Gazette 092614

Friday September 26th 2014

US air strikes in Syria 'destroy IS tanks'

US-led air strikes on Islamic State (IS) militants have destroyed four tanks and damaged

another during a fourth night of bombardments in Syria.

The Pentagon said it also carried out seven strikes on IS positions in Iraq, including one on the outskirts of the capital, Baghdad.
The Danish government says it is sending seven F-16 fighter jets to join anti-IS operations - but only in Iraq.
The UK parliament is due to vote on possible air strikes in Iraq on Friday.
IS controls much of north-eastern Syria and earlier this year seized swathes of territory in neighbouring Iraq, including the second city, Mosul.
Related: US carries out new air strikes in Iraq, sees erosion of Isis 'morale' – as it happened

US, allies target ISIS oil supplies in Syria

The U.S. and Arab allies unleashed a new round of airstrikes against Islamic State militants in eastern Syria late Wednesday, targeting a dozen small oil refineries.
U.S. officials told Fox News the latest round of strikes was designed to hit so-called “modular oil refineries” -- essentially small, ISIS-built refineries that the terror group uses to fuel its vehicles and to fund its operations.

“This is not going to look like the oil fields burning in Iraq,” one official said, referring to the Gulf War.
A Department of Defense official said ISIS made roughly a $2 million-a-day profit from the modular oil refineries, which produced 300 to 500 barrels a day.
Officials said all the aircraft made it back safely from the strikes.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and two activist groups told the Associated Press that at least four oil installations and three oil fields were hit around the town of Mayadeen in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour. A third activist group loyal to the militants confirmed the reports.
The Observatory also claimed that the strikes killed at least 14 militants, as well as another five people who lived near one of the refineries in the northeastern Hassakeh province. The Observatory added that those five were likely the women and children of the militants.
The planes came "with a terrifying sound and red lights before the explosions," one activist wrote, documenting each explosion.

Denmark will join coalition against ISIS   


Denmark is joining in the fight against ISIS. The Danish government announced Friday that it will join the coalition to launch strikes against ISIS. The country will send seven F-16 fighter jets to participate in the airstrikes against ISIS members in Iraq, but not Syria, The Associated Press reports. The announcement comes just days after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi asked for help.
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said that her government would deploy four operational planes and three reserve jets to fight ISIS, complete with 250 pilots and support staff. The deployment of Danish resources will last roughly a year.
"No one should be ducking in this case. Everyone should contribute," Thorning-Schmidt stated. 

Qatari leader tells CNN: We do not support terrorist movements 

In an interview with CNN, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani rejected suggestions that Doha was bankrolling organizations that the West regards as terrorist groups.
The emir of Qatar denied accusations on Thursday that the Gulf sheikhdom is a sponsor and supporter of Islamist terrorist organizations.

In an interview with CNN, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani rejected suggestions that the groups that Doha was backing were terrorist in nature.

“We have to see the difference between movements,” Al-Thani told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “I know that in America and some other countries they look at some movements as terrorist movements. In our part of the region, we don’t.”

Islamic State crisis: '3,000 European jihadists join fight'

The number of Europeans joining Islamist fighters in Syria and Iraq has risen to more than 3,000, the EU's anti-terrorism chief has told the BBC.

Gilles de Kerchove also warned that Western air strikes would increase the risk of retaliatory attacks in Europe.
US-led forces have launched more than 200 air strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq since August and on Monday began targeting IS in Syria.
The UK parliament is due to vote on possible air strikes in Iraq on Friday.
IS - also known as Isil or Isis - has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in recent months.
Mr de Kerchove said the number of 3,000 included all those who have been to the region, including those who have returned and those who have been killed there.
The CIA estimates that IS may have up to 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria - three times as many as previously feared.

Taliban Militants Attack Afghan Villages, Burning Homes And Beheading Civilians

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban beheaded 12 Afghan civilians, mostly family members of local policemen, in an assault that was part of a week-long offensive that has so far killed 60 people and wounded scores in a remote province in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Friday.
The violence comes amid the annual Taliban offensive, which this year will be an important gauge of how well Afghan government forces are able to face insurgent attacks ahead of the withdrawal of foreign combat troops at the end of the year.
According to the Ghazni provincial deputy police chief, Asadullah Ensafi, the Taliban on Thursday night captured and beheaded 12 civilians and torched some 60 homes in an attack in the province's district of Arjistan.

