Russian air strikes in Syria killed more than 1,300: monitor

BEIRUT - More than 1,300 people, around two-thirds of them combatants, have been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria since Moscow's aerial campaign began on September 30, a monitor said Friday.

The figure supplied by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is more that double the overall toll it gave in its last report on the Russian campaign three weeks ago.

The Britain-based Observatory said it had documented 1,331 deaths in Russian air strikes, most of them of Islamic State group jihadists or other fighters..

It said 381 IS fighters had been killed, along with 547 militants from Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front and other rebel forces.

The strikes also killed 403 civilians, including 97 children, according to the monitor.

The Observatory's last toll for the campaign, on October 29, put the number of killed at nearly 600.

Russia says its aerial campaign targets IS and other "terrorists" but rebel forces and their backers accuse Moscow of focusing on moderate and Islamist fighters over jihadists.

Several medical groups have also accused Russia of strikes that have hit field clinics and hospitals in Syria.

Russia's intervention in Syria follows that of a US-led coalition that has been carrying out strikes against IS in the country since September 2014.

The US-led coalition does not coordinate with Damascus however.

According to the Observatory, the US-led coalition air strikes have killed at least 3,649 people since they began, around six percent of them civilians.

The monitor said in late October that US-led raids had killed 3,276 IS fighters, 147 members of Al-Nusra or Islamist groups and 226 civilians.

source: interaksyon.com

'Facebook DISABLED my account,' says woman named ISIS

MANILA - There's a woman from San Francisco who recently reported that the social media network Facebook disabled – but later reinstated – her account because of her name: Isis.

The name happens to be the same as the popular moniker of ISIS – The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), that is currently hogging the news headlines in the wake of its waves of terror attacks in Paris.

In the Tech News section of the British-published Express (http://www.express.co.uk), Aaron Brown wrote on Wednesday (November 18): "Isis Anchalee claims her profile was removed by Facebook because of her name."

Brown observed that the news comes days after Facebook rolled out the ability to overlay the French flag on users' profile pictures, to show solidarity with France.

 

ISIS is also known as The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), described by various sources as a Wahhabi/Salafi jihadist extremist militant group, self-proclaimed to be a caliphate and Islamic state, led by and mainly composed of Sunni Arabs from Iraq and Syria.

"Isis Anchalee – an engineer based in San Francisco, California – claims Facebook disabled her account because she shares her name with a popular abbreviation for Islamic State," Brown added in his report.

Read it here.

In the wake of the terror implications, Brown noted that Facebook had been "hard at work trying to eradicate the presence of Islamic State, dubbed ISIS, on the hugely popular US social network.

"Unfortunately the San Francisco engineer appears to have been mixed up in its efforts."

Anchalee was reportedly asked to prove her identity three times to Facebook.

"As a result, Facebook has since reinstated Isis Anchalee's profile on the hugely successful social network."

source: interaksyon.com

Anonymous hacking network declares war on IS

PARIS, France — The Anonymous hacking network declared war on the Islamic State in a Youtube video Monday, sparking a combative response from the jihadist group’s affiliates, a security expert said.

The “hacktivist” collective vowed vengeance for attacks in Paris on Friday, claimed by IS, that left 129 dead and hundreds injured, some of them critically.

“Anonymous everywhere in the world is going to hunt you down,” a hooded figure in black, wearing the group’s signature Guy Fawkes mask said in French.

It was not possible to verify its authenticity, but the statement and video had the hallmarks of the network, known for mounting cyberattacks against government and corporate websites.

“Our country, France, was hit in Paris on November 13 around 2200 (2100 GMT) by multiple terrorist attacks claimed by you, the Islamic State,” the figure said in a gravelly, computer-altered voice.

“We are going to launch the biggest operation every mounted against you — get ready for a multitude of cyberattacks. War has been declared.”

Counterproductive

The video, posted the day after the attacks, had more than 1.3 million views by Monday afternoon.

In an apparent riposte, a message posted on the Twitter address of the messaging service Telegram calls on Islamic State affiliates to secure their Internet communications.

“The #Anonymous hackers threatened… that they will carry out a major hack operation on the Islamic state (idiots),” the message said.

“So U should follow the instructions below to avoid being hacked,” it continued, advising followers to avoid opening unknown links and to frequently change computers and phones.

Charlie Winter, a researcher in transnational jihadism at UK-based think tank Quilliam, affirmed the message’s authenticity in a tweet.

“@GroupAnon, IS didn’t like your declaration of war,” he wrote, referring to one of Anonymous’ Twitter addresses.

“Here’s what they’re saying on @telegram. Use it against them.”

French cybersecurity expert Olivier Laurelli warned the Anonymous action against the jihadist organisation could interfere with police efforts to identify and track its members.

“It’s counterproductive,” he told AFP. Actions that force Islamic State operatives “to close accounts just renders police investigators blind and dead for certain things.”

It is helpful, for example, to know that certain accounts are based in France, Syria or Iraq, he said.

Being able to identify connections and communications between individuals is also critical. But if Anonymous forces accounts to shut down, investigators are left with dead ends.

Besdies, the impact is only temporary, he added. “An account closed here, is just another one opened over there,” he said.

The nearly three-minute Anonymous clip opens with thundering orchestral music, displaying the Anonymous logo of a suited figure with a question mark for a head.

The speaker, seated like a news presenter, is flanked by the logo on one side and black-and-white news footage of the aftermath of the attacks, on the other.

France led a minute’s silence observed around the world on Monday in memory of the victims of the worst-ever terror attacks on French soil.

President Francois Hollande and his cabinet, all dressed in black, bowed their heads at the Sorbonne University in Paris, surrounded by scores of students.

The attacks — at six locations in and near Paris — came less than 11 months after jihadists struck satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket, killing 17.

source: interaksyon.com