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February-March 2016 Terror Thread
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Topic Started: Feb 3 2016, 03:17 AM (365 Views)
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Webster
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Feb 3 2016, 03:17 AM
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MSN News: Taliban Gun Down 10-Year Old Militia Hero

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KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government declared Wasil Ahmad a hero for leading a militia’s defense against a Taliban siege last year, parading him in front of cameras in a borrowed police uniform too big for him. On Monday, the Taliban triumphantly announced that they had assassinated him with two bullets to the head. Wasil Ahmad was 10 years old.
He was gunned down in Tirin Kot city, the capital of southern Oruzgan Province, just a few months after leaving militia life and enrolling in school as a fourth grader.
Wasil’s story is a painful example of how child combatants continue to be a part of life in Afghanistan, both in the ranks of pro-government forces and among the Taliban insurgents.
Rafiullah Baidar, a spokesman for the Afghan independent human rights commission, said that despite strict orders from President Ashraf Ghani last year against using children in the military, his commission continues to receive reports of child soldiers in the Afghan forces, particularly in the Afghan Local Police militias. The Taliban, he said, used child soldiers, too, in recent fighting in places like Kunduz and Badakhshan, in the northern part of the country.
Mr. Baidar said the provincial government had broken the law by parading Wasil in a police uniform after the Taliban siege was lifted. But he also condemned the Taliban’s killing of Wasil because the boy had moved to a civilian life.
“There was no threat from this child to the armed opposition,” Mr. Baidar said. “If they had targeted him in a military base, then they could have raised the question of what was a child doing in a military base. But he was targeted in front of his home.”
...continued in next post....
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Webster
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Feb 3 2016, 03:17 AM
Post #2
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...continued from previous post....
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In many ways, a life of the gun was chosen for Wasil before he was born.
His uncle, Mullah Abdul Samad, was a Taliban commander who decided four years ago to switch sides to support the government along with 36 of his men, including Wasil’s father. In return, the Afghan government appointed Mr. Samad commander of about 70 Afghan Local Police militiamen in Khas Oruzgan District.
Mr. Samad’s forces became the government’s front against the Taliban. He lost 18 men in the fighting, including Wasil’s father. Last summer, as the Taliban intensified its offensives across the country and the security in Oruzgan deteriorated, the noose around Mr. Samad’s fighters tightened, the Taliban besieging them for more than two months, Mr. Samad said in an interview.
About a month into the siege, a Taliban attack wounded Mr. Samad and 10 of his men. Wasil took command of the defense, Mr. Samad said.
“He fought like a miracle,” Mr. Samad said, adding that Wasil had fired rockets from a roof. “He was successfully leading my men on my behalf for 44 days until I recovered.”
The siege was finally broken in August, and Afghan and NATO forces airlifted Mr. Samad and his forces to a hero’s welcome in Tirin Kot.
In a celebration hosted by Rahimullah Khan, the deputy police chief of Oruzgan, Wasil was the center of attention, wearing a baggy police uniform with garlands of plastic flowers around his neck. Deputy Chief Khan patted him on the back as they posed for pictures. Then the deputy chief went around with wads of cash, handing it to the rescued men. Pictures of Wasil — helmet on, assault rifle in hand — circulated widely on social media.
But that was supposed to be the end of it. Wasil’s family enrolled him in a school near their new rented home in Tirin Kot. Though he was not a good student, he excelled with a tutor his uncle hired for him at home, growing proficient in English over five months, relatives said. Still, they said, he always spoke of military matters and wanted to play with weapons and drive police vehicles as a hobby.
“He was not really interested in education because he was highly encouraged by police officials and awarded medals for his bravery,” said Ezatullah Khan, a former neighbor of the family’s.
Mohammad Karim Khadimzai, the provincial council chief of Oruzgan, said he had disagreed with the police’s promotion of Wasil and his actions, even though the boy had bravely stepped forward at a desperate time during the Taliban’s assault.
