Australia threat led to U.S. alert
House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., says a recent message to ISIS recruits in Australia to attack in their own country rather than traveling to Syria was part of the threat stream that led to Homeland Security increasing security at federal buildings. He says 14 recruits were ready to travel:
They got a note back from ISIL that said: ‘No, No.What we want you to do, stay in Australia. We want you to randomly kidnap people off the street behead them, videotape it, send it to us for further propaganda’.
He says the Australian beheading plot in mid-September was the culmination of that message. Terror activity in Canada, the U.S., Germany, France, Spain and parts of Europe has similar motivation:
What you know now is these folks are sending out that message that spontaneous terrorism is the word of the day, and that’s what’s so concerning to individuals that they’re radicalizing these folks to attack government officials. They wanted to have a high-profile event in a Western country.
Iraqi Kurds enter Kobani
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the first 10 Iraqi peshmerga entered the city Thursday, and more are expected within hours. Kurdistan regional government spokesman:
The force is equipped with heavy guns including mortars, canons, rocket launchers, etc… This force will not engage in frontline combat but will have a support role.
He says the Kurdish fighters in the city say they have enough troops but need weapons and ammunition. More peshmerga fighters could be sent if needed.
‘Plot to weaponize virus’
Spanish authorities say they have found discussions by jihadists in chat rooms on how to weaponize the virus, and are taking them seriously. Interior ministry:
The use of Ebola as a poisonous weapon against the United States [was discussed in a forum] linked to ISIS
Kobani news report
ISIS releases a video showing Cantlie apparently reporting on the situation in Kobani. (Full video here.) In the unedited footage a black-dressed Cantlie with a goatee beard and longer hair says the battle for the city is over, and notes that it is quiet except for very occasional sporadic automatic weapons fire, which can be heard in the background. He cites Patrick Cockburn’s article in The Independent about how Kobani was on the brink of falling to ISIS. He also quotes U.S. administration officials as saying the town was strategically unimportant, and Kerry’s statement indicating that Turkish president Erdogan is unwilling to help the Kurds. The video starts out with aerial footage said to be from an ISIS drone of ‘Ayn Arab,’ its Arabic name.
All I see here in the city is mujahideen, no YPG, PKK, or peshmerga in sight.
He says no journalists are in the city and media are getting their information from Kurdish commanders and the White House:
America is very keen for Kobani to be seen as a symbol of victory
He says the battle is over:
The battle is coming to an end. The mujahideen are going from street to street and just mopping up now…Urban warfare is about as tough and as nasty as it gets, and it is something of a specialty of the mujahideen
Threatened with death for trying to leave
A source with extensive connections in Syrian jihad says at least 30 British ISIS fighters are trapped with the group, threatened with death if they try to leave. Former Guantanamo detainee Begg confirms the report:
When it becomes solidified as an Islamic State, a caliph, and you swear allegiance, thereafter if you do something disobedient you are now disobeying the caliph and could be subject to disciplinary measures which could include threats of death or death
Appears in second video
Elmir appears in a second ISIS video, titled An Evening On The Banks Of The Tigris River In The Province Of Nineveh In The Islamic State.
ISIS fighters bathe in the Tigris and pray in lines inside a tent-like structure, with weapons strapped to their chests. They recite chants and are shown sharing a meal as they cross the river in a barge. Elmir is shown reciting a chant back to the speaker, and appears to stifle a smile or laughter. Most of the chants are in Arabic but some of the speakers are reported to say they will:
Strike the necks of the infidel and Arab countries
Fails to cut off Kobani
Kurdish fighers have repelled a pre-dawn raid by ISIS which aimed to cut the town off before more peshmerga could cross the border to reinforce. The YPG says that the fighting began on Saturday and continued until midnight:
Four of our comrades were martyred in action.
Reported beheaded by ISIS
Rehana is reported to have been beheaded by ISIS. Photos claiming to show her severed head are circulated on Twitter, but her death is unconfirmed at this point. The Kurdish YPG (People’s Defense Unit) and YPJ (Women Protection Unit) aren’t able to be reached for comment.
Starved, hung upside down
People who were captured along with Foley say he received the harshest treatment because he was American. They say ISIS starved him and hung him upside down by his ankles. Cellmate:
You could see the scars on his ankles. He told me how they had chained his feet to a bar and then hung the bar so that he was upside down from the ceiling.
He was also waterboarded by the group.
Attacks raise concerns over ISIS influence
The attacks in Canada and New York raise concerns over the group’s ability to inspire lone wolf attackers. While there are no indications of direct involvement, each of the attackers is thought to have been inspired by ISIS messages, and all three attacks came in less than a month after ISIS called for individual jihad in Western countries. William McCants, a scholar of Islamist militancy at the Brookings Institution:
The Al Qaeda ‘fan boys’ never did this, definitely not in so coordinated a fashion in so close a time.
