Timeline Refresh
The games console is being increasingly used as a way to chat secretly. And at least one PlayStation 4 was reportedly seized during a huge night of raids across Belgium and France.
Last week, Belgium's foreign affairs minister warned that the PlayStation 4 was being increasingly used and was very difficult to track.
"The thing that keeps me awake at night is the guy behind his computer, looking for messages from IS and other hate preachers," Jan Jambon said.
"PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp.The PlayStation Network that allows online players to communicate uses encrypted text and voice chat, which means that intelligence agencies can't intercept messages as they pass between users. Users can also create private chat rooms easily, meaning that people are more likely to know that they are being eavesdropped on.
Earlier this year, an Austrian teenager was found to have been using a PlayStation 4 to make contact with Isis activists in Syria, according to prosecutors. Police had found data on the console that included bomb-making instructions, according to Reuters.
They lambasted those behind the Paris massacre, while extending their support to the victims of the unfortunate attack. But amid the outcry for Paris, Beirut -- which also played victim to an ISIS attack just the day before -- lay forgotten.
A similar callous attitude was what Baghdad got, which has been under continuous terrorist attacks. Like many have said, it's probably because of the sad truth that 'these things just happen there'.
It was this hard-hitting dichotomy of outrage and unconcern that's reflected in a poem posted by Indian-origin blogger Karuna Ezara Parikh on Twitter -- which instantly went viral.
Click on the picture to enlarge
A day after he said that BCCI president Shashank Manohar had offered to host Pakistan in December, Khan asserted that the series would only be possible if India play in the UAE, which acts as Pakistan's home venue ever since the 2009 terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team.
Swamy said that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had declared himself as a British citizen (2003-2009) for the purpose of floating a private company in London. Swamy has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding the government strip Gandhi of his citizenship.
Members of the online collective have posted a video which says the group will continue the work against Isis, which began after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January.
In a video posted soon after the attacks, a person claiming to represent the group warns members of Islamic State that it intends to hunt them down. It said that it would "unite humanity' in the operation, which it claimed would use hacking to weaken the group.
In July this year, Swamy wrote in his blog alleging Rahul Gandhi was arrested in Boston airport for carrying 1,60,000 USD cash and holding white powder. He also said that it was former Prime Minister Vajpayee was the one who saved Rahul by asking the then US President George Bush to release Rahul Gandhi.This isn't the first time Swamy is making a controversial claim, he took it further by claiming that the Gandhi family was blackmailing Vajpayee and didn't know the reason behind it.
The anti-terror operation in Lyon reportedly has no direct links to the shooting and bombing attacks that killed at 129 people in the capital on Friday night but are part of measures under the state of emergency declared by Francois Hollande.
A statement issued by the NC said, Nitish Kumar called up the President of the National Conference personally in the morning and requested his participation at the oath taking ceremony.
Dr Abdullah has accepted the invitation.
-- Mukhtar Ahmad/Rediff.com in Srinagar
He was reportedly involved in previously thwarted train and church attacks. RTL radio in France reported that the 27-year-old is "one of the most active Isis executioners" in Syria.
He is said to be from the Molenbeek district of Brussels, which has seen multiple police raids since eight suicide bombers armed with assault rifles killed at least 129 people in Paris on Friday night.
Abaaoud allegedly oversaw the attack and funded it. He was suspected of planning a series of foiled terror attacks in Belgium and his phone was traced to Greece.
A man pays tribute to victims at Place de la Republique near the deadly attack sites in Paris. Christian Hartman/Reuters
He will replace Asoke Mukerji who will be retiring. The post is generally a secretary-level one, so Akbaruddin's elevation is the first sign that merit is again one of the top considerations for posts.
Two weeks after Imran Khan's second marriage ended in a divorce in just 10 months, Reham has spoken out, claiming that she was told that she should be making chapatis in the kitchen and not to be seen outside.
The Pakistani cricket legend-turned-politician and the 42-year-old TV journalist announced their decision to split on October 30 amid reports that Imran objected to her meddling in politics.
62-year-old Imran's marriage to Reham was his second after his first marriage with English heiress Jemima Goldsmith for nine years ended in divorce in June, 2004.
Reham Khan, a divorced mother of three, left a job on regional BBC news and moved back to Pakistan in 2013.
"I was told specifically by a senior adviser: they basically wanted me to be in the kitchen, to be cooking chapatis and not to be seen ever again," Reham told Sunday Times.
Reham said as soon as she and her youngest daughter moved into Imran's mansion in Bani Gala, on a hilltop overlooking Islamabad, she felt stifled.
Her career was a constant problem, particularly when she became an "ambassador for street children" in Peshawar.
