We begin with the story of the day, first from United Press International:
Two killed in Belgium anti-terror raids
Police say group has links to Islamic State in Syria
Two people were killed Thursday while police conducted an anti-terrorism operation in eastern Belgium.
In a press conference Thursday, Belgium’s federal prosecutor reported that suspects opened fire in Verviers as police conducted their raid, and they were “neutralized.”
The group police confronted is believed to have links to the Islamic State and was said to be planning “imminent” attacks in Belgium.
“The group was about to carry out major terrorist attacks in Belgium,” said federal prosecutor spokesman Eric Van der Sypt, who described the threat as “imminent.”
More from the Guardian:
All three gunmen, he said, were Belgian nationals. Police sources told Belgian television stations they had resolved to launch the pre-emptive operation against the terrorist suspects a fortnight ago after bugging the homes and cars of the men who were said to have recently returned from fighting in the war in Syria. The investigation concluded that a large-scale attack was imminent, targeting police stations.
Parallel to the scenes in Verviers, special police units carried out at least a dozen raids elsewhere in Belgium in what appeared to be well-planned operations. They focused on neighbourhoods that are predominantly populated by immigrants in at least four districts in and around Brussels, with explosives reportedly found in the western Brussels area of Anderlecht. There was no police confirmation.
The Belgian prosecutor’s office said the terrorist suspects opened fire on police in Verviers when the raid was launched. No civilians or police were hurt in the operation. The wounded suspect, arrested and taken to Brussels, was said to be a Chechen known to the Belgian authorities.
And the companion piece from the Associated Press:
FBI: Ohio man planned to bomb US Capitol, kill officials
A 20-year-old Ohio man’s Twitter posts sympathizing with Islamic terrorists led to an undercover FBI operation and the man’s arrest on charges that he plotted to blow up the U.S. Capitol and kill government officials.
Christopher Lee Cornell, also known as Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah, told an FBI informant they should “wage jihad,” and showed his plans for bombing the Capitol and shooting people, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Ohio Wednesday. The FBI said Cornell expressed his support for the Islamic State.
Cornell’s arrest came only days after a grand jury indictment charged another Cincinnati-area resident with threatening to murder House Speaker John Boehner.
The Guardian covers the French front:
French police identify potential fourth terror cell member after Paris attacks
Investigators painstakingly follow the money trail of the Charlie Hebdo attackers as they seek other suspected jihadists
Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four hostages at a Paris kosher supermarket, rented a small suburban house the week before and filled it with an impressive arsenal of late-model weapons, police said on Wednesday.
A published report said a search of the house enabled police to identity a potential fourth attacker as investigators follow the money and supply systems for the three known killers, all of whom died in police raids. Police told the Associated Press that as many as six members of the same radical Islamic terror cell may be at large.
“We have put our finger on some extremely dangerous people, men and women,” French police union spokesman Christophe Crepin said. “We are really in a war.”
Of special interest is the small attached house on a quiet street in the town of Gentilly, south of Paris, that Coulibaly rented about two weeks ago. French police officials refused to say what has been discovered inside the dwelling, but the newspaper Le Parisien reported that detectives from the Paris criminal brigade and a special police anti-terrorism unit seized a scooter that allowed them to identity “a fourth man” who acted as Coulibaly’s accomplice.
While the Christian Science Monitor asks a question:
What’s the evidence Al Qaeda in Yemen organized the Paris attacks?
Their word alone. Nasr al-Ansi, a militant commander, made the claim in a video released this week.
AQAP offers no new evidence for its claim. The video statement read by AQAP majordomo Nasr al-Ansi, from behind his immaculately groomed and dyed beard, contains no information about the attacks or attackers that couldn’t be gleaned from press reports prior to it being issued. He opens with the standard litany of attacks on the US, France, and other Western countries. They are all the “Party of Satan,” and “Zionist crusaders,” and they’re pursuing a genocidal global war to wipe out all Muslims etc. He then says the group “chose the target, made the plan, financed the operation, and appointed its leader (emir).”
He goes on to claim that US-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a US airstrike in Yemen in September 2011 along with another American national and AQAP propagandist, had been involved in “arranging” the attack. Footage of Awlaki is shown at times behind Ansi as he speaks.
Such a claim seems jarring given that Alwaki died three years before the Paris attacks. However, his role in the group was largely about inspiring and recruiting would-be terrorists from the West. He combined jihadi religious credentials with impeccable English and was involved with the group’s English-language publication Inspire, designed to encourage attacks by people who might never have had any direct contact with the group.