Details were sketchy because of the remoteness of the rugged mountainous area, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of the capital, Kabul, but Afghan officials said women and children were believed to be among the casualties. There are no NATO troops stationed in the district.
Beheadings are rare in Afghanistan, though they occasionally take place as part of the Taliban campaign to intimidate and exact revenge on the families of Afghan troops and security forces.
Over the past week, the Taliban have been attacking several villages in Ghazni's Arjistan district, Ensafi said, and battles in the area were still raging Friday, he said.
On Friday morning, the Taliban detonated a car bomb in front of an encampment where some 40 Afghan policemen were based in Arjistan, killing at least 8 policemen, said the province's deputy governor, Mohammad Ali Ahmadi.

US orders evacuation of embassy staff in Yemen citing security concerns

Separate travel warning for US citizens says the step was taken due to ‘continued civil unrest’ in Sana’a

The US State Department on Thursday ordered some of its diplomats and other government workers at the US embassy in Yemen to leave the country because of deteriorating security amid unrest and sectarian clashes that have left Shia rebels in control of the capital.
“Today, the Department of State ordered a temporary reduction in the number of US government personnel in Yemen,” the department said in a statement. “We are taking this step out of an abundance of caution and in response to recent political developments and the changing, unpredictable security situation in Yemen.”
A separate travel warning for US citizens said the step was taken “due to the continued civil unrest and the potential for military escalation.”
It said the embassy in Sana’a would remain open with a majority of staff remaining and that the relocation of staff would be temporary.
The rebels, known as the Houthis, overran Sana’a over the weekend, defeating Sunni Islamist fighters. They signed a peace deal with the government on Sunday but have ignored calls for fighters to leave the city. The Houthis, believed to be backed by Iran, have vowed to go after al-Qaida’s branch in the country, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which the US believes is a major threat to American interests.

Hungary suspends gas supplies to Ukraine

Hungary's gas pipeline operator, FGSZ, says it has suspended delivery of gas to neighbouring Ukraine "indefinitely".

Ukraine has been receiving gas from Hungary, Poland and Slovakia since Russia cut off supplies to Ukraine in June in a dispute over unpaid bills.
Ukrainian state gas firm Naftogaz confirmed the stoppage, saying it was "unexpected and unexplained".
FGSZ said it had acted to raise the flow of gas to Hungary, due to an expected increase in demand.
With winter approaching fears are mounting that Ukraine will be unable to heat homes and power industry without Russian gas.
Russian and Ukrainian energy ministers are meeting in Berlin for EU-brokered talks, aimed at heading off such a crisis.
Relations between the former USSR's two biggest countries soured after the overthrow of Ukraine's pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych, in February.

Ukrainian President sets sights on closer EU ties

Moscow: Ukraine's President, Petro Poroshenko, says his office has been in constant communication with Russian President Vladimir Putin to sustain a truce in eastern Ukraine, and Ukraine is now keen to pursue membership in the European Union.
Mr Poroshenko said he planned to meet with Putin in the next three weeks, and expressed confidence that the ceasefire with pro-Russian rebels would hold.
At the same time, he voiced several positions certain to irk the Kremlin, which has worked aggressively to prevent Ukraine from shifting politically and economically toward Europe. He said Ukraine would never relinquish the embattled eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk; plans to grant those regions greater autonomy would have firm limits; and Ukraine must move as quickly as possible toward European integration.

China state media say 50 killed in far west clashes

BEIJING –  Chinese state media reported Thursday that 50 people, including 40 assailants, were killed in a series of explosions over the weekend in the far western region of Xinjiang, in what officials called a severe terror attack.

Regional authorities had earlier said that the explosions Sunday in Luntai county killed at least two people and injured many others.

The news portal Tianshan Net said bombs exploded at two police stations, a produce market and a store. It said the attack killed two police officers, two police assistants and six bystanders, and that 54 others were injured. It said police took swift action and 40 assailants were either shot dead or died in explosions.

Police captured two attackers, and an investigation found that Maimaiti Tuerxun, a man who was fatally shot, was responsible for the attack, the news portal said. The official Xinhua News Agency spelled the man's name as Mamat Tursun. Names for people from the Uighur and other ethnic groups in China are sometimes transcribed differently in English. 

