Islamic State breaches lone Syrian air base: monitor

BEIRUT Sat Dec 6, 2014 4:56am EST 

                        

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State fighters broke into the Deir al-Zor air base at dawn on Saturday, a monitoring group said, breaching the last remaining government stronghold in eastern Syria.

The al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State has been gradually consolidating control of the oil-producing Deir al-Zor province this year. President Bashar al-Assad's forces have held on to the local military air base and parts of the provincial capital.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 51 of Assad's forces and 60 members of Islamic State had been killed in the three-day offensive.

"Islamic State have broken into the base and the regime is using air strikes outside it," Observatory head Rami Abdulrahman said by telephone.

Syrian state media did not mention a breach but said the army had killed "a number of terrorists" in al Jufra, an area close to the airport, on Friday. It said Syrian Air Force jets operating from the base had destroyed an Islamic State convoy.

Islamic State has been under pressure from U.S. air strikes in Syria since September, but that has not stopped it from launching attacks on Assad's forces and other targets to expel government forces and rival rebels.

The Twitter account of the U.S. embassy in Syria said late on Friday that a U.S. air strike in Deir al-Zor had hit Islamic State targets: three vehicles, an excavator and a training camp.

It was unclear whether the attacks took place near the base.

Deir al-Zor borders territories in Iraq also controlled by Islamic State. The province's oilfields are a major source of revenue for the group.

(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Dale Hudson)

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Iran confirms air strikes in Iraq against Islamic State: Guardian newspaper

BAGHDAD Sat Dec 6, 2014 3:48am EST

Smoke raises behind an Islamic State flag after Iraqi security forces and Shiite fighters took control of Saadiya in Diyala province from Islamist State militants, November 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Stringer
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A senior Iranian official has confirmed his country carried out air strikes in neighboring Iraq against Islamic State fighters at the request of Iraqi authorities, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported.
It quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Ebrahim Rahimpour as saying the strikes were not coordinated with the United States, which is also waging an air campaign against the radical Sunni Muslim militants who control large parts of north and west Iraq.
The purpose of the strikes was "the defense of the interests of our friends in Iraq", the newspaper quoted Rahimpour as saying in an interview in London.
"We did not have any coordination with the Americans. We have coordinated only with the Iraqi government," he said. "In general, every military operation to help the Iraqi government is according to their requests."
Rahimpour's reported comments were the first from an Iranian official confirming Iran's role in the air strikes in the Iraqi province of Diyala, which borders Iran, in late November. On Wednesday an Iranian official had denied that Iran had launched any such strikes.
Diyala is an ethnically mixed province, where the Iraqi army, backed by Kurdish Peshmerga and Shi’ite militias drove Islamic State out of several towns and villages last month.
Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Wednesday he had no knowledge of Iranian air strikes. On Saturday, Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told a security conference in Bahrain: "It's not 100 percent confirmed."
The Iranian role was first highlighted in footage filmed by Al Jazeera television, which appeared to show an F-4 Phantom striking Islamic State positions in Diyala. Defense experts said Iran and Turkey were the only regional operators of the F-4, and Turkey is reluctant to take on Islamic State militarily.
"We will not allow conditions in Iraq to descend to the level of Syria, which has been created by foreign players," the Guardian quoted Rahimpour as saying, referring to Syria's catastrophic three-year war in which Iran supports President Bashar al-Assad against rebels including Islamic State.
"And certainly our assistance (to Iraq) is stronger than our assistance to Syria, because they are nearer to us," he said.
Rahimpour said Iran was also assisting Kurdish forces in northern Iraq, but repeated Tehran's insistence that it did not have any ground troops in Iraq. "This is only an advisory presence. There is no need to send Iranian troops to Iraq. There are sufficient Iraqi and Kurdish troops there," he said.
(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in Manama; Writing by Dominic Evans, editing by Louise Heavens)

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The state of cybersecurity in the enterprise: 2015

