European Union counterterrorism chief Gilles de Kerchove told AFP yesterday that there was no absolute way to prevent new terror attacks like those in Paris.

“We can’t prevent (such attacks) 100 percent,” Kerchove said in an interview. He said the answer was not to jail jihadists returning to Europe from Syria and Iraq, as prisons had become “massive incubators” of radicalisation. “The threat remains serious,” said de Kerchove, who met with European, US and Canadian security ministers in Paris on Sunday after the Islamist attacks in the French capital last week in which 17 people were killed.

He said the Islamic State group, which is being attacked by US-led forces in Iraq and Syria, has said it wants to attack western targets while a “strongly degraded” Al-Qaeda wants to remain a force to be reckoned with. He warned that the Al-Nusra Front, the Al-Qaeda branch in Syria, is also looking for “clean skins,” Europeans with no record of radical activity, to mount attacks in Europe.

The suspected female accomplice of one of the gunmen who attacked a Jewish supermarket last week fled to Syria ahead of the killings, Turkish officials said on Monday. France has 800 military personnel, nine fighter jets, a maritime patrol aircraft and a refuelling plane at its base in the United Arab Emirates as part of its “Chammal” Iraq mission, as well as an anti-aircraft warship in the Gulf. It also operates six Mirage fighter jets from Jordan.

It is due to send its aircraft carrier to the Indian Ocean today and Le Drian said in December Paris would send 120 military advisers to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces. However, it has ruled out striking the Islamic State in Syria, where it provides equipment and training to “moderate” forces fighting President Bashar Al-Assad. There was no indication of a change in that stance yesterday.

Source:  kuwaittimes.net

A sucide attack on a roadside checkpoint east of Libya’s restive Benghazi killed three Libyan soldiers and wounded two others Tuesday, a militaty official told the AFP. 

The explosion occured when an assailant drove an explosive-packed car into a checkpoint about 100 kilometers west of Benghazi.

The north African country has been gripped by fierce violence since a NATO-supported revolt in 2011 ousted long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi as warring militias fight for control.

Clashes have been particularly violent in Benghazi, where government-loyalist and Islamist militias are have been locked locked in a fierce struggle to control the nation’s former capital. While the checkpoint attack has so far gone unclaimed, officials believe rebel militias are behind it. 

The same checkpoint, located on the road to Libya’s northeastern city of Ajdabiya, underwent a similar attack in October in which the militant’s explosive-laden car failed to reach the checkpoint before exploding and avoided casualties.

Militants have seized large swaths of territory from the oil-rich nation’s internationally-recognized government, which has made pleas for the international community to help them regain control.

A video released Tuesday by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) shows the apparent execution of two men, accused of being spies for Russia, at the hands of a young boy.

The seven-and-a-half-minute long video was released by ISIS’ multi-lingual production wing, al-Hayat, and begins with long television news-style interviews with both men, who confess to being spies against ISIS and working in both Syria and Turkey.

The men, who speak Russian in the interviews, are identified by name as agents of Russia’s premier spy agency, the FSB. One of them tells the interviewer he was under orders to try and assassinate an ISIS leader, but the name of the ISIS figure in question is edited out of the video.

After what appears to be a scripted warning to others “who want to come here and spy” to “repent to Allah now before it’s too late,” the setting in the video changes to an outdoor location where the men are seen kneeling with their backs to a bearded militant whom CBS News could not identify and a boy, who appeared to be less than 15 years old.

Both the adult jihadist and the boy appear to be of Asian descent. The man recites Quranic verse before saying: “Allah has gifted the Islamic State’s security agency with the apprehension of these two spies.”
He says the men are “now in the custody of the lion cubs of Khilafah,” before prompting the boy to go ahead with the apparent execution with a pat on the shoulder.

The video, which is heavily edited and includes English subtitles throughout, then appears to show the boy shoot both men in the back of the head.

No blood can be seen on the bodies in the final shots of the purported execution sequence, and the video then transitions to a clip from an older video, released in Nov. 2014, in which the same boy is seen expressing aspirations to one day become a “mujahid.”

The older video shows the boy with other purported newcomers to ISIS territory, including many women and other children. The November video includes images from an ISIS religious school, where kids as young as six or seven are seen being groomed to become future militants for the group.

CBS News cannot independently verify the authenticity of the video released by ISIS, nor the identity of the men seen in it. CBS News was seeking comment from officials in Moscow.

ISIS has executed scores of people in territory seized on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border, including American and European journalists and aid workers, rival militia members and soldiers from both nations armies.

A source in Mosul told BasNews on Monday that IS losses on the Gwer frontlines amounted to as many as 200 militants killed with scores more injured.

“They detained 180 people from different neighborhoods around Mosul, including Tal Roman and Yarmuk, and forced them to donate blood for use in the treatment of injured militants in hospitals,” said the source.