“A program was held at the police headquarters, where his bravery and courage was talked about by officials,” Mr. Khadimzai said. “I was against this move and told the officials that instead of encouraging him to military activities that will ruin his future, let him go to school. He is too young to hand him a gun.”
On Monday, as Wasil walked out of the house to buy vegetables, an armed man on a motorcycle shot him twice in the head and escaped, his uncle said. The boy was buried in Tirin Kot, in the Shahidano graveyard. He left behind two younger brothers. The Taliban claimed responsibility on their website, saying they had killed a stooge militiaman.
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Webster
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Feb 7 2016, 03:37 AM
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WDIV - Detroit: FBI - Dearborn Attacker Planned To Strike Detroit-Area Church
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DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. - Federal authorities arrested a Dearborn Heights resident for his allegiance to ISIS by monitoring his Twitter account and gun purchases. The arrest comes as Twitter announced it suspended 125,000 ISIS-related accounts over the past six months.
Khalil Abu-Rayyan, 21, was being watched by the feds since May 2015. He was even having online conversations with an undercover FBI agent.
“I tried to shoot up a church one day,” Abu-Rayyan posted. “It’s one of the biggest ones in Detroit. I had it planned out. I bought a bunch of bullets. I practiced reloading and unloading.”
Prior to those conversations that began in December 2015, the FBI had been following Abu-Rayyan's Twitter activity. He had been retweeting, liking and commenting on ISIS propaganda.
In conversation's between Abu-Rayyan and the undercover agent, Abu-Rayyan described his desire to commit a martyrdom operation.
The complaint filed in federal court doesn’t specify which Detroit church he was allegedly planning to attack, only that it was close and could seat 6,000 members.
The complaint quotes Abu-Rayyan saying: “It's easy, and a lot of people go there. Plus people are not allowed to carry guns in church. Plus it would make the news. Everybody would've heard. Honestly I regret not doing it. If I can't do jihad in the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here."
He had also told the undercover agent that a church would be an easy target because people are not allowed to carry guns there and that it would make the news.
The complaint also says that he told the agent he had armed himself with a large knife and would behead people if he needed to. “It is my dream to behead someone,” he told the agent.
Abu-Rayyan is being held on gun and drug charges. He was pulled over Oct. 7, 2015, for speeding when Detroit police discovered a pistol, sleeping pills and marijuana.
A detention hearing is scheduled for Monday afternoon. Terror charges could be added at a later date.
-Read more: http://media.clickondetroit.com/document_dev/2016/02/05/SKM_C554e16020515520_2078266_ver1.0.pdf
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Webster
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Feb 17 2016, 04:50 PM
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BBC News: Ankara Blast - At least 28 Dead In Turkish Capital

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A large explosion in the Turkish capital, Ankara, has left at least 28 people dead and 61 injured, Turkish officials have said.
A vehicle full of explosives was detonated as military buses were passing by, according to the Ankara governor's office. The blast happened in an area close to parliament and Turkey's military headquarters. Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag called (it) an "act of terrorism".
Large plumes of smoke were seen rising from the area and witnesses said the blast was heard all over the city. Some of the victims were civilians.
Ambulances and fire engines were sent to the scene. Security forces carried out a controlled explosion on a suspect package after the blast. Turkey's Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has cancelled a trip to Brussels.
Turkey has been hit by a serious of attacks recently, and there have been increasing concerns that the country could be targeted by another big attack, the BBC's Selin Girit in Istanbul reports.
President Recep Tayipp Erdogan said Turkey was more determined than ever to use "its right to self-defence". In a statement released several hours after the attack, he said: "Our determination to respond in kind to attacks taking place inside and outside our borders is getting stronger with such acts."
-Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35599323
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Webster
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Feb 18 2016, 04:11 AM
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The Verge: Google CEO Sides With Apple In Encryption Debate
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai has chimed in on the escalating battle between the FBI and Apple over iPhone encryption. Describing the letter published by Apple's Tim Cook as "important," Pichai says that a judge's order forcing Apple to assist the FBI in gaining access to the data on a terrorist's iPhone "could be a troubling precedent." Seeing as Google oversees the Android operating system, Pichai is a crucial voice in this debate; Android also offers encryption to safeguard personal data.