Summary:What services and events are predicted to shape malware, security and corporations next year?
It's been an interesting year for cybersecurity. High-profile attacks have been launched against the likes of Sony, Target, Staples and a number of US banks; age-old flaws in open frameworks have been exploited -- spawning HeartBleed and Shellshock Bash -- and both corporations and governments around the world have pledged to invest more heavily in cybersecurity.
In the midst of these events, what can we expect next year?
According to predictions released by SentinelOne Labs, OS X and Linux, especially due to the rising adoption rates of Linux in enterprise data centers, will result in more attacks targeted at these systems -- which have been "neglected" by hackers in the past. The Mac operating system has experienced a slow uptake in exploits levied at the system in recent years, but the emergence of zero-day vulnerabilities and the platform's rising enterprise market share may make it worth the while of cybercriminals to try and infiltrate.
The security firm also believes that the success of ransomware campaigns will prompt these types of attacks to continue. Ransomware, which locks computer systems -- often with a fake notice from a government agency -- demand a certain amount of money to be paid in Bitcoin or via PayPal before the system is released to the user. Due to the success rates of these attacks, SentinelOne Labs believes ransomware will be used to coordinate a "time bomb" attack on the enterprise by simultaneously holding hostage multiple resources within an organization. Once malicious software finds its way onto a network, this would force firms to pay a higher price than the general public faces to unlock systems.
Another interesting prediction is a rise in attacks on critical infrastructure. The firm says some attacks that have taken place over the past year were successful in closing down power grids for short periods of time, but these cyberattacks were not disclosed to the public.
It is predicted that Russia will use cyberattacks as a political retaliation tool, and China will also use digital weaponry against countries including the United States and Japan -- as well as other APAC countries and human rights activists. However, the firm believes a newcomer will also join the fold, namely Pakistan. SentinelOne Labs says that the country will expand its activities, mostly against India, by outsourcing the creation of malware and using contractors in cyberwarfare.
In relation to outsourcing such skill sets, it is predicted that 2015 will see Attacks as a Service (AaaS) emerge. While Malware as a Service (MaaS) has existed for some time, and malware kits can be bought freely on the market, AaaS will mean buyers no longer have to patch together malware and other services to carry out a service. Instead, clients will be able to visit a website, select a malware platform, choose targeted information -- such as bank records and credit card numbers -- request a particular infection rate and be in business.
Read on: In the world of security
Topics: Security, Malware
Charlie Osborne, a medical anthropologist who studied at the University of Kent, UK, is a journalist, freelance photographer and former teacher. She has spent years travelling and working across Europe and the Middle East as a teacher, and has been involved in the running of businesses ranging from media and events to B2B sales. Charli... Full Bio
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Iraq's divisions will delay counter-offensive on Islamic State