Related: Dozens Reportedly Killed In Xinjiang, China Terror Attack

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FBI: US identifies masked militant in beheading videos

The FBI has identified the militant in the videos depicting the killings of two US journalists and a British aid worker, the agency's director has said.

But James Comey says the FBI will not yet release the name of Islamic State fighter, so-called Jihadi John, who seemed to speak with a British accent.
UK Foreign Minister Philip Hammond told CNN this week they were "getting warm" on the identity of the masked man.
Mr Comey did not say whether the man identified carried out the killings.
He said the FBI was able to identify him with the help of international partners.
American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid worker David Haines, have all been killed alongside a masked man dressed in black holding a knife, who speaks to the camera.
The life of another British citizen, Alan Henning, was threatened in the last video.

Court orders DOJ to release list of Fast and Furious docs

A federal judge ordered the Justice Department Thursday to release a list of documents it

is withholding from the public related to Operation Fast and Furious within the next month.
Calling the Obama administration’s request for further delays “unconvincing,” U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates told the Justice Department to release the list of documents—called a “Vaughn index”—that the department is withholding by Oct. 22.

“[S]eventy-five days—plus another twenty-one, based in part on Judiciary Watch’s consent—is enough time for the government to prepare the index that this Court has ordered, given that this matter has been pending for over two years,” Bates said in his ruling. “The Court will therefore extend the Department’s Vaughn index submission deadline to October 22, 2014—and no further.”
“The government argues that it must devote significant numbers of attorneys to this matter if it hopes to comply with the current Vaughn index deadline,” Bates continued. “…But the Department has known about its Vaughn index obligations since July 18, 2014 … At best, it means the Department has been slow to react to this Court’s previous Order. At worst, it means the Department has ignored that Order until now.”

Eric Holder Signals Support For Marijuana Reform Just As He's Heading Out The Door

Just as Attorney General Eric Holder prepares to step down from his post, he appears more open than ever to the argument for rescheduling marijuana as a less dangerous, more beneficial drug.
"I think it's certainly a question we need to ask ourselves, whether or not marijuana is as serious of a drug as heroin," Holder said in an interview with Yahoo global news anchor Katie Couric, released on Thursday. "Especially given what we've seen recently with regard to heroin -- the progression of people from using opioids to heroin use, the spread and the destruction that heroin has perpetrated all around our country. And to see by contrast, what the impact is of marijuana use. Now it can be destructive if used in certain ways, but the question of whether or not they should be in the same category is something that we need to ask ourselves and use science as the basis for making that determination."
Under the federal Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug, along with heroin and LSD. Schedule I drugs, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, have a "high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use." 

Shares fall on global stock markets as worry over US interest rates ripples out

Dow Jones Industrial Average down almost 250 points amid speculation that Federal Reserve is edging closer to increase in borrowing costs

Shares have fallen heavily on global stock markets as Wall Street jitters about rising US interest rates rippled across the Atlantic to the City and other European bourses.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 16,945.80 or 1.5% lower amid speculation that America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, is edging closer to its first increase in the cost of borrowing since before the 2008-09 recession.
With the US dollar surging to a four-year high against a basket of major currencies, traders on Wall Street were also concerned that a rising currency would affect the profits of US companies exporting their goods and services overseas. By contrast, the euro slid to its lowest level in almost two years on speculation that the European Central Bank would be forced to resort to quantitative easing – electronic money creation – in a bid to revive the stagnant and deflation-threatened eurozone economy.
The American economy has shrugged off a weather-affected contraction in the first quarter of 2014, while the eurozone’s sluggish recovery came to a halt in the summer. Signs that policy in the US and the eurozone will be moving in opposite directions affected bond markets, where the gap between the interest rate (yield) on US and German bonds was at its widest in 15 years.
The yield gap is one of the main factors affecting the levels of currencies and the euro dropped to as low as €1.2695 against the dollar – its lowest level since November 2012.
Analysts said the decline in the European single currency had further to go.

Fire halts flights at Chicago airports

All flights in and out of Chicago's O'Hare and Midway were grounded due to a fire at an air traffic control facility, the Federal Aviation Administration has said.

More than 300 hundred flights have been cancelled, according to a flight tracking website.
Fire crews have put out the blaze but the airports remain closed.
Firemen told the Chicago Tribune they found a man with self-inflicted injuries in the facility.
The paper reported the man was found in the basement and was subsequently taken to hospital.
It is not known whether he is connected to the fire.
The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to reopen the airport within hours.
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