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Video purportedly by leader of Nigeria group posted after female Islamists suicide bombers kill at least 50 in coordinated attacks in Maiduguri Daniel Boffey and agencies Sunday 8 March 2015 09.38 GMT Nigeria’s militant Islamist group Boko Haram has sworn allegiance to Islamic State, which rules a self-declared caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria, according to a video posted online. The pledge came in an Arabic audio message with English subtitles alleged to have come from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and posted Saturday on Twitter, according to the SITE Intelligence monitoring service. “We announce our allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims ... and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity, in hardship and ease, and to endure being discriminated against, and not to dispute about rule with those in power, except in case of evident infidelity regarding that which there is a proof from Allah,” said the message. The video script identified the caliph as Ibrahim ibn Awad ibn Ibrahim al-Awad al-Qurashi, who is better known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State and self-proclaimed caliph of the Muslim world. Baghdadi has already accepted pledges of allegiance from other jihadist groups in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and north Africa. Boko Haram has been waging a six-year military campaign to carve out an Islamic state in northern Nigeria. Earlier on Saturday, four bomb blasts killed at least 50 people in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri in the worst attacks there since Boko Haram militants tried to seize the town in two major assaults earlier this year. Female suicide bombers believed to be acting for the group launched a series of attacks in markets, while another detonation was reported at a bus station. In a fifth incident, a car bomb exploded at a military checkpoint 75km outside the city, wounding a soldier and two members of a civilian defence unit. The attacker in this incident had wanted to reach Maiduguri, a police officer at the scene said. In total, it is believed 58 people have been killed in the incidents and 143 wounded, but both figures were expected to rise. Maiduguri was once the base of the Islamist group, which has been conducting a campaign of violence pushing for Islamic rule in Nigeria. At least 13,000 people have so far been killed in the campaign. After being pushed from the city last year, the militants retreated to the nearby Sambisa forest, from where they launched attacks on villages and towns in the region, taking over swaths of territory. Last month experts warned Boko Haram was likely to increase its attacks on civilian targets in response to the successful campaign by government forces to retake several of the group’s former strongholds. The first attack on Saturday occurred at the city’s Baga fish market at around 11.20am, according to Abubakar Gamandi, head of the fisherman’s union in Borno state. “A female suicide bomber exploded as soon as she stepped out of a motorised rickshaw,” said Gamandi, who was at the scene. “Eighteen people were killed.” A market trader, Idi Idrisa, said: “I saw many bodies and several badly injured”. About an hour later a second explosion rocked the Post Office shopping area near the market, leaving many casualties. A further series of bombs then rocked what is known locally as the Monday market, the biggest in Maiduguri, killing at least 15. A trader there told the BBC that two other female bombers seemed to have targeted the market. One had a bomb strapped to her body that detonated as she was being scanned at the entrance gate, he said. Another woman was said to have exploded a bomb she was carrying in a bag a few feet away. A fourth bombing came shortly after 1pm at the nearby busy Borno Express bus terminal, where witnesses said about 12 people were left either dead or injured. A survivor of the first blast said it occurred when a boy aged about 16 moved into a crowd by the gates holding what looked like a remote control. Security officials were about to stop the teenager when there was a blast. The witness said he was blown over by the impact and when he came to he saw at least six bodies. A vigilante leader in Borno, Danlami Ajaokuta, whose civilian fighters have been working with the military in the region to fight Boko Haram, said security forces had ordered the closure of all businesses in the city given the apparently coordinated nature of the bombings and the fear there could be more. The state’s justice commissioner, Kaka Shehu, confirmed the attacks but declined to discuss casualties. Last week, President Goodluck Jonathan said the tide has “definitely turned” against militant Islamists as Nigerian troops and their regional allies recapture territory. Boko Haram has recently launched attacks on villages in Cameroon and Niger, as Nigeria’s neighbours are forming a multinational force to confront the spreading Islamist uprising. Chad’s President Idris Déby last week said his forces knew the whereabouts of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and warned him to surrender or face death. Shekau’s fighters are massing at a headquarters in the northeastern town of Gwoza, in apparent preparation for a showdown with multinational forces, according to witnesses who escaped the town. An intelligence officer told Associated Press that they were aware of the movement, but that the military is acting with care as many civilians are still trapped in the town and Boko Haram is laying land mines around it. Nigeria’s presidential and parliamentary elections have now been postponed by six week to 28 March to give troops time to push back the militants. Shekau has vowed to disrupt the vote and widespread unrest, especially near polling stations, could prove disastrous. Hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the conflict are living in Maiduguri, swelling the city’s population to well over two million. The main gate to the Monday Market, Maiduguri, where a suicide bomb attack took place on Saturday. Photograph: Tunji Omirin/AFP/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/07/boko-haram-suicide-bombers-50-dead-maiduguri

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel addresses a joint session of Congress, despite President Barack Obama challenging the propriety of his visit By David Lawler, Washington 3:01PM GMT 03 Mar 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/11447075/Netanyahu-warns-Congress-over-Iran-live.html Netanyahu tells Congress: nuclear deal 'paves Iran’s path to the bomb' http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/03/netanyuahu-congress-iran-nuclear-deal-path-to-bomb

Neither side holds the upper hand in the strategic game of chicken which could still see Greece forced out of the euro By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in Athens 2:24PM GMT 28 Feb 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11441482/Humiliated-Greece-eyes-Byzantine-pivot-as-crisis-deepens.html

Government criticised after appearing to rule out Kremlin involvement in shooting of ex-PM Boris Nemtsov By Roland Oliphant, and Howard Amos in Moscow 8:12PM GMT 28 Feb 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11442446/Boris-Nemtsov-murder-Kremlin-accused-of-whitewash-over-probe-into-leading-opposition-figures-killing.html

‘You’re not welcome here: get off our streets’ – Newcastle protestors’ message to anti-Islam marchers outnumbered by 3,000 to 400 Dominic Smith Saturday 28 February 2015 20.46 GMT A rally of thousands of anti-fascists, trade unionists and faith representatives dwarfed the first UK demonstration by a far-right group against the “Islamisation of Europe” on Saturday, forming a counter-protest at least four times as large. Pegida UK held its first event in Newcastle, with some 400 supporters present in the city’s Bigg Market. The group, whose name translates as “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West”, was formed in Dresden last year and has held regular marches there. A demonstration in the German city in January drew 25,000, but it is thought that recent marches have mustered as few as 2,000. This was its first UK demonstration. Police say 1,500 people marched under the umbrella of Newcastle Unites to oppose the gathering, with organisers putting the figure at closer to 3,000. The Newcastle Unites group marched from Gallowgate in the city centre to a rally on Newgate Street, about 100 metres from the Pegida protesters. The rallies were kept separate by a series of police cordons. Events were mostly peaceful, although a Pegida breakaway group tried to break through police cordons as the event closed, with protesters chanting the name of the English Defence League. Northumbria police, who maintained a heavy presence in the city all day, say four arrests were made. Dipu Ahad, a local councillor and one of the organisers of the Newcastle Unites event, thanked Pegida for highlighting how united people in Newcastle are. “They’re a confused bunch of people. They think Newcastle is an easy target, but it’s not,” he said. “We’ve seen so many different communities want to get involved against this hate. You see people united shoulder to shoulder – LGBT groups, feminist groups, men, women, children, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs.” Tony Dowling, another organiser, said to Pegida demonstrators: “It’s a simple message: you’re not welcome here. Get off our streets and go home.” Drums, whistles and homemade placards accompanied the Newcastle Unites demonstration to its rally, where the crowd heard speeches from George Galloway, Chi Onwurah, MP for Newcastle Central, and other politicians and faith leaders. Onwurah said: “If you come here with hatred in your hearts, if you come here to spread fear and division, if you come here to tell us that our Muslim brothers and sisters are not a great positive part of this city, then I have a message for you – and that is: get out of our city.” Pegida’s turnout will be a disappointment for its organisers, with a spokesperson saying before the event that they hoped for in excess of 1,000 protesters. Matthew Pope, Pegida UK’s official spokesperson, said that Pegida was not racist or anti-immigration, and that the event was about the “integration” of people. “We feel that the rise of sharia courts and Muslim schools in this country is separating the Muslim community from British society,” he said. “We’re feeling that the Muslim community, when extreme Islam is being mentioned, is just waving a victim card and it’s putting a block on us putting up the issues that need to be addressed.” Pegida protester David Hetherington, 51, from South Shields, rejected the label of racism and said: “I’m not far-right; I’m a patriot.” But Dowling rejected the group’s arguments. “They say they’re not far-right, but that they’re against the ‘Islamification of the west’, which is a bizarre thing to say. It’s weasel words. If you’re anti-Islam, you’re a racist. End of story.” Members of the Muslim community marched, including Kezra Shakir, 31, who had made her own banner with “Peace” written in different languages. She said groups like Pegida made it more difficult to live as a Muslim in the UK. “I live with this fear every day. I have two young sons, two and four, and we gave them Arabic names. “I worry for them. I worry for the way they may be treated.” Newcastle Unites’s rally against the Pegida rally in the city Photograph: Gary Calton for the Observer http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/28/newcastle-pegida-unites-far-right-march-islam-protest