By Dominic Evans
BAGHDAD Sun Nov 30, 2014 1:11am EST

Members of the Iraqi security forces and Shi'ite fighters take part during an intensive security deployment in the town of Qara Tappa in Iraq's Diyala province November 26, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Stringer
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. air support and pledges of weapons and training for Iraq's army have raised expectations of a counter-offensive soon against Islamic State, but sectarian rifts will hamper efforts to forge a military strategy and may delay a full-scale assault.
The Sunni Islamists stormed through northern Iraq in a 48-hour offensive in June, charging virtually unopposed toward the outskirts of Baghdad, humiliating a U.S.-trained Iraqi army which surrendered both land and weapons as it retreated.
By contrast, even a successful effort by the Shi'ite-led government to dislodge Islamic State, also known as ISIS, from Sunni territory where it rules over millions of Iraqis would be fiercely fought and could stretch well beyond next year.
The Baghdad government relies on Shi'ite militias and Kurdish peshmerga to contain Islamic State - a dependence which underlines and may even exacerbate the sectarian rivalry which opened the door for the summer offensive.
U.S. newspapers have cited officials in Washington saying the Americans' training mission aims to prepare Iraqi troops for a spring offensive to retake territory, including Mosul, northern Iraq's largest city and Islamic State's powerbase.
Hemin Hawrami, an official close to Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, told Reuters that Iraqi forces would not be ready to take the fight to Mosul, in Iraq, until late 2015.
"There will be no spring or summer (offensive)," he said, adding that progress depended on government willingness "to reorganize the army, how quickly they can solve political issues with us and the Sunnis, (and) how quick the coalition will be in providing heavy arms to peshmerga and the Iraqi army."
"CERTAIN VICTORY"
The army, Shi'ite militias and Kurdish fighters have made some gains against Islamic State, pushing back an advance toward Kurdish territory in August and last week recapturing towns in Diyala province, on the road from Baghdad to Iran.
The leader of the pro-Iranian Shi'ite Badr Organisation, whose fighters battled alongside peshmerga and soldiers in Diyala, said they would turn next to the Sunni provinces of Salahuddin and Anbar - north and west of Baghdad - before moving further north to Nineveh province, where Mosul lies.
"We are counting on the support of the Sunni tribal fighters. With them joining the fight, our victory is certain," Hadi al-Amiri told Reuters by telephone from Diyala province.
Amiri said he expected to get weapons not just from the Iraqi government, which may allocate a quarter of next year's $100 billion budget to the military, but also from the $1.6 billion of arms and training which Washington plans to deliver.
Both Amiri's assumptions look optimistic, as Washington and the Sunni tribes are deeply wary of Shi'ite militia forces.
Iraqi authorities aim to overcome the deep rifts between Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs, Kurds and other groups by absorbing local fighters into a state-funded National Guard, but the role of that force remains undecided.
LONG WAR
Government adviser Zuhair al-Chalabi told Reuters the army was in no shape to surge north and Mosul's mainly Sunni residents would resist a campaign by Shi'ite militias alone.
Instead, a combined force of army soldiers, Sunni tribes, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi'ite fighters must be assembled - and the open border with Islamic State territory in Syria sealed.
"There is a plan, but it can't be implemented that quickly," said Chalabi, who is from Mosul.
Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Islamic State was still a formidable force but was losing the ability to conduct major ground combat because that exposed it to air strikes.
Zebari, a Kurd, declined to give details of the military strategies of either the Baghdad government or the semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities, but said "planning and coordination are already under way" for the battle for Mosul.
"I am really not aware of spring offensives. The offensive is on - spring, summer, winter. We countered them in autumn. This is an ongoing battle with them."
The United States is setting up four training camps for Iraq's 80,000-strong armed forces - two around Baghdad, one in the Kurdish city of Arbil and the fourth in Anbar.
Washington has also set out plans to provide body armor and guns to 45,000 soldiers, 15,000 Kurdish peshmerga and 5,000 Sunni tribal forces.
A senior Western diplomat in Baghdad said the training might take six months, with the first round complete in late spring.
While he argued that the tide had turned against Islamic State in northern Iraq and was moving against it elsewhere, fighting was likely to stretch into 2016.
And without control over the border, Islamic State fighters could slip away and regroup in Syria. "It's the balloon theory. You squeeze one part and it pops up elsewhere," he said.
Hawrami, the Kurdish official, foresaw a protracted and potentially inconclusive battle.
"In order to guarantee their defeat in Mosul we have to defeat them in Syria as well," he said. "ISIS cannot be vanquished. ISIS can be degraded and weakened, but this process of degrading and weakening needs years."
(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy and Saif Hameed in Baghdad and Isabel Coles in Arbil; Editing by Michael Georgy and Robin Pomeroy)

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Syria says U.S.-led strikes have not weakened Islamic State

BEIRUT Fri Nov 28, 2014 9:39pm EST

A view shows debris at a school for the deaf and mute, destroyed in what activists said were overnight U.S.-led air strikes against the Islamic State, in Raqqa November 24, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Nour Fourat
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's foreign minister said U.S.-led air strikes had failed to weaken Islamic State it in Syria and the jihadist group would not be tackled unless Turkey was forced to tighten border controls.
A U.S.-led alliance started attacking Islamic State targets in Syria in September as part of a wider effort to destroy the al Qaeda offshoot that has seized large areas of the country and neighboring Iraq.
"All the indications say that (Islamic State) today, after two months of coalition air strikes, is not weaker," Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said in an interview with the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen TV broadcast on Friday.
The Syrian government has said it was willing to join the fight against Islamic State, but the United States refuses to deal with President Bashar al-Assad, who it says has lost legitimacy and must leave power.
"If the Security Council and Washington do not force Turkey to control its borders then all of this action will not eliminate (Islamic State)," Moualem said, referring to foreign jihadists who have crossed into Syria from Turkey.
Turkey, which has a 900 km (560-mile) frontier with Syria, has strongly denied accusations it has supported militant Islamists, inadvertently or otherwise, in its enthusiasm to help Syrian rebels topple Assad.
Thousands of foreign fighters are believed to have joined the Islamist militants in their self-proclaimed caliphate, carved out of eastern Syria and western Iraq.
Moualem said Turkish calls for the establishment of a no-fly zone in northern Syria would lead to the partition of the country, adding that Turkey had designs on Syrian territory.
Turkey has repeatedly said a no-fly zone should be put in place to create safe areas in Syria, allowing Syrian refugees in Turkey to be repatriated. Turkey's idea has received a cool reception from its allies. A top NATO general said this week the idea was not being considered.
Moualem held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the Black Sea as part of a renewed Russian diplomatic push to restart peace talks on Syria.
The effort is unlikely to get far because Russia rejects calls by Assad's Syrian, Western and Arab opponents for his swift departure. "After our discussions with the Russian side we agreed that the dialogue will be with the national opposition that is not linked to the outside," Moualem said.
(Writing by Tom Perry/Laila Bassam)

