The preacher, apparently about 9 or 10 years old, is identified as Abu Jafar.
His message: “Make haste and purchase your place in paradise, my dear brother. Go to the battlefields of jihad and kill the enemies. Kill [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad and the enemies of Allah and of our religion. Destroy them, and if you die, you will become a martyr.â€
ISIS now has camped in Pakistan and all across Pakistan, the black standard of the Islamic State has been popping up all over from urban slums to Taliban strongholds, the ISIS logo and name have appeared in graffiti, posters and pamphlets and a cluster of militant commanders in Pakistan declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the Islamic State as ISIS presence there increases by the day. But the one trillion dollar question is will the world leaders secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of ISIS? It doesn’t look like it and the prospects of ISIS gaining nuclear bombs are very likely as the news from Pakistan reveals.
Nuclear talks with Iran have failed to yield an agreement, but the deadline for a deal has been extended without a hitch. What would have been a significant crisis a year ago, replete with threats and anxiety, has been handled without drama or difficulty. This new response to yet another failure to reach an accord marks a shift in the relationship between the United States and Iran, a shift that can’t be understood without first considering the massive geopolitical shifts that have taken place in the Middle East, redefining the urgency of the nuclear issue.
These shifts are rooted in the emergence of the Islamic State. Ideologically, there is little difference between the Islamic State and other radical Islamic jihadist movements. But in terms of geographical presence, the Islamic State has set itself apart from the rest. While al Qaeda might have longed to take control of a significant nation-state, it primarily remained a sparse, if widespread, terrorist organization. It held no significant territory permanently; it was a movement, not a place. But the Islamic State, as its name suggests, is different. It sees itself as the kernel from which a transnational Islamic state should grow, and it has established itself in Syria and Iraq as a geographical entity. The group controls a roughly defined region in the two countries, and it has something of a conventional military, designed to defend and expand the state’s control. Thus far, whatever advances and reversals it has seen, the Islamic State has retained this character. While the group certainly funnels a substantial portion of its power into dispersed guerrilla formations and retains a significant regional terrorist apparatus, it remains something rather new for the region — an Islamist movement acting as a regional state.
It is unclear whether the Islamic State can survive. It is under attack by American aircraft, and the United States is attempting to create a coalition force that will attack and conquer it. It is also unclear whether the group can expand. The Islamic State appears to have reached its limits in Kurdistan, and the Iraqi army (which was badly defeated in the first stage of the Islamic State’s emergence) is showing some signs of being able to launch counteroffensives. Read the rest of this entry »
Clark agreed that any Android-based password manager that uses the OS clipboard is susceptible. He strongly recommends that people stop using any app setup that works this way. Many apps use standalone browsers, browser extensions, or software keyboards to enter credentials into login fields. There is no evidence they are susceptible to sniffing. The reason ClipCaster takes special aim at LastPass, Clark said, is simple. It just happened to be the manager he installed on his phone. There are no reports that password managers running on iOS or Windows Phone are vulnerable. But there can be way to know for sure, since Ars is unaware of the any comprehensive study testing the security of managers on those platforms.
The EFF gives a rundown of the bill and why it is important:
The USA Freedom Act is a bill that was first proposedlast year by Senator Patrick Leahy and Representative Jim Sensenbrenner. The original version of the bill limited the NSA’s call records collection program, introduced aspecial advocate into the secretive court overseeing the spying, mandated much needed transparency requirements, and included significant reform of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FISAA), the law used to collect Americans’ communications in bulk.
Today, we are excited to announce a new strategic initiative at Mozilla called Polaris. Polaris is a privacy initiative built to pull together our own privacy efforts along with other privacy leaders in the industry. Polaris is designed to allow us to collaborate more effectively, more explicitly and more directly to bring more privacy features into our products. We want to accelerate pragmatic and user-focused advances in privacy technology for the Web, giving users more control, awareness and protection in their Web experiences. We want to advance the state of the art in privacy features, with a specific focus on bringing them to more mainstream audiences.