Shocked politicians and rights groups call for inquiries into Homan Square Rahm Emanuel faces questions as top supporters examine ‘outrageous’ abuse Spencer Ackerman in New York, Zach Stafford and Mark Guarino in Chicago and Oliver Laughland in New York Thursday 26 February 2015 13.38 GMT The US Department of Justice and embattled mayor Rahm Emanuel are under mounting pressure to investigate allegations of what one politician called “CIA or Gestapo tactics” at a secretive Chicago police facility exposed by the Guardian. Politicians and civil-rights groups across the US expressed shock upon hearing descriptions of off-the-books interrogation at Homan Square, the Chicago warehouse that multiple lawyers and one shackled-up protester likened to a US counter-terrorist black site in a Guardian investigation published this week. As a second person came forward to the Guardian detailing her own story of being “held hostage” inside Homan Square without access to an attorney or an official public record of her detention by Chicago police, officials and activists said the allegations merited further inquiry and risked aggravating wounds over community policing and race that have reached as high as the White House. Caught in the swirl of questions around the complex – still active on Wednesday – was Emanuel, the former chief of staff to Barack Obama who is suddenly facing a mayoral runoff election after failing to win a majority in a contest that has seen debate over police tactics take a central role. Emanuel’s office refused multiple requests for comment from the Guardian on Wednesday, referring a reporter to an unspecific denial from the Chicago police. But Luis Gutiérrez, the influential Illinois congressman whose shifting support for Emanuel was expected to secure Tuesday’s election, joined a chorus of colleagues in asking for more information about Homan Square. “I had not heard about the story until I read about it in the Guardian,” Gutiérrez said late Wednesday. “I want to get more information, but if the allegations are true, it sounds outrageous.” Congressman Danny Davis, a Democrat who represents the Chicago west-side neighbourhood where Homan Square is located, said he was “terribly saddened” to hear of the allegations. Davis said he “would certainly strongly support an investigation” by the US Department of Justice, as two former senior justice department civil-rights officials urged the department on Wednesday to launch. Earlier in the day, as a county commissioner urged the top law-enforcement investigators in the country to do the same, another reporter and photographer waited to accompany him on a visit outside the premises of Homan Square. A man, in a jumpsuit and a ski mask, pulled out of the Homan Square parking lot in an SUV and made multiple circles before coming to a stop. “You can take a picture,” said the man, who refused to give his name and then offered what he considered a joke: “We are all CIA, right?” ‘Not in America’ Outside the red-brick Homan Square compound on Wednesday, a young mother ushered her two children to the sidewalk on West Fillmore Avenue. “I am at the police station,” she yelled into her phone, over traffic noise. “Can I call you back?” The woman held her children close, shivering against the wind as plain-clothes officers and pedestrians scurried across the busy four-way intersection. Until this week, the Cook County commissioner Richard Boykin only knew of the warehouse next-door – like the mother – as a police facility in a struggling Chicago neighbourhood. “I hadn’t heard of the sort of CIA or Gestapo tactics that were mentioned in the Guardian article until it was brought to my attention,” Boykin said in an interview outside Homan Square. “And we are calling for the Department of Justice to open an investigation into these allegations.” The Guardian reported on Tuesday that police in Chicago detain suspects at Homan Square without booking them, thereby preventing their relatives and lawyers from knowing their whereabouts, reminiscent in the eyes of some lawyers and civil-rights activists of a CIA black site. While people are held at Homan Square, which lawyers described as a process that often lasted between 12 and 24 hours, several attorneys said they had been refused access to the facility, and described entrance to it as a rare occurrence. One man interviewed by the Guardian said that ahead of a Nato protest in 2012, he was handcuffed to a bar behind bench for 17 hours inside Homan Square and refused a phone call before police finally permitted him to see his attorney. In an interview Wednesday, another Nato protester, Vic Suter, offered a similar account of close shackling and an estimated 18 hours without access to an attorney. “You are just kind of held hostage,” Suter told the Guardian. “The inability to see a lawyer is a drastic departure from what we consider our constitutional rights. Not being able to have that phone call, the lack of booking, makes it so that when you’re there, you understand that no one knows where you are.” Boykin, the county commissioner, looked up at the warehouse and said that a potential US justice department investigation would be “an extension of reform – making sure people’s basic rights are not violated but that they have opportunity to council”. “It’s one thing to quell demonstration and protests,” Boykin said, “but it’s another thing to use antiquated Gestapo tactics that are more commonly found in parts of the underdeveloped world or in places like China or Russia.” “Not in America.” Obama’s task force on improving police relations in the wake of the shooting of the unarmed teenager Michael Brown six months ago in Ferguson, Missouri, was expected to release its first set of recommendations on community policing as soon as Monday. The third anniversary of the killing of unarmed teenager teenager Trayvon Martin is Thursday, two days after a Department of Justice civil-rights investigation brought no charges against George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watchman who shot him dead. ‘I thought we were making progress’Scott Waguespack, the alderman of Chicago’s 32nd ward, said he, too, was unaware of potential abuses at the Homan Square warehouse until he read the Guardian’s investigation this week. During the 2012 Nato summit, he said, Chicago police officials told local politicians that arrestees would end up bussed to the department’s Belmont district precinct on the city’s West Side, and not Homan. “That’s where we assumed they went,” he told a third Guardian reporter. Waguespack claimed meaningful police reform has stalled under Emanuel, citing the mayor’s failure to pass a city ordinance designed to enforce more oversight to the controversial police oversight board, as well as inconsistencies in crime statistics. The alderman said the “best thing” that the “next mayor” of Chicago could do about the Homan Square allegations was bring in federal investigators: “Then the civil rights division of the justice department can say: ‘Here’s how we scrutinized it’.” The Guardian sent a list of detailed questions about Homan Square to Emanuel’s office on Wednesday. A spokesman for the mayor referred a fourth reporter to a Chicago police department statement issued to multiple media outlets on Tuesday, and declined to return multiple calls seeking clarification. “If lawyers have a client detained at Homan Square, just like any other facility, they are allowed to speak to and visit them,” the statement reads, without elaborating on when those meetings take place. “There are always records of anyone who is arrested by CPD, and this is not any different at Homan Square,” the statement continues, without addressing specifics as to how or when those records are logged. Amnesty International USA has called for the mayor to open his own “independent and impartial investigation” into the Homan Square facility, with the human-rights group requesting “unrestricted access” to the site. In a letter to Emanuel, Amnesty USA’s executive director Steven Hawkins wrote: “As the mayor of Chicago, you have a responsibility under US and international law to ensure that human rights violations are not committed within the city.” The group lobbied Emanuel during the mayoral campaign to commit to a program of reparations for victims of abuse between 1972 and 1991 at the hands Jon Burge, the notorious former Chicago police commander who was released from home custody this month. Emanuel has not made a financial commitment to reparations but has promised a route to “closure” for the surviving victims. “It is his responsibility as the mayor of Chicago, as a public figure to make sure that his city is complying with international law,” Amnesty USA’s senior campaigner, Jasmine Heiss, told the Guardian. “Because without a clear commitment to addressing things like police torture, it gives torturers the go ahead to continue to undermine the rule of law and ignore international guidelines.” A representative for the Chicago branch of the American Civil Liberties Union said the group was gathering facts about Homan Square as well. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia, the county commissioner challenging Emanuel in an April runoff vote that local political watchers warned could become a national “free-for-all”, did not respond to multiple requests for comment after a separate Guardian interview on Monday. But his colleague, Boykin, said the mayor had an obligation to find more answers. “Fifty-plus percent of the people voted against the mayor yesterday,” Boykin said outside Homan Square. “I think the mayor has a problem.” Davis, the US congressman whose west-side offices were located near Homan Square for 15 years, said the activities alleged at Homan Square potentially “undermined and torn up” efforts to promote police as “positive role models”. “One of the things that for many years some of us, people like myself, have been working on [is] to try and help foster a different sense of what law enforcement ought to be among people and especially young people as they are growing up,” Davis said. Karl Brinson, president of the Chicago Westside Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the NAACP was attempting “to find out what’s going on” at Homan Square. “We knew the facility was there, but we didn’t know what all it encompassed exactly and what was taking place there,” he told the Guardian. “You’re never going to build trust with anybody or get any kind of community relationships going on while doing this.” The justice department declined to comment to the Guardian on Wednesday. (The spouse of Guardian US national security editor Spencer Ackerman works in the press office of Amnesty International USA. Ackerman was not involved with the group in any reporting for this article.) ‘I hadn’t heard of the sort of CIA or Gestapo tactics that were mentioned in the Guardian article until it was brought to my attention,’ Cook County commissioner Richard Boykin said in an interview outside Homan Square. ‘We are calling for the Department of Justice to open an investigation into these allegations.’ Photograph: Chandler West for the Guardian Amnesty International USA called for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to launch his own independent investigation into allegations of police tactics at Homan Square. Photograph: Chandler West for the Guardian This man circled around a reporter and photographer for the Guardian twice while waiting for a local politician. Photograph: Chandler West for the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/26/police-black-site-chicago-washington-politicians-human-rights