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Ferguson demonstrators begin 120-mile march to Missouri state capital

By Daniel Wallis and Edward McAllister
FERGUSON, Missouri Sat Nov 29, 2014 6:46pm EST

1 of 8. Protesters hold their hands up while marching down Market Street during a demonstration against the grand jury decision in the Ferguson, Missouri shooting of Michael Brown in San Francisco, California November 28, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Elijah Nouvelage
FERGUSON, Missouri (Reuters) - Activists in Ferguson, Missouri, on Saturday began a 120-mile march to the state capital to protest the killing of an unarmed black teen by a white police officer, a case that has rekindled a national debate over U.S. race relations.
The seven-day march to Jefferson City, organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, began with more than 150 people setting out from the Canfield Green Apartments, where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed on Aug. 9 by Officer Darren Wilson.
The NAACP is calling for a reform of police practices, a new police chief in Ferguson and a national law to prevent racial profiling by police.
The "Journey for Justice," which is reminiscent of the civil rights marches of the 1960s, began with some people singing the decades-old protest song "We Shall Overcome." Participants carried signs proclaiming "Black Lives Matter" and "Equality Now!"
A grand jury's decision on Monday not to charge Wilson ignited protests in Ferguson and a riot that left buildings torched and stores looted. Wilson has said he acted in self-defense.
Since the announcement on Monday, demonstrations have spread to major cities across the United States, resulting in hundreds of arrests during the week, including at least 16 arrests overnight in Ferguson, police said.
Sandra Henry, 53, a registered nurse from St. Louis, came to the Canfield Green Apartments to join the march and said she would like to see a change in how police operate.
"This isn't just about St. Louis. We are speaking for other cities, other countries too," Henry said.
All told, about 100 marchers were expected to make the entire journey, with more joining segments of the long walk, said NAACP staff member Jamiah Adams.
The NAACP expects about 1,000 people to be part of the final leg of the march, said Adams, who will participate along with other NAACP staff members and the organization's president, Cornell William Brooks.
Marchers will be able to shuttle back and forth between the walk and their residences in the St. Louis area by taking a bus back to a staging area, Adams said.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has called for the state assembly to convene for a special session in the state capital to approve more funds for the Missouri Highway Patrol and the National Guard, after months of protests over Brown's death.
In New York, activists planned to rally in Harlem on Saturday to draw parallels between Brown's death and what they see as other cases of unjustified police violence.
(Additional reporting by Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Frank McGurty, Clelia Oziel and Dan Grebler)

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Friday's mosque attack killed 100, wounded 135 in Nigeria's Kano: state governor

KANO, Nigeria Sat Nov 29, 2014 6:27pm EST

Security and emergency agency staff investigate the Kano Central Mosque bombing scene in Kano November 29, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Stringer
KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - A total of 100 people were killed in Friday's coordinated attack on the central mosque of north Nigeria's biggest city of Kano and 135 people were wounded, the governor of Kano state said on Saturday.
Rabiu Musa Kwankaso was speaking to reporters after visiting one of the hospitals treating the victims. Officials had said on Friday that 81 people had been killed in the attack.
Gunmen set off three bombs and opened fire on worshippers at the main mosque in Kano in an attack that bore the hallmarks of Islamist Boko Haram militants, although the attack has not yet been claimed.
Boko Haram, a Sunni jihadist movement fighting to revive a medieval Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria, regards the traditional Islamic religious authorities in Nigeria with disdain.
The targeted mosque is next to the palace of the emir of Kano, who is the second highest Islamic authority in Africa's most populous country and a vocal critic of Boko Haram.
In a bloody campaign of nearly six years the group has also targeted churches, schools, police stations, military bases and government buildings.
After Friday's attack President Goodluck Jonathan said the perpetrators would be tracked down.
(Reporting by Nnekule Ikemfuna; Writing by Julia Payne; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

