al-Qaeda’s Strength in Africa

Mali security officers show a jihadist flag that belonged to the hotel attackers (Reuters)

A group of terrorist gunmen assaulted the Raddison Blu Hotel, a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital city Bamako, on Friday morning, taking hundreds of hostages were taken. The hotel was hosting a Mali “peace process” conference, and so a number of diplomats were including among the hostages, along with numerous other guests and employees.

Malian troops swept through the hotel room by room, floor by floor, freeing hostages and pursuing the gunmen. They found the floors littered with the bodies of Malians and foreign visitors, including a Belgian government official. At least 20 people were killed.

At least two different terror groups have claimed responsibility on social media for the attack, Al Murabitoon and Ansar al-Din. Both of them are splinter groups associated with Al-Qaeda on the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

The fact that different groups are claiming credit on social media shows that, like many acts of terrorism including those in Paris this year, the terrorism has no strategic purpose other than as publicity and recruiting tools. CNN and Washington Post and Time

Mali hotel terror attack highlights al-Qaeda’s strength in Africa

Despite claims by the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) to be a worldwide caliphate, Friday’s attack in Mali shows that not only is al-Qaeda far from dead, but in fact may be getting energized by the recent successes of ISIS.

According to a US military assessment, ISIS has little or no influence in West Africa, as compared to al-Qaeda. According to Army Gen. David Rodriguez, chief of U.S. Africa Command:

The Islamic State does not have that kind of impact down in that area. [The Mali attackers are] probably someone associated with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb because, again, that is where they have the reach.

According to Rodriguez, ISIS’s influence in Africa is largely limited to Libya. However, ISIS is “creeping” into Egypt, primarily in the Sinai Peninsula, according to Rodriguez.

The ISIS-linked terror group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM – Ansar Jerusalem – Champions of Jerusalem), which has changed its name to Al Wilayat Sinai (Province of Sinai), is believed to be responsible for the downing of Russia’s Metrojet Flight 9268 passenger plane over Sinai in Egypt.

Apart from that, al-Qaeda linked terror groups are surging in Africa. In East Africa, the primary terror group is al-Qaeda linked al-Shabaab, headquartered in Somalia, but recently reaching out into Kenya and Ethiopia.

But the “most deadly terrorist group in the world” is neither the whole of ISIS nor al-Qaeda. According to the Global Terrorism Index from the Institute for Economics and Peace it is Boko Haram, which has exceeded ISIS write large and all other groups in “murder, torture and rape,” and in the number of terror-related deaths. Boko Haram recently changed its name to Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and is now a subsidiary of ISIS. The study in question was conducted before that change, however.

Boko Haram has waged an insurgency in Nigeria since 2009 in its bid to create a mini-state under Islamic law. It has forced at least 2.6 million people from their homes, killing at least 17,000 people and abducting hundreds, including the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped in Chibok village in April last year that prompted an international outcry. As of April, a year after their kidnap, 219 of the Chibok schoolgirls remained missing. A group of around 50 managed to escape. Military Times and Sun News Online (Lagos) and Washington Post

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Mali, Bamako, Raddison Blu Hotel, Al Murabitoon, Ansar al-Din, Al-Qaeda on the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM, Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh, David Rodriguez, Egypt, Sinai, Ansar Jerusalem, Ansar Bayt al Maqdis, ABM, Champions of Jerusalem, Sinai Province, Al Wilayat Sinai, Metrojet Flight 9268, Al-Shabaab, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Boko Haram, Nigeria

Paris Attacks Made Me Doubt, Says Archbishop

Justin Welby had lived in Paris for five years with his wife

Justin Welby said he reacted with "profound sadness" at the events and was left asking where God was in the French victims' time of need.

He told BBC Songs Of Praise: "Yes. Saturday morning - I was out and as I was walking I was praying and saying: 'God why - why is this happening? Where are you in all this?' and then engaging and talking to God. Yes, I doubt."

When asked what his reaction to the attacks was, he said: "Like everyone else - first shock and horror and then a profound sadness - and in my family's case, that is added to because my wife and I lived in Paris for five years.

"It was one of the happiest places we have lived and to think of a place of such celebration of life seeing such suffering is utterly heart-breaking."

A bombing campaign against Islamic State was launched after the events, but the Archbishop warned against a potentially damaging instant reaction.

"Two injustices do not make justice. If we start randomly killing those who have not done wrong, that is not going to provide solutions. So governments have to be the means of justice.

"The Bible tells us that they are put there by God with the sword for justice, but they also have to lead us into a place where peace can be established."

he Archbishop said the way Islamic State terrorists had distorted their faith to the extent they believe they are glorifying their God is "one of the most desperate aspects of our world today".