Eddie Ray Routh Found Guilty in 'American Sniper' Murder Trial A Texas jury has found Eddie Ray Routh guilty of murder in the killings of "American Sniper" Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield. Routh, 27, admitted to killing both men at the shooting range of Rough Creek Lodge and Resort, southwest of Dallas, on Feb. 2, 2013. Routh pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to capital murder. His attorneys have said Routh, a former Marine corporal who served in Iraq but not in a combat role, was in the grip of a medically diagnosed psychosis at the time of the killings. Prosecutors said that Routh was drinking and smoking marijuana on the morning of the crime. They argue that he was paranoid because he was high, and that he was angry about living with his parents, relationship problems, money and his job — then finally exploded when Kyle and Littlefield snubbed him.

Gulf between Israeli secret service and PM revealed in documents shared with the Guardian along with other secrets including CIA bids to contact Hamas • Read the leaked document here Seumas Milne, Ewen MacAskill and Clayton Swisher Monday 23 February 2015 18.06 GMT Binyamin Netanyahu’s dramatic declaration to world leaders in 2012 that Iran was about a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his own secret service, according to a top-secret Mossad document. It is part of a cache of hundreds of dossiers, files and cables from the world’s major intelligence services – one of the biggest spy leaks in recent times. Brandishing a cartoon of a bomb with a red line to illustrate his point, the Israeli prime minister warned the UN in New York that Iran would be able to build nuclear weapons the following year and called for action to halt the process. But in a secret report shared with South Africa a few weeks later, Israel’s intelligence agency concluded that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons”. The report highlights the gulf between the public claims and rhetoric of top Israeli politicians and the assessments of Israel’s military and intelligence establishment. The disclosure comes as tensions between Israel and its staunchest ally, the US, have dramatically increased ahead of Netanyahu’s planned address to the US Congress on 3 March. The White House fears the Israeli leader’s anticipated inflammatory rhetoric could damage sensitive negotiations between Tehran and the world’s six big powers over Iran’s nuclear programme. The deadline to agree on a framework is in late March, with the final settlement to come on 30 June. Netanyahu has vowed to block an agreement he claims would give Iran access to a nuclear weapons capability. The US president, Barack Obama, will not meet Netanyahu during his visit, saying protocol precludes a meeting so close to next month’s general election in Israel. The documents, almost all marked as confidential or top secret, span almost a decade of global intelligence traffic, from 2006 to December last year. It has been leaked to the al-Jazeera investigative unit and shared with the Guardian. The papers include details of operations against al-Qaida, Islamic State and other terrorist organisations, but also the targeting of environmental activists. The files reveal that: • The CIA attempted to establish contact with Hamas in spite of a US ban. • South Korean intelligence targeted the leader of Greenpeace. • Barack Obama “threatened” the Palestinian president to withdraw a bid for recognition of Palestine at the UN. • South African intelligence spied on Russia over a controversial $100m joint satellite deal. The cache, which has been independently authenticated by the Guardian, mainly involves exchanges between South Africa’s intelligence agency and its counterparts around the world. It is not the entire volume of traffic but a selective leak. One of the biggest hauls is from Mossad. But there are also documents from Russia’s FSB, which is responsible for counter-terrorism. Such leaks of Russian material are extremely rare. Other spy agencies caught up in the trawl include those of the US, Britain, France, Jordan, the UAE, Oman and several African nations. The scale of the leak, coming 20 months after US whistleblower Edward Snowden handed over tens of thousands of NSA and GCHQ documents to the Guardian, highlights the increasing inability of intelligence agencies to keep their secrets secure. While the Snowden trove revealed the scale of technological surveillance, the latest spy cables deal with espionage at street level – known to the intelligence agencies as human intelligence, or “humint”. They include surveillance reports, inter-agency information trading, disinformation and backbiting, as well as evidence of infiltration, theft and blackmail. The leaks show how Africa is becoming increasingly important for global espionage, with the US and other western states building up their presence on the continent and China expanding its economic influence. One serving intelligence officer told the Guardian: “South Africa is the El Dorado of espionage.” Africa has also become caught up in the US, Israeli and British covert global campaigns to stem the spread of Iranian influence, tighten sanctions and block its nuclear programme. The Mossad briefing about Iran’s nuclear programme in 2012 was in stark contrast to the alarmist tone set by Netanyahu, who has long presented the Iranian nuclear programme as an existential threat to Israel and a huge risk to world security. The Israeli prime minister told the UN: “By next spring, at most by next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move[d] on to the final stage. From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.” He said his information was not based on secret information or military intelligence but International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports. Behind the scenes, Mossad took a different view. In a report shared with South African spies on 22 October 2012 – but likely written earlier – it conceded that Iran was “working to close gaps in areas that appear legitimate, such as enrichment reactors, which will reduce the time required to produce weapons from the time the instruction is actually given”. But the report also states that Iran “does not appear to be ready” to enrich uranium to the higher levels necessary for nuclear weapons. To build a bomb requires enrichment to 90%. Mossad estimated that Iran then had “about 100kg of material enriched to 20%” (which was later diluted or converted under the terms of the 2013 Geneva agreement). Iran has always said it is developing a nuclear programme for civilian energy purposes. Last week, Netanyahu’s office repeated the claim that “Iran is closer than ever today to obtaining enriched material for a nuclear bomb” in a statement in response to an IAEA report. A senior Israeli government official said there was no contradiction between Netanyahu’s statements on the Iranian nuclear threat and “the quotes in your story – allegedly from Israeli intelligence”. Both the prime minister and Mossad said Iran was enriching uranium in order to produce weapons, he added. “Israel believes the proposed nuclear deal with Iran is a bad deal, for it enables the world’s foremost terror state to create capabilities to produce the elements necessary for a nuclear bomb,” he said. However, Mossad had been at odds with Netanyahu on Iran before. The former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who left office in December 2010, let it be known that he had opposed an order from Netanyahu to prepare a military attack on Iran. Other members of Israel’s security establishment were riled by Netanyahu’s rhetoric on the Iranian nuclear threat and his advocacy of military confrontation. In April 2012, a former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, accused Netanyahu of “messianic” political leadership for pressing for military action, saying he and the then defence minister, Ehud Barak, were misleading the public on the Iran issue. Benny Gantz, the Israeli military chief of staff, said decisions on tackling Iran “must be made carefully, out of historic responsibility but without hysteria”. There were also suspicions in Washington that Netanyahu was seeking to bounce Obama into taking a more hawkish line on Iran. A few days before Netanyahu’s speech to the UN, the then US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, accused the Israeli prime minister of trying to force the US into a corner. “The fact is … presidents of the United States, prime ministers of Israel or any other country … don’t have, you know, a bunch of little red lines that determine their decisions,” he said. “What they have are facts that are presented to them about what a country is up to, and then they weigh what kind of action is needed in order to deal with that situation. I mean, that’s the real world. Red lines are kind of political arguments that are used to try to put people in a corner.” An extract from the document Photograph: The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/23/leaked-spy-cables-netanyahu-iran-bomb-mossad

While many would see a 15-foot "mountain of snow" blocking their route to work as an obstacle, Ari Goldberger saw an opportunity to build a 40-foot snow tunnel By Raziye Akkoc, video source Dragonbeard 10:06AM GMT 24 Feb 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11431349/Boston-man-builds-40ft-snow-tunnel-to-commute-to-work.html

Ministry of Defence says Typhoon fighters scrambled to escort planes spotted in international airspace off Cornwall By Ben Farmer, Defence Correspondent, and Tom Parfitt 9:42AM GMT 19 Feb 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/11422110/RAF-jets-scrambed-to-intercept-Russian-bomber-aircraft-off-Cornwall.html