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Hughes to be honored with state memorial

By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY Fri Nov 28, 2014 5:17am EST

Australia's Phil Hughes celebrates reaching his century during the one-day international cricket match against Sri Lanka at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in this January 11, 2013 file photo.
Credit: Reuters/David Gray/Files
SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes, who died on Thursday after being hit in the head by a ball, will be honored with a state memorial service.
The service will take place at the Sydney Cricket Ground next week, the same stadium where he suffered the horrific injury on Tuesday.
State memorials are normally reserved for political figures but the New South Wales Premier Mike Baird announced on Friday that Hughes, whose death has triggered a global outpouring of grief would also be afforded the honor.
"This service has been arranged in consultation with Phillip's family, and it will be an opportunity for the entire community to pay their respects to a much-loved Australian and New South Welshman," Baird said in a statement.
Hughes' death dominated Australia's major newspapers on Friday, with somber eulogies for the boy raised on a banana plantation whose life ended three days before his 26th birthday.
"Nation shares the agony of an innings cut short," The Australian's front-page headline read above a picture of Hughes gazing above with an Australian flag in the background.
Sydney's Daily Telegraph blacked out its entire back page, except for a picture of Hughes, in his honor.
Government flags were at half-mast across the cricket-mad country and floral tributes were placed outside the entrance to the SCG.
Local cricket clubs were painting 408 into the turf of their grounds, the number on Hughes' national 'baggy green' cap signifying his status as the country's 408th test player, while black armbands would be worn and a minute's silence observed before games on the weekend.
Junior cricketers would also retire their innings at 63, instead of the usual 50, to commemorate Hughes' final score.
ABBOTT SUPPORT
The tragedy touched the country's other top sports, with the national Wallabies rugby team to wear black armbands in Saturday's match against England in London.
A social media tribute with the hashtag #putoutyourbats saw cricketers from around the world post pictures of their bats outside their doors.
Support also rang out for Sean Abbott, the 22-year-old all-rounder whose rising delivery struck Hughes.
Hughes' family and Australia cricket captain Michael Clarke spent time with Abbott during the week and Cricket Australia (CA) boss James Sutherland said he was "holding up" well.
"I had a chat to him last night and I was incredibly impressed by the way he was holding himself and his maturity," Sutherland added.
CA will launch an "immediate" review into player safety in the wake of Hughes' death, while the fate of next week's first test against India remained in limbo.
Sutherland said the board would work with manufacturers and regulators to look into safety standards and seek improvements after Hughes was killed despite wearing a helmet.
"Statistics say it is clearly a freak incident, but one freak incident is one freak incident too many, so that of course puts us in a position of looking into that," Sutherland said.
Hughes was set to replace the injured Clarke in the Australia team for the first test against India next week, according to selector Mark Waugh, but the debate has turned to whether the match should go ahead at all.
Sutherland declined to confirm the Dec. 4-8 match in Brisbane, saying Hughes' team mates needed time to grieve.
"I know for many people, seven days doesn't seem too far away but in other ways it is a million miles away. We will get there when we can," he said.
(Writing by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by John O'Brien)

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Friday's mosque attack killed 100, wounded 135 in Nigeria's Kano: state governor

AppId is over the quota
KANO, Nigeria Sat Nov 29, 2014 6:27pm EST

Security and emergency agency staff investigate the Kano Central Mosque bombing scene in Kano November 29, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Stringer
KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - A total of 100 people were killed in Friday's coordinated attack on the central mosque of north Nigeria's biggest city of Kano and 135 people were wounded, the governor of Kano state said on Saturday.
Rabiu Musa Kwankaso was speaking to reporters after visiting one of the hospitals treating the victims. Officials had said on Friday that 81 people had been killed in the attack.
Gunmen set off three bombs and opened fire on worshippers at the main mosque in Kano in an attack that bore the hallmarks of Islamist Boko Haram militants, although the attack has not yet been claimed.
Boko Haram, a Sunni jihadist movement fighting to revive a medieval Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria, regards the traditional Islamic religious authorities in Nigeria with disdain.
The targeted mosque is next to the palace of the emir of Kano, who is the second highest Islamic authority in Africa's most populous country and a vocal critic of Boko Haram.
In a bloody campaign of nearly six years the group has also targeted churches, schools, police stations, military bases and government buildings.
After Friday's attack President Goodluck Jonathan said the perpetrators would be tracked down.
(Reporting by Nnekule Ikemfuna; Writing by Julia Payne; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

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U.S. airstrikes boost Islamic State, more hostages possible: FBI

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:35am EDT

1 of 4. A view is seen of smoke billowing after American air strikes in Khazir, September 16, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Azad Lashkari

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Support for Islamic State increased after U.S. airstrikes began in Iraq and the militant group may take more hostages to try to force concessions from Washington, the FBI director told Congress on Wednesday.