"We build secure products to keep your information safe and we give law enforcement access to data based on valid legal orders," Pichai tweeted moments ago. "But that's wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices and data." Pichai seems to side squarely with Cook. "Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users’ privacy." Google's CEO said he's "looking forward to a thoughtful and open discussion on this important issue."
That echoes the words of Cook, who in his letter wrote "This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake." At this point it seems like not a matter of if, but when other influential tech CEOs like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft's Satya Nadella will weigh in on the matter.
-Read more: http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/17/11040266/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-sides-with-apple-encryption
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Webster
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Feb 19 2016, 04:31 AM
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MSN News: ISIS Beheads Teenage Boys For Listening To Pop Music, Missing Prayers

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The Isis jihadist group has reportedly beheaded a teenage boy for listening to pop music and shot dead two others for missing Friday prayers, as part of a crackdown on personal freedoms in the group's Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.
The incidents, reported by Kurdish media, come with enemy forces lined up within miles of Mosul and with the group having suffered repeated military setbacks across Iraq.
According to ARA News, a 15-year-old boy named Ayham Hussein was caught during a patrol by Isis fighters, listening to music in his father's grocery store.
A spokesman for the Kurdish Nineveh media center was quoted by ARA News as saying the boy was listening to "Western music". "He was referred to the Sharia Court, which issued a decision to execute him."
The boy was reportedly publicly beheaded, before his body was handed to his family on Tuesday evening.
It is impossible to verify the report, but Kurdish media seem to suggest the incident has led to rare public displays of outrage.
The official was quoted as saying it was the first case of its kind documented in Mosul, and there had previously been "no formal decision by the Sharia Court to ban listening to western music".
Separately, ARA News also reported that two young men had been arrested last Friday for failing to attend prayers at the main mosque in Mosul.
Named local activist Abdulah al-Malla said they were shot dead outside the mosque on Sunday, adding: "The execution took place after a member of the Sharia Court read a statement vowing anyone who misses the prayers at the mosque to face the same punishment."
In late January, a 14-year-old was reportedly beheaded on similar charges. Another activist, Nasser Taljbini, said his parents were "forced to witness the beheading of their own son".
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Webster
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Feb 19 2016, 04:34 AM
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MSN News: Could Events In Turkey Derail Syria Cease-Fire?

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A week after the U.S. and Russia agreed to a "cessation of hostilities" in Syria, the situation on the ground has grown even more complicated, with a pause in the military action looking increasingly elusive.
Turkey, a member of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, on Thursday blamed a U.S.-supported Syrian Kurdish group for a deadly bombing in Ankara a day earlier that killed 28 people and vowed to strike back at the group.
The move has put the U.S. in the difficult position of choosing between its NATO ally and the militia force that has been highly effective in fighting the extremists in Syria.
"The side that we all need to be on here is the counter-Daesh side," State Department spokesman John Kirby said Thursday, using an Arabic acronym for the militant group. "And Turkey is on that side. We're going to continue to work through these issues."
The U.S. and the international coalition against the Islamic State have supported the Syrian Kurdish group, the YPG, which is carrying out much of the ground fighting in Syria.
But Turkey, which has long been clear that the U.S. must chose between Ankara and the Syrian Kurds, raised the stakes when it claimed a connection between the group and an affiliate Kurdish organization within the country that it considers a terrorist organization. On Thursday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the government identified Wednesday's attackers as YPG fighters.
"The evidence that shows that the YPG is a terrorist organization will be given to all countries," Davutoglu said. "Just as we don't sit down with al-Qaida and Islamic State, we cannot sit down with the YPG either. Those that see Turkey's enemy as their friend will lose Turkey's friendship."
