The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) does not pose the biggest threat to the U.S., according to a former leader of the CIA. It isn’t even in the top three. “Despite that significant threat from ISIS, it is not the most significant threat to the homeland today,” former CIA deputy and acting Director […]

Almost three years ago the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the U.S. Dept of Defense accurately characterized the conflict in Syria and predicted the emergence of the Islamic State. This stunning revelation has emerged as a result of a Freedom of Information Act law suit filed by Judicial Watch in connection with the House Select […]

A year ago this month, fighters from the self-proclaimed Islamic State declared they had established a caliphate in the territories they controlled in Iraq and Syria. Since then, the Islamic State has continued to grow, building affiliates from Afghanistan to West Africa while recruiting new members from across the globe. In response, President Obama has […]

CONFRONTING THE ‘CALIPHATE’ | This is part of an occasional series about the rise of the Islamic State militant group, its implications for the Middle East, and efforts by the U.S. government and others to undermine it. Hear from the man responsible for one of the most controversial counter-messaging videos produced by the U.S. State […]

A former intelligence officer for the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was the mastermind behind Islamic State’s takeover of northern Syria, according to a report by Der Spiegel that is based on documents uncovered by the German magazine. Spiegel, in a lengthy story published at the weekend and entitled “Secret Files Reveal the Structure of […]

Der Spitzel-Führer des “Islamischen Staates” Er entwarf den Masterplan zur Machtübernahme in Syrien, baute ein Spitzelnetz auf, installierte den selbst ernannten Kalifen: Haji Bakr war der wichtigste IS-Stratege, die Religion nutzte er nur als Mittel zum Zweck. Der SPIEGEL hat seine Geheimdokumente ausgewertet. Die meisten kannten ihn als den Mann mit dem weißen Bart, manche […]

In ‘De jihadistische angstvisioenen van de NCTV (II internationaal)’ een grove analyse van de internationale berichtgeving van de NCTV over de afgelopen tien jaar. Hier per jaar een grove analyse, een vogelvlucht, of om in de terroristische terminologie te blijven een drone vlucht. Alles wordt slechts aangestipt omdat het ondoenlijk is om op alle arrestaties […]

De Nationaal Coördinator Terrorisme en Veiligheid (NCTV) is allang niet meer alert, maar uitermate paranoia, levend in een waan die de veiligheid in gevaar brengt. MH-17 is daar het voorbeeld van. Dreigingsbeelden Terrorisme Nederland (DTN) worden gekenmerkt door een hitserigheid van een blogtekst of tweet zonder duidelijke bronvermelding en achtergrond. Het lijkt veel weg te […]

Imam Elhadji Sekou Ba was one of the few people in his village of Barkerou who dared to speak out against the rise of Islamist militants in central Mali, denouncing in his sermons the young men taking up arms in the name of religion. Last Thursday, shortly after dinner, he was gunned down on his […]

Despite treaty, Tuareg and Arab rebels say that while they are denied territorial separation, the war will continue. Mali, Foyta – Hammy Ag Ehya was a veteran soldier in the Malian army. But now he’s a rebel fighter who says he regrets only the 20 years he wasted defending Mali. Around a campfire in the […]

The Iranian-Saudi Proxy Wars Come to Mali In schools, mosques, and cultural centers, Shiites and Sunnis are battling for African hearts and minds. BAMAKO, Mali — In a country where two-thirds of the adults are illiterate, it is a privileged few who have the chance to study at the Mustafa International School. Located in the […]

France, Mali’s former colonial ruler, is going back to its old colonial ways, writes Kane. As representatives of the Malian government and various rebel groups meet in Algiers for peace talks, violence in northern Mali continues and so does the French military presence.France launched its military intervention in Mali in January 2013 with the mandate […]