Syriza-led government seems ready to negotiate new aid package but says it will not succumb to ‘blackmail’ Larry Elliott, Jennifer Rankin in Brussels and Helena Smith Tuesday 17 February 2015 20.14 GMT Greece was showing signs of buckling under pressure from its eurozone partners on Tuesday night as it prepared to seek an extension of a loan agreement for up to six months. Faced with a Friday deadline for agreeing to an aid package drawn up by its 18 partners in the single currency, Athens made the first concessions in the game of brinkmanship by indicating that it would have to continue accepting financial support when the current bailout expires at the end of the month. Sources close to the Greek government sought to soften the blow of its apparent U-turn by saying it was seeking to sign up to a temporary loan agreement rather than a continuation of the existing bailout, which forced Athens to adopt harsh austerity measures and a series of unpopular structural reforms to its economy, including wage cuts, reduced pensions and sweeping privatisations. Greece has voiced strong opposition to the conditions imposed in a memorandum of understanding signed when the country received bailouts totalling €240bn (£178bn), and still insists that it be offered softer terms. The ruling Syriza party will now have to find a way of reaching an agreement with its eurozone partners that is politically palatable to the voters who propelled it into power last month. Prime ministerial aides were quoted in the Greek media as saying: “We are considering requesting a six-month extension of the loan agreement [but on the basis that] it is clearly distinguished from the programme [of conditions] set out in the memorandum of understanding. We are not going to ask for an extension of the programme or memorandum. The Greek government won’t accept ultimatums.” Earlier, a finance ministry source told the Guardian it was “highly probable” that Greece would request the extension on Wednesday. “The most likely scenario is that the request will be made tomorrow, but negotiations are ongoing.” Greek journalists briefed in Brussels by the country’s finance ministry officials reported that the extension request would be accompanied by terms and conditions proposed by the Greek side, including commitments to refrain from taking unilateral actions and to collaborate on policies that include clamping down on tax evasion. The apparent shift in the negotiations came on the eve of a decision by the European Central Bank on whether to continue the emergency funding of the Greek banking system. While there appeared no immediate threat of the ECB cutting off aid, a failure to reach an agreement or continue talks by Friday’s deadline would have increased that possibility. However, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, took a hard stance on the negotiations on Tuesday when he vowed that the country would not succumb to blackmail. Tsipras told the national parliament in Athens that his country would escape the “debt trap” created by its austerity programme and announced that he would press on with the reversal of reforms agreed under the country’s bailout package. Tsipras’s public stance runs counter to the likely concessions that eurozone politicians will demand in exchange for a loan extension – indicating that both sides might struggle to break the deadlock in time. Speaking at a meeting of EU finance ministers on Tuesday, Luxembourg’s finance minister, Pierre Gramegna, said both sides would have to make concessions. “We can’t remain in a blockade, so everyone has to move a bit, water down demands so we can find a compromise.” http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/17/greece-bailout-talks-george-osborne-says-its-crunch-time-for-the-eurozone

As Islamic State continue to terrorise the world by murdering hostages, The Telegraph looks at how the group has come to control large swathes of Iraq and Syria By Telegraph Video, Video by Olivia Bolton 12:42PM GMT 17 Feb 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11146689/The-rise-of-Islamic-State-how-the-jihadi-group-conquered-territory-in-Iraq-and-Syria-in-90-seconds.html

• Video footage shows fans manhandling man on train before PSG game • Supporters chant: ‘We’re racist, we’re racist, and that’s the way we like it’ • Chelsea vow to ban any season-ticket holders or members involved Daniel Taylor in Paris and Ben Quinn Wednesday 18 February 2015 00.58 GMT Chelsea have strongly condemned a group of their supporters who have been caught on video singing a racist song and preventing a black man from boarding the Paris Métro. The footage, obtained exclusively by the Guardian, shows the man repeatedly trying to squeeze on to a busy train only to be forcefully shoved out of the door and back on to the platform at the Richelieu – Drouot station before Chelsea’s Champions League tie against Paris Saint-Germain at Parc des Princes. The fans on the train are then heard chanting a song that appears to be celebrating what has just happened and includes the line: “We’re racist, we’re racist and that’s the way we like it” while a black woman is standing directly in front of them. The video immediately sparked widespread condemnation after being posted on the Guardian’s website and could lead to disciplinary action from Uefa if the governing body decides an event that happened away from the stadium is within its remit. Chelsea would feasibly face a fine and a warning. The club said: “Such behaviour is abhorrent and has no place in football or society. We will support any criminal action against those involved, and should evidence point to involvement of Chelsea season-ticket holders or members the club will take the strongest possible action against them, including banning orders.” Paul Nolan, a British expatriate who filmed the clip on his phone, told the Guardian that he had arrived on the platform on Tuesday evening after finishing work. “The doors were open and I could see and hear that a lot of chanting was going on,” he said. “It looked like it was quite aggressive so I just took out by phone to record it.” He said that the train had been stopped for about three minutes when the man arrived on the platform and tried to get on. “He was obviously completely shocked when they pushed him off. I don’t think he realised who they were. He then tried to get on again and got pushed off a second time. “I was just completely appalled by it and so that’s why I tried to catch some of it on my phone, although I was a bit self-conscious as it was getting quite aggressive and I overhead one of the Chelsea fans say something about stabbing someone. I think he was referring to a Paris Saint-Germain supporter who was on the platform.” Nolan added that others on the platform looked on in disbelief: “There definitely was a culture shock. I heard a couple of French guys saying: ‘I can’t believe this. It’s insane.’” French police reportedly used teargas outside the match venue amid scuffles involving Chelsea fans before the game. Chelsea fanzine editor David Johnstone believes the incident could have severe consequences for the club’s reputation. “Because of the actions of possibly half a dozen people on a Metro train in Paris all the supporters are going to be labelled as racist,” he told BBC Radio Five Live. “I think the majority of Chelsea supporters are disgusted by what’s happened. The 2,000 who were in Paris today support a Jewish-owned football team where the majority of players are black and foreign.” Do you know anyone in this video? Can you tell us more about what happened? If so, let us know via the form below. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/feb/18/racist-chelsea-fans-push-black-man-paris-metro

Talks with creditors resume in Brussels after Syriza-led government rejected offer of six-month extension to current bailout terms Jennifer Rankin in Brussels and Graeme Wearden Tuesday 17 February 2015 09.58 GMT Greece is coming under mounting pressure to accept an extension of its current bailout deal after talks with its eurozone creditors collapsed in disarray on Monday night. Athens has comprehensively rejected a plan to prolong its bailout for six months but, speaking on Tuesday morning, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of the eurozone finance ministers, insisted the next move had to come from Greece. “I hope [Greece] will ask for an extension to the programme, and once they do that we can allow flexibility, they can put in their political priorities,” Dijsselbloem said as he arrived for the European Union ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Tuesday. The UK chancellor, George Osborne, warned that Britain’s economic stability would be rocked if a deal cannot be reached on Greece’s bailout. “We are reaching crunch time for Greece and the eurozone, and I’m here to urge all sides to reach an agreement, because the consequence of not having an agreement would be very severe for economic and financial stability,” Osborne said. “What Britain really needs to see is competence not chaos.” Analysts at Commerzbank said the chances of Greece leaving the eurozone were now as high as 50%. After the eurozone finance ministers again failed to reach an agreement with Greece today, the euro membership of the country hangs in the balance. Before yesterday’s failed meeting, Commerzbank rated the chances of Greece leaving the currency bloc at 25%.” Greece is not on the official agenda of the meeting, but a further round of talks between Athens and its eurozone creditors is expected to be getting under way. Dijsselbloem has laid down a deadline of Friday for Greece to ask for an extension to its bailout deal, which is due to expire on 28 February. The Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, reiterated his belief that a compromise was possible, but refused to give ground on Greece’s main argument against austerity. Europe will continue to deliberate in order to enhance the chances of actually achieving a very good outcome for the average European, not for the average Greek, not for the average Dutch person, or the average German. We know in Europe how to debate in such a way as to create a very good solution, an honourable solution, out of initial disagreements.” He repeated Syriza’s long-held position that the EU needs an alternative to austerity. “Investment is the main game in Europe. It is what is going to beat the deflationary forces which are blowing ill winds everywhere in the continent.” But with neither side budging from their entrenched positions on the future of Greece’s €240bn (£178bn) bailout, European markets moved lower. Greece’s main index fell 2.5%, after an initial near 5% fall with shares in some banks down by 9%. The main stock markets in France and Germany were down about 0.7%, although the FTSE 100 was little changed. Luxembourg’s finance minister, Pierre Gramegna, said both sides would have to make concessions. “We can’t remain in a blockade so everyone has to move a bit, water down demands so we can find a compromise.” http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/feb/17/greece-bailout-talks-george-osborne-says-its-crunch-time-for-the-eurozone