"There wasn't any involvement, I never attended meetings or anything of the sort, but obviously there was insecurity," Reham said.
Reham said she gave up her television show to avoid a conflict of interest and did not work for several months.
But she still upset Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) early on when a journalist questioned her about problems in her first marriage. Asked in an interview if she had been the victim of domestic abuse, she "didn't want to lie" and said yes.
"I answered as diplomatically as I could, being a politician's wife," she told the paper.
But the media storm that followed upset Imran's party.
Imran's response was silence, she said.
"I was told not to defend myself, to let it die down, she said. But the "attacks escalated". Although Imran knew about her past, she thinks it took its toll on him: "I don't know if he was surprised by it, but he was affected by it."
She said guests to Imran's home were never fed and Imran was surviving on "one chapati a day".
Imran was not, she thinks, quite prepared for married bliss.
"I tried to talk to him. I'm very talkative and I'm very chatty but, you know, you can't exactly with Imran Khan. You can't discuss the colour of the curtains; you can only talk politics. You cannot exactly discuss Bollywood films with him.
God knows I tried," she said.
Reham said she plans to continue her work with street children in Pakistan, is producing two films.
"I have to make up for loss of income. I married a man who convinced me that he loved me, who looked lonely and who I thought had the same ideas about life and the same goals, but we were just too different," she said.
"The response they expect.Parisians are sadly becoming all too used to this kind of violence. It was only in January this year when the attack on Charlie Hebdo left most of its staff dead or maimed. And now this, an attack so ferocious and brutal that Paris may take years to recover. Seven years ago, to this very month, gunmen also ran amok in Mumbai and unleashed terror that was to last four days and claim 166 lives. This is global war, and and it could be very well be a generational war."
Read Sunny Hundal's column for the Independent.
Prosecutors have also confirmed the identity of the fourth named suicide bomber. He is Samy Amimour, born in 1987 in Paris, living in Drancy. He was reportedly known to security services following a terror case in 2012.
Bilal Hadfi, 20, Brahim Abdeslam, 31 and Omar Mostefa, 29, had already been named by authorities.A Europe-wide search warrant is still out for Brahim's brother, Salah Abdeslam, 26, who allegedly drove the terrorists to their targets.
Rescue workers on duty at the Le Carillon restaurant. Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/ Reuters
They led to five arrests and the seizure of an arsenal of weapons, including a rocket launcher, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, bulletproof vests, handguns and combat gear, the source said. Police also carried out raids in Toulouse in southwestern France, where at least three people were arrested, according to the local prosecutors office.
In the Alpine city of Grenoble, according to the local newspaper Le Dauphine Libere, at least half a dozen people were arrested and guns and money were seized. Police have additional powers under a state of emergency declared after the coordinated attacks in Paris on Friday that left 129 people dead and more than 350 injured.
The New York Times reports that according to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area of Syria controlled by the Islamic State that is close to the eastern border with Iraq.
The airstrikes were carried out by four A-10 attack planes and two AC-130 gunships based in Turkey.
Plans for the strike were developed well before the terrorist attacks in and around Paris on Friday, and the assault is part of a broader operation to disrupt the ability of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, to generate revenue to support its military operations and run its self-styled caliphate.
Representational picture of oil trucks on fire.
Advani has not been blogging for a while, and plans of its relaunch has created suspicion, as the Bihar result will also be analysed by Advani. Senior leaders of the party have chosen to ignore this as Advani does not have sufficient supporters in the party though he may get good press.
A picture of Jubbal holding an iPad was photoshopped where the iPad was replaced with a Quran and a suicide vest was also added. One of the first tweets was put out by an handle named @abualut8 which shared the image and the caption, BREAKING, one Islamic State attacker in #ParisAttacks was a Sikh convert to Islam.
The tweet has since then been deleted, but not before causing some serious damage to Jubbals reputation given that media in various parts of Europe already labelled him a terrorist.
Jubal tweeted: "Has spread to the point, where many people have had to tweet about the photos being photoshopped.. Any support/nice messages are welcome."
Followed by this tweet:
"Let us start with basics.
Never been to Paris.
Am a Sikh dude with a turban.
Lives in Canada."
3:56 AM - 15 Nov 2015
In fact, it was Advani who went to 10 Janpath (Sonia Gandhi's official residence) to hand over his autobiography, My Country, My life.
The BJP leadership is believed to be upset over this, but have not made any official comment as PM Modi hates back channels getting active.
Deepak Chopra who is Advani's blue-eyed secretary and coordinates between his daughter Prathibha Advani to leak stories about the Advani camp is also meeting innumerable journalists. Chopra fought for his right in the Lok Sabha Secretariat to get the status and pay scale of secretary to the Government of India as he is designated as the Officer on Special Duty to Advani.