A Ukrainian soldier carries grenade launchers brought by a supply convoy. The delivery sparked a shootout with pro-Russia separatists. (Sergei Loiko / Los Angeles Times)
Only three floors remain in the blackened skeleton of the seven-story, glass-walled airport terminal, opened with a burst of national pride two years ago for the Euro 2012 soccer championship.
Ukrainian commandos control two of them: the ground and second floors.
The pro-Russia separatists they’re fighting have infiltrated the third floor despite entrances barricaded with debris and booby traps. The separatists have also found a way into the basement, with its system of narrow passageways leading beyond the airport grounds.
“It would not be a stretch to say that the United States is actually a greater threat to peace and stability in the region than ISIS…But perhaps more disturbingly, many of the same behaviors condemned by the Obama administration and used to justify its most recent campaign into Iraq and Syria are commonly perpetrated by U.S. troops and are ubiquitous in the broader American society.â€
“As a former U.S. Naval officer, I was disgusted by his revolting comparison of the barbaric and inhuman sexual violence perpetrated by ISIS to the behaviors he deceptively insinuates are committed by our sons and daughters in uniform,†Jasser told the Clarion Project.
This is what happens when you give the government power over you. Police officers like this disgrace the profession. Police are there to serve the citizens. The citizens are not the enemy.
P.S. Note to cops everywhere: Act as though you are being filmed, because you are.
Update:Â The officer has been arrested, resigned and is now facing assault charges.
“I am a United States Army General, and I lost the Global War on Terrorism.”
Those are the frank opening words of a new book by retired Army Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger, Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Bolger continues:
Two Libyan soldiers who were being trained in the UK behaved like a ‘pack preying on women’ as they stalked them in the dark to sexually assault them, a court has heard.
The court heard how the soldiers – who all appeared in court wearing tracksuits – are based at Bassingbourn Barracks some 14 miles outside Cambridge.
Prosecutor Paul Brown told the court: ‘The most serious aspect of it it there are males targeting females under the cover of darkness.
The worst part about this is the entire thing, from A to Z, is the fault of the British government. The government brought those men in to the country and allowed for this possibility. That alone is bad enough, but the government also prevented those women from defending themselves by not allowing the possession of firearms. The entire situation is terrible but it is a good thing the women still have their lives, no thanks to the British government.
Ares CEO is suing the San Diego Sheriff’s Department because he was banned from their Facebook page.
Facebook and the 1st Amendment: When a government entity exerts dominion over a particular space
and then designates that particular space as a public forum they cannot arbitrarily violate people’s right
to free speech in that space.
Facebook is a private entity and therefore they can arbitrarily censor if they so choose.
An individual user of Facebook is a private person and can arbitrarily censor their own page if
they so choose.
A government entity that uses tax dollars to set up and maintain a Facebook page as a
designated public forum cannot use more tax dollars to then violate the 1st amendment rights of
speakers in that designated public forum through arbitrary censorship.
The formation of the Arctic military command is part of Russia’s ongoing extensive program to build up military presence in the Arctic. Last March, President Vladimir Putin said that the armed forces’ training and development efforts should incorporate measures to increase the combat component of the Arctic group. The Defense Ministry has since made several steps along these lines.
The minister told a session of the Defense Ministry’s Public Council that restoration of airfields was launched recently at the Novosibirsk Islands and on Franz Josef Land, airfields were being reconstructed in Tiksi, Naryan-Mar, Alykel, Vorkuta, Anadyr and Rogachevo, to defend national interests in the region.
The 10-employee company based in Capitola, California, said it was deploying the technology on a trial basis. The first takers have been the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department in California and the Carrollton Police Department in Texas.
“By connecting the firearm to the cloud, we give departments a technology that enhances officer safety, improves operational efficiency, and builds community trust,” Jim Schaff, a Yardarm vice president, said.