Kirby said Thursday he was aware of Turkish assertions the Kurdish group was responsible for the bombing but said the U.S. had not independently confirmed the group had carried out the attack. He said Ankara, which is hosting over 2 million Syrian refugees, had every right to protect its territory but that the U.S. urged Turkey to stop its cross-border shelling of the Kurds.
Making matters more difficult, Russia has continued its aggressive and deadly bombing campaign in support of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, reportedly striking hospitals and a school at the beginning of the week. Moscow has denied it carried out several of the bombings, which have occurred as its forces provide air cover for a Syrian siege on the strategically important city of Aleppo.
Kurdish forces have exploited the Russian bombing campaign, seizing territory from other rebel groups in recent days and inching closer to the Turkish border. The escalation of tensions between the Kurds and Turkey has raised the possibility of a direct confrontation, and Bloomberg reported Thursday that Kurdish forces said they had a pledge from Moscow of Russian protection should Turkey launch an offensive against them.
Campaigns against the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations were not a part of the cessation of hostilities agreement reached last Thursday in Munich by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, which stipulated that fighting would temporarily be halted and aid convoys would be allowed to reach besieged areas. While humanitarian organizations have been able to reach some communities in need, the provision leaves wide latitude for fighting to continue, and the military clashes show no sign of slowing.
"There are many different battles going on now in Syria. They're connected but they're also visibly distinct," former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford says. "One of those battles is between Turkey and its Syrian rebel allies, and Syrian Kurds. The prospect of ... a cessation of hostilities in that particular battle, I think, is very small."
-Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-events-in-turkey-could-doom-the-syrian-cease-fire/ar-BBpGttK
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Webster
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Mar 3 2016, 02:42 AM
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The Guardian: NATO Commander - "ISIS Spreading Like Cancer" Amongst Refugees

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Refugees from the Middle East and north Africa are “masking the movement” of terrorists and criminals, Nato’s top commander told Congress on Tuesday, despite the protests of human rights groups who say that refugees overwhelmingly have no ulterior motive but escape.
In testimony to the Senate armed services committee, US general Philip Breedlove said that the Islamic State terror group is “spreading like a cancer” among refugees. The group’s members are “taking advantage of paths of least resistance, threatening European nations and our own”, he added.
Breedlove also blamed Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria, in support of autocratic leader Bashar al-Assad, for having “wildly exacerbated the problem”.
The airstrikes, nominally against Isis but largely against the various rebel groups arrayed against Assad, have allegedly killed more than 1,000 civilians, including children. Breedlove said these indiscriminate attacks mean to terrorize Syrians and “get them on the road” toward neighboring countries and Europe.
The Kremlin and Assad intend, according to Breedlove, to use migration as a weapon to weaken European unity and infrastructure. The general said that European nationalist groups that oppose immigration also weaken the continent, and could themselves threaten violence.
Since taking command in 2013, Breedlove has pushed for an aggressive refortification of Europe, calling Russia a “long-term existential threat” to the US, and suggested Europe and the US should do more to counter Assad and Isis in Syria.
Pressed by reporters to back up his assertion with statistics, Breedlove said: “I can’t give you a number on the estimate of the flow.”
-Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/01/refugees-isis-nato-commander-terrorists
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Webster
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Mar 9 2016, 02:22 AM
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Medaite: Israeli Stabbing Victim Pulls Knife Out Of His Own Neck, Kills Terrorist Attacker With It

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When a Palestinian youth decided to go on a stabbing spree in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva, he picked the wrong victim.
The Times of Israel reports an unnamed 40-year-old Israeli was collecting for a charity downtown when his assailant descended upon him in a wine store. After being stabbed multiple times in the upper body, he managed to break away from his attacker and flee from the store.
Police say the man removed the knife from his own neck and decided to go back to the store. With the assistance of the owner, he subdued and stabbed the terrorist to death. Remarkably, despite being stabbed in the neck, the victim was sent to the hospital fully conscious and is now “in moderate condition.”
