Twin attacks on US consulate and police station in Istanbul leave many dead

Istanbul, the largest city of Turkey faced twin attacks on the U.S. consulate and a police station as tensions built up over the government's air campaign against Kurdish militants. It seems a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives at a police station in the Sultanbeyli district on the Asian side of Istanbul just after midnight. The attack wounded 10 persons, three of them were from the police. The clashes with police apparently went on throughout the night as other militants fired on the police station.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 10 August 2015.

Two militants were killed by police but their political links have not been established. One policeman also died in the clashes.
In the meantime, two militants, one of them a woman, attacked the US consulate in the district of Istinye on the Bosphorus on the outskirts of the city. The woman was wounded and captured.
Moreover, four Turkish police officers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in the Silopi district of Sirnak province that borders Iraq and Syria – this attack was blamed on Kurdish militants. And, a Turkish soldier was killed in yet another attack when militants targeted a military helicopter with rocket launchers as it was transporting personnel in Sirnak's Beytussebap district.
This attack led to an aerial operation by the Turkish military with Cobra helicopters bombing the area. (Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Britain’s MI6 joins Turkey to fight ISIS

Based on intelligence provided by MI6, dozens of Islamic State safe houses in Istanbul have been raided and almost 300 suspects have been arrested in the crackdown in the Turkish city. This city has become the gateway for UK citizens who want to join the terror group.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 25 July 2015.

As per information, MI6 had made available intelligence that had been used to conduct raids at 140 addresses by some 5,000 police. It seems telephone intercepts were resorted to in order to pinpoint the support network for Britons travelling to Syria and Iraq.
It was a joint action and documents and laptops that have been seized have linked IS recruiters of European jihadis to some of the addresses where men and women were housed in the course of their transit to join the group.
These arrests are a result to the major change in stance by Turkey toward IS in which US warplanes were given permission for the first time to fly from a major southern Turkish base at Incirlik. Moreover, Turkey’s own F-16 fighter jets attacked jihadi positions inside Syria and hit three targets in which nine militants were killed.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has remarked that the US and Turkey’s air strikes have completely destroyed ISIS targets.
The dramatic change in Turkey’s stance can be attributed to the attack in the southern Turkish border city of Suruc by a suspected IS suicide bomber in which 32 anti-IS activists were killed.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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British would-be jihadists are making detour to Syria via Canada to avoid detection

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has made a startling revelation that would0be British jihadists who want to join ISIS fighting in Syria are taking a detour via Canada in order to avoid detection.
He has said that these tactics are used by radicalized extremists to escape being caught by police and their actions were becoming 'increasingly sophisticated'. As a result, it becomes difficult for the security services to keep tabs on those who are determined to travel to the region.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 10 June 2015.

On a rough estimate, nearly 700 British citizens are believed to have travelled to Syria and Iraq and there are growing fears that they would return to the UK to plot terror attacks here. Incidentally, airlines operating in the UK have been asked to check all teenagers who are boarding flights to Turkey.
This action was taken following the case of three south London schoolgirls who had flown out of Britain to join ISIS. Philip Hammond had attended a summit in Paris with 20 countries to discuss how to tackle the rise of ISIS where Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had claimed that the dramatic advance of ISIS is a combined failure of the world community. He went on to add that there is 'a lot of talk' about supporting his country but 'very little on the ground'.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Three British jihadi schoolgirls give everyone the slip and arrive in Raqqa

#BritishSchoolgirls #ISIS #Raqqa #Syria #London #ScotlandYard The three British schoolgirls who gave everyone the slip and fled to Syria to join Islamic State are believed to now be in a house in the city of Raqqa. The three of them had gone missing two weeks ago after they had boarded a flight from Gatwick to Istanbul. This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 9 March 2015.
Their journey to Syria has led to plenty of accusations and counter accusations among the authorities because it was an action that could have been prevented if the policing authorities had been more vigilant. From reports, the girls are believed to have crossed from Turkey to Syria through the town of Arai.
Moreover, the girls were reportedly staying with a British girl who is thought to be a pupil from the same school in east London and who had gone missing in December. She is believed to have joined IS.
From their actions it is evident that these girls view such escapades as a sort of picnic not knowing what actually is in store for them. They get carried away by the stories they read on various social websites that glorify the IS and paint a glowing picture of the goodies that are in store fir them once they break out of the shackles and join up.
When realization would dawn, it would be too late for them and others like them and they would be stranded in the point of no return.
As per Scotland Yard, at least 22 young women are feared to have travelled to Syria from the UK over the past 12 months. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has warned that the girls have been lured to Syria by IS and would face sexual abuse at the hands of ‘deeply misogynistic’ militants.

