Killing the leader may not be enough to stamp out Islamic State

* Loyalty to ultra hardline vision may not be affected

* Followers remain open to message of sectarian hatred

* Teachings continue to be spread online

* But globally attacks have receded

* Under new leader, group may start to splinter

BAGHDAD - The killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is of considerable importance, experts believe, but the underlying reasons for his jihadist group's existence remain and attacks in the Middle East and beyond are not likely to stop.

Baghdadi's death at the hands of the United States is likely to cause Islamic State to splinter, leaving whoever emerges as its new leader with the task of pulling the ultra hardline group back together as a fighting force.

Whether the loss of its leader will in itself affect the group's capabilities is open to doubt, analysts in the region say. Even if it does face difficulties in the leadership transition, the underlying ideology and the sectarian hatred it promoted remains attractive to many.

Where once they rode around in armored vehicles, brandished rifles, flew black flags and indulged in acts of spectacular cruelty, the Sunni Muslim militants are now prisoners or scattered stragglers whose leader was chased down in a tunnel during a raid by American special forces.

"Operationally it doesn't affect much, they are already broken and globally their attacks have receded," said Rashad Ali, resident senior fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think-tank. "They are mostly concentrated in the Iraqi-Syria borderlands."

"It doesn't make much of a difference other than the symbolism," he said. "If you think taking out one terrorist (matters) while failing to address the root causes that led this ideology to take hold, you are mistaken."

But some of those grievances are very much on show today. Sunni Muslims in Iraq are angered at their treatment by a ruling Shi'ite elite they see as under the influence of Iran and the Iranian-backed militias that now roam their provinces unchecked.

RECRUITMENT

In Syria, recruitment to groups such as Islamic State is encouraged by the killing of Sunnis by Syrian government forces backed by Iran and Russia.

Islamic State's effectiveness arises from its members' loyalty to its ultra-fanatical Islamist ideology, and this may not be much affected by the killing of its leader, said Fadhil Abu Ragheef, an Iraqi political analyst and security expert.

He said Islamic State's 9-man Shura Council, or leadership group, was expected to meet and appoint a leader from among five candidates.

Among the front runners are Abu Abdullah al-Jizrawi, a Saudi, and Abdullah Qaradash, an Iraqi and one of Baghdadi's right-hand men, also a former army officer under Saddam Hussein. Also mentioned is Abu Othman al-Tunisi, a Tunisian.

"The new leader will start working to pull together the group's power by relying on new recruits and fighters who fled the prisons in Syria. He is expected to launch a series of retaliatory attacks for the killing of Baghdadi," said Abu Ragheef.

It is possible that whoever takes over as the head of the group, which experts say has been beset by internal disputes, will cause it to splinter within months because he is unacceptable on grounds of nationality to some factions.

"For sure they will fight among themselves over resources. I predict the Iraqi faction will win because they have more money," said Iraqi analyst Hisham al-Hashemi, an expert on jihadist groups.

A security source with knowledge of militant groups in Iraq said the killing of Baghdadi would splinter the group's command structure because of differences between senior figures and lack of confidence among group members who were forced to go underground when the caliphate collapsed.

"We are aware that killing Baghdadi will not lead to the disappearance of Islamic State because eventually they will pick someone for the job," the source said. "But at same time whoever follows Baghdadi will not be in a position to keep the group united."

OPERATIONS

The new leader will attempt to restructure the group by encouraging followers to launch operations not only in Iraq but in other countries to raise morale among existing and new followers, the source said.

By franchising its name, Islamic State has attracted followers in Africa, Asia and Europe. Incidents such as one in London, where attackers used easily obtained weapons such as motor vehicles and knives, show that lack of organisational backing is not an obstacle.

In South East Asia, where Islamic State has spread its influence, officials believe the group's ideas will have to be fought even after Baghdadi's death.

"His death will have little impact here as the main problem remains the spread of the Islamic State ideology," Malaysian police counter-terrorism chief Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay told Reuters.

"What we are most worried about now are 'lone wolf' attacks and those who are self-radicalized through the internet. We are still seeing the spread of IS teachings online. IS publications and magazines from years ago are being reproduced and re-shared," he said.

In Iraq, where Baghdadi proclaimed his caliphate from the Grand al-Nuri Mosque in 2014, authorities have pursued a policy of taking out senior Islamic State figures as an effective way of keeping the group on the back foot.

Hashemi argues that more is needed.

"They have the ability to regroup. The way to stop that is through real fostering of democracy and civil society, truly addressing grievances, in short, creating an environment that repels terrorism," he said.

"Killing leaders is definitely a good thing but it does not prevent their return, only creating such an environment does," he added. (Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Ahmed Aboulenein; Writing by Giles Elgood, Editing by William Maclean)

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Islamic State head Baghdadi believed dead after US strike: US media

WASHINGTON -- Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was believed to be dead after a US military raid in Syria's Idlib region, US media reported early Sunday.

Baghdadi may have killed himself with a suicide vest as US special operations forces descended, media said citing multiple government sources.

He was the target of the secretly planned operation that was approved by President Donald Trump, officials said.

Long pursued by the US-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS), Baghdadi has been erroneously reported dead several times in recent years.

Officials told ABC News that biometric work was underway to firm up the identification of those killed in the raid.

The White House announced Trump would make a "major statement" Sunday at 9 a.m., without providing details.

Trump earlier tweeted, without explaining, "Something very big has just happened!"

Baghdadi, a native of Iraq and around 48 years old, led Al-Qaeda's branch in Iraq, taking credit for suicide bombings and other attacks targeting Shiites and moderate Sunnis that left thousands dead over 2010-2013.

He then broke with Al-Qaeda and announced his own, more aggressive jihadist group named Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (alternately, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) that aimed to establish its own deeply conservative Islamic nation, or Caliphate, on territory straddling the Iraq-Syria border.

The group's rule was notoriously brutal, and it was globally condemned as a "terrorist organization," blamed for the deaths of thousands of civilians -- in summary executions and beheadings -- and accused of war crimes.

Baghdadi though was rarely seen. 

After 2014, he disappeared from sight, only surfacing in a video in April this year with a wiry grey and red beard and an assault rifle at his side, as he encouraged followers to "take revenge" for IS members who had been killed. 

It was seen as a reassertion of his leadership of a group that, while it had lost its physical territory, had spread from the Middle East to Asia and Africa, promoting the violent ideology he preached. 

But Baghdadi remained on the run as the US-led coalition slowly destroyed IS and focused on tracking down the leadership. The US State Department posted a $25-million reward for information on his whereabouts.

Under al-Baghdadi, the State Department said, IS "has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in the Middle East, including the brutal murder of numerous civilian hostages from Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States."

In September, the group released an audio message said to be from Baghdadi praising the operations of Islamic State affiliates in other regions.

It also called on scattered IS fighters to regroup and try to free thousands of their comrades captured by the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria.

Idlib is known as a bastion of the Syrian operations of Al-Qaeda -- a group Baghdadi continued to view as a rival -- leaving experts puzzled by the reports that the IS leader died in the northwest province, in Barisha village.

"If Baghdadi was indeed in Barisha, it will be interesting to understand how he managed to even get there (through Syria or through Turkey?), and how it was possible for him to stay there," tweeted Michael Horowitz, a Middle East security analyst with the Le Beck consultancy.