Mokhtar Awad, a researcher at the liberal Center for American Progress, based in Washington, says the group’s social media messages have changed sharply, from ‘come join the attack’ to ‘we are being attacked and what are you doing? You are just sitting there!’
They are trying to shame sympathizers. ’If you can’t join us over here, at least do what you can over there.’
FBI: ISIS targeting journalists
FBI bulletin sent to reporters Thursday:
[The FBI has] recently obtained credible information indicating members of an ISIL-affiliated group are tasked with kidnapping journalists in the region and returning them to Syria. Members of this group might try to mask their affiliation with ISIL to gain access to journalists
Mother makes new plea
Paula Kassig sends a third tweet to the group:
Parents of Abdul Rahman Kassig Request Instruction from the Islamic State pic.twitter.com/7auWNPa5t4
— Paula Kassig (@PaulaKassig) October 23, 2014
Pew: Majority doubt coalition effectiveness
A majority of Americans support the campaign against ISIS, but majorities across the board – 70% of Republicans, 65% of independents and 54% of Democrats – say that the coalition has no clear goal. 47% say their greater concern is that the U.S. will get too involved in the situation, while 43% are more concerned that the U.S. will not go far enough.
Colorado girls skip school to join ISIS
The girls aged 15, 16, and 17 are caught by German authorities at Frankfurt airport and sent back to the U.S., where they are questioned and then released. They state that they planned to travel via Turkey to join ISIS. The father of one girl, Assad Ibrahim, calls his daughter’s cell after the school phones him, and she tells him she is late for class. He then finds her passport missing and alerts the Arapahoe Sheriff’s office, which files a runaway report (here). He informs the father of the other two girls, Ali Farah, whose daughters had told him they were going to the library.
Met chief: Five Britons a week travel to join jihad
Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe says the figure is a minimum, and the ‘drumbeat of terrorism in the UK’ is now ‘faster and more intense’.
Those are the ones that we believe have gone. There may be many more who set out to travel to another country and meandered over to Syria and Iraq in a way that is not always possible to spot when you have failed states and leaky borders.
‘ISIS threatens region’
Abadi says during crisis talks in Tehran that ISIS and other groups are intent on dividing Muslims.
Iraq is not fighting terrorism only. It is an extensive war with all these groups. It’s a threat to the region and these terrorist groups are trying to create a division between Shiites and Sunnis
Video of stoning
A video released on ISIS-affiliated social media pages shows a woman being stoned to death. The charges against the woman are not clear, but a cleric accuses her of committing adultery. The woman pleads for forgiveness with a man that she refers to as her father, before the sentence is carried out.
Reaper drones may get attack role
The UK government is reported to redeploy drones based in Afghanistan to Iraq and Syria, where they may get authorization to deploy Hellfire missiles. They will be based in Kuwait and controlled via satellite link from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. Whitehall official:
The Reapers would be very useful for intel on Isis in Syria for ourselves and our allies; that would be their primary purpose. Their use in combat would obviously depend on parliamentary approval – unless we have a need for them to secure the wellbeing of British subjects or prevent a humanitarian crisis.
Launches 15 attacks
ISIS launches 15 near-simultaneous attacks on Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. It also attackes peshmerga forces at the Mosul dam and nearby in the Nineveh Valley, and at Mt. Sinjar. Hazhar Ismail, brigadier general at the Ministry of Peshmerga:
ISIS failed in their attempt to control the village of Sharaf ad-Din after Peshmerga forces repelled the attack and managed to kill a number of ISIS militants.
The group seized two villages in an area close to Sharaf ad-Din, in Sinjar, but the villages were unpopulated as a result of ISIS attacks in August.
Five Brits join weekly
Speaking during a national security conference in London, United Kingdom senior police officer Sir Hogan-Howe reveals that a minimum average of five British citizens are traveling to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. Tracking and reacting to the threats of home terrorists who obtain experience from ISIS training grows worse, what he calls “potentially militarized individuals.” After citing some examples, Sir Hogan-Howe:
Those are the ones that we believe have gone. There may be many more who set out to travel to another country and meandered over to Syria and Iraq in a way that is not always possible to spot when you have failed states and leaky borders. We know that over 500 British nationals travelled to join the conflict. Many have returned and many will wish to do so in the coming months and perhaps in future years. The Met say they have made 218 arrests for terrorist-related activity this year, an increase of about 70% in three years. A large part of this increased arrest rate is due to terrorist activities, plots and planning linked to Syria. The trend is, I think, set to continue.