'We Are Increasing Terrorism by Bombarding IS' - BBC News

Jürgen Todenhöfer is a German journalist and former MP who spent 10 days with IS last year - the first Western journalist to do so. He spoke to Ros Atkins about what he believes would be the most effective way to deal with IS.

Islamic State Terror Squad 'In Thailand' Planning To Kill Russians, Warns Moscow

THE TELEGRAPH: Ten-person terrorist squad entered the Kingdom in October on a mission to target Russians, Moscow warns

Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) has dispatched a ten-person squad to kill Russian tourists in Thailand, Russian security services have warned.

Thai police confirmed on Friday that they had received intelligence from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor agency to the KGB, about 10 terrorists from Syria who reportedly entered Thailand in October.

The warning came to light in a leaked letter, marked “secret” and “urgent”, that began circulating on Thai social media on Thursday.

Thailand is a popular holiday destination for Russians, especially in the peak Christmas and New Year periods.

Phuket, Pattaya and Bangkok are all also popular with British visitors, meaning there is a high chance any terrorist attack there could also target Britons. » | Roland Oliphant, Moscow and Philip Sherwell, Bangkok | Friday, December 4, 2015

UK Airstrikes 'All Noise of Bombing and Propaganda' - Syria Minister

BBC: British warplanes have carried out their first airstrikes over Syria, after British MPs backed UK military action against so-called Islamic State (IS).

RAF Tornados conducted air strikes on six targets in Syria, according to the Ministry of Defence.

The BBC's Lyse Doucet spoke to Syria's information minister, Omran Zoubi, who described the airstrikes as "a noise of bombing and propaganda".

He also said anyone wanting to fight terrorism was "welcome" but had to do so "according to international law, and together with the Syrian government". (+ BBC video) » | Thursday, December 3, 2015

Secret Video Shows Life Inside Islamic State Stronghold of Raqqa

BBC: Syria's information minister has criticised the first British air strikes on so-called Islamic State (IS) targets in the country, describing them as "a noise of bombing and propaganda".

Omran Zoubi told the BBC that anyone wanting to fight terrorism was welcome, but that they should follow Russia's example and work with the Syrian government.

Lyse Doucet reports from the Syrian capital, Damascus, as footage emerges showing life under IS in their stronghold of Raqqa in Syria. (+ BBC video) » | Thursday, December 3, 2015

Germany: US Created IS "Monster" Through War - Die Linke's Wagenknecht

The Co-chair of Die Linke Sahra Wagenknecht fired sharp criticism against the US, saying that they are the ones "who created the monster" of the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in order to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as she spoke in opposition to German participation in the war against IS, in Berlin, Friday.

Hilary Benn Speech in Full: 'We Must Now Confront This Evil'

Wednesday’s Commons debate will be remembered for Hilary Benn’s extraordinary wind-up speech, in which he powerfully (but politely) challenged his own leader and asserted Labour’s claim to be the party of activist, hard-edged internationalism. Towards the end, he compared the imperative to bomb Isis in Syria to ‘why this entire House stood up against Hitler and Mussolini’

Germany: Die Linke against Joining War against the So-called Islamic State

Die Linke Parliamentary group co-leader Dietmar Bartsch said that Die Linke opposes the German government's decision to participate in the war against the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), speaking at a press conference in Berlin, Tuesday.

Cabinet Approves Syria Airstrikes Motion

THE GUARDIAN: Twelve-point plan put forward by David Cameron is approved unanimously at weekly meeting devoted entirely to Syria

The cabinet has approved a 12-point motion designed to pave the way for Britain to extend its involvement in airstrikes on Islamic State targets from Iraq to Syria.

The motion, which is deliberately designed to reflect the motion passed by the Labour party at its conference in September, was approved unanimously by the cabinet at its weekly meeting, which was devoted entirely to Syria. » | Nicholas Watt, Chief political correspondent | Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Inside The Heart Of The IS Caliphate

The Head of the Snake: A look at the secretive leader of the Islamic State

Teenage Austrian 'Poster Girl for the Islamic State' Killed by Group for Trying to Escape

Austrian teenager Sabra Kesinovic

THE TELEGRAPH: Sabra Kesinovic, 17, was reportedly murdered after she was caught attempting to escape from Raqqa, Syria

An Austrian teenager who became a poster girl for the Islamic State has reportedly been beaten to death by the group after she was caught trying to leave Syria.

