed in early 2014 by IS despite all possible protective measures being taken at his top secret hideout.

A rebel commander who had fled after Islamic State had taken over Raqqa was abducted by his own driver in Turkey, who was working under the orders of IS. And the founder of the secret activist network Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently was massacred in his apartment in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa by an IS agent who had infiltrated the opponents months before, posing as a supporter.

The people behind this terror are proving to be surprisingly farsighted, patient planners and not rash actors — and this applies in both Europe and Syria. This is the new and long underestimated side of IS. [Continue reading…]

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Is Belgium’s nuclear security up to scratch?

By Robert J Downes, King’s College London and Daniel Salisbury, King’s College London

Belgium’s counter-terrorism efforts are once again being called into question following the recent tragedies in Brussels. The attacks were carried out against soft targets – the public check-in area of Brussels Airport and Maelbeek metro station – but a series of unusual and suspicious occurrences were also reported at nuclear facilities in the country.

Occurring a week before a major international summit on nuclear security, these events highlight the very real threat to nuclear facilities. For Belgium, this recent episode is one item on a long list of security concerns.

The US repeatedly has voiced concerns about Belgium’s nuclear security arrangements since 2003. That year, Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national and former professional footballer, planned to bomb the Belgian Kleine-Brogel airbase under the aegis of Al-Qaeda.

The airbase, which holds US nuclear weapons, has seen multiple incursions by anti-nuclear activists who have gained access to the site’s “protected area”, which surrounds hardened weapons storage bunkers.

Yet, Belgium only started using armed guards at its nuclear facilities weeks before the March 2016 attacks.

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Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

Karen Turner reports: A new study shows that knowledge of government surveillance causes people to self-censor their dissenting opinions online. The research offers a sobering look at the oft-touted “democratizing” effect of social media and Internet access that bolsters minority opinion.

The study, published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, studied the effects of subtle reminders of mass surveillance on its subjects. The majority of participants reacted by suppressing opinions that they perceived to be in the minority. This research illustrates the silencing effect of participants’ dissenting opinions in the wake of widespread knowledge of government surveillance, as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.

The “spiral of silence” is a well-researched phenomenon in which people suppress unpopular opinions to fit in and avoid social isolation. It has been looked at in the context of social media and the echo-chamber effect, in which we tailor our opinions to fit the online activity of our Facebook and Twitter friends. But this study adds a new layer by explicitly examining how government surveillance affects self-censorship. [Continue reading…]

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FBI backs off from its day in court with Apple this time – but there will be others

By Martin Kleppmann, University of Cambridge

After a very public stand-off over an encrypted terrorist’s smartphone, the FBI has backed down in its court case against Apple, stating that an “outside party” – rumoured to be an Israeli mobile forensics company – has found a way of accessing the data on the phone.

The exact method is not known. Forensics experts have speculated that it involves tricking the hardware into not recording how many passcode combinations have been tried, which would allow all 10,000 possible four-digit passcodes to be tried within a fairly short time. This technique would apply to the iPhone 5C in question, but not newer models, which have stronger hardware protection through the so-called secure enclave, a chip that performs security-critical operations in hardware. The FBI has denied that the technique involves copying storage chips.

So while the details of the technique remain classified, it’s reasonable to assume that any security technology can be broken given sufficient resources. In fact, the technology industry’s dirty secret is that most products are frighteningly insecure.

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Leaks reveal industrial scale bribery operation involving major U.S., European and Asian companies

oil-industry

Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post report: A massive leak of confidential documents has for the first time exposed the true extent of corruption within the oil industry, implicating dozens of leading companies, bureaucrats and politicians in a sophisticated global web of bribery and graft.

After a six-month investigation across two continents, Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post can reveal that billions of dollars of government contracts were awarded as the direct result of bribes paid on behalf of firms including British icon Rolls-Royce, US giant Halliburton, Australia’s Leighton Holdings and Korean heavyweights Samsung and Hyundai.

The investigation centres on a Monaco company called Unaoil, run by the jet-setting Ahsani clan. Following a coded ad in a French newspaper, a series of clandestine meetings and midnight phone calls led to our reporters obtaining hundreds of thousands of the Ahsanis’ leaked emails and documents.

The trove reveals how they rub shoulders with royalty, party in style, mock anti-corruption agencies and operate a secret network of fixers and middlemen throughout the world’s oil producing nations.

Corruption in oil production – one of the world’s richest industries and one that touches us all through our reliance on petrol – fuels inequality, robs people of their basic needs and causes social unrest in some of the world’s poorest countries. It was among the factors that prompted the Arab Spring.

Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post today reveal how Unaoil carved up portions of the Middle East oil industry for the benefit of western companies between 2002 and 2012. [Continue reading…]

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During Russia’s ‘withdrawal,’ it has been shipping more into Syria than it has been removing

Reuters reports: When Vladimir Putin announced the withdrawal of most of Russia’s military contingent from Syria there was an expectation that the Yauza, a Russian naval icebreaker and one of the mission’s main supply vessels, would return home to its Arctic Ocean port.

Instead, three days after Putin’s March 14 declaration, the Yauza, part of the “Syrian Express”, the nickname given to the ships that have kept Russian forces supplied, left the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk for Tartous, Russia’s naval facility in Syria.

Whatever it was carrying was heavy; it sat so low in the water that its load line was barely visible.

Its movements and those of other Russian ships in the two weeks since Putin’s announcement of a partial withdrawal suggest Moscow has in fact shipped more equipment and supplies to Syria than it has brought back in the same period, a Reuters analysis shows.

It is not known what the ships were carrying or how much equipment has been flown out in giant cargo planes accompanying returning war planes.

But the movements – while only a partial snapshot – suggest Russia is working intensively to maintain its military infrastructure in Syria and to supply the Syrian army so that it can scale up again swiftly if need be. [Continue reading…]

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Growing international movement seek to place arms embargo on Saudi Arabia

The Intercept reports: A lawsuit filed last week in Canada is seeking to halt a major $15 billion sale of light-armored vehicles to the government of Saudi Arabia, part of a growing international movement to stop arms sales to the Saudi government over its alleged war crimes in Yemen.

The suit, filed by University of Montreal constitutional law professor Daniel Turp, argues the vehicle sales to Saudi Arabia violate a number of Canadian laws, including regulations on the export of military equipment, which prohibit arms sales to countries where human rights are “subject to serious and repeated violations” and there is a reasonable risk exported equipment “will be used against the civilian population.” Saudi Arabia, which has a deplorable human rights record at home, has inflicted considerable civilian casualties in Yemen as part of its yearlong bombing campaign in support of the contested government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

“The suppression of human rights in Saudi Arabia and the Saudi government’s actions during the war in Yemen make the sale of these armored vehicles legally unacceptable,” Turp said.[Continue reading…]

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Pakistan militant group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar threatens fresh wave of violence

The Wall Street Journal reports: The militant group behind the park massacre here this week on Tuesday threatened to unleash a wave of new attacks, as the government rounded up thousands of suspects.

The Easter Sunday bombing that killed 72 people was the latest in a series of bloody assaults by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar extremists over the past two years, which has established them as the most brutal and capable militant group in the country. The Pakistani Taliban affiliate’s network, officials say, reaches into the country’s heartland of Punjab province, whose capital Lahore is Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s hometown and political base.

“Let Nawaz Sharif know that this war has now reached the doorstep of his home,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, the militant group’s spokesman, said in a Twitter post on Tuesday, announcing a new campaign of violence. “God willing, the winners of this war will be the righteous holy warriors.” [Continue reading…]

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