The stabbing attack was one of three terrorist attacks in Israel Tuesday. Another stabbing claimed the life of an American tourist and injured five in Jaffa and a Jerusalem shooting attack left one police officer dead and another injured. The assailant in the Jerusalem attack was also killed.
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Webster
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Mar 9 2016, 01:42 PM
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MSN News: ISIS Detainee Tells U.S. Of Militants' Plan To Use Mustard Gas
 (Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters) File photo of a wall painted with the black flag commonly used by Islamic State militants, near former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's palace in Tikrit.
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WASHINGTON — An Islamic State detainee currently in American custody at a temporary detention facility in Erbil, Iraq, is a specialist in chemical weapons whom American military officials are questioning about the militant Sunni group’s plans to use the banned substances in Iraq and Syria, Defense officials said.
Defense officials said the detainee, described by the military as a “significant” Islamic State operative who was captured a month ago by commandos in an elite American Special Operations force, has, under interrogation, provided his captors with details about how the group had weaponized mustard gas into powdered form and loaded it into artillery shells.
One Defense official said that it was not concentrated enough to kill anyone, but that it could maim people.
As is protocol, Defense Department officials notified the International Committee of the Red Cross, which monitors the treatment of detainees, that they were holding an Islamic State fighter. The Red Cross acknowledged in a statement on Tuesday that it had visited the detainee but gave no other information.
Defense Department officials insist that the United States has no plans to hold the detainee or any other captives indefinitely, and that they will be handed over to the Iraqi and Kurdish authorities after they have been interviewed. The officials say they do not intend to establish a long-term American facility to hold Islamic State detainees, and Obama administration officials have ruled out sending any to the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The chemical weapons specialist was captured last month, shortly after the arrival in Iraq of a new Special Operations force that is made up primarily of Delta Force commandos. They are the first major American combat force on the ground there since the United States pulled out of the country at the end of 2011.
Before this, the American military has largely fought the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, with airstrikes, killing large numbers of Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria. But the 200-member Special Operations team has been given the task of killing and capturing Islamic State operatives, the latter in particular to use in gathering intelligence.
Defense officials said the team had set up safe houses and worked with Iraqi and Kurdish forces to establish informant networks and conduct raids on Islamic State leaders and other important militants.
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Webster
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Mar 9 2016, 02:14 PM
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MSN News: Foreign Commandos Said To Have Carried Out Night Raid In Somalia

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MOGADISHU, Somalia — In a raid that bore the hallmarks of a foreign special forces unit, soldiers dropped off by helicopters hiked through the nighttime dark to a town controlled by Islamic militants. Then a firefight erupted.
Al-Shabab said Wednesday that its fighters had foiled the attack by foreign forces on Awdhegle town in southern Somalia overnight, and that they retreated with casualties.
The raid came three days after the U.S. carried out an air strike on an al-Shabab training camp that the Pentagon said killed about 150 militants. There was no immediate word on whether U.S. commandoes carried out the Tuesday night ground attack.
Sheikh Abdiaziz Abu Musab, a spokesman for al-Shabab, told a militant-run online radio that the unidentified foreign forces used two helicopters and that one militant was killed.
Mohamed Hassan, an elder in Awdhegle, told The Associated Press that the foreign forces parked their helicopters outside the town and walked at least 3 kilometers (1.9 miles), sneaking into the town to avoid detection by the Islamic fighters and launch a surprise raid.
He said there was gunfire between militants and al-Shabab foot soldiers that started near the police station.
The exact target of the raid, if any, remains unclear.
Meanwhile, three police officers and one civilian were killed Wednesday in a suicide car bombing outside a cafe near the police academy in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, said police Gen. Ali Hersi Barre.
There was no claim of responsibility for the blast, but it appeared to be part of attacks waged by al-Shabab, which was ousted from Mogadishu by African Union peacekeepers in 2011.
