Tag: ISIS (page 4)

Iraqi forces have been moving in on ISIS in Ramadi for 2 weeks. Only 6,00 to 1,000 ISIS fighters remained at the start of the new offensive. Yesterday Iraqi Forces reportedly moved into the town center. The U.S. says there are now only 250 - 350 ISIS fighters remaining. What about civilians?

Iraqi airplanes dropped leaflets on Sunday urging residents of Ramadi to evacuate within 72 hours, warning of an impending operation and suggesting two evacuation routes. Colonel Warren estimated that thousands or even tens of thousands of civilians were still in the city; hundreds of thousands have fled.

The U.S. says Ramadi will be cleared of ISIS in 2 to 3 days. Then what? [More...}

John McCain and Lindsay Graham have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling for the U.S. to put 10,000 ground troops in Raqqa, Syria, to defeat ISIS. And then they want more troops in Iraq, Libya, and anywhere else ISIS is gaining a foothold in the region.

Shorter version: The world is our colony, let's start acting like it.

Missing from their op-ed: Not a single mention of al Qaida or al Nusra in Syria or elsewhere. What are they, chopped liver? Or are al Qaida and al Nusra now okay in their book because on occasion they side with the (non-existent) Syrian rebels we're training and equipping? [More...]

Update: Best line of Obama's speech: "Freedom is More Powerful Than Fear."

Shorter version: No boots on the ground (with a moving definition of what constitutes boots -- boots now seems limited to hand to hand combat, not troops on ground.) "What we should not do" is allow ourselves to "be drawn into long and costly ground war in Syria and Iraq."

We can expect more kill missions (whatever happened to the capture part? It seems gone.) Asks Congress to pass authorization for use of force against ISIS. Just a few references to assault rifles. Asks Congress to pass a bill preventing those on the no-fly list from buying them. We can't stop every mass killer but we can make it harder for them to kill.

From Foreign Policy Magazine: Ten truths about terrorism:

• No. 1: We can’t keep the bad guys out.
• No. 2: The threat is already inside.
• No. 3: More surveillance won’t get rid of terrorism.
• No. 4: Defeating the Islamic State won’t make terrorism go away.
• No. 5: Terrorism still remains a relatively minor threat, statistically speaking.

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President Obama said today the San Bernadino shooters were not affiliated with a specific terrorist group or part of a bigger cell.

The President's team also affirmed that they had as of yet uncovered no indication the killers were part of an organized group or formed part of a broader terrorist cell.

Obama will address the nation on the shooting and our response to terror threats tomorrow night.

Yesterday, an unofficial ISIS news account praised the couple as supporters. Today, ISIS official radio station, al Bayan, referred to them as supporters in Arabic. The English audio version refers to them as "soldiers of the Khalifah" (available here at 3'20" in.) The French version says sympathizers. If supporters rather than soldiers is correct, which most analysts on Twitter seem to think is the case, the attacks may have been inspired by ISIS but not directed by ISIS (or al Qaida.)

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For the first time since the 1920's, the New York Times is featuring an editorial on the front page of the paper. It calls for gun control.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.

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Update: The soldiers were released and put in Red Cross vans. Also released as expected: Saja al Dulaimi, ex-wife of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi, She says she divorced him six years ago and intends to go to Turkey.

Lebanon and al Nusra have finally agreed on the terms of a prisoner exchange for the 16 Lebanese military members held hostage by the al-Qaida linked group since August, 2014. Nusra delivered the soldiers to the release point last night.

The actual release won't occur until the 15 or so Islamist prisoners who had been held at Lebanon's Roumieh Prison, arrive at the site. [More...]

Mehdi Masroor Biswas, aka @Shami Witness, has been in custody since December 13, 2014. He was not charged until June, 2015. He has still not been tried.

What's the holdup? Indian authorities are waiting on Google to respond to a subpoena. They believe Google's response will identify more accounts Biswas used to tweet out his ISIS news updates and opinions. They intend to file a second charge sheet against him with more charges.

The police suspect Biswas ran multiple e-mail accounts which they could not access. “We are yet to get a response from Google. The access and information provided will help to file an additional charge sheet,” said M. Chandrashekhar, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime).

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Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council’s counter-terrorism committee held a conference at which several experts spoke about ISIS and foreign fighters. I found this media recap of the presentation of Scott Atran from the Centre for Resolution of Intractable Conflict at Oxford University very interesting. (He is highly credentialed, and his research in the field includes interviews with captured ISIS fighters and still fighting al Nusra fighters.)

He debunks several of the memes currently making the rounds as to ISIS' intentions and strategy, and the reasons young Western recruits find ISIS so attractive. He also explains why the U.S. counter-messaging campaign has been such a failure.[More...]

Despite the rabid hype by Republicans, we are not in danger of getting killed by terrorists.

Consider, for instance, that since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have been no more likely to die at the hands of terrorists than being crushed to death by unstable televisions and furniture. Meanwhile, in the time it has taken you to read until this point, at least one American has died from a heart attack. Within the hour, a fellow citizen will have died from skin cancer. Roughly five minutes after that, a military veteran will commit suicide. And by the time you turn the lights off to sleep this evening, somewhere around 100 Americans will have died throughout the day in vehicular accidents – the equivalent of “a plane full of people crashing, killing everyone on board, every single day.”

Daniel Kahneman, professor emeritus at Princeton University, has observed that “[e]ven in countries that have been targets of intensive terror campaigns, such as Israel, the weekly number of casualties almost never [comes] close to the number of traffic deaths.”

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The State Department has issued a world-wide travel alert for U.S. travelers. You can read it here. It expires in February.

There's no mention of an imminent specific threat. And it's not just travel:

U.S. citizens should exercise vigilance when in public places or using transportation. Be aware of immediate surroundings and avoid large crowds or crowed places. Exercise particular caution during the holiday season and at holiday festivals or events.

Not is it directed solely to ISIS: [More...]

Brussels looks like a militarized war zone. It's on lockdown, the Metro has been closed. Authorities say there is a specific and immediate threat of a "Paris Style" attack.

The still-at-large alleged Paris bomber, Saleh Abdeslam, 26. He's believed to be in Brussels, trying to make his way back to Syria. There are reports he has physically disguised his appearance and using a new name, Yassine Baghli. Some friends of his brother say he contacted people on Skype trying to get back to Syria. [More...]