In a gazette notification issued recently, the government declared NSCN-K, all its front organizations and formations as a terrorist organization under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, a Home Ministry spokesman said.
The group, which had signed a peace agreement in March 2001, had withdrawn unilaterally from the ceasefire agreement in March this year after it was alleged that the area along Indo-Myanmar border being under their control was fast turning out to be 'safe-zone' for terrorists of ULFA faction led by Paresh Barua, the NDFB led by I K Songbijit, and the Meitei armed groups like the People's Liberation Army of Manipur.
The spokesman said that the NSCN (K) has resorted to terrorism by killing innocent civilians and security forces and engaged in other violent activities including the June four attack on an Army convoy in Chandel district of Manipur.
This case is being probed by the NIA, which has announced a bounty of Rs 17 lakh for providing information about two top leaders of militant NSCN-K including its chief S S Khaplang who were allegedly behind the strike.
The probe agency declared a cash reward of Rs seven lakh for Khaplang while a Rs 10 lakh bounty was announced for Niki Sumi, self-styled chief of the armed wing of NSCN-K, who is alleged to have led a group of rebels on June 4.
Khaplang is a resident of Myanmar while Sumi hails from Nagaland. There are reports that 75-year-old Khaplang was in a hospital and later shifted to Taga, a place which is at a junction of India-Myanmar-China border.
He also asserted that it was a politically motivated move before the Bihar polls. "This particular debate (on intolerance) is no debate. It is the unnecessary creation of very imaginative minds who are being paid with a lot of money," Minister of State for External Affairs Singh said on the sidelines of the Regional Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Los Angeles.
Singh was in the city to attend the two-day event in place of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who had to return mid-way from Dubai in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.
Born on 8 January 1929, Jaffrey, an Indian-born British actor was born in Malerkotla, Punjab. His film credits include The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Shatranj Ke Khiladi (The Chess Players) (1977), Gandhi (1982), A Passage to India (1965 BBC version and 1984 film), The Far Pavilions (1984), and My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). He has also appeared in many Bollywood films in the 1980s and 1990s. For television he has starred in Gangsters (1975'"1978), The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Tandoori Nights (1985-1987) and Little Napoleons (1994). He also appeared as Ravi Desai on Coronation Street and in Minder as Mr Mukerjee in Series 1 episode The Bengal Tiger.
The Sena also noted that talks of human rights of terrorists should be shunned as they need to be rooted out completely.
"ISIS, which has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, has lately become active in Jammu and Kashmir as well. The raising of ISIS flags in Kashmir is a very serious issue. After the human slaughter in Paris, we need to deal with this issue even more seriously,' the Sena said in an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana'.
The edit said that it was imperative for India to understand that Western countries' fight against terror was limited to their own interests and "we need to fight terror in our own way.
"Many countries including Pakistan have condemned the terror attacks in Paris. One can only laugh when a country like Pakistan condemns these attacks because the neighbouring country is a factory that makes terrorists.
"But until these terror attacks happen on their soil, America and European nations won't understand India's pain. Terrorists are not even leaving European nations now. Cracks are developing in their once impregnable security walls. This incident has claimed the largest number of lives after the Second World War. Europe needs to take lessons from this incident. Shun talks of human rights of terrorists and eliminate them from their roots," the Sena said.
Andrabi is the chief of the radical womens outfit Dukhtaran-e-Millat, and was detained in September for hoisting a Pakistani flag in August. The DeM chief celebrated Pakistans Independence Day on August 14 at her residence by singing that countrys national anthem and unfurling the flag of the neighbouring country on the outskirts of the city.
Hours after that, Andrabi had stoked another controversy by addressing via phone a rally in Pakistan which was organized by Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamat-ud Dawa (JuD).
"India has always said that terrorism and anything to do with terrorism is a threat (to the world). India has always said that terrorism should never be used as a state policy by anybody," Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh told reporters on the sidelines of the Regional Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Los Angeles
Attending the two-day event in place of External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who had to return mid-way from Dubai to New Delhi in view of the Paris terror attacks, Singh said India is concerned over spreading of terrorism, whether it is India or anywhere else in the world. "We seriously condemn the incident that has happened in France. We are hopeful that everybody would unite together to fight against this kind of a menace," he said.
Delhi's AAP government had moved the Supreme Court to seek death penalty for Vikas, his cousin Vishal Yadav and accomplice Sukhdev Yadav in connection with the Nitish Katara murder case.