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Webster
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Mar 17 2016, 02:52 AM
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CNN: Brussels Raid - ISIS Flag, Ammo Found In Raid
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(CNN)The police raid of a Brussels apartment tied to last year's Paris terror attacks turned up an ISIS flag, a Kalashnikov rifle and ammunition, but two suspects managed to escape after an intense, prolonged firefight, a spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor office said Wednesday.
Authorities killed one suspect in Tuesday's raid -- Belkhaid Mohammed, 35, an Algerian who had not been on authorities' radar before, spokesman Eric Van der Sypt said in a statement.
He said a special forces sniper killed Mohammed when he tried to open fire on police from a window.
The Algerian's body was found next to a rifle and a book on Salafism, a puritanical branch of Islam that dictates only the followers of the Prophet Mohammed practice the correct Islam. Authorities also discovered 11 loaded Kalashnikov magazines "and innumerable shell casings," but no explosives, according to Van der Sypt.
An intense manhunt followed Tuesday's operation in the southern Brussels neighborhood of Forest, which authorities connected to the investigation of the Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people in November.
One man was taken in for questioning during a subsequent house search Tuesday night in Brussels. And police also arrested an injured man who'd been taken to a hospital in Halle, a city about 12 miles (20 kilometers) south of Brussels.
But the Belgian federal prosecutor's office said Wednesday that both men were later let go without being charged.
-Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/16/europe/brussels-raid-paris-attack/
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Webster
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Mar 19 2016, 12:00 AM
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Los Angeles Times: European Manhunt Ends With Arrest Of Suspect In Paris Attacks

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e largest manhunt in Europe came to a dramatic end Friday when police in Belgium arrested a fugitive linked to the Paris terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in November.
Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French national who grew up in Brussels, was captured in a raid that sent loud bursts of gunfire reverberating through the city's Molenbeek neighborhood.
“We got him,” tweeted Belgium's secretary of state for asylum and migration, Theo Francken.
Abdeslam was injured in the leg during the raid and police were preparing to question him late Friday, hopeful that he will reveal crucial information about a Europe-wide network of Islamic extremists.
Images from French TV showed a man with a seemingly injured leg, wearing an off-white hooded top, being bundled into a police car by several armed officers in combat gear. The identity of the man in the footage was not immediately known.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said three suspects were arrested. The prime minister believed they were all armed and had to be neutralized by authorities. “This was a very important result in the battle for democracy,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Michel had been at a summit between the European Union and Turkey, where an agreement on the migrant crisis had just been reached. He was seen hurrying out of the building on his phone as soon as he was informed about the incident.
Michel said President Obama had also telephoned to congratulate the security forces and urge him not to give up the fight against violence and terrorism.
At a news conference, French President Francois Hollande struck a somber tone, saying that while the arrests marked an “important moment,” this was not the end of the fight against terrorism.
“Until we have arrested all those who took part or contributed, financed the terrorist network that committed the abominable act on Nov. 13, our fight will not be over,” he said. Hollande said the prosecutor was likely to seek Abdeslam's swift extradition to France.
Abdeslam had been the subject of a massive international manhunt since three suicide bombers killed scores inside a theater, cafes and at the national stadium.
Abdeslam is believed to have played a central role in organizing the attacks and may have been the driver for the gunmen who blew themselves up at the Stade de France. He was a childhood friend of the suspected ringleader, Abdelhamid Abaaoud; and his brother, Brahim, was among the attackers who blew themselves up.
Authorities believe Abdeslam fled Paris by car several hours after the attacks after phoning two friends asking them to drive from Brussels to collect him. It later emerged that he passed through multiple police checkpoints but was not stopped.
Nearly every other attacker either blew themselves up or was killed by police. Why Abdeslam did not meet the same fate has been the source of some debate. Authorities are looking at various theories including whether his bomb failed to detonate or he backed out.
Abdeslam was ultimately found Friday back in the neighborhood he knew best: the one where he lived before the Paris terrorist strikes. His parents reportedly still live in a townhouse there, close to the mayor's office.