While the Guardian hits the links:
Paris attackers may have links with Spanish terrorist cell
French and Spanish police investigate possibility of Islamist group in Madrid after reports of Coulibaly visit over new year
Police are investigating whether the gunmen who killed 17 people in Paris last week had links with a terrorist cell in Spain.
One of the three Islamic fundamentalists involved in the bloody rampage, Amedy Coulibaly, was reported to have spent three days in Madrid over the new year. He was accompanied by an unidentified person, according to detectives in Spain.
Last week Coulibaly, 32, shot dead a trainee police officer in southern Paris before storming a kosher supermarket in the east of the French capital the following day and killing four hostages.
From TheLocal.at, a furor in Austria:
14-year-old bomb plot boy on the run
A 14-year-old boy who was arrested in October for plotting to explode a bomb at a crowded railway station has gone missing, according to police reports.
Merkan G., a boy of Turkish origin who planned to commit a terrorist attack on the Westbahnhof railway station went missing on Tuesday afternoon.
The teenage jihadist who faced pre-trial detention in a remand home in Hütteldorf had planned to find crowds to maximize death in his bomb plans.
Nikkei Asian Review covers the money angle:
Global scrutiny needed on terror financing
The international community must do more to keep track of flows of money to terrorists, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin told The Nikkei.
Stopping money laundering and other illegal means that terrorists can use to fund their operations is of interest to many countries, Sapin said in an interview here ahead of his trip to Japan this weekend, during which he will discus counterterrorism efforts with senior Japanese officials.
He argued that stronger international cooperation in this regard is needed to fight against “acts of barbarism.” Sapin also suggested exchanging lists of known extremists and sharing information on suspicious persons who are on the move.
From United Press International, recognizing that absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence:
Holder: U.S. needs better data on killings of and by police
Attorney General Eric Holder said his brother is a retired police officer and he called police “true American heroes.”
The United States must do a better job of tracking killings by police officers and the killings of police officers, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday.
In a speech at a Martin Luther King Jr. birthday memorial event, Holder attempted to bridge the divide between protesters angry at police-involved killings, especially those of unarmed black men, and police who say they are risking their lives with insufficient support.
“The troubling reality is that we lack the ability right now to comprehensively track the number of incidents of either uses of force directed at police officers or uses of force by police,” he said. “This strikes many — including me — as unacceptable. Fixing this is an idea that we should all be able to unite behind.”
From Fusion, a pathetic decision:
Miami Beach cops won’t get Tasered during training anymore because it’s ‘extremely unpleasant’
Miami Beach officers are no longer required to get Tasered during police trainings, a notable policy change for a department that has made national headlines in the past for its use of Tasers in the field.
In an internal e-mail obtained by Fusion, Police Chief Daniel J. Oates told his officers he does not believe they need to be Tasered in order to be “well trained in how to use the weapon.”
“I learned this morning that our Department has a long-standing practice that before any member can qualify to carry a Taser on patrol, he/she must first be shocked by the weapon in training. I don’t agree with this rule,” Oates wrote.
“I have been shocked by the Taser, and it is extremely unpleasant.”
From BBC News, there’s a movie in this, maybe War Games II:
‘Cyber attack war games’ to be staged by UK and US
Agreements were reached in the wake of recent cyber attacks
The UK and US are to carry out “war game” cyber attacks on each other as part of a new joint defence against online criminals. The first exercise, a staged attack on the financial sector, will take place later this year, Downing Street said.
The “unprecedented” arrangement between the two countries was announced as Prime Minister David Cameron held talks with US President Barack Obama. Agents will also co-operate in “cyber cells” on both sides of the Atlantic.
Downing Street said this was the first “cyber cell” the UK had established with another country.
Hypocrisy confirmed, via the Guardian:
Secret US cybersecurity report: encryption vital to protect private data
Newly uncovered Snowden document contrasts with British PM’s vow to crack down on encrypted messaging after Paris attacks
A secret US cybersecurity report warned that government and private computers were being left vulnerable to online attacks from Russia, China and criminal gangs because encryption technologies were not being implemented fast enough.
The advice, in a newly uncovered five-year forecast written in 2009, contrasts with the pledge made by David Cameron this week to crack down on encryption use by technology companies.