Two men ordered to remain in custody after being accused of helping man suspected of carrying out shootings in the Danish capital at the weekend Angelique Chrisafis in Copenhagen Monday 16 February 2015 14.42 GMT Two men detained on Sunday have been ordered to remain in custody for 10 days after being charged with aiding the suspect in the Copenhagen terror attacks. A 22-year-old Danish-born gunman killed a film director and a young Jewish man at the weekend in Denmark’s most lethal terror attack in decades. The defence lawyer for one of the detained men said they were accused of helping the gunman evade authorities and get rid of a weapon during the manhunt that ended early on Sunday when the attacker was killed in a shootout with police. The suspects, arraigned at a four-hour closed hearing on Monday, were accused of “having helped the perpetrator in connection with the shooting attacks”, Copenhagen police said. Michael Juul Eriksen, defence attorney for one of the men, told reporters they deny the allegations. The suspected gunman has been named in local media as Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein. He was reportedly released from prison a few weeks ago after serving a sentence for knife crime. Police did not confirm the name. Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said there were no signs the gunman was part of a wider terror cell. “This is not a conflict between Islam and the west,” she said. “This is a conflict between the core values of our society and violent extremists.” The first attack came at 3.30pm on Saturday afternoon during a free-speech debate in a cafe attended by, among others, the French ambassador and Lars Vilks, a Swedish artist who depicted the prophet Muhammad as a dog in a 2007 cartoon and whose life has been under threat ever since. Finn Nørgaard, 55, a film director attending the event, was reportedly shot dead at close range after going outside for an unknown reason at the time the attacker struck. The gunman fled the scene, but at about 1am he struck again outside the city’s central synagogue, on a narrow street in the heart of Copenhagen, shooting dead Dan Uzan, 37, a Jewish security guard who was manning the door of a bat mitzvah party. At dawn, the attacker was killed in a shootout on a quiet street in the traditionally working-class area of north-west Copenhagen, bordering the Nørrebro district. On Sunday afternoon, police continued to search apartments and raided an internet cafe nearby as part of their investigation. Denmark’s spy chief, Jens Madsen, said the gunman – who was known to police because of past violence, gang-related activities and possession of weapons – had perhaps been trying to stage a copycat attack of the three days of bloody mayhem in Paris last month, which began with a massacre of cartoonists and others at the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and ended in a murderous siege at a kosher supermarket. “We cannot yet say anything concrete about the motive … but are considering that he might have been inspired by the events in Paris some weeks ago,” Madsen said. Denmark’s centre-left Social Democrat prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, described the killings as “a cynical act of terror”. She said: “We have tried the ugly taste of fear and powerlessness which terror hopes to create.” She added that Denmark was living a day of sorrow but vowed: “We will defend our democracy and we will defend Denmark at any time.” On Sunday, the European Jewish Association called for increased security of Jewish institutions across Europe. Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the general director, said EU leaders had not done enough to combat antisemitic attacks and prejudices in the runup to the attacks on Saturday and in the early hours of Sunday, and pointed to a need to “secure all Jewish institutions 24/7”. Associated Press contributed to this report Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein, named by local media as the suspected gunman. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/16/copenhagen-attacks-danish-police-charge-two-men

Hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter trends as man, 46, charged with murder after killing at housing complex near University of North Carolina campus Lauren Gambino in New York @LGamGam Wednesday 11 February 2015 10.57 GMT Investigators are still searching for a motive behind an attack in North Carolina that left three Muslim students dead, as speculation mounted that the killings might be linked to their religion. Craig Stephen Hicks, who turned himself in to police, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the shooting deaths which took place on Tuesday night in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The victims are Deah Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19. Barakat was a second-year dental student at the University of North Carolina, where his wife was planning to begin her dental studies in the fall. Her sister was a student at North Carolina State University. Police responded to reports of gunshots at 5.11pm on Tuesday. All three victims were pronounced dead at the scene. Parents of the victims arrived at the scene desperately pleading for information about the shooting. Police officers were unable to confirm the identities of the victims for several hours. Police said on Wednesday they believed the crime stemmed from an ongoing dispute over parking. Hicks and the victims were neighbors. “Our investigators are exploring what could have motivated Mr Hicks to commit such a senseless and tragic act,” said chief Chris Blue of the Chapel Hill police department. “We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of these young people who lost their lives so needlessly.” Police said Hicks is cooperating with investigators. Hicks appeared in court Wednesday morning wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles. He spoke very little, only to confirm some information and say he understood the charges facing him, according to local news reports. District judge Maria Morey set the next hearing on 4 March. Hicks will be held without bond. A spokeswoman for the Durham county district attorney’s office said the prosecutor has not made any decisions about whether or not he will pursue the death penalty as the investigation is still ongoing. Shafi Khan, founder of the Alexandria, Virginia-based group United Muslim Relief, to which all three victims belonged, said the organization was broken-hearted at the news. “These guys were the best of the best,” Khan said, his voice shaking. “There’s just no other way to put it. You can’t hope for better people than that.” He said Barakat recently traveled to Palestine to provide dental care to special needs children. “It’s a segment that not a lot of people see,” Khan said. Khan said Razan was an officer in the organization, leading monthly feedings for the homeless. “Most people are remembering them for their legacy, what they left behind,” Khan said. Donations to a website Barakat had set up to provide dental care to Syrian refugees in Turkey had more than doubled by early Wednesday afternoon. While remembering the victims, Khan said there was already palpable concern among Muslim communities in the American south and elsewhere about the role the victims’ religion may have played in their killing. “There is a fear in the community that it could be something hate-based,” Khan said. “I’ve been telling people to not make assumptions and to wait for the police.” Overnight news of the three deaths gave gave life to the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter – a social media rallying cry reminiscent of the #BlackLivesMatter movement following multiple killings across the US in the last six months. Hicks had apparently said on Facebook that he was an atheist. A post from before the shooting has been widely shared on social media, citing the outspoken opponent of religion Richard Dawkins: See link Dawkins, in a subsequent tweet of his own, wrote: “How could any decent person NOT condemn the vile murder of three young US Muslims in Chapel Hill?” Barakat and Abu-Salha married on 27 December. The newlyweds attended North Carolina State University as undergraduates. Based on Barakat’s social media pages, he enjoyed playing basketball and watching football. Razan, the younger sister, posted on her accounts that she had just started a new semester at NCSU, where she was studying architecture and environmental design. Her Tumblr page showed a passion for art, fashion and football. A Vine video shows her driving with friends. A Facebook page titled “Our Three Winners” was created to commemorate the three victims on Wednesday. Friends are sharing photos, videos and thoughts of the newlyweds and the sisters. UNC chancellor Carol Folt is expected to make a statement on Wednesday. In a statement, the university said: “We are sensitive to the impact an incident of this nature has on campus and in the community. We understand you want to know the facts as quickly as possible. At the same time, we must respect the job our Chapel Hill police have as they investigate this crime.” A vigil will be held for the victims at 7pm on Wednesday night at the Peace and Justice plaza in Chapel Hill. Another vigil is being planned by students at UNC-Chapel Hill’s sister school in Charlotte. The funeral proceedings are tentatively set to take place on Thursday at the Islamic Association of Raleigh, those close to the family said on the Facebook page. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/11/north-carolina-shooting-three-dead Facebook Twitter Pinterest Deah Barakat, bottom centre, with friends. Photograph: Supplied. Craig Stephen Hicks, 46. Photograph: AP

Colorado, the first US state to legalise cannabis for recreational use, raises substantial taxes in first year - but less than the $70 million originally predicted By Nick Allen, Los Angeles 5:44PM GMT 11 Feb 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11406446/Colorado-collects-44-million-tax-in-first-year-of-legal-cannabis.html