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Kurdish forces: Not enough guards at Syria camp holding Islamic State families

BEIRUT - Kurdish-led security forces do not have enough guards for the Ain Issa camp that holds families of Islamic State militants and dozens of them have escaped since Turkish shelling struck the area, an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces said.

Already weakened by the redeployment of forces to front lines, the guarding of the camp was further depleted on Sunday when Turkish shells crashed nearby, prompting some of the remaining personnel to flee, SDF official Marvan Qamishlo said.

"The guarding is very weak now," he told Reuters, saying that there were now just 60-70 security personnel at the camp compared with a normal level of no less than 700.

The camp holds some 12,000 displaced people including some relatives of IS militants and ideally would require 1,500 guards, he said. "We don't have this sufficient number."

Advances by Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies had compounded the concerns of security personnel in the camp, giving rise to fears the site could be encircled, Qamishlo said.

"What is a security person going to do? They are not special forces or SDF." 

(Reporting by Tom Perry Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Trump: Syrian Kurds 'didn't help us in Normandy'

WASHINGTON - Syrian Kurds facing a Turkish military operation did not "help us in Normandy," US President Donald Trump said Wednesday, defending his widely-criticized decision to clear the way for the assault.

The Kurdish forces -- which the US partnered to combat the Islamic State group in Syria -- are "fighting for their land," Trump said.

"As somebody wrote in a very, very powerful article today, they didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy as an example," he said.

The president was apparently referring to a piece by a columnist on the conservative Townhall website supporting Trump's decision to pull American forces back from Syria's northern frontier, which opened the way for the Turkish operation.

The Kurds "are there to help us with their land, and that's a different thing," said Trump.

"We have spent tremendous amounts of money on helping the Kurds in terms of ammunition, in terms of weapons, in terms of money, in terms of pay. With all of that being said, we like the Kurds," he added.

Brett McGurk, who served as the US envoy to the international coalition against the Islamic State group, has in the past disputed Trump's assertions on that subject, saying that the "weapons provided were meager" and "nearly all stabilization funding came from the @coalition."

ISIS FIGHTERS TO ESCAPE TO EUROPE?

Trump's abrupt move on Sunday to remove 50 U.S. troops out of northern Syria, which has allowed Turkey to attack America's Kurdish allies unimpeded, has drawn sharp fire from many Republican lawmakers who are normally his strong supporters.

Trump: US going into Middle East was 'worst decision ever'
https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/10/09/19/trump-us-going-into-middle-east-was-worst-decision-ever

As Turkey launched an attack on Kurdish militia positions on Wednesday, Trump aligned himself with anti-war voices in the Republican Party like Senator Rand Paul, saying the United States should have never been involved in conflicts in the Middle East in the first place.

Pressed on the situation by reporters during a White House event, Trump said he was open to imposing sanctions on Turkey if the Turks do not treat the Kurds humanely.

Asked what he would do if Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan were to wipe out the Kurds, Trump said: “I will wipe out his economy if he does that."

The Trump pullout has prompted bipartisan concerns that some of the thousands of Islamic State fighters held by Kurdish-led forces might escape in the chaos surrounding the Turkish incursion.

Trump said many of these fighters are of European origin and that he had given European nations four chances to take responsibility for them.

Asked if he had any concerns that some of these ISIS fighters could escape and pose a threat elsewhere, Trump adopted a dismissive tone.

"Well, they're going to be escaping to Europe. That's where they want to go," he said.

Reaction to Trump's move has enraged many Republicans and Democrats.

U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, a national security hawk and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, said in a statement that Trump's decision would have "sickening and predictable consequences."

"The U.S. is abandoning our ally the Kurds, who fought ISIS on the ground and helped protect the U.S. homeland. This decision aids America’s adversaries, Russia, Iran, and Turkey, and paves the way for a resurgence of ISIS. This action imperils American security and that of our allies. Congress must and will act to limit the catastrophic impact of this decision," she said.

Trump cast his decision as in line with his long-held belief that the United States cannot be the world's policeman and must bring some troops home.

But it comes as he needs as much Republican support as possible to fight an impeachment inquiry launched by Democrats who control the U.S. House of Representatives based on his attempt to get Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is one of Trump's closest confidants in Congress and a frequent golf partner, has angrily split with Trump over Syria.

"This is the pre-9/11 mentality that paved the way for 9/11: 'What’s happening in Afghanistan is no concern to us.' So if he follows through with this, it’d be the biggest mistake of his presidency," Graham told Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends."

Graham said on Twitter that he would lead an effort in Congress "to make Erdogan pay a heavy price" for the incursion. With reports by Reuters and Agence France-Presse

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West African leaders pledge $1 billion to fight Islamist threat

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso - West African leaders have pledged $1 billion to combat the spiraling threat of Islamist militancy in the region, the head of the regional ECOWAS bloc said on Saturday.

Groups with links to Al Qaeda and Islamic State have strengthened their foothold across the arid Sahel region this year, making large swathes of territory ungovernable and stoking local ethnic violence, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso.

The fifteen members of the West African bloc and the presidents of Mauritania and Chad had gathered for an extraordinary summit in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, to address the growing insecurity.

ECOWAS Commission President Jean-Claude Kassi Brou said the commission had decided to "contribute financially and urgently to joint efforts in the fight against terrorism" by pledging $1 billion.

In a speech following the closed meeting, Brou also called on the United Nations to strengthen its MINUSMA peacekeeping mission, which has been based in Mali since 2013.

In July, the U.N. said Islamist attacks were spreading so fast in West Africa that the region should consider bolstering its response beyond current military efforts.

In 2017, five countries - Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Mali and Mauritania - backed by France, launched the G5 Sahel taskforce to combat the insurgents. But the initiative has been perennially underfunded.

The situation in Burkina Faso has deteriorated in particular in recent weeks. An attack in late August killed 24 soldiers, one of the heaviest losses yet in the nation's fight against Islamist militants. Last week, 29 people were killed in separate attacks in its troubled central-northern region.

Once a pocket of relative calm in the Sahel, Burkina has suffered a homegrown insurgency for the past three years, which has been amplified by a spillover of jihadist violence and criminality from its chaotic neighbor Mali.

Large swathes of Burkina's north are now out of control, and France's military Sahel mission began limited operations there earlier this year.

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Iraqi Christians celebrate Christmas one year after Islamic State defeat

BAGHDAD - Iraqi Christians quietly celebrated Christmas on Tuesday amid improved security, more than a year after the country declared victory over Islamic State militants who threatened to end their 2,000-year history in Iraq.

Christianity in Iraq dates back to the first century of the Christian era, when the apostles Thomas and Thaddeus are believed to have preached the Gospel on the fertile flood plains of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.

Iraq is home to many different eastern rite churches, both Catholic and Orthodox, traditionally a sign of the country's ethnic and religious diversity.

But war and sectarian conflict shrank Iraq's Christian population from 1.5 million to about 400,000 after the US-led invasion in 2003. Following the onslaught of Islamic State in 2014 and the brutal three-year war that followed their numbers have fallen further, though it is not known exactly by how much.

