Eye on Extremism - February 19, 2016

Eye on Extremism February 19, 2016 New York Times: U.S. Strikes ISIS Camp In Libya, Killing More Than 30 “American warplanes struck an Islamic State camp in Libya early Friday, targeting a senior Tunisian operative linked to two major terrorist attacks in Tunisia last year, according to a Western official. The airstrike, on a camp near Sabratha west of Tripoli, also killed more than 30 Islamic State recruits at the site, many of whom were believed to be from Tunisia, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.” CNN: How ISIS Recruits Children, Then Kills Them “The use of child soldiers far predates ISIS, but what concerns researchers and policymakers is that ISIS' use of boys and girls does not follow the trends of previous conflicts. ISIS does not use those under 18 because they provide specific technical advantage in combat or because they are short of fighters. Child soldiers are seemingly treated no differently than adult soldiers, according to a new study published Friday in the CTC Sentinel.” Financial Times: Turkey And Saudi Arabia Consider Syria Intervention “The US is seeking to rein in its allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia from military action in Syria if a ceasefire planned for today in the bloody civil war fails. Despite mounting regional frustration over Washington’s allegedly passive stance on the five-year-old conflict the Obama administration and other western powers are worried that direct military interventions could lead to an escalation of the conflict and a dangerous clash with Russia.” Reuters: Iraq Sentences 40 ISIS To Death Over Tikrit Massacre “An Iraqi court sentenced 40 captured members of ISIS to death on Thursday for the killing of hundreds of soldiers after their capture by the ultra-radical militant group as it swept across northern Iraq in 2014, a judicial spokesman said. The slaughter of 1,700 soldiers after they fled from an ex-U.S. army base outside the northern city of Tikrit has become a symbol of ISIS' brutality and the Sunni insurgent group’s sectarian hatred of Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority. New York Times: Turkey Blames Kurdish Militia For Ankara Attack, Challenging U.S. “In blaming a Syrian Kurdish militia supported by the United States for a deadly car bombing in Ankara, Turkey on Thursday added new urgency to a question its president recently posed to the Obama administration: Are you on the side of a NATO ally — Turkey — or its enemies? The militia, which adamantly denies any role in the bombing, is the administration’s most important ground force inside Syria in the fight against the militants of the Islamic State.” Associated Press: Palestinians Kill Israeli In West Bank Supermarket “Two Palestinian teenagers wielding knives fatally stabbed an Israeli and seriously wounded another at a supermarket in the West Bank on Thursday before they were shot and wounded by an Israeli bystander, the military said. The two Israeli victims were taken to an Israeli hospital along with the Palestinian attackers. The Israeli military later announced that a 21-year-old off duty soldier, Sgt. Tuvia Yanai Weissman died of wounds sustained in the attack.” Associated Press: Iraq To Shrink Paramilitary Forces Due To Shortage Of Funds “The Iraqi government has decided to cut the number of state-financed paramilitary forces due to a shortage of funds as the international oil price declines, a spokesman for a leading predominantly Shiite militia group said Thursday. Karim al-Nouri, the spokesman for the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group made up mostly of Shiite militias, told The Associated Press that around 30 per cent of paramilitary troops were expected to be laid off.” New York Times: Belgium Finds Video Of Nuclear Official At Home Of Terrorism Suspect “A suspect linked to the Nov. 13 Paris attackers was found with surveillance footage of a high-ranking Belgian nuclear official, the Belgian authorities acknowledged on Thursday, raising fears that the Islamic State is trying to obtain radioactive material for a terrorist attack. The existence of the footage, which the police in Belgium seized on Nov. 30, was confirmed by Thierry Werts, a spokesman for Belgium’s federal prosecutor, after being reported in the Belgian daily newspaper La Dernière Heure.” Associated Press: NYC Police: Criminals Say Apple Encryption A 'Gift From God' “Police and prosecutors in New York City said Thursday that the top-notch encryption technology on Apple mobile phones is now routinely hindering criminal investigations. And they predicted the problem could grow worse as more criminals figure out how well the devices keep secrets. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said at a news conference that investigators cannot access 175 Apple devices sitting in his cybercrime lab because of encryption embedded in the company's latest operating systems.” United States Washington Post:  ISIS-Related Threat On Social Media Shuts Down Rural Military School “A private military school in Virginia has canceled events throughout the weekend and has boosted its security after receiving Islamic State-related threats through social media, law enforcement and school officials said. Police and FBI officials are investigating threats against Hargrave Military Academy, which decided Thursday to alert parents, students and staffers about the enhanced safety precautions on the campus located about two hours southwest of Richmond.” Business Insider: Watch Coalition Airstrikes Obliterate 2 ISIS Financial-Storage Centers Holding Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars “The anti-ISIS coalition carried out two major strikes against ISIS last week that targeted the group's financial and cash-distribution centers in Iraq. The strikes are thought to have destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars in the terror group's control. Speaking to ABC, an unnamed US official said that the amount of money destroyed could be in ‘the high hundreds of millions of dollars.’ The US military released two videos it said showed coalition airstrikes obliterating an ISIS bulk-cash storage and tax-collection headquarters and a second cash-storage facility.” Reuters: U.S. Adds Visa Restrictions To Yemen, Somalia, Libya Travelers “The United States has added Yemen, Somalia and Libya as "countries of concern" under its visa waiver program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday, in a move that will make U.S. visa procedures more stringent for individuals who have visited those nations during the past five years. The new restrictions were imposed under a law passed after the November attacks in Paris attributed to Islamic State. Citizens of U.S. allies who previously had been able to travel to the United States without first obtaining a visa now will have to apply to U.S. consulates for such visas if they have traveled to those designated countries in the past five years.” Reuters: U.S.-Led Strikes In Syria Kill 38 Civilians In Past Two Days: Monitor “The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said on Thursday that at least 38 civilians were killed in air strikes carried out by a U.S.-led coalition in Hasaka province in northeast Syria in the past two days. The United States and its allies are carrying out air raids in the area against Islamic State, which controls some parts of Hasaka province but has lost ground in recent months. Hasaka borders mostly Islamic State-held Deir al-Zor province and Raqqa, the group's de facto capital in Syria.” Yemen Washington Post: Why The Managed Transition After Yemen’s Uprising Led To War “The past five years in Yemen offer a bleak opportunity to reckon with failure. When protests began in January 2011, many Yemenis dared to hope for meaningful political change. Today, after the collapse of a poorly designed political transition and a year of ferocious war, the country’s urban areas have been rendered unlivable, 21.2 million people are in need of immediate humanitarian aid, residents of Yemen’s largest city live under siege conditions, and a civilian population with close to 2.5 million internally displaced persons is effectively trapped as the result of a naval and air blockade.” Turkey CNN: Turkish Soldiers Die In Attack A Day After Ankara Explosion “Six soldiers were killed and another was wounded Thursday in a roadside bombing that hit an armored military vehicle in the southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakir, Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported, citing the Turkish General Staff. Turkey blamed the attack on the PKK -- a Kurdish separatist group that Turkey, the United States and the European Union have designated as a terror organization. Turkey has been battling the PKK for decades.” Deutsche Welle: Opinion: Ankara Attack Isolates Turkey “The Turkish capital was hit by another terror attack after the blast in Ankara in October. It comes at a time when Turkey feels trapped and is not seeing eye-to-eye with its long-standing allies in the Syrian conflict. The timing of the Ankara attack that killed at least 28 people seems to prove Turkey's point regarding Kurdish groups in the region. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed the terrorist organizations Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and People's Protection Units (YPG) for the attack.” Syria Reuters: Syrian Rebels Say Reinforcements Get Free Passage Via Turkey “Syrian rebels have brought at least 2,000 reinforcements through Turkey in the past week to bolster the fight against Kurdish-led militias north of Aleppo, rebel sources said on Thursday. Turkish forces facilitated the transfer from one front to another over several nights, covertly escorting rebels as they exited Syria's Idlib governorate, travelled four hours across Turkey, and re-entered Syria to support the embattled rebel stronghold of Azaz, the sources said.” US News And World Report: How Events In Turkey Could Doom The Syrian Cease-Fire “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 Guardian: UN To Dispatch First Food Airdrops Into Syria “The UN will make its first airdrops of food to tens of thousands of Syrian civilians over the next few days and is aiming to deliver aid to all of the country’s 18 besieged areas within a week. Jan Egeland, the head of the UN task force on humanitarian access to Syria, said on Thursday that the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) had a “concrete plan” for using airdrops to get food to the city of Deir ez-Zor, where 200,000 people surrounded by Islamic State militants are enduring severe food shortages and rapidly deteriorating conditions.” Newsweek: Syria: U.S.-Backed Fighters Advance Against Isis “A U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters advanced against Islamic State fighters in the northeast on Thursday as part of a push toward a strategic town held by the jihadists, the alliance and a monitoring group said. The Syria Democratic Forces, which includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia, said they had captured several villages and farms from Islamic State, backed by U.S.-led air strikes.” Iraq CNN: Radioactive Material Missing In Iraq: Who Has It? “Iraqi and international officials said Thursday that radioactive material was stolen from a contractor working for an oil services company in Basra Province back in November. The missing material was reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency in November, but the investigation continues into its whereabouts. The potentially deadly material was in the care of at least two companies, who are passing blame around, while the IAEA said that Iraq has not asked for help from the international body with nuclear expertise.” Libya Reuters: Libya's North African Neighbors Brace For Any Western Strikes “Libya's neighbors are again preparing for possible Western intervention in Libya, tightening border security and sending diplomatic warnings about the risk from hurried action against Islamic State that could force thousands refugees to flee. As Islamic State has expanded in Libya -- taking over the city of Sirte and attacking oil ports -- so too have calls increased for a swift Western response to stop the group establishing a base outside its Iraq and Syria territory.” Russia The Daily Beast: How ISIS Takes Revenge On Russia “On a recent morning, armed and uniformed policemen patrolled nearly every block in downtown Cherkessk, the capital of Karachay-Cherkessia, one of six republics in Russia’s Northern Caucasus. Every so often, they had to break their stride to get around the garbage that covered the dirt sidewalks, and the water-filled potholes in the broken roads that reflected the sky. Local police and federal anti-terrorism special units have reenforced their positions all across the region, as ISIS-connected terrorist groups have targeted federal highways, attacked and murdered officials, killed tourists—and claimed credit for all these atrocities.”