Sabra Kesinovic, 17, was murdered after she was caught attempting to escape from Raqqa, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant's (Isil) de facto capital in Syria, according to reports in two Austrian newspapers.

She appeared extensively in Isil propaganda material after leaving her native Vienna to join the group together with Sabina Selimovic, a 16-year-old friend.

The two teenagers were shown wearing Islamic headbands and brandishing Kalashnikov rifles, surrounded by masked male jihadists.

They were also shown wearing full Islamic veils and pointing towards heaven.

The Austrian government refused to comment on reports in Österreich and Kronen Zeitung newspapers that Kesinovic had been beaten to death. » | Justin Huggler in Berlin | Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Archbishop of Canterbury: The Way Islamic State Distorts Islam “One of the Most Desperate Aspects of Our World Today”

JIHAD WATCH: The possibility that they’re not distorting it at all, but carrying out Qur’anic commands to “kill the idolaters wherever you find them” (9:5) and the like, doesn’t enter his mind. Indeed, in an increasing number of Christian churches, anyone who raises such a possibility is silenced and ostracized: the idea that Islam is a Religion of Peace is the dogma that much of Christianity is most determined to inculcate in its people. Read on and comment » | Robert Spencer | Sunday, November 22, 2015

On the Murder March with ISIS: Terror Expert Tells of the Slave Markets, Summary Executions and 'Morality' Police of the Jihadi Group - Who Have $2trillion in the Bank

MAIL ON SUNDAY: The terror group started off as a version of Al Qaeda but split off by 2011 / Only came to forefront in 2014 when they took control of three Iraqi cities / Now boast about 33,000 fighters, many having joined from overseas / Here, Michael Burleigh takes a closer look at this medieval death cult

It is a force the like of which the world has never seen before: a medieval death cult with a territory roughly the size of England.

Its tentacles of power stretch out across Iraq and Syria, whose border it has erased. Syrian Raqqa is the de facto capital, Iraqi Mosul its most populous centre. Within its brutal control lies a huge population of eight million – and it has assets estimated at $2 trillion.

This is the Islamic State, sometimes called ISIS, a terrorist movement with the destructive power of an army possessed by a terrifying vision of the world to come. Read on and comment » | Michael Burleigh for the Mail On Sunday | Sunday, November 21, 2015

France Is Trying to Create a Coalition to Destroy Isil, But President Obama Isn't Interested

THE TELEGRAPH: Will the leader of the free world please stand up?

Tell me: What’s a suicide bomber doing with a passport? He’s not going anywhere. And, though I’m not a religious scholar, I doubt that a passport is required in paradise for a martyr to access his 72 black-eyed virgins.

A Syrian passport was found near the body of one of the terrorists. Why was it there? Undoubtedly, to back up the Islamic State boast that it is infiltrating operatives amid the refugees flooding Europe. The passport may have been fake, but the terrorist’s fingerprints were not. They match those of a man who just a month earlier had come through Greece on his way to kill Frenchmen in Paris.

If the other goal of the Paris massacre was to frighten France out of the air campaign in Syria -- the way Spain withdrew from the Iraq War after the terror attack on its trains in 2004 -- they picked the wrong country. France is a serious post-colonial power, as demonstrated in Ivory Coast, the Central African Republic and Mali, which France saved from an Islamist takeover in 2013.

Indeed, socialist President Francois Hollande has responded furiously to his country’s 9/11 with an intensified air campaign, hundreds of raids on suspected domestic terrorists, a state of emergency and proposed changes in the constitution to make France less hospitable to jihad.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama, titular head of the free world, has responded to Paris with weariness and annoyance. His news conference in Turkey was marked by a stunning tone of passivity, detachment and lassitude, compounded by impatience and irritability at the very suggestion that his Syria strategy might be failing.

The only time he showed any passion was in denouncing Republicans for hardheartedness toward Muslim refugees. One hundred and twenty-nine innocents lie dead but it takes the GOP to kindle Obama’s ire. » | Charles Krauthammer | Friday, November 20, 2015

France: There Is a Risk of Chemical or Biological Attack, Says Valls

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned the French public of the possibility of attacks from "chemical or biological weapons" as he addressed the French parliamentary in Paris, Thursday.