In Baghdad, Christians celebrated mass on Tuesday morning -- declared a national holiday by government -- in churches decorated for Christmas. Once fearful, they said they were now hopeful, since conditions had improved.

"Of course we can say the security situation is better than in previous years," said Father Basilius, leader of the St George Chaldean Church in Baghdad where more than a hundred congregants attended Christmas mass.

"We enjoy security and stability mainly in Baghdad. In addition, Daesh was beaten," he said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Iraq declared victory over the militants more than a year ago, but the damage done to Christian enclaves on the Nineveh Plains has been extensive.

In Qaraqosh, a town also known as Hamdaniya which lies 15 km (10 miles) west of Mosul, the damage is still visible.

At the city's Immaculate Church, which belongs to the Syrian Catholic denomination and has not yet been rebuilt since the militants set it on fire in 2014, Christians gathered for midnight mass on Monday, surrounded by blackened walls still tagged with Islamic State graffiti.

Dozens of worshippers prayed and received communion, and then gathered around the traditional bonfire in the church's courtyard.

Before the militant onslaught, Qaraqosh was the largest Christian settlement in Iraq, with a population of more than 50,000. But today only a few hundred families have returned.

Faced with a choice to convert, pay a tax or die, many Christians in the Nineveh Plains fled to nearby towns and cities and some eventually moved abroad.

Some have since returned, Father Butros said, adding: "We hope that all displaced families will return." (Reporting by Reuters Video News; writing by Raya Jalabi Editing by Gareth Jones)

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ISIS claims responsibility for Barcelona van attack that left several dead

BARCELONA -- A van ploughed into crowds in the heart of Barcelona on Thursday and Spanish media reported at least 13 people were killed.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, the group's Amaq news agency said.

"The perpetrators of the Barcelona attack are soldiers of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting coalition states," the agency said, referring to a United States-led coalition against the Sunni militant group.

Regional authorities said one death had been confirmed so far, with 32 injured, 10 seriously. But radio station Cadena Ser cited police sources as saying the death toll was much higher.

According to a report by Agence France-Presse quoting a regional minister, 13 were dead and 50 were hurt.

Police said they said were searching for the driver of the van who, according to local media, fled the scene on foot.

Spanish newspaper El Periodico said two armed men were holed up in a bar in Barcelona's city center, and reported gunfire in the area, though it did not cite the source of the information.

It was not immediately clear whether the incidents were connected.

A source familiar with the initial US government assessment said the incident appeared to be terrorism, and a White House spokeswoman said President Donald Trump was being kept abreast of the situation.
Trump said the US stood ready to help Spanish authorities after what he called a "terror attack" in Barcelona.

Media reports said the van had zigzagged at speed down the famous Las Ramblas avenue, a magnet for tourists.

"I heard screams and a bit of a crash and then I just saw the crowd parting and this van going full pelt down the middle of the Ramblas and I immediately knew that it was a terrorist attack or something like that," eyewitness Tom Gueller told the BBC.

"It wasn't slowing down at all. It was just going straight through the middle of the crowds in the middle of the Ramblas."

Mobile phone footage posted on Twitter showed several bodies strewn along the Ramblas, some motionless. Paramedics and bystanders bent over them, treating them and trying to comfort those still conscious.

Around them, the boulevard was deserted, covered in rubbish and abandoned objects including hats, flip-flops, bags and a pram.

"We saw a white van collide with people. We saw people going flying because of the collision, we also saw three cyclists go flying," Ellen Vercamm, on holiday in Barcelona, told El Pais newspaper.


TOURIST DRAW

Emergency services said people should not go to the area around Barcelona's Placa Catalunya, one of the city's main squares at the top of the Ramblas, and requested the closure of nearby train and metro stations.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he was in contact with authorities, and the priority was to attend to the injured.

The incident took place at the height of the tourist season in Barcelona, which is one of Europe's top travel destinations with at least 11 million visitors a year.

Vehicles have been used to ram into crowds in a series of militant attacks across Europe since July 2016, killing well over 100 people in Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm.

Witness Ethan Spibey told Britain's Sky News: "All of sudden it was real chaos. People just started running screaming, there were loud bangs. People just started running into shops, there was a kind of mini-stampede where we were, down one of the alleyways."

He said he had taken refuge with dozens of other people in a nearby church.

"They've locked the doors because I'm not sure whether the person who may have done it has actually been caught, so they've locked the doors and told people just to wait in here."

Authorities in Vic, a small town outside Barcelona, said a van had been found there in connection with the attack. Spanish media had earlier reported that a second van had been hired as a getaway vehicle.

Barcelona is the capital of the wealthy northeastern region of Catalonia, which plans to hold a popular vote on Oct. 1 on whether it should secede from Spain. It is in dispute with the central government, which says the vote cannot go ahead because it is unconstitutional.

If Spanish media reports of at least 13 killed are confirmed, it would be the deadliest in Spain since March 2004, when Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1,800. (Reporting by Madrid newsroom, writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Alison Williams and Nick Tattersall) -- With a report from Agence France-Presse

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Military says some Maute militants may have slipped out of Marawi

MARAWI CITY- The Philippines military said on Friday that some of the Islamist militants who stormed Marawi City in the south of the country last month may have mingled with evacuees to slip away during the battle that has raged for nearly four weeks.

Brigadier General Restituto Padilla said security had been tightened in the cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro and the authorities there were on the lookout for suspicious characters who might "attempt to sow some confusion or sow terror".

"We're not denying that there's probably a few who may have slipped along with the evacuees from Marawi going to Iligan and Cagayan de Oro," he told reporters in Manila, while OV-10 aircraft in Marawi pounded an area where militants have been holed up since May 23.

The military says that up to 200 fighters, most of them from local insurgent groups that have pledged allegiance to Islamic State but also some foreign fighters, are holding out, using civilians as human shields and mosques as safe havens.

The attempt by hundreds of well-armed militants to overrun and seal off the city has alarmed governments across Southeast Asia, which fear that Islamic State - losing ground in Iraq and Syria - is trying to establish a foothold in their region that could bring a rash of extremist violence.

The defense ministers and military chiefs of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines will meet in the Indonesian town of Tarakan, on Borneo island, on Monday to discuss the threat and agree on steps to coordinate better to confront terrorism.

A port town, Tarakan is just south of the Malaysian side of Borneo and looks out across the sea to Mindanao in the southern Philippines, a sprawling island that has been plagued by insurgencies and banditry for decades.

Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman Padilla told reporters that talk of fighters planning attacks in neighboring towns was based on "misinformation that's being spread by the enemies" and in fact their capacity was severely reduced.

In a battle assessment on Friday, the military said those still in the town were also weakening.

"Enemy resistance continues to dwindle and enemy-held areas continues to get smaller as troops advance," it said, but giving no indication of how long it might take to retake the town.

Previous deadlines to defeat the insurgents were missed.

More than 300 people have been killed in the battle for Marawi, according to official estimates, including 225 militants, 59 soldiers and 26 civilians.

A politician who has led rescue and relief efforts said on Thursday that residents fleeing Marawi had seen at least 100 dead bodies in an area where the fighting had been fierce. The military said it could not confirm that number.

