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nicolet1189

Social Media Prove Double-Edged Sword for ISIS - 1 views

dailysignal.com/...-prove-double-edged-sword-isis

metadata ISIS media privacy intelligence surveillance

shared by nicolet1189 on 07 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • the dangers presented by metadata and other information contained in digital postings.
  • A new ISIS hashtag
  • Himlat Takteem Ialami—the media
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • instruction manual in online behavior
  • restraint campaign.
  • individual identities and landscape and urban geography in photos to encoded data from email accounts, servers and location of signals.
  • Also, by destroying the telecommunications infrastructure, the U.S.-led air campaign has forced ISIS in Syria to rely on non-secure routers that boost signals, making communications easy to intercept for intelligence agencies.
  • nicolet1189 on 07 Nov 14
     
    Although ISIS has been able to successfully use social media platforms to cater to their agenda, they have recently changed their strategies to deter US intelligence from intercepting crucial information. They have issued a new instruction manual to members regarding online behavior in order to circumvent data collection from digital postings.
andrea_hoertz

Gaddafi died 3 years ago. Would Libya be better off if he hadn't? - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...ibya-be-better-off-if-he-hadnt

libya Qaddafi civil war democracy

shared by andrea_hoertz on 11 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • But the real issue is why the international community, after a seven-month air campaign, neglected post-conflict reconstruction."
    • andrea_hoertz
      andrea_hoertz on 11 Nov 14
       
      Libya lacks the basis for creating a functioning government and society- globalization perspective
  • andrea_hoertz on 11 Nov 14
     
    This article discusses Libya and whether or not it would have been better off if Qaddafi had not been killed. The article says that because libya is a resource rich country, and is close to Europe, it had pretty good chances of making a smooth transition to peace and stability.
mjumaia

The Country With That Female Pilot Is Actually Terrible On Women's Rights - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/omen-despite-the-pilot-2014-10

UAE Dubai women right ISIS human rights

shared by mjumaia on 09 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • mjumaia on 09 Feb 15
     
    A female air force pilot from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) made international headlines last month. However, , the UAE is not at the forefront of women's rights and not even compared to its Arab neighbors.
alarsso

BBC News - Assad says Syria is informed on anti-IS air campaign - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-31312414

syria Assad interview civil war foreign relations

shared by alarsso on 17 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The US National Security Council has denied co-ordinating with the Syrian government.
  • Mr Assad also denied
  • barrel bombs
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • ebel-held areas
  • we don't have barrels."
  • the barrel bomb has become the most notorious weapon in the regime's arsenal.
  • haven't heard of the army using barrels, or maybe, cooking pots."
    • alarsso
      alarsso on 17 Feb 15
       
      not a real answer...obviously acting stupid
  • prompted
  • Islamic State's (IS) seizure of large parts of Syria
  • "#Duma_is_being_exterminated"
  • consider working with the Syrian leader to combat the group
    • alarsso
      alarsso on 17 Feb 15
       
      who is he??
  • we cannot be in an alliance with countries which support terrorism," he said.
  • refuse to talk with American officials
  • "because they don't talk to anyone, unless he's a puppet",
  • "There are no indiscriminate weapons. When you shoot you aim, and when you shoot, when you aim, you aim at terrorists in order to protect civilians... You cannot have war without casualties."
  • Human rights activists say
  • dropped
  • government forces
  • at high altitudes
  • impossible to target with precision,
  • alarsso on 17 Feb 15
     
    A somewhat in-depth interview with Assad concerning Syria's present state, answers to questions of bombing Syrian cities, and Syria's foreign relations. Interview taken 1 week ago
wmulnea

Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views

www.economist.com/...factional-chaos-it-should-come

shared by wmulnea on 11 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • It is split between a government in Beida, in the east of the country, which is aligned with the military; and another in Tripoli, in the west, which is dominated by Islamists and militias from western coastal cities
  • Benghazi is again a battlefield.
  • The black plumes of burning oil terminals stretch out over the Mediterranean.
  • ...69 more annotations...
  • Libya looked like the latest fragile blossoming of the Arab spring
  • Army commanders, mostly of Arab Bedouin origin, refused orders to shoot the protesters
  • the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
  • Volunteers from students to bank managers took up arms, joining popular militias and only sometimes obeying the orders of defecting army commanders trying to take control
  • In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
  • Recognised abroad, popular at home and enjoying the benefits of healthy oil revenues—97% of the government’s income—the NTC was well placed to lay the foundations for a new Libya
  • he judges, academics and lawyers who filled its ranks worried about their own legitimacy and feared confrontation with the militias which, in toppling Qaddafi, had taken his arsenals for their own.
  • militia leaders were already ensconced in the capital’s prime properties
  • The NTC presided over Libya’s first democratic elections in July 2012, and the smooth subsequent handover of power to the General National Congress (GNC) revived popular support for the revolution.
  • Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
  • The Homeland party, founded by Abdel Hakim Belhad
  • tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
  • The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
  • He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
  • which might have given militiamen jobs
  • Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
  • the number of revolutionaries registered with the Warriors Affairs Commission set up by the NTC was about 60,000; a year later there were over 200,000. Of some 500 registered militias, almost half came from one city, Misrata.
  • In May 2013 the militias forced parliament to pass a law barring from office anyone who had held a senior position in Qaddafi’s regime after laying siege to government ministries.
  • In the spring of 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a retired general who had earlier returned from two decades of exile in America, forcibly tried to dissolve the GNC and re-establish himself as the armed forces’ commander-in-chief in an operation he called Dignity
  • The elections which followed were a far cry from the happy experience of 2012. In some parts of the country it was too dangerous to go out and vote
  • Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
  • Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
  • Dismissing the results, an alliance of Islamist, Misratan and Berber militias called Libya Dawn launched a six-week assault on Tripoli. The newly elected parliament decamped to Tobruk, some 1,300km east
  • Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
  • So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
  • The army—which has two chiefs of staff—is largely split along ethnic lines, with Arab soldiers in Arab tribes rallying around Dignity and the far fewer Misratan and Berber ones around Libya Dawn.
  • Libya Dawn controls the bulk of the territory and probably has more fighters at its disposal.
  • General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
  • the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
  • Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
  • Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
  • threatens to take the war to Egypt if Mr Sisi continues to arm the east. Sleeping cells could strike, he warns, drawn from the 2m tribesmen of Libyan origin in Egypt.
  • Yusuf Dawar
  • The struggle over the Gulf of Sirte area, which holds Libya’s main oil terminals and most of its oil reserves, threatens to devastate the country’s primary asset
  • And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
  • ibya Dawn has drafted in the brown-skinned Tuareg, southern cousins of the Berbers; Dignity has recruited the black-skinned Toubou. As a result a fresh brawl is brewing in the Saharan oasis of Ubari, which sits at the gates of the al-Sharara oilfield, largest of them all.
  • Oil production has fallen and become much more volatile
  • oil is worth half as much as it was a year ago
  • The Central Bank is now spending at three times the rate that it is taking in oil money
  • The bank is committed to neutrality, but is based in Tripoli
  • Tripoli may have a little more access to cash, but is in bad shape in other ways
  • Fuel supplies and electricity are petering out
  • Crime is rising; carjacking street gangs post their ransom demands on Twitter
  • In Fashloum
  • residents briefly erected barricades to keep out a brigade of Islamists, the Nuwassi
  • “No to Islamists and the al-Qaeda gang” reads the roadside graffiti
  • Libya’s ungoverned spaces are growing,
  • Each month 10,000 migrants set sail for Europe
  • On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
  • The conflict is as likely to spread as to burn itself out.
  • the Western powers
  • have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
  • Obama washed his hands of Libya after Islamists killed his ambassador
  • Italy, the former colonial power, is the last country to have a functioning embassy in Tripoli.
  • Even under Qaddafi the country did not feel so cut off
  • Dignity is supported not just by Mr Sisi but also by the United Arab Emirates, which has sent its own fighter jets into the fray as well as providing arms
  • The UAE’s Gulf rival, Qatar, and Turkey have backed the Islamists and Misratans in the west
  • If oil revenues were to be put into an escrow account, overseas assets frozen and the arms embargo honoured he thinks it might be possible to deprive fighters of the finance that keeps them fighting and force them to the table
  • Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
  • The old divisions still matter
  • the marginalised Cyrenaicans harked back to the time when their king split his time between the courts of Tobruk and Beida and when Arabs from the Bedouin tribes of the Green Mountains ran his army
  • Tensions between those tribes and Islamist militias ran high from the start.
  • July 2011 jihadists keen to settle scores with officers who had crushed their revolt in the late 1990s killed the NTC’s commander-in-chief, Abdel Fattah Younis, who came from a powerful Arab tribe in the Green Mountains. In June 2013 the Transitional Council of Barqa (the Arab name for Cyrenaica), a body primarily comprised of Arab tribes, declared the east a separate federal region, and soon after allied tribal militias around the Gulf of Sirte took control of the oilfields.
  • In the west, indigenous Berbers, who make up about a tenth of the population, formed a council of their own and called on larger Berber communities in the Maghreb and Europe for support
  • Port cities started to claim self-government and set up their own border controls.
  • Derna—a small port in the east famed for having sent more jihadists per person to fight in Iraq than anywhere else in the world
  • opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
  • Some in Derna have now declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
  • In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
kdancer

Dozens of ISIS fighters killed - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1.651314

ISIS syria USA

shared by kdancer on 13 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • kdancer on 13 Apr 15
     