The USA, Germany, and other European Union countries’ continuing ‘blind-spot’ to endemic torture in Uzbekistan ensures that appalling abuses will continue unabated, said Amnesty International in a new report published today. The report, Secrets and Lies: Forced confessions under torture in Uzbekistan, reveals how rampant torture and other ill-treatment plays a “central role” in the […]

Four men broke into Yusuf’s apartment in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent in July 2009 and started beating him, before putting him in handcuffs and taking him to the local police station. Yusuf says this was not the first time he was attacked and detained, but on this occasion he was questioned by officers for […]

UN peacekeepers guilty of sex crimes have long been treated with impunity, cementing a long-standing problem. The organisation must get its house in order Appalled by horrific descriptions of sexual abuse by UN peacekeeping forces, the organisation’s secretary general spoke passionately about the need to stop such crimes in its ranks. “We cannot rest,” he […]

Three more accusations levelled against peacekeepers in CAR a week after Ban Ki-Moon asked UN head of mission to resign. UN peacekeepers earlier had been accused of sexually abusing children in Bangui and in the eastern part of the country [AP] Three young females, including a minor, have accused United Nations peacekeepers of raping them […]

The United Nations’ (UN’s) troubled peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic has been hit with new allegations of rape by peacekeepers, including one underage victim, a UN spokesperson said on Wednesday. Last week the head of the Central African Republic (CAR) mission, known as MINUSCA, was sacked after a series of allegations of sexual abuse […]

TERRORISM is increasing. According to the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland, groups connected with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State committed close to 200 attacks per year between 2007 and 2010, a number that grew by more than 200 percent, to about 600 attacks, in 2013. Since 9/11, the study of terrorism […]

Medewerkers van de Vrije Universiteit en het NSCR hebben in samenwerking met het Openbaar Ministerie ruim 2.000 personen geënquêteerd voor een onderzoek naar cybercriminaliteit. De respondenten is niet verteld dat zij benaderd zijn omdat zij als veroordeelden of verdachten te boek staan. In juni dit jaar zijn allerlei mensen benaderd voor een onderzoek van de […]

A new report disclosed by James Risen of the New York Times on Friday tells in greater detail than ever before the story of how members of the American Psychological Association colluded with the CIA when it came to the application of brutal interrogation techniques. The report describes how repeated expressions of concern from within […]

American Psychological Association framed the departures of its chief executive officer, deputy CEO and communications chief as ‘retirements’ and resignations The torture scandal consuming the US’s premiere professional association of psychologists has cost three senior officials their jobs, part of a reckoning that reformers hope will lead to criminal prosecutions. US torture doctors could face […]

Robert Jay Lifton, the prominent psychiatrist famous for his study of the doctors who aided Nazi war crimes, speaks out on the role of the American Psychological Association in aiding government-sanctioned torture under President George W. Bush. A new report alleges the APA, the world’s largest group of psychologists, secretly coordinated with government officials to […]

WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency’s health professionals repeatedly criticized the agency’s post-Sept. 11 interrogation program, but their protests were rebuffed by prominent outside psychologists who lent credibility to the program, according to a new report. The 542-page report, which examines the involvement of the nation’s psychologists and their largest professional organization, the American Psychological […]

New details have emerged on how the American Psychological Association, the world’s largest group of psychologists, aided government-sanctioned torture under President George W. Bush. A group of dissident psychologists have just published a 60-page report alleging the APA secretly coordinated with officials from the CIA, White House and the Pentagon to change the APA ethics […]

Newly disclosed emails reveal American Psychological Association coordinated with officials in CIA and White House to help ethically justify detainee program The leading American professional group for psychologists secretly worked with the Bush administration to help justify the post-9/11 US detainee torture program, according to a watchdog analysis released on Thursday. The report, written by […]

Diego Garcia has been mythologized by American pop culture. Its true story is stranger (and bleaker) than fiction “24’s” phony history exposed: The dark history of a CIA “black site” This piece originally appeared on TomDispatch. First, they tried to shoot the dogs. Next, they tried to poison them with strychnine. When both failed as […]

