Tag: Islamic State

Southeast Asian Islamic State gathers in Philippines

QUEZON City, Philippines – One of the most wanted Filipino criminal is tapped by the Islamic State to lead the group or faction that it is forming in Southeast Asia. According to military intelligence, the fact was discovered after the Islamic State released a video in a popular video-sharing site. Aside from the Middle East, the Islamic State is now also targeting Southeast Asia. (Eagle News Service Described by Jay Paul Carlos, Video Editing by […]

Clinton’s lead over Trump slips after Florida shooting: Reuters/Ipsos poll

(REUTERS) Donald Trump chipped away at Hillary Clinton’s lead in the presidential race this week, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday, as the candidates clashed over how to respond to the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The poll, conducted from Monday to Friday, showed Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, with a 10.7 point lead among likely voters over Trump, her likely Republican rival in the November presidential election. That’s down from […]

Family of U.S. student killed in Paris attacks sues social media companies

  (Reuters)  The family of a California design student killed in November’s attacks in Paris sued Twitter Inc, Google and Facebook Inc, claiming the social media companies provide “material support” to the militant group Islamic State. Nohemi Gonzalez’s family filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco, asking the court to rule that the companies are violating the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act. It seeks compensatory damages to be determined by the court. “For […]

CIA: Tens of thousands of I.S. fighters worldwide

(Reuters) The director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, said on Thursday there were tens of thousands of Islamic State fighters around the world, more than al Qaeda at its height. He also told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that the agency was concerned about the growth of Libya as a base of operations for Islamic State militants, who had 5,000-8,000 fighters there, although the group’s fighters in Iraq and Syria had dropped to […]

CIA’s Brennan: Islamic State to change tactics in coming months

(Reuters) The director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, said on Thursday that the United States and its allies have made gains against Islamic State, but he expects the group to change its tactics to make up for lost territory. “To compensate for territorial losses, ISIL (Islamic State) will probably rely more on guerrilla tactics, including high-profile attacks outside territory it holds,” Brennan testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

No direct link between shooter, IS militants: officials

(Reuters) U.S. authorities said on Monday they had found no direct links between Islamic State militants and the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, describing him as a homegrown extremist who was inspired by radical Islamist groups. The FBI and other agencies were still looking at evidence inside the club and on the closed-off streets around the Pulse nightclub, where New York-born Omar Mateen perpetrated the worst mass shooting in […]

Trump calls for increased military response after Orlando shooting

  (REUTERS)  Donald Trump on Monday said the United States needs to increase its military response against Islamic State in the wake of the Orlando nightclub shooting over the weekend, including additional bombings. The presumptive Republican nominee, in an interview on Fox News, said that he would address acts of terrorism in his speech at 2 p.m. EDT in New Hampshire, which he had earlier planned to use to target Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. […]

Gunman in worst U.S. massacre described as ‘quiet,’ with few friends

  (REUTERS) The photo from Omar Mateen’s high-school yearbook is hardly remarkable – a toothy, dimpled smile with a peach fuzz mustache below a mop of black hair. But his transformation from high-school football player to perpetrator of America’s worst mass shooting raises questions over whether authorities, and the security company where he worked, missed red flags over the depth of his apparent sympathies with Muslim extremists and whether the United States has a clear […]

Libyan forces claim port in Islamic State stronghold of Sirte

  (Reuters)  Forces aligned with Libya’s unity government said on Friday they had taken control of the port of Sirte, making further gains in Islamic State’s North African stronghold. Brigades largely composed of fighters from Misrata advanced this week to the perimeter of Sirte’s city center, after launching a counter attack against Islamic State last month and driving the militant group back along the coastal road between the two cities. The brigades are part of […]

Iraqi civilians drown fleeing Falluja as city nearly encircled

(Reuters)  A boat carrying fleeing civilians across a river from the Islamic State stronghold of Falluja sank on Saturday, killing at least four people, as pro-Baghdad forces said they had the city almost completely encircled. Two children, their mother and a man drowned crossing the 300-metre (1,000-feet) wide Euphrates, one the few escape routes left for civilians hoping to leave the besieged town as the war against the militants intensifies. Nine other people believed to […]

Syrian and Russian aircraft step up bombing of Aleppo city – monitor

  (Reuters)    Nearly 50 air strikes hit rebel-held areas in and around the Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday in some of the heaviest recent raids by Russian and Syrian government aircraft, residents and a monitoring group said. The group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also said an unidentified war plane had crashed in countryside south of Aleppo, in an area where Islamist rebel fighters are battling the Syrian army and Iranian-backed forces. It […]

Iran: Saudi the real ‘terrorism sponsor’

Iranian flags. (File photo)   Tehran, Iran (AFP)—Tehran on Sunday dismissed its renewed blacklisting by Washington as a state sponsor of terrorism, charging that it was United States allies including Riyadh that were the real culprits. The Iranian foreign ministry noted its role in neighboring Iraq supporting the government against the Islamic State jihadist group independently of a US-led coalition, as well as its backing for the Syrian regime against jihadists and other rebels, some […]