In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, the prime minister said on Monday there should be “no means of communication” that British authorities could not access. Cameron will use his visit to the US, which started on Thursday , to urge Barack Obama to apply more pressure to tech giants, such as Apple, Google and Facebook, which have been expanding encrypted messaging for their millions of users since the revelations of mass NSA surveillance by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The document from the US National Intelligence Council, which reports directly to the US director of national intelligence, made clear that encryption was the “best defence” for computer users to protect private data.
And from The Register, a road trip:
David Cameron: I’m off to the US to get my bro Barack to ban crypto – report
Plans to pressure President for tighter surveillance controls, sources say
UK Prime Minister David Cameron is hoping to gain the support of US President Barack Obama in his campaign-year crusade to outlaw encrypted communications his spies can’t break, sources claim.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Conservative Cameron would like to see left-leaning Obama publicly criticize major US internet companies like Facebook and Google, many of which have made strong encryption the default on their online services.
The President hasn’t taken a public position on the issue so far, but several prominent federal law enforcement officials have given internet firms lashings over their use of encryption tech, which they claim undermines national security interests.
After the jump, hackers use emails to target LinkedIn, “Je suis Charlie” provokes a hack, Goggle heads off a malvertising assault, a German military effort in Iraq heads for the constitutional rocks, Charlie Hebdo attack triggers a Turkish/Israeli schism, a Hezbollah honcho allegedly spied for Israel, a controversial trial in Pakistan as parliament lodges a Charlie Hebdo protest, plus conflicts over the Pakistani war on terror, Hindu fundamentalist rancor drives an Indian author to give up the pen, Myanmar cops confiscate The Interview, via VICE News, Shinzo Abe’s Japanese military ambitions expand yet again, the Comfort Women issue heats up still more on both the diplomatic and textbook fronts, plus protests continues over the U.S. base relocation on Okinawa. . .
Network World covers a phish concert[ed effort]:
Ham-fisted phishing attack seeks LinkedIn logins
Symantec has spotted an uptick in phishing emails over the last week that purport to come from LinkedIn support and attempt to steal users’ account credentials.
The emails warn potential victims of “irregular activities” on their account and say a compulsory security update is required. The emails include an HTML attachment that purports to be a form for performing the update.
The HTML file is actually a copy of LinkedIn’s website and login page, wrote Satnam Narang, senior security response manager with Symantec, in a blog post. But the website code in the file has been modified, so if a user logs in, their account credentials are sent to the attackers.
“Je suis Charlie” provokes a hack, via SecurityWeek:
Notepad++ Site Hacked in Response to “Je suis Charlie” Edition
The official website of the popular source code editor Notepad++ was hacked and defaced on Monday by hacktivists protesting against the recently released “Je suis Charlie” edition of the application.
Hackers of the Fallaga Team, a Tunisian group, breached and defaced a large number of French websites following the Charlie Hebdo incident in which 12 people were killed by two masked gunmen.
The website of Notepad++ (notepad-plus-plus.org) became a target after the release of version 6.7.4, “Je suis Charlie” edition. The attackers defaced the website with a message in which they accused Notepad++ developers of saying that “Islam is terrorist.”
Goggle heads off a malvertising assault, via Network World:
Google nixes widespread malvertising attack
Google has stopped a widespread malicious advertising attack that bounced Web surfers to dodgy sites hawking weight loss and skin care products.
The malicious ads were delivered to website owners signed up with Google’s AdSense program, wrote Denis Sinegubko, a senior malware researcher with Sucuri, a Delware-based security company. AdSense supplies relevant banner advertisements to websites.
When displayed, the malicious advertisements automatically redirected a person’s browser to bogus websites. Those websites were designed to look like legitimate magazines such as Forbes and Good Housekeeping, featuring spammy offerings for anti-aging and brain-enhancing products, among others, Sinegubko wrote.
From Deutsche Welle, a German military effort in Iraq heads for the constitutional rocks:
German parliament concerned training mission in Iraq could be unconstitutional
Legal experts in the German Bundestag are doubtful that the Bundeswehr’s planned mission in Iraq is constitutional. Their survey says the government’s legal justification for the operation is flawed.
The German parliament’s scientific research service says the government’s legal argument to justify a training mission for Kurds in Iraq has “no constitutional basis,” according to a survey seen by both the news agency dpa and “Der Spiegel” magazine.