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Flags at half-mast as nation mourns Marawi heroes, victims

In an advisory, the Armed Forces of the Philippines said flags are flown at half-mast after the high noon tribute “as a symbol of respect and mourning to our fallen men and the civilians who died.”

Malacanang also encouraged the public to pay homage to the fallen soldiers, whose names were flashed on television stations and read over the radio at 12 noon Monday.

“We would likewise remember all the innocent victims who perished as a result of rebel atrocities committed,” Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a statement.

“We enjoin the public to honor these heroes and civilians and pray for them and the families they left behind.”

Government agencies, meanwhile, will begin flying the flag at half-mast starting Tuesday, June 13, the first working day of the week.

“We ask all Filipinos of all faiths and ethnic groups to say a short prayer for our heroes and innocent victims who perished, for the soldiers and the civilians who are still in the battlefield, and for peace and unity for the Philippines,” the AFP said in its advisory.

Fifty-eight members of the police and military have been killed in the fight to retake Marawi City from the Maute group--terrorists who have pledged loyalty to the Islamic State.

President Rodrigo Duterte placed Mindanao under martial law after local terrorist groups Maute and Abu Sayyaf, aided by local and foreign cohorts, laid siege to Marawi in an apparent bid to create an Islamic State province in the country.

The clashes started as government troops were attempting to arrest top Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon. The military said the terrorists were planning to launch an attack during the start of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, and the arrest was a move to preempt it.

About 1,000 locals, fearing to get caught in the middle of crossfire, are believed to be trapped in their houses as the terrorists held key spots in the city.

The militants are also taking with them scores of hostages who are being used as human shields. This has proved to be a major obstacle for government troops hoping to end the siege soon.

In defiance of the terrorists who continue to hold their ground, government troops in Marawi on Monday raised the Philippine flag in key areas in the city.

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Police officer killed, 2 hurt in Paris shooting

PARIS - A French policeman was shot dead and two others were wounded in a shooting in central Paris on Thursday night before the gunman himself was killed by officers, police and the Interior Ministry said.

The Islamic State group claimed the shooting, days before French presidential elections, via its Amaq news agency, naming the attacker as Abu Yousif the Belgian. President Francois Hollande said he was convinced it was a terrorist attack.

A second suspect who might have been involved in the incident on the Champs Elysees shopping boulevard may still be on the loose, authorities said. The famous wide street that leads away from the Arc de Triomphe that had earlier been crowded with Parisians and tourists enjoying a spring evening remained closed off hours after the incident.

France has lived under a state of emergency since 2015 and has suffered a spate of Islamist militant attacks, mostly perpetrated by young men who grew up in France and Belgium, and that have killed more than 230 people in the past two years.

Interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said it was too early to say what the motive of the attack was, but that it was clear the police officers had been deliberately targeted.

"A little after 9 PM a vehicle stopped alongside a police car which was parked. Immediately a man got out and fired on the police vehicle, mortally wounding a police officer," Brandet said.

Officers at the scene said they were searching for a potential second assailant, and Brandet said it could not be ruled out that there was another or others involved.

Officers also conducted a search at the home in eastern Paris of the dead attacker.

"I came out of the Sephora shop and I was walking along the pavement.... A man got out of a car and opened fire with a kalashnikov on a policeman," witness Chelloug, a kitchen assistant, told Reuters.

"The policeman fell down. I heard six shots, I was afraid. I have a two year-old girl and I thought I was going to die... He shot straight at the police officer."

POLICE CLEAR THE AREA
Police authorities called on the public to avoid the area.

TV footage showed the Arc de Triomphe monument and the top half of the Champs Elysees packed with police vans, lights flashing and heavily armed police shutting the area down after what was described by one journalist as a major exchange of fire near a Marks and Spencers store.

The incident came as French voters prepared go to the polls on Sunday in the most tightly-contested presidential election in living memory.

"We shall be of the utmost vigilance, especially in relation to the election," said President Francois Hollande, who is not himself running for re-election.

Earlier this week, two men were arrested in Marseille who police said had been planning an attack ahead of the election.

That incident brought issues of security and immigration back to the forefront of the campaign, with the anti-immigration National Front leader Marine Le Pen repeating her call for Europe's partly open borders to be closed.

A machine gun, two hand guns and three kilos of TATP explosive were among the weapons found at a flat in the southern city along with jihadist propaganda materials according to the Paris prosecutor.

Candidates in the election said they had been warned about the Marseille attackers. Francois Fillon, who is the conservative candidate, said he would cancel the campaign events he had been planning for Friday. In November, 2015, Paris was rocked by near simultaneous gun-and-bomb attacks on entertainment sites, in which 130 people died and 368 were wounded. Islamic State claimed responsibility. Two of the 10 known perpetrators were Belgian citizens and three others were French.

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Germany shuts down shopping mall over attack threat

ESSEN, Germany - German police sealed off a major shopping center in the central city of Essen on Saturday, citing the threat of a terror attack, with media reports suggesting a link to the Islamic State group.

The country is on high alert following scenes of carnage at a Christmas market in Berlin in December, when an IS jihadist rammed a truck into a crowd of pedestrians, killing 12 people.

The German domestic security agency BfV believes the IS group was "almost definitely" behind the threat, local media reported.

According to the Bild daily, IS called for an attack and got a message to Syrian supporters in the Essen region to attack a shopping centre on Saturday.

Security services quoted by Bild described the threat as a potential multiple suicide bombing at the mall, one of the biggest in the country.

"The shopping center will be closed all Saturday due to security concerns. The police have concrete information regarding a possible attack," local police said in a statement published on social media.

Local car parks and the underground train station were also closed.

Though there was no announcement of arms or explosives being found, police said two men had been picked up for questioning.

Both men were arrested in the town of Oberhausen near Essen but later police said in a statement that the pair "are not suspects" in the case.

- 'Major operation' -

"Many agents are deployed onsite. This is a major operation," a local police spokesman told AFP, indicating the lockdown included the 200-store Limbecker Platz in downtown Essen, nearby parking garages and an underground rail station.

Sniffer dogs were also been deployed at the site.

Essen, which is in the industrial Ruhr region, has a population of approximately 500,000.

The police said they had been alerted to the threat by "another department" but no German agency has confirmed if it was involved.

Interior ministry spokesman Tobias Plate told AFP that the operation was being handled by the local police force but added that his ministry was in "constant touch" with the GTAZ, a joint counter-terrorism center used by 40 internal security agencies.

German authorities have been on alert since the deadly Christmas market attack in Berlin.

A Tunisian failed asylum seeker, Anis Amri, rammed a hijacked truck into the crowded market on December 19, before being shot dead four days later by police in Italy.

Last July, a German-Iranian teenager who police say was obsessed with mass murderers, shot dead nine people at a Munich shopping mall before turning the gun on himself.

Fears of another attack rose on Thursday when a 36-year-old paranoid-schizophrenic man from Kosovo rampaged through Duesseldorf railway station with an ax, wounding nine people. Police have ruled out a terrorist motive for that attack.

Domestic security officials estimate there are some 10,000 radical Islamists in Germany, with roughly 1,600 among them suspected of being capable of violence.