Revelations of collusion with wealthy and criminal clients in tax malpractice triggers furious response around the world Juliette Garside, Patrick Wintour and Karen McVeigh Monday 9 February 2015 21.42 GMT HSBC is fighting an international firestorm over revelations that its Swiss private bank helped clients conceal undeclared accounts and provided services to criminals and corrupt businessmen. Europe’s largest bank is facing renewed government scrutiny in the UK, Europe and the US after the Guardian and dozens of other media outlets published details from the biggest banking leak in history. In the UK, the HSBC investigation ignited a ferocious political response, with Treasury minister David Gauke forced to appear before the Commons to defend the government’s efforts to clamp down on tax evasion. He faced questions from Labour on how thoroughly the government had vetted HSBC’s long-serving chief executive and chairman Stephen Green before appointing him trade minister – Britain’s chief business representative abroad – following the May 2010 election. Margaret Hodge, Labour chair of parliament’s public accounts committee, announced that she would be reopening her investigation into the behaviour of HSBC, and would be calling on its officials, including Lord Green, to appear. Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury, issued a strongly worded statement warning that tax cheats should be prosecuted in the same way as conventional criminals. “Financial institutions who are proven to have colluded with tax evaders should have the full force of the law,” Alexander said. “We quite rightly prosecute and often jail people guilty of damaging our society through conventional crime and antisocial behaviour. The way we treat systematic tax evasion should be no different. If that means jail for offenders and those that conspire with them, then so be it.” Outside the UK, calls multiplied throughout the day for investigations into events at HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary, whose inner workings have been exposed in data covering the period from 2005 to 2007. • In Belgium, where HSBC Switzerland is under investigation over tax fraud allegations, a judge is considering issuing international arrest warrants for directors of the Swiss division of the bank. • In Switzerland, senior politicians called for investigations by regulators into the scandal. • In the United States, a leading member of the Senate banking committee asked the US government to explain what action it took after receiving a massive cache of the leaked bank accounts. • In Denmark, the government said it would seek the names of its citizens who may have used Swiss bank accounts to avoid domestic taxes. • In France, which has also launched an investigation, the prime minister, Manuel Valls, said he was determined to fight tax evasion and would continue to take action at home and on a European level. Evidence that the bank colluded with hundreds of clients to conceal undeclared “black” accounts and used its Geneva branch to hand out bricks of cash in a variety of currencies from euros to pounds has been sitting in the hands of tax officials around the world since May 2010. While France, Belgium, Spain, the US and Argentina have launched legal proceedings against HSBC and its high net worth clients, the UK’s tax authority has in five years used the data to bring only one prosecution. Meanwhile, neither HM Revenue and Customs, the Serious Fraud Office nor the Financial Conduct Authority have taken action against HSBC. Green has so far declined to comment on the affair, telling the Guardian: “As a matter of principle, I will not comment on the business of HSBC, past or present.” Speaking on Sky News, Hodge took a firm line, saying the UK tax authorities had “done too little too late”. “If this had been benefits scroungers, they would have been queuing around the courtrooms to have their court appearances. Because it’s relatively well off people, there’s only one person who’s been taken to court. We want to demonstrate to others that you will not get away with avoiding or evading your tax.” Hodge said only 1,100 of HSBC’s roughly 7,000 Swiss bank customers had been tackled by HMRC, which had managed to collect just £135m in back tax and penalties from roughly $20bn which the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – which has collaborated with the Guardian and other media outlets in publishing the leaks, including Le Monde and BBC Panorama – estimates was banked by customers with UK addresses. Belgian investigating judge, Michel Claise will now consider further action, a prosecution spokeswoman told the AFP news agency. “The judge believes that it is now time for the bank to cooperate, otherwise he will be forced to issue international arrest warrants for the current and former heads of the bank,” prosecution spokeswoman Ine Van Wymeersch said. A leading member of the Senate banking committee is calling on the US government to explain what action it has taken. The Guardian has established that the leaked data was shared with US regulators five years ago. “I will be very interested to hear the government’s full explanation of its actions , or lack thereof , upon learning of these allegations in 2010,” said Ohio senator Sherrod Brown, the leading Democrat on the committee. Referring to previous charges against HSBC, which were resolved in a landmark civil settlement in 2012, and included a $1.9bn fine, he added: “If the charges are true, the same institution that was first caught violating US sanction laws and laundering money for Mexican drug cartels could then escape accountability for promoting widespread evasion of US tax laws. I intend on pressing regulators, the IRS [internal Revenue Service] and the DoJ [Department of Justice] for answers.” Micheline Calmy-Rey, who served as foreign minister in Switzerland between 2003-2011, said opening an investigation “would be the least that could be done”. Speaking on Swiss radio, she said: “I am angry. Switzerland has a good reputation for its efforts towards peace, for its economy. But then we learn there are slick individuals who do things.” Swiss socialist politician Roger Nordmann also called for the opening of an inquiry into HSBC Suisse. So far, Switzerland has concentrated on bringing Hervé Falciani, the bank IT worker who leaked the data, to justice. Falciani is under police protection in France, having handed over CDs containing the data on an estimated 130,000 clients to French tax investigators across the table of a cafe in Nice airport during Christmas 2008. In November 2014, the Swiss federal government indicted Falciani for industrial espionage and for violating the country’s bank secrecy law, an offence which is punishable by up to three years in prison. The Swiss Banking Association meanwhile said that banks “must always respect existing laws when carrying out their activities”. “This goes for both the laws in their own country and the laws in the countries where they operate,” it said in a statement sent to AFP, adding that if banks did not follow these laws “they have to take the consequences”. HSBC offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Photograph: Harold Cunningham/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/09/hsbc-files-bank-swiss-arm-tax-international-response

Boston mayor Martin Walsh says the city is dealing with its snowiest month on record as winter storms continue, causing travel chaos and forcing people to stay at home By Telegraph Video, video source APTN 7:02AM GMT 10 Feb 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11402113/Boston-snowstorm-like-nothing-we-have-ever-seen-before-says-mayor.html

American hostage named as 26-year-old Kayla Mueller killed in a US-backed air strike, supporters of Islamic State claim on social media Shiv Malik and Mona Mahmood in London and Raya Jalabi in New York Saturday 7 February 2015 03.48 GMT Supporters of Islamic State have claimed that an American aid worker held hostage by the militant group has been killed in a Jordanian air strike intended to avenge the burning to death of a captured Jordanian pilot. A statement posted on a website sometimes used by Isis fighters and their supporters said that Kayla Mueller, 26, had been killed by a missile strike during a bombing raid by Jordanian planes on the Syrian city of Raqqa early on Friday. Mueller was said to have been killed when rockets partially destroyed the building in which she was being held, the statement said, adding that no Isis fighters were killed in the attack. Several pictures of a damaged building complex were included in the statement which they said showed the aftermath of the air strike, but the claim that Mueller had been killed could not be independently verified. “The criminal crusader coalition planes targeted sites outside Raqqa city today at noon while people were performing Friday prayers,” the message read. “The raids continued on the same site for more than an hour. God has disappointed their endeavours and foiled their plot by not hitting any jihadi man thank God.” State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said she could not confirm the report, but said that “a number of Americans” were being held by Isis. Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said: “We are obviously deeply concerned by these reports.” “We have not at this time seen any evidence that corroborates Isil’s claim,” she said, using another acronym for the group. Mueller’s parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller from Arizona, said they were still hopeful she was alive. In a statement released by a family representative, they asked Isis to contact the family privately. “You told us that you treated Kayla as your guest. As your guest her safety and wellbeing remains your responsibility,” they said in a message directed to “those in positions of responsibility for holding Kayla”. The Isis communique used Mueller’s full name and included her US contact details, which had not been made public by the media at the family’s request. Last week the militant group prompted outrage around the world when they released a video of Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh being burned to death. In response, Jordan’s King Abdullah vowed to step up his country’s role in the US-led coalition against Isis, promising to wage “relentless war” against the militant group which has taken control of a wide swath of Syria and Iraq. Jordan announced that it sent tens of fighter jets to hit Isis targets in Syria on Thursday, including what they claimed were ammunition depots and training camps. Jordanian jets carried out a second ave of air strikes against Isis targets on Friday. US-led forces have launched 10 air strikes inSyria since Thursday, according to the US military. Jordanian officials seemed to cast doubt on the reports of Mueller’s death. Foreign affairs minister Naser Judeh, said on Twitter: “An old and sick trick used by terrorists and despots for decades: claiming that hostages human shields held captive are killed by air raids.” When asked by CNN about reports Mueller had been killed, Jordan’s government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said Isis “use and lie about facts” in order to mislead public opinion. Momani said Jordan is “suspicious” of the claims. Mueller, originally from Prescott, Arizona, was seized by Isis fighters in August 2013 as she left a hospital run by the Spanish branch of Medecins San Frontières in Aleppo. The aid worker had traveled to the Turkish-Syrian border in December 2012 to work with groups providing support to Syrian refugees, a family spokesperson said in a statement. She had spent the previous four years working for various aid groups in northern India, Israel and the Palestinian territories. An unaffiliated citizens group in Raqqa who have proved reliable in the past told the Guardian they believed the claims of Mueller’s death were true, based on comments by Isis fighters. But given the extent of the damage to the building complex shown in the statement, it is unclear how other Isis fighters could have escaped alive unless the hostage had been left unguarded. Unusually for Isis, the militants did not provide footage or photographic evidence of Mueller’s purported death as it has done with previous hostages. Over the past seven months, Isis has killed three American hostages: journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig. All three men were on camera, and video of their killings was posted online. Two Japanese hostages, Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto, were killed in December, as were two British aid workers, David Haines and Alan Henning. John Cantlie, a British journalist, is believed to still be in Isis captivity. Cantlie has appeared in several Isis propaganda videos, the last of which was disseminated online in early January. A second western female hostage is believed to remain in the hands of Isis militants in Syria. In contrast to the nine male hostages and Kasasbeh, neither Mueller nor the second female hostage have ever been shown on camera or in propaganda imagery distributed by the group. Isis is believed to have previously released misleading reports on the fate of their captives. The group maintained that Kasasbeh was still alive throughout a prolonged – and eventually fruitless – attempt to negotiate a prisoner swap involving the two Japanese hostages and Sajida al-Rishawi, a would-be suicide bomber who had been on death row in Jordan since 2008. The group’s media outlets released the video of Kasasbeh’s death on Tuesday, but Jordanian officials belief that he had been killed about a month earlier. Rishawi was hanged on Wednesday, hours after the video was released. Mueller, who graduated from Northern Arizona University in 2009, had long made helping others a priority, according to the Mueller family spokesperson, who cited years of social welfare activities at home and abroad. In a story in her hometown paper, the Prescott Daily Courrier, Mueller said she felt drawn to help after learning more about the situation in war-torn Syria. “For as long as I live, I will not let this suffering be normal. something we just accept,” Mueller said. “It’s important to stop and realize what we have, why we have it and how privileged we are. And from that place, start caring and get a lot done.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/06/us-hostage-isis-coalition-air-strike-killed-syria

