Category Archives: United States

Iraq, Islamic State, Syria, Terrorism, United States

‘Significant airstrikes’ carried out by the US-led coalition on Daesh…

ISLAMIC STATE

One of the most sustained air operations carried out to date against the group Islamic State (IS) has been carried out by the US-led coalition.

The United States, using the Arabic acronym Daesh for the IS group, have said ‘significant airstrikes’ were carried out overnight, executed to deny Daesh the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq.

The joint-command statement issued yesterday detailed a total of 38 airstrikes on targets belonging to IS in Syria and in Iraq. Tactical units and vehicles had been hit and sixteen bridges were destroyed in the IS stronghold of Raqqa, as well as Hasaka and Kobani, according to the statement.

Raqqa has become the centre of the IS control of territory which extends across both Iraq and Syria.

This is one of the largest deliberate engagements that the US has conducted in Syria, and the US military believes it will have serious debilitating effects on Daesh’s ability to move from Raqqa.

There were twelve strikes on IS targets near eight cities in Iraq. A statement from Iraq’s Defence Ministry has said government forces repelled an IS attack yesterday morning on the town of Haditha and the nearby Haditha dam in Anbar province. It claimed 20 militants were killed in the attack.

Last month IS lost control of the border town of Tal Abyad to Kurdish fighters. The Turkish border town was a major conduit for the group to smuggle in supplies.

The Turkish newspaper Hürriyet has reported that the Turkish army had called a meeting for next week of the commanders of the 54,000 soldiers deployed along the Syrian border.

Turkey is believed to have increased its military defences on the volatile border in the last week as fighting in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo has intensified. The build-up has fed speculation that Ankara is planning to intervene in Syria to push back IS and halt Kurdish forces, which have made gains against IS in the area.

Standard
European Union, Government, National Security, NATO, Politics, Russia, United States

The Pentagon says Putin is ‘Playing with fire’ over nuclear threats…

NUCLEAR THREATS

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, addresses his military.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, addresses his military.

A senior Pentagon official has warned that Russia is ‘playing with fire’ when it suggested that it could use nuclear weapons to settle international disputes, and accused Moscow and Vladimir Putin of trying to intimidate NATO through such threats.

‘Anyone who thinks they can control escalation through the use of nuclear weapons is literally playing with fire,’ U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defence Robert Work told a House Armed Services subcommittee. ‘Escalation is escalation, and nuclear use would be the ultimate escalation.’

While Moscow has not issued any direct nuclear threats, Kremlin officials have made several references to their nuclear arsenal and announced the construction of 40 new nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, a move that Washington has denounced as ‘sabre-rattling.’

Leaked documents from a meeting between U.S. and Russian officials revealed that Russian officials discussed a ‘spectrum of responses from nuclear to non-military’ if NATO went ahead with its plans to enhance its military presence in the Baltic States.

Russia has also threatened several Baltic nations that they would be considered potential nuclear targets if they joined NATO’s missile defence program. In March, the Russian ambassador to Denmark warned that ‘Danish warships would be targets for Russia’s nuclear weapons,’ if the country joined the military alliance.

The Baltic States have seen a growing number of incursions and flyovers from Russian bombers and ships. Russian planes were intercepted over the Baltic Sea 10 times in the last week alone.

Mr Putin, in a March documentary on the annexation of Crimea, said he was prepared to place Russia’s nuclear forces on alert.

Moscow’s recent military overtures were also condemned by the US: ‘Senior Russian officials continue to make irresponsible statements regarding its nuclear forces, and we assess that they are doing it to intimidate our allies and us,’ Mr Work said. ‘These have failed. If anything, they have really strengthened the NATO alliance solidarity.’

The statement from Russia comes shortly after NATO announced a major escalation of its own military presence in Eastern Europe, which would see thousands of vehicles and troops deployed across Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland.

 

 

Standard
France, Government, Intelligence, National Security, Society, Terrorism, United States

Intelligence services in France gain new laws to eavesdrop…

FRANCE

The National Assembly in France has passed a new law allowing intelligence services to more freely eavesdrop.

The National Assembly in France has passed a new law allowing intelligence services to more freely eavesdrop.

The French parliament has passed a law which will provide state intelligence services with more freedom to eavesdrop. The controversial decree aims to target suspected terrorists.

The law, which was voted on by a simple show of hands from deputies in France’s National Assembly waivers the need for judicial warrants to use an array of spying devices including cameras, phone taps and hidden microphones.

Under the new legislation, French security officials will be able to place clandestine devices in suspects’ homes and beacons on their cars without prior authorisation from a judge.

Communication and Internet firms will also be forced to allow intelligence services to install electronic boxes to record metadata from all Internet users in France. The controversial law has been met with protests from privacy advocates and concern about US-style massive data sweeps. The United States passed a similar law in the form of the US Patriot Act following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

France’s ruling socialist government rushed through the bill earlier this year, shortly after the Islamist militant attacks in Paris, in which 17 people were killed over three days.

Despite the vote in France, the law won’t take effect, however, until a court rules on whether it abides by France’s constitution.

The news of the decree came as France reacted with outrage to revelations from transparency lobby group WikiLeaks that the US National Security Agency had eavesdropped on France’s three most recent presidents – Francois Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac.

Speaking on French television channel TF1, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange urged France’s leading politicians to launch a ‘parliamentary inquiry’ into the foreign surveillance activity. The anti-secrecy campaigner also said that other important revelations were in the pipeline: ‘I think from a policy perspective, what is to come is much more significant than what we have published so far,’ Assange said.

Standard