The UK Foreign Office (FCO) has further delayed publication of flight records for Diego Garcia, following disclosures by a senior Bush administration official that interrogations took place at a CIA black site on the British island. FCO officials are “still assessing the suitability of the full flight records for publication”, nine months after they were […]

Lawrence Wilkerson is the latest of a number of US officials to say British territory was used in CIA rendition programme The UK government is facing renewed pressure to make a full disclosure of its involvement in the CIA’s post-9/11 kidnap and torture programme after another leading Bush-era US official said suspects were held and […]

Yonas Fikre, who attends a mosque where at least nine of its members have been barred from flying, says the US no-fly list is being used to intimidate American Muslims into spying on behalf of US authorities When Yonas Fikre stepped off a luxury private jet at Portland airport last month, the only passenger on […]

EXCLUSIVE: Yonas Fikre believes the US government played a role in his hellish three-month detention in the United Arab Emirates. UPDATE: Fikre’s lawyers have written a letter to the Justice Department about his allegations and released a video of him talking about his ordeal. Last June, while Yonas Fikre was visiting the United Arab Emirates, […]

EVAN KOHLMANN IS the U.S. government’s go-to expert witness in terrorism prosecutions. Since 2004, Kohlmann has been asked to testify as an expert about terrorist organizations, radicalization and homegrown threats in more than 30 trials. It’s well-paying work — as much as $400 per hour. In all, the U.S. government has paid Kohlmann and his […]

Hij duikt de afgelopen jaren geregeld op in de media als ‘onafhankelijk’ expert op het gebied van terreur, Glenn Schoen. Hij verkondigt doemscenario’s die de overheid dienen aan te sporen het pakket aan veiligheidsmaatregelen verder op te schroeven. Schoen echter is werkzaam voor de private beveiligingsfirma G4S, in wezen verkoopt hij zijn product. Glenn Schoen […]

The United Nations is coming under criticism for failing to investigate allegations of sexual exploitation of children by French peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic between December 2013 and June 2014. The Guardian obtained a leaked report that says French soldiers raped and sodomized starving and homeless young boys who they were supposed to […]

On April 29, 2015, the world learned of disturbing accounts of sexual abuse of young boys by French, Chadian, and Equatorial Guinean peacekeepers at a displaced persons camp in the Central African Republic (CAR). The interviews, which had been conducted nearly a year earlier by staff from the UN’s Office of the High Commission for […]

The sectarian terror group won’t be defeated by the western states that incubated it in the first place The war on terror, that campaign without end launched 14 years ago by George Bush, is tying itself up in ever more grotesque contortions. On Monday the trial in London of a Swedish man, Bherlin Gildo, accused […]

Swedish national Bherlin Gildo’s lawyers argued British intelligence agencies were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he was A Free Syrian Army fighter fires his weapon during clashes in Aleppo. The Old Bailey was told by the crown that there was no longer a reasonable prospect of a prosecution. The prosecution of a Swedish […]

In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 […]

In 2004, with the war in Iraq going from bad to worse, the US drafted in a veteran of Central America’s dirty wars to help set up a new force to fight the insurgency. The result: secret detention centres, torture and a spiral into sectarian carnage An exclusive golf course backs onto a spacious two-storey […]

Anti-ISIS coalition knowingly sponsored violent extremists to ‘isolate’ Assad, rollback ‘Shia expansion’ This story is published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a new crowd-funded investigative journalism project. Support us to break the stories that no one else will — become a patron of independent, investigative journalism for the global commons. A declassified secret US government document obtained by the […]

BEIRUT — The talk now is all about whether Syria and Iraq will end up as divided states. The impetus for such speculation derives firstly from the latest Saudi, Qatari and Turkish joint resolve to mount huge numbers of jihadists on Syria’s borders. According to two senior political figures I spoke to, up to 10,000+ […]