    At least two dozen Islamic State fighters have been killed in northeastern Syria in a battle with Kurdish forces supported by U.S.-led air strikes, a Kurdish official and a group monitoring the war said on Saturday.
kdancer

U.S. Air Strikes against ISIS - 0 views

www.cbsnews.com/...u-s-fires-on-isis-in-syria

ISIS Syria US

shared by kdancer on 13 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • kdancer on 13 Apr 15
     
    The US in an attempt to weaken the terrorist group of ISIS used Airstrikes on outposts in northern and eastern Syria.
fcastro2

Turkey shuts border crossings as fighting worsens around Syria's Aleppo | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...ndonesia-idUSKBN0M71VT20150311

turkey border fighting syria ISIS war

shared by fcastro2 on 25 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Turkey has closed two border crossings with Syria as a security precaution as fighting around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo intensifies
  • Humanitarian aid will not be affected, the government official said. Syrians with passports are still allowed to cross into Syria
  • "Turkey has some security concerns and it is natural for measures to be taken based on the threat assessment conducted
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • crossings at Oncupinar and Cilvegozu in Turkey's southern Hatay province have been shut to vehicles and individuals crossing from Syria since Monday,
  • Turkey has kept its borders open to refugees since the start of Syria's civil war four years ago, but it has come under criticism for doing too little to keep foreign fighters crossing and joining militant groups including Islamic State
  • divided between government forces and insurgent groups fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad in a conflict estimated to have killed 200,000 people
  • The closure of the Turkish border posts also comes after an air strike on Sunday
  • fcastro2 on 25 Mar 15
     
    After fighting increased in Syria, Turkey decided to close dow two border crossings that lead to Syria as a precaution. Until this point, Turkey has kept its borders open to Syrian refugees and even so it still has been criticized for doing too little to stop foreign fighters from entering Syria. 
blantonjack

Isis fortifies Raqqa as it braces for an international assault - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...yrian-stronghold-a6744916.html

shared by blantonjack on 27 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • blantonjack on 27 Jan 16
     
    The Isis militant group is reportedly fortifying its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa ahead of an expected backlash from the international community in the wake of the Paris attacks. France has redoubled its air strikes on Raqqa following the atrocity in the French capital and, with Britain preparing to set out a "comprehensive plan" to combat Isis this week, efforts to strike the group at its heart are growing.
joepouttu

Syria conflict: Major rebel town 'seized' in boost for Assad - BBC News - 1 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-35395328

Syria Russia Airstrikes Rebels Latakia

shared by joepouttu on 25 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • joepouttu on 25 Jan 16
     
    Syrian government forces say they have seized the last major town held by rebels in western Latakia province. Russian air strikes were crucial in the recapture of Rabia.
aacosta8

"Egyptian Cyber Army" Claims To Be Behind Attack On Popular Satirical Show - 0 views

www.buzzfeed.com/...be-behind-attack-on-popular-sa

Cairo Egypt hacktivist Cyber Army

shared by aacosta8 on 09 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • aacosta8 on 09 Feb 16
     
    It was the cry heard across Egypt's Twitter feeds. Minutes after comedian Bassem Youssef's show began airing Friday, the signal was deliberately jammed and the first half of the show was almost impossible to watch across the Arab world. The hashtag #تشويش ("jamming") began trending in Egypt.
ralph0

Syrian conflict: UN first air drop delivers aid to Deir al-Zour - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-35654483

Syria war aid UN deir al zor

shared by ralph0 on 24 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • ralph0 on 24 Feb 16
     
    Finally, aid has made it to Deir al-Zor. This eastern city has been besieged by ISIS militants for some time now. I will be keeping an eye out to see how the aid is used. This is also interesting because the city is in a part of the country that is less accessible to government forces, with ISIS being in control of the surrounding area.
mcooka

Iraq divisions undermine battle against IS - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-35492067