A tribal source revealed on Tuesday that the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria “ISIS” organization , the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has ordered all his elements in Anbar province, to prepare for a major attack on Haditha District and al-Baghdadi sub-district to end the continued fighting for months 
.
Over the past few days , international airline alliance has intensified its raids on ISIS organization’s sites in Anbar, Kirkuk and Nineveh and destroyed many of their hideouts and combat equipment 
.
The source told “Shafaq News”, that “The leaders of ISIS terrorist organization in Anbar province, received an order from the organization’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to process all the possibilities of weapons, equipment and fighters to launch a broad attack at the same time on Haditha District and al-Baghdadi sub-district. 
.
The source explained that “the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s orders included a call to resolve the battles in Haditha and al-Baghdadi that lasted for several months .”

This comes just one day after a senior source revealed that the elements of that ISIS terrorist elements are preparing disguised by “Swat” forces’ vehicles of the Ministry of Interior to enter Hit and Rawa districts
ISIS organization has tried over the past two months to break into al-Baghdadi sub- district and Haditha district western Ramadi, which includes the largest military air base b to the west of the province but all their attempts failed.

Source:  shafaaq

For a while it might have appeared that things were quiet or somewhat contained in the raging civil war between the Nigerian government and the violent extremists Boko Haram.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry announced the possibility of sending a military force to Iraq, as a participation in the war against ISIS .

The Swedish Foreign Minister , Margot Wallström said that “It is possible to send a military force to Iraq.”

Wallström confirmed in her speech during a military conference, held in Salen city east of Sweden, on the need for her country’s involvement in efforts to confront “ISIS” more effectively, noting that “many of the EU countries, contributed to the efforts within this framework.”

Source:  shafaaq

Islamic State militants based in Libya on Monday claimed responsibility for kidnapping 21 Egyptian Christians in the country.

In December, the Egyptian foreign ministry reported that seven Christian Egyptian men were kidnapped in the Libyan city of Sirte. Earlier this month 13 others were reported abducted in the same city. 

“Soldiers of IS kidnapped 21 Christians crusaders in different areas around Tripoli,” read a statement reportedly published online by the militants on Monday.

Pictures of the abducted men accompanied the statement. 

Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, has commissioned a “special committee” to closely follow the situation of Egyptians in Libya.

The ministry said on Monday that it could not vet the authenticity of jihadist statements regarding the fate of missing Egyptians.
The foreign ministry has said that it has been working to determine the actual circumstances of the disappearnce of the two groups but cautioned that sifting through the facts on the ground in Libya is difficult due to the country’s instability.

Several Coptic Christian Egyptians have been killed in Libya in recent years. Last year, the bodies of seven Christians who had been shot were found near the city of Benghazi.

In December, armed men abducted a Coptic teenager in Sirte after murdering her parents.
Sirte, 500 kilometres east of Tripoli, is in the hands of Islamist militias, including Ansar al-Sharia, which the UN Security Council last month added to its terror list for links to Al-Qaeda and for running Islamic State training camps.

Thousands of Egyptians work in Libya, primarily in the construction industry.  

Egypt last month renewed its warning against travel to Libya. Last August, the foreign ministry had cautioned Egyptians against travelling to Libya and advised expatriates there to avoid clashes.

Source:  ahram

Security forces have raided Lebanon’s Roumieh prison after discovering that inmates were linked to a deadly bomb attack last week, security services say.

The Internal Security Forces (ISF), in a statement on Monday, said an operation was under way at the prison’s B block, where many prominent prisoners are held.

The block in Roumieh, east of the capital Beirut, is known as a virtual no-go zone for security forces, where prisoners have access to laptops, phones and money.

The ISF said some prisoners had rioted, starting fires to thwart the operation, which came after a double suicide bombing on Saturday in the Jabal Mohsen district of the northern city of Tripoli.

“The operation is taking place as planned,” said the statement, published by Lebanon’s official National News Agency.

“The situation is under control and there are no casualties and the plan being implemented complements the overall security plan for Lebanon.

“Roumieh prison is part of that plan, especially after the discovery of ties between a number of prisoners and the terrorist blasts in the Jabal Mohsen area.”

The attack in Tripoli killed nine people in the neighbourhood which is inhabited mostly by members of the Alawite sect to which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

Fighting has regularly broken out between residents of the neighbourhood, who largely back Assad’s government, and fighters in neighbouring Bab al-Tebbaneh, where residents back the Syrian uprising.

The Saturday attack was carried out by Lebanese Sunnis from another Tripoli district known for supporting the uprising.

It was claimed by al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch al-Nusra Front, which said it was revenge for two attacks against mosques in Tripoli in August 2013 that killed at least 45 people.

On Monday, as security forces raided Roumieh, al-Nusra Front issued new threats against 16 Lebanese security forces it is holding hostage.

“As a result of the deterioration of security in Lebanon, you will hear about surprises regarding the fate of the prisoners we have,” the group said on one of their Twitter accounts.

Al-Nusra Front is believed to be holding the security personnel among a total of 30 who were kidnapped in the eastern border town of Arsal during fighting in August.

Another nine security personnel are being held by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, while one hostage died of wounds during the fighting in Arsal.

Four of those kidnapped have been executed – two of them by their al-Nusra Front captors – and negotiations for the release of the remaining hostages have stalled.

Source: Al Jazeera