Berlin is planning to send up to 100 soldiers to the northern Iraqi city of Irbil to help train Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting “Islamic State” (IS) terrorists. The cabinet approved the plans last December.
As the mission is not part of a formal NATO or United Nations operation, it is not clear whether it is legal.
The parliamentary survey says the legal grounds for the operation may be unconstitutional as missions abroad are only allowed if they are conducted as part of a “system of collective security” according to article 24 of Germany’s Basic Law.
Charlie Hebdo attack triggers a Turkish/Israeli schism, via the New York Times:
Paris Attacks Drive New Wedge Between Turkey and Israel
If the Paris attacks unleashed a powerful demonstration of unity, with world leaders gathering to denounce terrorism, they also touched off a divisive new chapter in the war of words between Turkey and Israel, once stalwart allies but now bitter rivals.
The latest exchange came on Thursday when Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey said both the Paris gunmen who attacked a French newspaper and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader, were guilty of “crimes against humanity.”
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had already criticized Mr. Netanyahu for participating in the march of solidarity with other world leaders in Paris on Sunday, saying that Israel had been “waging state terror” in Gaza. A top Israeli official fired back, calling Mr. Erdogan an “anti-Semitic bully.”
Hezbollah honcho allegedly spied for Israel, via the Associated Press:
Hezbollah chief says senior member was spying for Israel
The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group has confirmed that a senior operative in the organization has been apprehended for spying for Israel.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah says the man in question held a senior position in a “sensitive” Hezbollah security unit and was detained by the group five months ago.
The confirmation from Nasrallah comes weeks after local newspapers published unconfirmed reports that a high-level Hezbollah member had been spying for Israel, and identified the man as Mohammad Shorba.
The Express Tribune covers a controversial trial in Pakistan:
Police to move Shahbaz Bhatti’s murder trial to military court
Police on Thursday said they have asked that the high-profile trial of former minority minister’s murder be moved to the newly formed military court.
Former Federal Minister for Minority affairs Shahbaz Bhatti was gunned down in Islamabad in March 2011 for demanding that controversial blasphemy law be reformed.
The murder trial has, however, been hampered by threats from extremists. Police hope that hearing the case in a closed military court will speed up the process and reduce interference from radicals.
“We have sent an official request to the Interior ministry to carry out the murder trial of Shahbaz Bhatti in a military court,” a police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Charlie Hebdo outrage from TheLocal.fr:
Pakistanis burn French flag in Charlie Hebdo row
Pakistan’s parliament on Thursday condemned satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo for printing a “blasphemous” cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad as religious groups held rallies throughout the country, including one at which the French flag was burnt.
The parliamentary resolution, which also criticized Western media for reprinting the caricatures, comes a week after the government officially condemned the murder of 12 people at the offices of the weekly on January 7 in Paris as a “brutal terror attack”.
The magazine this week published a “survivors” issue featuring an image of the Prophet Muhammad weeping, which sold out Wednesday before more copies of an eventual print run of five million hit newsstands in France.
And conflicts over the Pakistani war on terror, via the Express Tribune:
Pakistan targeting terrorists indiscriminately: DG ISPR
Director-General Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asim Bajwa has said indiscriminate action is being taken against terrorists in Operation Zarb-e-Azb, adding that Pakistan will put an end to terrorism at all costs.
During an interview to the BBC, Maj-Gen Bajwa said that they were not distinguishing between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban during the ongoing Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
Talking about border tensions with neighbouring India, the ISPR chief said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had made efforts to improve ties with India, but the latter failed to show any flexibility.
He added that India had been invited for DG-level talks, and Nawaz had also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi but to no avail.
Hindu fundamentalist rancor drives an Indian author to give up the pen, via the Guardian:
Indian author gives up writing after Hindu nationalist protests
Perumal Murugan withdraws all books from sale after threats over novel One Part Woman, centred on religious ritual
A critically acclaimed Indian novelist has announced his “death” as a creative artist following threats and protests by rightwing Hindu and caste groups prompted by his book about a woman’s efforts to get pregnant with a stranger through a religious ritual.
Perumal Murugan, whose sensitive portrayals of rural life in a little-known corner of India have won plaudits from literary commentators, posted an announcement on Facebook this week saying that he planned to stop writing and ask his publishers to withdraw all seven of his works of fiction from sale. “Writer Perumal Murugan is dead … He will continue to live as a teacher,” he wrote.