IS has claimed responsibility for attacks in Germany in the past year, including the murder of a teen in Hamburg, a suicide bombing in Ansbach and an ax rampage on a train in Wuerzberg that injured five.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Ohio State attacker may have self-radicalized, officials say

WASHINGTON/COLUMBUS, OHIO - A Somali immigrant who injured 11 people at Ohio State University in a vehicle and stabbing attack before he was shot dead may have followed the same path to self-radicalization as militants in a number of "lone wolf" attacks, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility on Tuesday for the attack.

Abdul Razak Ali Artan, 20, was shot dead by a police officer on Monday moments after he plowed his car into a crowd of pedestrians and then leapt out and began stabbing people with a butcher knife.

Investigators were probing the background of Artan, a Muslim who was a lawful permanent resident of the United States and a student at Ohio State.

Police have given no motive for the attack on the Columbus campus.

So far, investigators have found no strong evidence linking Artan to other known militant individuals, cells or groups, said two federal law enforcement officials, who declined to be named because the probe is ongoing.

Artan's actions fit the pattern of lone-wolf militants who carried out other attacks in the United States, such as the gunman who shot to death 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June, and the man who killed four U.S. Marines and a Navy sailor in a shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last year, the officials said.

The gunmen in those two attacks were also Muslim and were killed by police.

A federal official who asked not to be identified said that while Islamic State has claimed responsibility in other attacks, investigators have seen no evidence so far that the militant group's role was anything more than inspirational.

ARTAN SPOKE OF "BOILING POINT"

Investigators were looking into a message posted on Facebook by Artan that contained inflammatory statements about being "sick and tired" of seeing Muslims killed and reaching a "boiling point," a law enforcement source said.

"Stop the killing of the Muslims in Burma," Artan said in the Facebook post.

Violence in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, has sent Rohingya Muslims fleeing across the border to Bangladesh amid allegations of abuses by security forces.

All of Artan's Facebook postings have been removed from the social media website.

Artan on Facebook also called Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born radical cleric linked to al Qaeda's Yemen wing, "a hero." Awlaki was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011.

In its claim of responsibility for Monday's attack at Ohio State, the Islamic State news agency AMAQ posted a photo of Artan wearing a blue shirt and sitting with greenery in the background. It described him as a soldier of the group.

"Brother Abdul Razak Ali Artan, God accept him, implementer of the Ohio attack, a student in his third year in university," the caption read.

Artan, who was born in Somalia, arrived in the United States in 2014, said a federal official, who also asked not to be identified. Ohio State University Police Chief Craig Stone said Artan was 20 years old.

Investigators believe Artan may have lived for as long as seven years in Pakistan, said the federal official, who declined to be named because of the ongoing investigation. Somali refugees often spend some time in Pakistan before coming to the United States, another official said.

Investigators were trying to assemble a full picture of Artan's associates and recent activities, according to federal officials.

Two people remained hospitalized at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Two others were at Riverside Methodist Hospital, according to a spokesman. None of the victims have life-threatening injuries, officials said. Seven people have been released.

The attack rattled students at the state's flagship public university, which had been placed under a campuswide alert as people barricaded themselves in rooms and police with rifles searched for a possible second suspect.

Members of Columbus' Somali community have denounced the attack.

Ohio Governor John Kasich and other officials have praised Ohio State police for quickly reacting to the rampage.

(Additional reporting by Amy Tennery and David Ingram in New York and Ali Abdelatti in Cairo; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Leslie Adler)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

15 years after 9/11, America in perpetual war

WASHINGTON - The 9/11 attacks of 2001 forever changed America and upended its foreign and national security policy, leaving the country for the past 15 years in a war against jihadists -- without ending the upheaval in the Middle East.

Barack Obama, who will leave the White House in January, is the president who tried to get the US military out of the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan -- devastating "war on terror" conflicts launched by his predecessor George W. Bush in the wake of the suicide plane strikes that killed nearly 3,000 people.

But Obama's legacy on that front is mixed, with US forces still present in both countries.

And while he worked hard to bring America closer to the Muslim world, he will leave office with the United States bogged down in a seemingly endless conflict against Islamists at home and abroad, experts say.

"The evolving threat of Islamist terrorism compelled President Obama, against his own inclinations, to engage militarily in Iraq once again, and since then in Syria and Libya as well," said Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"The wars in the Middle East, the metastasis of ISIS, online radicalization and a series of attacks in European and American cities have made the paradigm of a 'global war on terror' very hard to set aside, even 15 years after 9/11," she wrote on the World Economic Forum website.

The US is also still engaged militarily, in limited form or on a purely logistical basis, in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen to counter myriad threats.

"The thinking of the Obama administration is that big wars make things worse," Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told AFP.

So instead, Obama launched a new era in American warfare -- one dominated by drones, special forces and training for local fighters.

The human and financial costs of such engagements are more limited -- a significant fact, after the 5,300 US military personnel killed, 50,000 wounded and $1.6 trillion spent from 2001-2014 in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional data.

Obama's strategy had its best success in May 2011, when US special forces killed Al-Qaeda leader Obama bin Laden, who masterminded the 9/11 attacks, at his home in Pakistan.

But for Ibish, such a use of "limited resources... looks like a continuous war."

"It is even more than a permanent war because the limited resources cannot change the instability. It accepts the current chaos as being unsolvable," he added.

Evolving threats

In Syria, a lasting peace is still not at hand, though a fresh truce brokered by the United States and Russia -- both now involved militarily in the deadly conflict -- is due to begin Monday.

And a US military re-engagement in the Middle East is not in the plans of either of the candidates looking to succeed Obama -- Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Fifteen years after the Twin Towers fell, forever changing New York's skyline, Obama said the terror threat facing America had "evolved," referring to lone-wolf attacks in the United States like the nightclub massacre in Orlando in June.

"So in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and beyond, we'll stay relentless against terrorists like Al-Qaeda and ISIL. We will destroy them. And we'll keep doing everything in our power to protect our homeland," he said Saturday in his weekly address.

Mass surveillance

As Amy Greene -- an American researcher at the prestigious Institute of Political Studies in Paris (Sciences-Po) -- pointed out, "there has not been an attack on US soil of the same scale" as the carefully planned 2001 attacks.

Of course, Washington still fears more small-scale attacks carried out by homegrown attackers, like the Orlando shooting that left 49 people dead or the San Bernardino attacks last December that left 14 dead.

Faced with ongoing threats, the United States has built up a massive surveillance apparatus in the post-9/11 era both at home and abroad.

The budget for the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency has nearly doubled since 2001.

"The threat that I think will dominate the next five years for the FBI will be the impact of the crushing of the caliphate, which will happen," Comey said this past week, referring to the Islamic State group.

Since the passage of the Patriot Act after 9/11, legislation maintained by Obama, "Americans have accepted the idea of giving up some of their freedoms," Greene said.

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 40 percent of Americans fear that "the ability of terrorists to launch another major attack on the United States is greater than it was at the time of the 9/11 attacks."

That is the highest share expressing that fear since 2002.

On Saturday, the US State Department warned in its regular "worldwide caution" note to travelers on terror risks that the IS group had "called on supporters to attack US citizens and coalition partners wherever they are."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

ISIS bombings near Syria Shiite shrine kill 71

BEIRUT - Bombings claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group killed 71 people and wounded dozens more on Sunday near a revered Shiite shrine outside the Syrian capital Damascus, a monitor said.