Sending arms to Ukraine will not scare Vladimir Putin, warns Angela Merkel while Francois Hollande warns it could lead to war By AFP 2:54PM GMT 07 Feb 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11397900/Ukraine-crisis-Do-not-try-to-scare-Putin-warns-Merkel.html

Tomi Reichental’s Close to Evil has prompted German federal prosecutors to question 93-year-old Hilde Michnia about her role at Bergen-Belsen Henry McDonald, Ireland Correspondent Friday 6 February 2015 09.00 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/06/holocaust-survivor-biopic-ss-guard-investigation-hilde-michnia-bergen-belsen-close-to-evil

Following 12 months of historic change and growing FGM awareness, UN calls for concrete action against cutting girls and women Alexandra Topping Friday 6 February 2015 08.00 GMT The United Nations has designated Friday a worldwide day of zero tolerance on FGM, and called for concrete action to be taken against the cutting of girls and women. This follows 12 months of historic change and growing awareness of the practice. The Guardian launched its campaign to end FGM a year ago, joining with activists, media organisations and committed politicians to shape laws, influence policy and transform social attitudes. In the UK it worked with Bristol student Fahma Mohamed and her colleagues at Integrate Bristol to get information about FGM into schools, gathering the support of more than 230,000 people on her Change.org petition. Inspired by Mohamed’s petition, Atlanta resident Jaha Dukureh took up the baton in the US, lobbying the government to carry out the first prevalence study into FGM for 17 years and set up a working group to tackle the practice on American soil. In her home country of the Gambia, Dukureh held the first youth summit to fight FGM, while also confronting her father about the practice, and meeting the woman who cut her. In Kenya, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon gave his backing to a joint Guardian-UNFPA project that will give reporting grants to African journalists to increase the coverage of FGM and its dangers across the continent. There was much to celebrate, thanks to tireless campaigning by local and international activists. In London, global dignitaries gathered at the Girl Summit, hosted by prime minister David Cameron, and countries pledged to tackle the issue head on. There have been setbacks too: questions were raised when a doctor was found not guilty of performing FGM in a London hospital in the first UK prosecution, and the movement lost a lifelong campaigner with the death of Efua Dorkenoo. With 130m women and girls thought to be living with FGM across the world, and prevalence rates still high in many of the 29 countries in Africa and the middle east where FGM is still carried out, campaigners still have much work to do. February 2014: International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. Working with Bristol student Fahma Mohamed, the Guardian launches a campaign which calls for FGM to be addressed in schools. Within days, Mohamed’s petition on Change.org gathers 230,000 signatures. The then education secretary Michael Gove quickly agrees to a meeting, and subsequently writes to all teachers in England and Wales about FGM. The campaign is given a further boost when it is backed by Pakistani schoolgirl and Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai, and Mohamed is invited to meet UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, who calls her an inspiration. May: A US petition begun by mother-of-three Jaha Dukureh is relaunched with the help of the Guardian. Thousands begin signing the petition and more than 50 members of congress support the campaign, which calls on the Obama administration to carry out an FGM prevalence study – the first for 17 years. July: UK David Cameron hosts the first Girl Summit in London to tackle FGM and early forced marriage. Jaha Dukureh and Fahma Mohamed are joined by dignitaries from around the world to hear the prime minister announce that the government will legally oblige doctors, social workers and teachers to report FGM if they become aware of it, while parents would be criminalised if they failed to protect their children from the practice. Meanwhile, in the US, the Obama administration announces it will carry out a study to establish how many women are living with the consequences of FGM and how many girls are at risk. This has been a central demand of Jaha Dukureh’s campaign. October: The UN backs a major new push in the Guardian’s global media campaign, as the UNFPA and Guardian co-fund five international FGM reporting grants and a reporting award that will be given annually to an African reporter who has demonstrated innovation and commitment in covering the subject. Jaha Dukureh holds the first youth summit on FGM in the Gambia, where hundreds of young people pledge to join the fight. January 2015: A doctor becomes the first person in Egypt to be convicted of FGM, seven years after the procedure was criminalised in the country. Jaha Dukureh goes on a tour of the Gambia spreading the anti-FGM message. February: Questions are raised about the decision to prosecute a doctor at the Whittington hospital in London after he is found not guilty of performing FGM by suturing a patient to stop her bleeding after childbirth. There has still been no successful prosecution in England and Wales since the practice was outlawed 29 years ago. Meanwhile, draft figures from the Centers for Disease Control reveal that more than half a million women in the US are estimated to be suffering as a result of FGM, more than three times more than previously thought. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/06/un-zero-tolerance-fgm-female-genital-mutilation

As Japan condemns Kenji Goto’s apparent execution, newspapers issue special editions and father of other Japanese hostage praises Goto’s bravery Justin McCurry in Tokyo and agencies Sunday 1 February 2015 10.06 GMT The mother of Kenji Goto has led tributes to the Japanese journalist, after Islamic State (Isis) released a video purportedly showing his beheading and carrying a warning that Japan was now a target for the militant group. As newspapers issued special editions bringing news of Goto’s death, his mother, Junko Ishido, said: “Kenji has died, and my heart is broken. I’m just speechless. It is my only hope that we can carry on with Kenji’s mission to save the children from war and poverty.” The Isis video, called A Message to the Government of Japan, showed a militant who looked and sounded like the man with a British accent who has taken part in previous Isis beheadings. The man, armed with a knife and dressed head-to-toe in black with his face covered, stands behind Goto before beheading him. Goto, kneeling in an orange prison jumpsuit, said nothing in the video, which lasts about a minute. No mention was made of Muath al-Kasasbeh, a Jordanian pilot who was seized by Isis after his jet crashed in north-east Syria in December during a bombing mission against the Islamist insurgents. Japan condemned the apparent execution of Goto after days of attempts to secure his release. Speaking soon after the video went online early on Sunday morning, the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said Japan would not give in to terrorism but would work with the international community to bring Goto’s killers to justice. Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, described Goto’s apparent murder as despicable. “I cannot help feeling strong indignation that an inhuman and despicable act of terrorism like this has been committed again,” Suga said. “We resolutely condemn this.” Suga said officials were trying to verify the video’s authenticity, adding that cabinet ministers would meet to discuss the government’s response. The US also condemned Goto’s apparent beheading. Barack Obama said: “Standing together with a broad coalition of allies and partners, the United States will continue taking decisive action to degrade and ultimately destroy Isil [isis].” The British prime minister, David Cameron, described the killing as “despicable and appalling” and added: “Britain stands united with Japan at this tragic time and we will do all we can to hunt down these murderers and bring them to justice, however long it takes. “I welcome Prime Minister Abe’s steadfast commitment to continue Japan’s active role, working with international partners, to secure peace, stability and prosperity in the Middle East. The humanitarian aid they are providing in the region is a vital part of helping the local communities that are being persecuted by the same [isis] terrorists who murdered our innocent men.” Praise for Goto also came from the father of his slain compatriot Haruna Yukawa, whose release the journalist had been trying to secure when he was captured. Yukawa, 42, was reportedly beheaded last weekend. “He was kind and he was brave,” Shoichi Yukawa, Haruna’s father, said of Goto. “He tried to save my son. It’s utterly heartbreaking. People killing other people it’s so deplorable. How can this be happening?” Goto’s plight had prompted an outpouring of support on social media as friends, colleagues and those inspired by his work campaigned for his release. “Kenji lives on in all our hearts. In our daily work. Every time you smile with those around you, you will be sure to remember that big smile Kenji always gave us,” wrote Taku Nishimae, a film-maker living in New York who knew Goto and launched the “I am Kenji” page on Facebook. Isis had offered to release Goto in exchange for Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi terrorist who faces execution for her part in suicide bombings in Jordan in 2005. An audio message purportedly from Goto earlier this week said Kasasbeh would be killed if Jordan did not free Rishawi, whose device failed to detonate during a string of suicide bombings that killed 60 people. Negotiations conducted with the help of local tribal leaders became deadlocked, however, after Jordan insisted on seeing proof that Kasasbeh was alive before releasing Rishawi, and that the pilot also be part of any prisoner swap. In the latest Isis video, a jihadi with a British accent issues a chilling warning to Abe, who has publicly backed coalition strikes against Isis and recently pledged $200m (£130m) in non-military aid to the campaign. Addressing Abe, the militant says: “Because of your reckless decision to take part in an unwinnable war, this knife will not only slaughter Kenji but will also carry on and cause carnage wherever your people are found. So let the nightmare for Japan begin.” The video, released on militant websites on Saturday night, bore the symbol of Isis’s al-Furqan media arm. Though it could not be immediately verified, it conformed to other beheading videos released by Isis, which controls a third of both Syria and neighbouring Iraq in its self-declared caliphate. Goto, 47, a veteran war correspondent, was captured in October after he travelled to Syria to try to win the release of Yukawa, a self-styled security consultant whom Goto had met in Syria last April. Japan’s hostage crisis began almost two weeks ago after militants threatened to kill Goto and Yukawa within 72 hours unless Japan paid $200m – the same sum Abe had pledged to countries affected by the war against Isis. Japan has no military involvement in the campaign against Isis and has stressed in recent days that the assistance was purely humanitarian. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/01/mother-japanese-journalist-beheaded-islamic-state-tributes-kenji-goto