Islamic State is "committed to instilling fear and attracting recruits" and to drawing public attention, as shown through its use of social media and in videos it released of the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, said FBI Director James Comey.

"ISIL's widespread use of social media and growing online support intensified following the commencement of U.S. airstrikes in Iraq," Comey, using an acronym for the group, said in prepared testimony for a congressional hearing on threats to the U.S. homeland.

Islamic State and other outfits "may continue to try to capture American hostages in an attempt to force the U.S. government and people into making concessions that would only strengthen ISIL and further its terrorist operations," Comey said.

Islamic State draws an estimated $1 million per day from black market oil sales, smuggling, robberies, and ransom payments for hostages, according to Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

The United States and United Kingdom, unlike some European nations, do not pay ransom for the release of hostages.

The group's ability to attack the U.S. homeland relies in part on its widespread and sophisticated use of social media to radicalize Americans, the national security officials told the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee.

The group used these tools as it drew recruits from more than 15,000 foreign fighters in Syria, who may return to their countries "battle-hardened, radicalized and determined to attack us," Olsen, the top U.S. counterterrorism official, said in prepared testimony.

SYRIA-BOUND

Syria remains a prime training ground for independent or al Qaeda-aligned groups. "The rate of travelers into Syria exceeds the rate of travelers who went into Afghanistan/Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia at any point in the last 10 years," he said.

The security officials testified as the U.S. military prepared to expand American-led action against Islamic State to Syria, striking the militant group's safe havens in that country to knock out infrastructure, logistics and command capabilities.

They outlined threats to the United States from militant groups around the world, including more diverse and diffuse al Qaeda offshoots, and said they continued to focus on airline security to counter a primary target of attack.

Olsen singled out Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which was behind three attempted airline bombings, including the 2009 underwear bomber in Detroit, as the al Qaeda offshoot "most likely to attempt transnational attacks" against the United States.

Despite that group's ambitions, Olsen said, "homegrown violent extremists remain the most likely immediate threat to the homeland."

Online recruitment and terrorism networks have been used to foster the threat from the homegrown, or "lone wolf" attackers, that Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson identified as the hardest threat to detect and the one he worries about most.

AQAP claimed the accused Boston Marathon bombers, who killed three people and injured 264 when they set off pressure cooker bombs in April 2013, were "inspired by Inspire," the group's English language magazine, Comey and Olsen said.

The testimony showed that online propaganda enforcing a violent extremist ideology and teaching various bombing techniques may outlast any one leader of a militant group.

"This boundless virtual environment, combined with terrorists' increasingly sophisticated use of social media, makes it increasingly difficult to protect our youth from propaganda," Olsen testified.

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Islamic State campaign tests Obama's commitment to Mideast allies

By Jason Szep

WASHINGTON Wed Sep 17, 2014 7:42am EDT

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a live televised address to the nation on his plans for military action against the Islamic State, from the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington September 10, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Saul Loeb/Pool

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After about 15 hours of flying and five hours of meetings, sleep finally caught up with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Baghdad. It was 6:04 p.m. 

After sinking into his seat at the center of the cavernous interior of a C-17 military transport plane, he cradled his head in his palm, put his feet on a desk and shut his eyes.

Visibly tired, too, were his retinue of aides as they took their seats, some clutching briefing papers with notes scribbled in the margin from meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the government he had formed a day earlier on Sept. 9.

    Kerry’s exhaustion was understandable after nearly 24 hours of non-stop travel and meetings.

America’s fatigue in the Middle East could be a different story: the Iraqis who met Kerry may wonder if his boss, President Barack Obama, has the energy or stomach for what lies ahead in a country he has spent most of his nearly six years in office trying to leave behind.  