The blasts, which came as the UN's Syria envoy struggled to convene fresh peace talks in Geneva from which IS is excluded, tore a massive crater in the road, overturning and mangling cars and a bus and shattering windows.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said 71 people were killed in two blasts near the Sayyida Zeinab shrine, including five children.

The first blast was a suicide car bomb, followed by a second suicide bomber who detonated his explosive belt when a crowd gathered, the monitoring group said.

Syrian state media earlier reported more than 50 people killed and over 100 injured in what it described as three blasts.

Official news agency SANA said the first blast was caused by a car bomb that detonated at a bus station near the shrine, which both Iran and Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah have vowed to defend.

It said two suicide bombers then set off their explosive belts when people gathered at the scene.

An AFP photographer said the explosions damaged the facade of a nearby building, scorching all of its six storeys.

Sayyida Zeinab, south of Damascus, contains the grave of a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammed and is particularly revered as a pilgrimage site by Shiite Muslims.

It has continued to attract pilgrims from Syria and beyond, particularly Shiites from Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq, throughout Syria's nearly five-year brutal conflict.

Sunni Muslim extremist groups such as IS consider Shiites to be heretics and have frequently targeted them in attacks.

In the aftermath of Sunday morning's attack, smoke rose from the twisted carcasses of more than a dozen cars and a bus, as ambulances ferried away the wounded and firefighters worked to put out blazes.

In a statement circulated on social media, IS claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying two of its members had detonated suicide bombs.

"Two soldiers of the caliphate carried out martyrdom operations in a den of the infidels in the Sayyida Zeinab area, killing nearly 50 and injuring around 120," it said.

The area around the shrine has been targeted in previous bomb attacks, including in February 2015 when two suicide attacks killed four people and wounded 13 at a checkpoint.

- UN envoy meets opposition -

Also that month, a blast ripped through a bus carrying Lebanese Shiite pilgrims headed to Sayyida Zeinab, killing at least nine people, in an attack claimed by Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

The area around the shrine is heavily secured with regime checkpoints set up hundreds of metres (yards) away to prevent vehicles from approaching.

According to the Observatory, members of Lebanon's powerful Shiite group Hezbollah are among those deployed at the checkpoints.

Hezbollah is a staunch ally of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and has dispatched fighters to bolster his troops against the uprising that began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.

Early on, the group cited the threat to Sayyida Zeinab as the motivation for its intervention in Syria's conflict.

More than 260,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict, which has also displaced upwards of half the country's population internally and abroad.

It has evolved into a complex, multi-front war involving rebels, jihadists, regime and allied forces, Kurds and air strikes by both government ally Russia and a US-led coalition battling against IS.

In a new effort to find a political solution to the conflict, UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has invited regime and opposition delegations to Geneva for fresh talks.

But while the opposition agreed to travel to Geneva after days of delays, it has so far refused to engage in indirect talks with the government.

It is demanding that UN Security Council resolutions on ending sieges and protecting civilians be implemented first.

On Sunday, the UN envoy held informal talks with the main opposition delegation, saying afterwards that he remained "optimistic and determined".

The Damascus delegation's chief negotiator, Syria's UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari, accused the opposition of being "not serious" about the talks.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Jakarta attack highlights jostle to lead ISIS in SE Asia

JAKARTA -- Last week's attack on Jakarta showed for the first time that Islamic State violence has arrived in Indonesia, but security experts believe the radical group's footprint is still light here because militants are jostling to be its regional leader.

Police have identified Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian based in Syria, as the mastermind of the blitz of bombings and gunfire that left all five attackers and two civilians dead on Thursday.

But perhaps the region's most influential jihadi is a jailed cleric, Aman Abdurrahman, who with just a few couriers and cell phones is able to command around 200 followers from behind bars.

He sits at the head of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, an umbrella organization formed last year through an alliance of splinter groups that security experts believe could become the unifying force for Islamic State supporters.

"They want to internalize the conflicts in Indonesia so they can bring more people from the outside," said Rakyan Adibrata, a Jakarta-based terrorism expert who advises parliament, referring to the militants who have joined forces under one banner.

"Just like Syria, you need to create a conflict zone very big that can be a magnet for all jihadi to come across the world to Indonesia to wage war. That's their main objective."

Police believe that Naim, himself an Abdurrahman supporter, was trying to prove his leadership skills to Islamic State's leaders in Syria by plotting the Jakarta attack.

"In order to get the credit from ISIS, he needs to prove his leadership capabilities," Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian said, using a common acronym for the Syria-based group.

He said Naim's vision was to unite the now-splintered groups across Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, that support Islamic State.

Regional unity in doubt

Islamic State, which controls tracts of Syria and Iraq, has accepted allegiances from jihadists in Nigeria, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, but has yet to formally recognize any radical groups in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia-based Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) was the last transnational group to successfully launch major attacks in the region, including the 2002 bombings on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people.

JI, founded by Indonesian and Malaysian militants who returned from battling the Soviet Union in the Afghan jihad of the 1980s and early 1990s, has largely become defunct due to internal rivalries and a sustained crackdown by security forces.

Governments in the region fear that Malay-speaking militants returning from fighting for Islamic State in Syria and Iraq could form a JI-like regional organisation.

But security experts doubt there is much chance of a pan-regional group emerging that would bring militants from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines under one banner because there is too much that divides them.

"At this point, it's hard to imagine any Southeast Asia affiliate would be formed," said a senior Philippines army counter-terrorism official, noting that militants in his country are mostly interested in raising money from kidnappings.

"And one big obstacle to clear now is finding an amir that all of them can agree on," added the official, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

In Malaysia, former university lecturer Mahmud Ahmad is believed to be behind recent attempts to unite militant groups from three Southeast Asian countries, including the Abu Sayyaf group based in southern islands of the Philippines.

Abdurrahman remains perhaps the weightiest contender for leadership of Islamic State in the region.

While serving a 9-year prison term for aiding a militant training camp in Indonesia, he has managed to encourage hundreds of Indonesians to join the fight in Syria and Iraq.

"They can run the organisation from the inside," said terrorism expert Adibrata. "Couriers bring cell phones and they record every word Abdurrahman says."

Prison authorities have tried repeatedly to silence Abdurrahman.

According to the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, 10 phones were confiscated from his cell in September 2014, but just a month later he got hold of a new phone and his sermons to followers inside and outside the prison resumed.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Fingerprints from Paris bomber match man registered in Greece - prosecutor

PARIS - Fingerprints from one of the suicide bombers behind the attacks at the Stade de France in Paris matched the prints of a man registered in Greece in October, a French prosecutor said on Monday.

"At this stage, while the authenticity of a passport in the name of Ahmad al Mohammad, born Sept. 10 1990 in Idlib, Syria needs to be verified, there are similarities between the fingerprints of the suicide bomber and those taken during a control in Greece in October," the Paris prosecutor said in a statement.

The prosecutor also said a second bomber at the Bataclan concert hall had now been identified. The prosecutor named him as 28-year old Samy Ammour from Drancy, north of Paris and said he was known to counter-terrorism units after being placed under investigation and judicial control for attempting to go to Yemen.