The fact that Abdeslam eluded capture for so many months was a huge source of embarrassment and frustration to intelligence services, and authorities were heavily criticized for failing to prevent the attacks and find all the culprits. Police started to home in on Abdeslam earlier in the week.
Michel said 58 people were arrested during a raid in the Brussels neighborhood of Forest on Tuesday. Police were met with gunfire and an Algerian national, identified as Mohamed Belkaid, was killed. Belkaid is believed to have been a key member of the team behind the Paris attacks. Two men reportedly escaped during Tuesday's raid, one of whom might have been Abdeslam.
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Webster
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Mar 19 2016, 02:24 AM
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MSN News: Paris Attackers Went Underground In Brussels, Authorities Say

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BRUSSELS, March 19 (Reuters) - The "place where you can disappear", the "Jihadist airbase" -- the crowded Brussels borough of Molenbeek, finally proved not big enough for Europe's most wanted man: Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam. And this time his friends couldn't smuggle him out hidden in a wardrobe as some speculate may have been the case in November.
Yet his arrest on Friday, a mix of dogged Belgian sleuthing and a dash of belated good fortune in a four-month manhunt after the Nov. 13 Islamic State attack on the French capital, raises new questions about how Abdeslam eluded capture for so long, apparently in Brussels, until run to ground between his parents' home and the bar he ran with his suicide bomber brother.
Experts in security and local society who spoke to Reuters in the days after the Paris attacks said Molenbeek, and Brussels more generally, offered a degree of anonymity to radicals, including those returned from fighting in Turkey, because they felt with Muslims who would shield them and understand them.
Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French citizen, was raised by Moroccan-born parents in the multicultural melting pot of Molenbeek, far from the cosmopolitan districts on the other side of Brussels where the European Union and NATO make their homes. After months of speculation he might have eluded capture and followed a dream other young European Muslims have of joining Islamist militants in Syria, it turned out the young man with a clouded past running drugs and spending time in jail for theft, had been in the Belgian capital, and may have been all along.
Now police, who moved in swiftly to seize Abdeslam at a house on the rue des Quatre-Vents -- Four Winds Street -- are questioning a man and two women found at the address whom they suspect him of being part of a family harbouring the fugitive.
-Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/paris-attacks-prime-suspect-went-underground-in-brussels/ar-BBqCqke
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Webster
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Mar 19 2016, 11:46 PM
Post #15
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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Fox News: Two Americans Killed In Istanbul Terror Bombing

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Two American citizens were among those killed in a suicide bombing attack on a pedestrian shopping street in Istanbul, Turkey earlier Saturday, the White House said in a statement.
"The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms today’s terrorist attack in Istanbul, Turkey. Two American citizens were among those killed in this heinous attack," National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of those killed, and we wish a speedy recovery to those injured."
Five people were killed in the attack --the sixth suicide bombing in Turkey in the past year, the Associated Press reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that at least two of the victims were Israelis. An Israeli diplomat in Istanbul said the two also held American citizenship.
"We can sadly confirm that two Israeli civilians were killed and we might have a third fatality," he said.
Israel was cooperating with other intelligence agencies to determine whether the attack was directed at Israelis specifically. Two planes were being sent to Istanbul to evacuate others wounded in the blast.
The majority of the Israelis caught up in the attack were on a culinary tour of the city, officials said. The group had just eaten breakfast nearby when the blast ripped through the street. Israeli media named one of the victims as 60-year-old Simha Damari, a mother of four and said her husband was also wounded in the attack.
Several foreigners were among 36 people wounded, according to the health ministry.
The attacker was deterred from an initial target by police and detonated the bomb "out of fear", an official said, according to Sky News.
Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said the explosion occurred outside a local government office on Istiklal Street, which is also home to cafes, restaurants and foreign consulates.
"This is a suicide attack, a terrorist attack," Sahin said at the scene, according to Sky News. The governor said the bomber was also killed.
-Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/03/19/2-americans-among-5-dead-in-istanbul-suicide-bomb-attack-wh-says.html
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