Nitish, son of an IAS officer, was killed by Vikas Yadav, his cousin Vishal Yadav and Sukhdev Pehlwan on the intervening night of February 16 and 17, 2002, after they abducted him from a marriage party in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad. Both Vikas and Vishal objected to Nitish's alleged relationship with their sister, Bharti Yadav.
Recently, the Supreme Court rejected a petition seeking death penalty for Vikas and Vishal Yadav in the Katara murder case. Refusing to call it a case of honour killing, the apex court said that the case does not fall in the rarest of rare category under which death penalty is awarded.
An apex court bench of Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice R. Banumati had said that while it was a murder and could even be pre-meditated, it certainly was not heinous or a matter of honour killing.
Nitish's mother Neelam Katara had moved the Supreme Court questioning the Delhi high court order sentencing the duo to 25 and five years sentences which are to be run one after the other. She had sought an enhancement of the sentence to death or alternatively imprisonment for whole life.
Vikas Yadav was given an enhanced 30-year jail term without remission by the Delhi high court, including 25 years for murder and another five years for destruction of evidence. Sukhdev Yadav too was awarded an enhanced life sentence by the high court and is undergoing 20 years in jail without remission.
Modi said terrorism is the main global challenge today and "from regions in conflict to the streets of distant cities, terrorism extracts a deadly price".
Speaking at the G20 Summit in Antalya, being held against the backdrop of deadly Paris attacks, the Prime Minister said, "Old structures of terrorism remain. There are countries that still use it as an instrument of state policy."
"The world must speak in one voice and act in unison against terrorism, without any political considerations. There should be no distinction between terrorist groups or discrimination between states.
"We must isolate those who support and sponsor terrorism; and, stand with those who share our values of humanism. We need to restructure the international legal framework to deal with the unique challenges of terrorism," he said.
He was making an intervention at G-20 Working Dinner last night on the issue of 'Global Challenges '" Terrorism and Refugee Crisis'. Modi said the world is seeing a changing character of terrorism with "global links, franchise relations, home-grown terrorism and use of cyber space for recruitment and propaganda".
Saleh Abdelslam, 26, was one of three men in a getaway car, headed for France's border with Belgium, when police pulled them over after daybreak Saturday.
The French president had already announced new border controls to prevent the perpetrators from escaping. Hours had passed since investigators identified Abdelslam as the renter of a Volkswagen Polo that carried hostage-takers to the Paris theater where almost three-quarters of the 129 victims were killed. It's not clear why the local French police, known as gendarmes, didn't take Abdelslam into custody.
They checked his identification, but it's not known whether they had been informed of his apparent connection to the attacks. "It was a simple check. There was no lookout notice at the time of the traffic stop," a French police official told the AP yesterday.
Asked whether Abdelslam's name had been shared over police networks by then, the official simply said: "I have no explanation." It may not have been the only missed opportunity before and after France's deadliest extremist attack since World War II.
The day before the attacks, senior Iraqi intelligence officials warned France and other members of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State that assaults by the militant group could be imminent, according to a dispatch obtained by the AP.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group's leader, had ordered supporters to use guns and bombs and take hostages in the days ahead in coalition countries as well as Iran and Russia, Thursday's dispatch said.
The dispatch did not say where or when the attacks might take place, and a senior French security official told the AP that French intelligence gets this kind of communication "all the time" and "every day."
But Iraqi intelligence officials told the AP that they also shared specific details with French authorities before the attack including the size of a sleeper cell of militants they said was directing attackers sent back to France from Islamic State's de-facto capital in Raqqa, Syria.
These additional details were not corroborated by French or Western security officials. But one US official said yesterday that the evident weaponry skill displayed by the attackers suggests that they might have received training somewhere.
The Telegraph reports that Belgian prosecutors said that one of the seven killers who died in Paris had been identified as a Frenchman living in Molenbeek, which is described by one expert as "the capital of political Islam in continental Europe". A second attacker lived in or close to the district.
France carried out massive raids in Syria, their biggest to date, in co-ordination with US forces, striking the Islamic State stronghold in Raqqa just days after the terror outfit carried a series of coordinated attacks that killed around 129 people.
Raqqa is seen as the de facto capital of the Islamic States territory.
According to the Guardian, the French defence ministry has claimed that the raid was launched simultaneously from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
Pic: An injured man in the immediate aftermath of the attack
The ultra-hardline group has frequently threatened to strike inside Western countries since it established itself amid Syria's civil war and then spread to northern Iraq last year, but one fighter reached inside Syria said its spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani had issued an instruction to act abroad.
"He sent a written order to all sectors and security brigades to start moving, including in Lebanon and Turkey," the Syrian IS fighter said via social media from northern Syria."Lebanon and France and other places are all part of the operations ordered two months ago." Read more