He disappeared in the autumn of 2013 and an international arrest warrant was issued for him.

"Five of the terrorists killed have now been identified," prosecutor added.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Global markets brace for short-term hit after Paris attacks

SYDNEY/TOKYO -- Global stocks are set for a short-term sell-off on Monday after Islamist militants launched coordinated attacks across Paris that killed 129 people, but analysts said a prolonged economic impact or market reaction was unlikely.

President Francois Hollande has declared a state of emergency, ordering police and troops into the streets, and set three days of official mourning after the attacks he called an "act of war" by Islamic State.

The carnage prompted condemnation by world leaders and outpourings of support for Parisians from around the globe, but would likely have only a knee-jerk impact on investment decisions, said Shane Oliver, chief economist at Australia's AMP Capital in Sydney.

"History will tell us that if the economic impact is limited - and I think it will be - that markets will quickly recover and go on to focus on other things," Oliver, who is also head of strategy at the $111-billion wealth management firm.

While news of the attacks hit after markets closed on Friday, S&P 500 Index futures were still trading and shed about 1 percent in light volume.

"If this had happened during market trading hours there could have been a panic but markets had a weekend to digest all the information," said Eiji Kinouchi, chief technical analyst at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.

With Wall Street closing more than 1 percent lower after weak U.S. retail sales figures, Asian and European share markets would have been expected to fall even without the Paris attacks

French stocks, particularly those exposed to the country's large tourism sector, are likely to suffer the biggest falls.

France has the largest number of tourists in the world and the sector accounts for almost 7.5 percent of GDP.

"These Paris terrorist attacks and the larger scale of this attack could have a meaningful negative impact on the travel and tourism sector," said Robert T. Lutts, president and chief investment officer at Cabot Wealth Management in Salem, Massachusetts.

"It is possible this could cause investors to take a bit more cautious stance on the higher risk sectors of the markets."

Europe has suffered similar coordinated attacks on public transport systems previously, in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. Almost 250 people were killed and more than 2,500 injured in those bombings on trains and buses by Al Qaeda-inspired militants.

"The knee-jerk reaction in other terrorist attacks over the last decade has been a rush to safety, including aggressive buying in the U.S. Treasury markets," said Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia.

"I sincerely hope these attacks will prove short in duration and will abate in intensity, in which case the market reaction will likely only include a brief safety bid in Treasuries."

U.S. 10-year Treasuries notes yielded 2.273 percent at Friday's close. The euro ended the week little changed at $1.0777, and is down 11 percent this year against a resurgent greenback.

French financial markets will be open as usual on Monday, stock and derivatives exchange Euronext said on Saturday.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Islamic State figures killed in air strike

BAGHDAD - Eight senior figures from Islamic State were killed in an air strike while meeting in a town in western Iraq, but the group's reclusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi did not appear to be among them, residents of the town and hospital sources said.

Iraq said on Sunday its air force had hit the meeting and had also struck a convoy that was carrying Baghdadi to attend it. It said Baghdadi had been driven away from the convoy in an unknown condition.The Iraqi military's announcement was the latest unconfirmed report of the possible death or injury of Baghdadi, who has survived a year of U.S.-led air strikes and multi-sided wars in two countries since proclaiming himself caliph of all Muslims after his forces swept through most of northern Iraq last year.

A Twitter site which publishes statements from Islamic State said "rumors" that an air strike had targeted Baghdadi were false.

A U.S. military official in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States has not seen any indications Baghdadi was killed or injured during the operation.

"Iraqi air forces have bombed the convoy of the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi while he was heading to Karabla to attend a meeting with Daesh commanders," the Iraqi military said in a statement.

Daesh is the Arabic acronym for Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Karabla is a town in Iraq's Anbar province near the Syrian border, an Islamic State stronghold, not to be confused with Kerbala, a Shi'ite holy city in the south.

"The location of the meeting was also bombed and many of the group's leaders were killed and wounded. The fate of murderer al-Baghdadi is unknown and he was carried away by a vehicle. His health condition is still unclear," the military said.

Hospital sources and residents said airstrikes hit two houses and killed eight senior local leaders of an Islamic State police force in the town.

Islamic State supporters said on Twitter that even if Baghdadi had been killed, his self-proclaimed caliphate straddling large areas of Iraq and Syria would survive.

"Do you think we would leave the State of the caliphate and abandon it, oh vile world?," asked one of his followers. "This is the religion of God, it rose on the skulls of heroes and martyrs and every time one of them is martyred we rise."

Baghdadi has galvanized militants from around the world, encouraged by his military successes and plans to redraw the map of the Middle East to create a self-sustaining caliphate.

His successes prompted the United States to re-engage in Iraq with air strikes against his fighters three years after pulling out following a long, costly occupation.

Russia, which has launched a bombing campaign to aid its Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad, says its main enemy is Islamic State as well.

An Islamic State fighter reached by telephone could not confirm whether Baghdadi had been in a convoy that was struck, but said the group would fight on whatever his fate: "Even if he was martyred then it will not affect Islamic State. We will lose a leader but there are a thousand Baghdadis."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Jordanian king vows war on Islamic State's own ground

AMMAN - Jordan's King Abdullah vowed a "relentless" war against Islamic State on their own territory on Wednesday in response to a video published by the hard-line group showing a captured Jordanian air force pilot being burned alive in a cage.

Jordan hanged two Iraqi jihadists, one a woman, on Wednesday and vowed to intensify military action against Islamic State.

"We are waging this war to protect our faith, our values and human principles and our war for their sake will be relentless and will hit them in their own ground," state television quoted the king as saying during a security meeting.

U.S. officials said on Wednesday that the United Arab Emirates had withdrawn from flying air strikes in the U.S.-led coalition campaign against Islamic State after the Jordanian pilot's plane went down over Syria in December.

Jordan, which is part of the U.S.-led alliance, had promised an "earth-shaking response" to the killing of its pilot, Mouath al-Kasaesbeh, who was captured after his F-16 crashed.

Government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said on Wednesday: "We are talking about a collaborative effort between coalition members to intensify efforts to stop extremism and terrorism to undermine, degrade and eventually finish Daesh." Daesh is used as a derogatory Arabic term for Islamic State.

He said it was a continuation of Jordan's long standing policy in fighting hard-line Islamist militants and that King Abdullah, who cut short a trip to the United States, headed a meeting with senior security officials on Wednesday.

"All the state's military and security agencies are developing their options. Jordan's response will be heard by the world at large but this response on the security and military level will be announced at the appropriate time," Momani said.

Islamic State had demanded the release of Sajida al-Rishawi in exchange for a Japanese hostage whom it later beheaded. Sentenced to death for her role in a 2005 suicide bomb attack in Amman, Rishawi was executed at dawn.

Jordan also executed a senior al Qaeda prisoner, Ziyad Karboli, an Iraqi man who was sentenced to death in 2008.

The Jordanian pilot was the first from the coalition known to have been captured and killed by Islamic State.

Jordan is a major U.S. ally in the fight against hardline Islamist groups and hosted U.S. troops during operations that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It is home to hundreds of U.S. military trainers bolstering defences at the Syrian and Iraqi borders, and is determined to keep the jihadists in Syria away from its frontier.