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Obama admits that there is no quick-fix solution to fight the IS militants

While speaking with military chiefs from more than 20 nations, President Barack Obama has admitted to setbacks in the war against the Islamic State with reference to the fierce fighting for control of a Syrian border town. Moreover, there appears to be fresh concerns over Turkey’s cooperation foxnews.com.

President Obama has made note of the negative developments in the fight against the Islamic State and has remarked that there would be days of progress as also “periods of setback” and that there are no “quick fixes.”
The relationship with Turkey is another problem because Turkey has gone in for airstrikes against Kurdish rebels inside its borders – this defies the pleas from the U.S. to instead focus on the Islamic State.

The U.S. has been wanting Turkey to take a more active role in the campaign to destroy the Islamic State group since the Islamic State group is an enemy that the Turkish government shares with the Kurds. But, Turkey’s stand is that it won't join the fight unless the U.S.-led coalition also targets the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

15-year-old girl from Bristol goes to Syria to join the jihadists

When a 15-year-old girl, a would-be dentist from Bristol, leaves her roots and wants to go to Syria to join the jihadists, it is a matter of concern news.sky.com. It seems, this girl along with another 17-year-old girl had travelled from London to Turkey from where they wanted to cross over into Syria.
The 17-year-old London teenager, from Lambeth, is of Somali descent and was last seen leaving home at 7am on September 24.
According to friends of the 15-year-old was a studious student but, she wanted to join militants in Syria and might have been radicalized online. This is what others have surmised because she had, of late, become tied to her mobile phone and computer probably being influenced after viewing extremist material on chat rooms and forums.
She studied in The City Academy in Bristol but, she was not in school when her father went to pick her up last week and she has not been heard of from that day.
The girl's family are also Somali and, as per officers who are investigating, they are trying to ascertain whether the two girls travelled together from Heathrow Airport to Istanbul, Turkey.
Obviously, the social media is to blame since its reach is growing with every passing day and, in order to access the internet, one need not go to any café but can do it from one’s mobile phone.

Turkey overburdened with more than 100,000 Syrian refugees

The U.N. refugee agency has indicated that some 70,000 Syrians have crossed into Turkey in the past 24 hours, and that it was preparing for the arrival of hundreds of thousands more foxnews.com .These Syrian refugees are mostly ethnic Kurds and they are desperate to reach Turkey in order to escape the advance of religious extremists that are barreling across Syria.
The number of refugees seeking shelter in Turkey from the Islamic State group's advance across northeastern Syria has reportedly hit 100,000, as clashes broke out on the border between Turkish security guards and Kurds.
As per information furnished by the head of Turkey's AFAD disaster management agency, Fuat Oktay, the figure relates to Syrians who are escaping from the area near the Syrian border town of Kobani, where fighting is currently raging between IS and Kurdish fighters.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has revealed that the Islamic State group has taken control of 64 villages in northeastern Syria since the fighting began there and the fate of 800 Kurds from these villages is unknown. It seems the Islamic State group have executed 11 civilians, including two boys.
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US has sounded the death knell for senior ISIS leaders in Syria

The cold blooded murder of US journalist James Foley has stirred up a hornet’s nest and the US is believed to be considering conducting air strikes aimed at eliminating individual leaders of the Islamic State theguardian.com. Simultaneously, Turkey is being pressurized to stem the flow of jihadists across its border and into Syria.
The time necessary to mount strikes at high-value targets, such as individual leaders, could be an hour, or "as much as a week". US officials are reportedly discussing the possibility of mounting unmanned drone strikes on ISIS leaders, as had been done in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.
Senior British politicians have urged Ankara to take necessary actions to block recruits from the UK and other countries from entering Syria via Turkey – this is their preferred route to join up with the Islamic State (formerly ISIS).
Reports indicate that large numbers of ISIS jihadists were trying to secure greater control of the border area, pushing northwards in armored trucks that they have looted from abandoned Iraqi military bases.
The game plan of ISIS is clear – it wants to establish dominance in the area to make it easier for potential recruits to gain safe passage and to allow the movement of vital supplies, including weapons and oil. Incidentally, this route has been used by most of the foreign fighters who have joined the cause, especially by several hundred of those who have joined ISIS from the UK.
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