The challenge is highlighted by a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Friday showing that while Americans support Obama's campaign of airstrikes against Islamic State militants, they have a low appetite for a long campaign against the group. 

Several important tests loom for the U.S. administration's nascent coalition to “degrade and defeat” the ultra-hardline Islamic State whose militants have seized a third of both Iraq and Syria, declared war on the West and beheaded two American journalists and one British aid worker.

The complexity of eliminating Islamic State, which requires stabilizing Iraq, building up its armed forces and creating a western-backed rebel force in Syria, could take years, testing Obama's commitment and that of whoever succeeds him in 2017.

"There’s a real general distrust among our regional allies about our commitment to this because we've been missing in action for the last three years," said David Schenker, a specialist on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former Pentagon adviser on Syria during President George W. Bush’s administration.

In Baghdad, Amman, Jeddah, Ankara, Cairo and Paris in the last week, Kerry laid plans for a U.S.-led coalition of regional and outside powers. It would hammer the black-clad fighters of Islamic State militarily, dry up its funding, eliminate its safe havens in Syria, block its ability to recruit fighters and try to extinguish its extremist ideology.

Kerry, who will report on his trip to Obama and Congress this week, insists this is different from past U.S. operations in the region.

"This is not the Gulf War of 1991," he told reporters in Paris on Monday. 

"And it's not the Iraq War of 2003 ... We're not building a military coalition for an invasion. We're building a military coalition together with all the other pieces for a transformation, as well as for the elimination of ISIL itself," he said, invoking an acronym for the Islamic State group.

QUESTION OF COMMITMENT

World powers meeting in Paris on Monday gave a symbolic boost to that effort, publicly backing military action to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq.

France sent jets on a reconnaissance mission to Iraq, a step towards becoming the first ally to join the U.S.-led air campaign there and a senior U.S. official said some Arab countries had promised to take part.  

On Friday, Kerry will chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York, which will provide countries which quietly backed the U.S. coalition an opportunity to do so publicly. 

But questions remain over how far each will commit to a fight that U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Tuesday "will not be an easy or brief effort."

A 45-page State Department document detailed offers of assistance from about 40 countries, but these are mostly humanitarian. Military commitments are rare and small. Albania, for instance, plans to provide 22 million rounds of AK-47 bullets, 15,000 hand grenades and 32,000 artillery shells to Kurdish forces in Iraq. 

U.S. fighter jets have conducted over 160 airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Iraq, resuming military action Obama and many Americans hoped were part of history when U.S. combat forces pulled out of the country in 2011.

The most senior U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, raised the possibility on Tuesday that American troops might need to take on a larger role in Iraq's ground war, though Obama also ruled out a combat mission.

U.S. officials play down the prospect of imminent air attacks on the Islamist group's heartland in Syria and it remains unclear who, if anyone, would join them.

The United States will present a legal case before going into Syria, U.S. officials say, justifying strikes largely on the basis of defending Iraq from militants who threaten its sovereignty and have taken shelter in neighboring Syria during its three-year-old civil war.

"OVERALL COORDINATOR"

Entering Syrian airspace would deepen a conflict that already cuts across sectarian lines. Islamic State is made up of Sunni militants fighting a Shi'ite-led government in Iraq and a government in Syria led by members of a Shi'ite offshoot sect.

Briefing U.S. reporters in Paris, Kerry said there were "several discussions with foreign ministers" on how to defeat Islamic State inside Syria. He did not go into specifics, but he emphasized that it was not just about the airstrikes.

Kerry and his advisers often describe the anti-Islamic State campaign as "holistic". The approach was set out in a six-paragraph communique issued on Sept. 11 and signed by 10 Arab countries - Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and six Gulf states including rich rivals Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The Arab states agreed to eight main tasks: stopping the flow of foreign fighters, countering Islamic State financing, repudiating their ideology, ending impunity, providing humanitarian relief, reconstruction of Islamic State-hit areas, supporting states that face "acute" Islamic State threats, and, "as appropriate, joining in the many aspects of a coordinated military campaign."

The United States specifically wanted the words "as appropriate," one senior State Department official said.

"We wanted to be an overall coordinator of this effort," the official said. "So, ‘as appropriate’ means as part of an overall campaign plan, and as this continues to move forward."

(This story adds dropped word "State" in 25th paragraph)

(Reporting by Jason Szep; Editing by David Storey and Howard Goller)

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