iraq war crossfire politics suni

shared by mcooka on 24 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • More than in any other country, Iraq's future is intimately bound up with the fate of self-styled Islamic State (IS).
  • Territory that was lost in a day or two is taking many months to claw painfully back.
  • But even if initially successful, such an ambitious project, indeed, any further moves to oust IS, could go badly wrong if the foundations are not sound
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • The IS fighters were able to lodge so easily in the Sunni Arab heartlands because the people there had been largely alienated by the sectarian policies and practices of the Shia Arab-dominated Baghdad government under Nouri al-Maliki, who was finally prised out of the prime minister's office in August 2014.
  • gislation to empower the Sunnis by devolving security and financial responsibilities to the provinces has not happened.
  • Nor have measures to reverse the persecution of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, or the random arrests, detentions, and to assuage other Sunni grievances.
  • he US, who have about 3,500 military personnel training and advising Iraqi government forces on the ground, also seems to be aware that military muscle is not enough.
  • If that process continues and the militants are defeated, the way Iraq fits together - if it does - will be decided by who pushes them out, and how the resulting vacuum is filled.
  • osul is an almost wholly Sunni city with a population of about two million.
  • Some residents may still see IS - about 85% of whose fighters in Iraq are believed to be Iraqi - as their protectors against an Iranian-backed, Shia-dominated Baghdad government.
  • When the Iraqi army collapsed like a house of cards in the face of the IS eruption in June 2014, it was a motley array of hastily-assembled Shia irregulars, loosely banded into the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) that prevented the militants reaching Baghda
  • Ramadi gave a boost to the embattled Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi.He has scant support even from his own Shia Daawa party, and is seen across the board by Sunni, Shia and Kurdish politicians as weak, hesitant, lacking in leadership and unable to stand up to the militias.But there was a down-side to the Ramadi victory too: heavy destruction, and the displacement of the entire population.
  • Nor can the formula that finally and slowly worked in Ramadi simply be applied at Mosul. It took government forces with coalition backing seven months to regain Ramadi. Mosul is 10 times bigger.
  • He omitted to mention coalition air support, which would also clearly be crucial to the campaign.Some Iraqi analysts believe outside ground forces would also be needed. US military leaders, while reticent, clearly want to up the pace and have not ruled out more boots on the ground. In the absence of serious moves towards national reconciliation, one senior government figure also saw a campaign to retake Mosul as a vital way of forging national unity.
  • mcooka on 24 Feb 16
     
    This article is about the Iraq divisions which undermine the Iraqi purpose of war. This is a result of an unstable foundation to build plans off of. They are trying to find foundation because they do not want to fall back into an IS state five years down the line. 
blantonjack

How serious is the ISIL threat in Libya? - 1 views

www.aljazeera.com/...eat-libya-160222081244640.html

ISIS Libya war Al Qaeda

shared by blantonjack on 24 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • blantonjack on 24 Feb 16
     
    The recent US air strike on a building in the western Libyan city of Sabrata, which killed more than 40 suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters, highlights the growing expansion and danger of the group in Libya. Both ISIL and Gaddafi loyalists share the belief that the new political leaders in Libya are "agents of the West" brought to power by NATO. Sirte has become the first stronghold that ISIL totally controls outside of Iraq and Syria, and it is reportedly home to the group's strongest presence within Libya. For the Western powers to combat this, means many military airstrikes as well as working with Libyan forces to provide intelligence of the whereabouts of the ISIL powers
ysenia

Debating the Iran nuclear deal: A former American negotiator outlines the battleground issues | Brookings Institution - 0 views

www.brookings.edu/...al-battleground-issues-einhorn

politics iran american deal

shared by ysenia on 15 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • They will prevent Tehran from using the $100-plus billion in previously frozen oil revenues that will be released under the JCPOA to go on a buying spree next year for advanced conventional weaponry and ballistic missile technology. Although Iran will seek to evade the renewed restrictions, Russia and China voted for them and, together with other U.N. members, will be bound to enforce them. Although the arms embargo does not cover all categories of arms (air defense systems such as the S-300 are not included), neither Russia nor China is expected to sell Iran the weapons that are covered, such as high-performance aircraft.
  • ysenia on 15 Feb 16
     
    American Negotiator goes in depth about the long-term effects of the Iran Nuclear Deal. Outweighing the pros and cons of the situation and predicting the outcome.
cthomase

Libya's North African neighbors brace for any Western strikes - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...s-libya-security-idUSKCN0VR202

ISIS war revolution Libya

shared by cthomase on 18 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • cthomase on 18 Feb 16
     
    With increased chatter about Western powers potentially leading an air campaign to rid Libya of ISIS, Libya's neighbors are beginning to brace for a potential influx in Libyan refugees. They are tightening border crossings, sending diplomats out of Libya and warning it's citizens to essentially brace for impact.
malshamm

Jets strike east Damascus for 1st time since truce - 0 views

english.alarabiya.net/...ital-since-truce-monitor-.html

Syria war

shared by malshamm on 05 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • malshamm on 05 Mar 16
     
    looks Russia and the regime of Bashar al-Assad does not take the issue of cease-fire seriously after the air strike on a school today.
natphan

Syria-Russia-Iran axis likely to liberate ISIS heartland, not Western backed forces - 0 views

www.jpost.com/...t-Western-backed-forces-450536

isis syria russia Iran

shared by natphan on 07 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • natphan on 07 Apr 16
     
    If Islamic State and al-Qaida's Nusra Front lose control of their strongholds in Syria, Bashar Assad's army will likely supply the boots on the ground to supplant them, with help from Russian air strikes and Iranian and Hezbollah forces.
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