"Religion is so powerful in the way humans behave that it has always been a tool used by the wicked to twist people into doing what they want them to do.

"But just because someone believes something deeply wrong does not mean that they are right in some way because they put God in it."

U.K.'s Own 'DARPA' Will Pour £165 Million Into Cyber Security

The British government has announced a bold series of new programs to boost its cyber security defences, including a new, £165 million ($250 million) fund that will see the government buy or invest in cyber security startups. Britain will also double its public spending on fighting cybercrime to £1.9 billion a year by 2020. The extra money will be spent on protecting the British public’s online assets as well as public infrastructure like hospitals and electricity grids, Chancellor George Osborne said in a speech at GCHQ, Britain’s main intelligence service focused on cyber crime.

The £165 million Defence and Cyber Innovation Fund will “support innovative procurement across both defence and cyber security,” Osborne said. “It will mean that we support our cyber sector at the same time as we need to solve investing in solutions to the hardest cyber problems that government faces.”

“The threats to our country in cyber space come from a range of places – from individual hackers, criminal gangs, terrorist groups and hostile powers,” he added.

The new program is similar in its intent to DARPA, the American Department of Defence agency that provides funding to startups who are creating cutting-edge technology, whose intellectual property can then be shared with the U.S. government. Among the projects DARPA is funding are jetpacks that can help soldiers run as fast as Olympic athletes and implants known as ‘neuroprosthetics’ that can treat memory loss.

Britain’s fund is dwarfed in its scope by DARPA, which had a budget of nearly $3 billion for 2015.  It may also end up being more closely aligned with another U.S. funding agency known as In-Q-Tel, based in Arlington, Virginia.

While DARPA covers a broad range of technologies including robotics and health, In-Q-Tel targets software startups and particularly those focused on data analytics, with the aim of  supporting America’s Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence services.

Since it was created in 1999, In-Q-Tel has reportedly funded 200 companies with investments in the $1 million to $3 million range.

British startups with a focus on cyber security and analytics software will see the new public funding as great news for their fundraising prospects, at a time where Silicon Valley’s leading venture capitalists have warned that the days of privately funding startups at ultra-high valuations are coming to an end and private funding may be harder to come by.

Eileen Burbidge, a partner at venture capital firm Passion Capital and advisor to Cyber London, a local incubator for cyber security startups, says she and local firms have been waiting for ”years” for a funding announcement like this from the government, one that emulates the likes of In-Q-Tel.

“Devil is always in the details but I’m genuinely encouraged to see emphasis and investment committed to public and private sector collaboration,” Burbidge said.

IS-Linked Militants 'Neutralised' In Russia

The operation took place in a wooded area outside the city of Nalchik in the Kabardino-Balkaria region, which lies within Russia's volatile North Caucuses region, the news agency AFP reported, citing the TASS news agency. 

The fighters opened fire on law enforcement officials and threw grenades after they were cornered, TASS quoted a statement from Russia's national anti-terrorism committee as saying.

"They were all members of armed groups that had sworn allegiance to the international terrorist organisation ISIL," the committee said.

Islamists in the predominately Muslim North Caucuses have been flocking to join Islamic State since it declared a wilayaat, or province, in the region.

Moscow estimates that between 5,000 and 7,000 people from former Soviet countries are fighting alongside Islamic State.

Russia launched airstrikes in Syria on 30 September.

It claims they are aimed at defeating Islamic State, but critics say they also designed to protect Syrian President Bashar al Assad by targeting rebel groups which are opposed to his rule.

France is part of a US-led coalition which has been carrying out separate airstrikes against IS in Syria for over a year.

Since the Paris attacks, France has intensified its areal bombardment in Syria. 

On Sunday France's defence minister said French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle will also be "operational" and "ready to act" from Monday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed his military to work with French forces following the Paris massacre and the downing of a Russian passenger jet which killed 224 people in Egypt, an attack which was also claimed by Islamic State.

Mr Putin is pushing for greater international co-operation in the fight against IS, despite lingering divides between Russia and the West on the future role of President Assad.

On Saturday a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman urged Britain to co-operate with Moscow if it decides to extend its airstrikes campaign in Iraq to Syria.

Prime Minister David Cameron is launching a fresh attempt to win backing for air strikes in Syria - with George Osborne saying the Government will only want a vote when it is "confident" of winning a majority.

ISIS losing its grip on Syria

ISIS have lost another two key strategic Syrian villages after a week of bombing raids which struck at the heart of the so-called 'caliphate'.