The author’s decision follows an 18-day campaign of protests in Tamil Nadu about his novel Madhorubagan (One Part Woman), first published in 2010 and in English in 2013. The campaign forced him to seek police protection for his family.
While Myanmar cops confiscate The Interview, via VICE News:
Myanmar Police Are Reportedly Confiscating Copies of ‘The Interview’ at North Korea’s Request
The saga of the controversial comedy The Interview is continuing this week, as authorities in Myanmar are confiscating bootleg copies of the film, reportedly following a request from North Korea’s embassy in the country.
According to the local Irrawaddy newspaper, the North Korean embassy in the former Burmese capital of Yangon had pushed for officials in the country to crack down on the distribution of pirated copies of the Seth Rogan-James Franco comedy.
The plot of the movie centers on a pair of tabloid television journalists’ who travel to Pyongyang, tasked by the CIA with the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, who ultimately dies after catching fire in a helicopter explosion during a graphic cinematic scene. But the plot proved controversial, allegedly instigating a cyber attack on the film’s distributor Sony Pictures that prompted executives to cancel original plans for the comedy’s theatrical debut. Ultimately, Sony released The Interview online and in limited theatrical release in the US on Christmas Day, despite threats from the hackers to attack theaters showing the film.
On to Japan and yet another military mission expansion from Kyodo News:
Cabinet may approve by phone swift SDF dispatch in “gray zone” cases
The Cabinet may be able to give approval by phone for sending Self-Defense Forces troops to tackle “gray zone” incidents that fall short of full-fledged military attacks on Japan, the defense minister indicated Thursday.
“It’s one of the options to make a Cabinet decision as quickly as possible,” Defense Minister Gen Nakatani told reporters, referring to the much quicker process than now, after inspecting the Air Self-Defense Force Iruma base in Saitama Prefecture near Tokyo.
Under current law, Cabinet approval is required for the SDF, an armed organization whose operations are strictly limited to self-defense under the pacifist Constitution, to be dispatched.
And the Comfort Women war of words heats up still further, setting Abe on edge, via Jiji Press:
Abe Calls for Separating Comfort Women Issue from Diplomacy
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a meeting with South Korean lawmakers in Tokyo on Thursday that the issue of “comfort women” wartime prostitutes should not be dealt with as a political or diplomatic affair.
During the meeting, Suh Chong-won, head of the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians’ Union, urged Japan to take steps to restore the dignity of these women, mainly Koreans, who were forced into prostitution for Japanese troops before and during World War II, by accelerating talks with the South Korean government.
Abe reiterated that his government upholds a 1993 statement on comfort women issued by then Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono.
And an American textbook publisher rejects a Japanese revisionism demand, via the Wall Street Journal:
Statements by Japan, Publisher Over Textbook Passage on ‘Comfort Women’
A major American publishing company refused to change passages on “comfort women” in its history textbook after the Japanese government requested the changes in mid-December. “Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past,” published by McGraw-Hill Education, contains descriptions of the women who were forced by the Imperial Japanese Army to serve in military brothels during World War II.
Here are statements from the Japanese government, the publisher and the co-author of the textbook provided to The Wall Street Journal:
Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Japanese government, through an overseas diplomatic office, in mid-December asked McGraw-Hill executives to make a correction in the content of their textbook titled “Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past,” upon finding grave errors and descriptions that conflict with our nation’s stance on the issue of “comfort women” and the issue of the name of the Sea of Japan.
McGraw-Hill Education
Recently, representatives from the Japanese government and others have reached out to McGraw-Hill Education asking the company to change the description of “comfort women” in one of our publications, “Tradition & Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past.”
Scholars are aligned behind the historical fact of “comfort women” and we unequivocally stand behind the writing, research and presentation of our authors.
Plus protests continues over the U.S. base relocation on Okinawa, via NHK WORLD:
Protesters rally against base relocation
Activists protesting the planned relocation of the US Marines Corps Futenma Air Station to Nago City in Okinawa have scuffled with police as they tried to block an underwater drilling survey.
The protestors began to gather early Thursday morning in front of the gates of US Marines’ Camp Schwab, near the planned construction site of a new base. About 150 had assembled by half past ten.
They staged a sit-in and called for suspension of the relocation plan.
Some protesters lay on the ground and tried to block vehicles entering and leaving the base, triggering a scuffle with police officers and security personnel.