Related »

Verwandt »

France: Hollande Says France Is 'At War,' Calls For Large Anti-IS Coalition

Anonymous 'Takes Down Thousands of Islamic State Twitter Accounts'

Hackers claim to have disabled more than 6000 users a day after declaring war on the jihadist group following Friday's Paris attacks

Read the Telegraph article here | Rob Crilly, New York | Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Op-Ed: Paris Pays the Price of Europe's Inability to Recognize the Real Enemy

ARUTZ SHEVA: The real enemy is radical Islamism, not one Islamic group or the other.

…

What happened in Paris on the horrifying night of Friday November 13, 2015, is Europe's chickens coming home to roost. For decades Europe turned a blind eye to the virulent humans rights violations of despotic, radical Islamic regimes across the Middle East. Within Europe, and across Western intelligentsia, a politically correct ideology took hold. Backed by an omnipotent politically correct mainstream media-- violent, misogynist, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic rhetoric and behavior by radical muslims [sic] at home and abroad was either given a free pass, or got little to no media coverage. Meanwhile, Israel was singled out for biased, hypocritical and immoral condemnation. And by ignoring what is the real threat to Western civilization and democracy, Leonardo Da Vinci's immortal words turned into a devastating reality: "he who does not punish evil, commands it to be done.”

France, Europe, and the West will be making yet another terrible miscalculation, in the aftermath of this horrendous attack, if they interpret these attacks as only emanating from the Islamic State. The issue is much broader than that, and is a clash of civilizations (as the term was coined by Prof. Samuel Huntington), between democratic modernism and theocratic medieval barbarism. The West needs to recognize and acknowledge the enemy, namely radical Islamism. Sadly this is not a fringe movement, as PC ideologues would like to believe, and enjoys widespread and popular support.

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Read the whole article here » | Noam Rotem | Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Anonymous Declares War on Islamic State after Paris Attacks in Chilling Video

Anonymous has posted a video declaring war against Islamic State following a series of terror attacks in Paris.

Paris attacks: Anonymous declares war on Isil. Hacker group Anonymous says in a video that it will "hunt" Islamic State after its terrorist attacks in Paris, France on Friday.

Anonymous has posted a video declaring war against Islamic State following a series of terror attacks in Paris that have left at least 129 people dead. The hacker group, known for its cyber attacks against controversial organisations and individuals, is believed to have uploaded the footage on Friday night.

In the video, an announcer wearing an Anonymous Guy Fawkes mask and speaking French says: "You should know that we will find you and we will not let you go. "We will launch the biggest operation ever against you. "Expect massive cyber attacks. War is declared. Get prepared.

"The French people are stronger than you and will come out of this atrocity even stronger."

‪Islamic State Threatens Further Attacks in New Video‬

Islamic State is warning in a new video released online that more attacks are imminen

France Launches 'Massive' Airstrikes In Wake Of Paris Attacks

THE GUARDIAN: As planes took off for Syria to strike Isis, French police issued wanted notice for Brussels-born Salah Abdeslam, thought to be involved in attacks

France launched “massive” airstrikes against the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria on Sunday as French and Belgian police hunted a fugitive who was among the perpetrators of Friday’s bloody wave of suicide bombings and shootings in Paris.

As evidence mounted of a sophisticated, multinational terror operation with links to at least three European countries and the Middle East, 12 French aircraft including 10 fighter jets dropped a total of 20 bombs on a jihadi training camp and munitions dump in the city of Raqqa.

A French defence ministry statement said the strike, launched in coordination with US forces from airfields in Jordan and the Persian Gulf, was the biggest since France extended its bombing campaign against the extremist group to Syria in September.

Meanwhile in Paris, French police had released a wanted notice for Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old man born in Brussels, thought to be one of three French brothers living in Belgium who were involved in the attacks, which killed 129 people and left more than 350 injured, including nearly 100 critically. Belgian police also issued an international arrest warrant in Abdeslam’s name. » | Jon Henley in Paris and Ian Traynor in Molenbeek | Monday, November 16, 2015