The militants came under attack from two different rebel groups on Friday and Saturday, losing two villages which form part of a 61-mile stretch of land along the border Turkey hopes to make 'ISIS free'.

Meanwhile, ISIS continued to come under heavy bombardment from international forces, with Russian jets flying more than 70 raids - hitting three oilfields - on Friday alone.

Syrian Turkmen rebels, working alongside Jabhat Shamiya (Levant Front), a group of Islamist nationalists, seized the villages of Harjaleh and Dalha in northern Aleppo province with support from American and Turkish warplanes. 

It claimed 70 jihadists were killed in the battle, releasing a video of some of those it captured - one of them just 15-years-old. 

The group claims it has also cleared the area around the village of hundreds of mines. 

'The importance of liberating these two villages is that this will be the foundation to free the rest of nearby villages from the group,' said Haytham Abu Hammo, head of Jabhat Shamiya media office. 

The victories followed a number of days which had seen ISIS' headquarters Raqqa, as well as a number of other factories and key positions, blasted by the Russian military.

Russia - which upped its campaign against ISIS after terrorists linked to the group claimed responsibility for downing a passenger jet in October, killing all 224 on board - says it has killed 600 fighters in the last few days.

But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights puts the figures at closer to 381 militants, along with 547 rebels from other groups including Al Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front. since it began military operations in September.

It says a third of the more than 1,300 people killed in the intervening weeks were civilians.

The British-based Observatory also said there were 36 people, including 10 children, killed in Russian and Syrian strikes against in the eastern Deir Ezzor province on Friday.

On the ground, ISIS were fighting regime forces around the Deir Ezzor airport. 

Crimea Loses Electricity

The power pylons from Ukraine to Crimea were reportedly blown up

Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry has now declared a state of emergency in Crimea until power is fully restored.

The ministry did not say what had caused the outages, but Russian media reported that two pylons in the Kherson region of Ukraine north of Crimea had been blown up by Ukrainian nationalists.

The alleged bombing is believed to be the second such attack in a matter of days, affecting the two million people who live there.

Early on Friday morning, two of the four pylons connecting Crimea were brought down in similar circumstances - and Saturday night's attack means all power lines are now out of use.

It was not clear who carried out the attack but several pictures of the damage showed Ukrainian flags attacked to the wrecked pylons.

Video footage from a Tatar TV station posted on YouTube showed a group of activists clashing with members of Ukraine's national guard who attempted to seal the area around some of the damaged power lines on Saturday.

RIA Novosti news agency reported that the Crimean Tatars, an ethnic group native to the peninsula who oppose Russian rule, held a protest in favour of a blockade of Crimea. 

Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said on Sunday morning they had managed to partially reconnect the cities of Simferopol, Feodosia, Yevpatoria and Yalta using generators.

But Russian newsagency TASS reported that the gas turbines were providing less than half of the peninsula's needs. 

Crimean Fuel and Energy Minister Sergei Yegorov said: "This morning, maximum consumption in the Crimean federal district is about 800 MW at such air temperatures. We have 350 MW of our own electricity generation and are short of another 450 MW."

Crimea's First Vice-Premier Mikhail Sheremet said the peninsula has enough fuel to continue producing electricity for 30 days, TASS reported. 

A system of rolling blackouts has been imposed and people have been told not to use electrical appliances.

Crimean website Krmyr.org reported that in city of Kerch, on the peninsula's eastern tip, there is no light or heating and water is at a reduced pressure.

Head of the city administration Sergei Pisarev told residents not to panic.

Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in April 2014, is dependent on Ukraine for electricity.

The attack, if by Ukrainian nationalists opposed to Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, is likely to further increase tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Teacher Asks Students To Create Terror Poster

The assignment was apparently set to help students understand propaganda

Parents complained after they found out about Wednesday's worksheet at Salem Junior High School.

School officials swiftly cancelled the assignment and stressed it was not part of the curriculum.

The first-year teacher prepared the worksheet for about 60 ninth-grade students in a world civics class. 

It said: "Information has been including [sic] to help you better understood [sic] what groups like ISIS want and why."

Among the eight reasons why Muslims join the Islamic State, according to the teacher, were "America's support for Israel" and "Western societies are immoral".

later apologised and said she only meant to teach how extremists use propaganda to spread untruths.

Nebo School District Public Information Officer Lana Hiskey said: "You know, she's young, she's naive and her intent was different than how it played out.

has apologised profusely, and talked to the students the next day."

The teacher will continue to be trained with oversight from a mentor.

No disciplinary action was taken.