CALLS FOR REVENGE

The fate of Kasaesbeh, a member of a large tribe that forms the backbone of support for the country's Hashemite monarchy, has gripped Jordan for weeks.

Some Jordanians had criticised the king for embroiling them in the U.S.-led war that they said would provoke a militant backlash but the pilot's killing produced a wave of outrage and calls for revenge.

Jordan's authorities have not commented on how many missions the air force has carried out against Islamic State.

In a televised statement to the nation, the king urged national unity and said the killing was a cowardly act of terror by a criminal group that has no relation to Islam.

Muslim clerics across the Middle East, even those sympathetic to the jihadist cause, also expressed outrage, saying such a form of killing was considered despicable by Islam.

President Barack Obama's nominee for defense secretary Ashton Carter on Wednesday vowed to understand and resolve reported delays in U.S. arms sales to Jordan.

Obama has sought to attract a broad coalition, drawing on as many regional countries as possible, to avoid the appearance that the campaign is just an endeavour involving Western powers.

The U.S. officials who said the UAE had withdrawn from the air campaign spoke on condition of anonymity. "I can confirm that UAE suspended air strikes shortly after the Jordanian pilot's plane went down, but let me be clear that UAE continues to be an important and valuable partner that is contributing to the coalition," one official said.

There was widespread shock and anger across Jordan at the brutality of the pilot's killing, which drew international condemnation.

The European Union combined a statement of solidarity with Jordan over the killing of the pilots with criticism of its immediate execution of two Iraqi jihadists.

Kasaesbeh's father said the two executions were not enough and urged the government to do more to avenge his death.

"I want the state to get revenge for my son's blood through more executions of those people who follow this criminal group that shares nothing with Islam," Safi al-Kasaesbeh told Reuters.

Islamic State has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria, Jordan's neighbours to the north and east.

In the pilot's home village of Ay, mourners said Jordanians must rally around the state. "Today we put our differences behind us and rally behind the king and nation," said Jabar Sarayrah, a shopkeeper.

DAWN EXECUTION
The prisoners were executed in Swaqa prison, 70 km (45 miles) south of Amman, just before dawn, a security source who was familiar with the case said. "They were both calm and showed no emotions and just prayed," he added without elaborating.

Rishawi, in her mid-forties, was part of an al Qaeda network that targeted three Amman hotels in suicide bombings in 2005. She was meant to die in one of the attacks - the worst in Jordan's history - but her suicide bomb belt did not go off.

Only two other prisoners are on death row in Jordan - Mohammad Hassan al Sahli, a Syrian who was convicted of plotting and executing a rocket attack in August 2005 against a U.S. navy vessel and the Israeli port city of Eilat, and Jordanian Muamar Jaghbeer, a leading al Qaeda operative.

There are at least 250 Islamist militants in prison, almost half of them were arrested in the past year and are Islamic State sympathisers.

Jordan said on Tuesday the pilot had been killed a month ago. The government had been picking up intelligence for weeks that the pilot was killed some time ago, a source close to the government said.

"The horror of the killing, the method of killing is probably going to generate more short-term support for the state," said a Western diplomat. "But once that horror dies down, inevitably some of the questions revert on Jordan's role in the coalition."

The Syrian government condemned the killing and urged Jordan to cooperate with it in a fight against Islamic State and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in Syria. The United States has ruled out Syria as a partner in the campaign against Islamic State, describing President Bashar al-Assad as part of the problem.

The executed woman came from Iraq's Anbar province bordering Jordan. Her tribal Iraqi relatives were close aides of the slain Jordanian leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, from whose group Islamic State emerged.

Islamic State had demanded her release in exchange for the life of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto. However, Goto was beheaded by the group, video released last Saturday showed.

Jordan had insisted that they would only release the woman as part of a deal to free the pilot.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Solidarity for Australian Muslims after Sydney siege

SYDNEY, Australia - One of the bouquets left on Tuesday in a sea of flowers at the site of the Sydney siege read "I will ride with you." It was as much a wholehearted message to Australia's Muslim community as to the incident's victims.

Those words are the theme of a Twitter campaign of solidarity, offering to accompany any Muslims who fear venturing onto public transport at this time, in case of a public backlash after Monday's deadly cafe siege by an Iranian-born extremist.

The campaign has raised hopes that Australia, a nation forged by waves of immigration down the decades, will be drawn together by the tragedy and not torn apart.

Mirella Rigo, overcome with emotion, rushed through the crowd of people paying their respects on Tuesday morning to embrace a Muslim woman at a makeshift memorial near the Lindt cafe in downtown Sydney's Martin Place.

"It's heartfelt," she said. "I feel for these people. I think to make them see they are not responsible for this."

Mariam Veiszadeh, from the Islamophobia Register which collates reports of anti-Muslim sentiment, told AFP she had been touched by the reaction from ordinary Australians.

"The tragedy that unfolded in Sydney yesterday has really brought Australians together -- irrespective of our backgrounds, religious or racial identities," she said after placing flowers at the Martin Place memorial.

"And I'm really hoping that we take this feeling throughout the rest of the week."

The 490,000-strong Muslim community has been battling the emergence of Islamic State this year and its growing impact on disenchanted youth, who have been targeted in sophisticated social media drives to radicalise them.

Some have succumbed and fled to Syria and Iraq while more than 70 others have had their passports confiscated, sparking fears over possible attacks on Australian soil, with IS leaders calling online for public beheadings or executions.

After counter-terror raids in September, there was a backlash that saw several mosques vandalised. Anxious to contain any damage from Monday's tragedy, more than 40 Muslim groups quickly issued a statement decrying extremists "who seek to destroy the goodwill of the people of Australia".

- 'A sick individual' -

The hostage-taker was widely identified as a self-styled Islamic cleric called Man Haron Monis. He had displayed an Arabic flag during the siege, and was killed along with two of his 17 hostages as police stormed the cafe early on Tuesday.

Officials said he had no clear links to Islamic State or other jihadist groups, but was rather a mentally unstable man with extremist views and a history of violence.

Australia's race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said he was heartened by the Twitter campaign, adding: "Let's not allow fear, hatred and division to triumph."

The mood was set by the Twitter hashtag #illridewithyou, which Tessa Kum tweeted on Monday to counter concern about an anti-Muslim backlash. Tens of thousands have tweeted their support.

Kum said she had been inspired by another commuter.

"She'd done a very simple thing -- she had seen a distressed Muslim woman on a train take off her hijab and had approached that woman at the train station and simply said, "Put it back on, I'll walk with you". That broke my heart a little bit," Kum told ABC radio.

So far, there has been little public criticism of Muslims although the Queensland president of the anti-immigration One Nation party took aim at Islam.

"Already the Islam apologetics on national TV are trying to suck up to Muslims and are telling us this is just a lone gunman, a 'lone wolf' and nothing to do with Islam," Jim Savage told reporters.

Neil Fergus, chief executive of risk consultancy Intelligent Risks, who has been working with the Muslim community, said that of all the Muslims in Australia, an estimated 250 or fewer were considered a concern by authorities.

"The Muslim community has pulled together in a remarkable way and people are expressing sympathy," he told AFP.

"He (Monis) was clearly a risk to the community, but not because he had direct links with Islamic State. He was a sick individual."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com