Kurdish forces triumphed over Isis in Kobani but the Syrian town is devastated. Emma Graham-Harrison was one of the first reporters on the scene Emma Graham-Harrison Saturday 31 January 2015 20.09 GMT The concrete eagle in what used to be Freedom Square still surveys Kobani imperiously. But around it almost nothing stands. Buildings have vanished during months of heavy shelling, replaced by snarls of steel and rubble, and the yawning craters left by US air strikes. One side street is blocked by the bodies of Isis fighters, rotting where they fell – a pile of bones marked only by a foul smell. On the muddy track that marks where another road led, a series of tattered sniper screens veils the destruction of the schools and homes where sharpshooters had sheltered. Everywhere there are bullet and shell casings, the twisted metal of spent mortar rounds and, often, the alarming outline of an unexploded shell, bulbous nose to the ground and tail fins spiking into the air. The Kurdish forces’ unexpected victory in this north Syrian town marked a huge strategic and propaganda loss for Isis, which once seemed unstoppable in their rampage across the region. But the mountains of ruins, the shells and booby traps, the decaying corpses and shattered power and water systems means that while Kobani has been freed, it is no longer a town in anything but name. Salvation from Isis came at the price of Kobani itself. “There are no words coming back to a destroyed city that was your home,” said Shamsa Shahinzada, an architect who fled Kobani days before Isis arrived and who was our guide to the shattered remains – still off-limits to most of its former inhabitants. “This was the main square where people crowded every week to ask for freedom,” she said, eyes filling with tears as she surveyed what was left of Kobani’s centre. “This was our friend’s home, we used to stay there. Oh God. Beside there, there was a school – my high school.” Over half the city was destroyed, officials say. Entire blocks are pancake flattened, as if an earthquake had struck. Even in quieter areas, no building seems to have escaped unscathed – those still standing are missing windows, doors, whole sections of walls, scorched black by fire or looted during the fighting. Some things that inexplicably survived only highlight the devastation around them: an unsold tray of snacks sat in one shop window like a perfectly preserved museum exhibit on a street littered with jagged metal, piles of rubble and the twisted bodies of cars used for suicide bombs. Even on the streets that still look like streets, there is an eerie silence – broken only by the crackle of distant gunfire, the pop of a nearby shot from training grounds and the echoing blast of air strikes and attacks by Isis tanks – a constant reminder that while the militants have been kicked out of the city the frontline is still just a few kilometres away. “The battle is not over yet,” said Anwar Muslim, a former lawyer and head of Kobani’s government who stayed in the town through the whole campaign and has already brought his wife and children back to camp amid the devastation. His joy at driving Isis out of his home is tempered by concern for the rest of the district; most of it is still under Isis control. “As you can hear our villages are still fighting, and we will only have finished our work after we free all our countryside,” he told the Observer. “We, here in Kobani, are on the frontline, fighting against terrorists on behalf of all the people of the world … you can see here the cost of asking for freedom.” The battles and the devastation inside Kobani mean that tens of thousands of civilians huddled in freezing refugee camps across the Turkish border, who celebrated victory last week in the hope of returning, may not be back in Syria for months. Many no longer have homes to return to, and the town is far too dangerous and unsanitary to house them all. “We know people are waiting for us but we can’t bring them back here because there will be disease – because of the bodies – and because there is no kind of service,” Anwar Muslim said. Turkish authorities are also noting down the names of any Syrians who cross, warning them that they cannot return. With Isis still just 10km away, and likely smarting at their defeat, that is a gamble that even those whose houses survived are reluctant to make. Certainly Kurdish officials are not taking their victory for granted, at a time when there is still a steady flow of casualties into the field hospital from the nearby frontline. Soldiers keep a wary guard on all tall buildings and main junctions, huddled round improvised braziers for warmth in driving winter rain. Many are caught between elation at their victory and grief at its cost. “We are so happy, as if we were flying through the sky. As if God had created us again,” said 35-year-old Mahir Hamid. “But we can’t celebrate because we had so many martyrs.” Isis lost more than 1,000 fighters, but hundreds of Kurds were also killed in the initially lopsided battle. It pitted hundreds of militants armed with heavy weapons plundered from Iraqi arsenals against the ageing Kalashnikovs and ancient Russian machine guns of the Kurds. At one point, officials warned that food stocks were dwindling dangerously low as well. The victory was as epic as it was unexpected – to everyone except perhaps the Kurdish fighters themselves. Kobani had been all but written off by the outside world last autumn. The US came to its aid with air strikes in late September but officials in Washington warned the bombs were not enough to save it, and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also forecast collapse. Kurdish vows to hold on to their base were dismissed as poignantly, but tragically, naive. Isis was well-armed, and its fighters eager to die in battle. They poured resources and men into taking the town, and even took hostage John Cantlie there to make a propaganda video claiming that Isis was just “mopping up” the last Kurdish fighters. Instead they were being slowly driven back by outnumbered, outgunned but disciplined forces whom the city’s leader compared to heroes of ancient Greece in their ingenuity and bravery. They even devised a homemade version of an armoured truck to face off against Isis tanks. Steel plates and half-pipes welded to a flatbed lorry created a safe area, gun turrets and a battering ram to attack. It looked more Mad Max than modern military, and still reversed with the warning beeps of the original humble lorry, but was part of their slow slog to victory. “We bow down before these fighters, who were like the legions of ancient Sparta, holding off terrorism, fighting Daesh against the odds,” said the city president Anwar Muslim, using another name for Isis. He has set up a committee of architects, doctors, lawyers, engineers and other experts to look at the massive task of clearing and then rebuilding Kobani, which will take years, perhaps decades. For now, they cannot even get heavy moving equipment across the Turkish border and fear a simple clearance of the ruins would be too risky. “We have unexploded mortars, rockets, bombs, and maybe some traps for explosion the terrorists left behind to surprise us, to kill our civilian people or fighters when they clear up or check the destruction of their houses,” said Idriss Nassan, deputy head of the government. “There is no food, no medicine, no children’s milk. If our people come back now, there will be a humanitarian crisis on this victory ground.” Rebuilding will inevitably be slow because even if the military campaign is entirely successful, it will stop at Kobani’s borders, so Isis will still surround its people on three sides. The Turkish border is the only route with safe passage, so the government is lobbying for a humanitarian corridor, and the creation of new refugee camps inside Syria, where they can help with rebuilding. They are hoping for help from the allies who sent military aid, and benefited indirectly from the blow dealt to Isis. The priority is funds for reconstruction, experts in bomb clearance to help dismantle the ruins, and pressure on Turkey to open up a humanitarian corridor into Syria. The damage is so bad that some have questioned whether Kobani should be rebuilt on a new site, but Nassan said that would be emotionally devastating. “Unfortunately the city is destroyed, but people have memories here and this is our land. We don’t want to move everything from here,” he told the Observer near the ruins of an institute where he once taught English, before Syria’s convulsions propelled him into another life. “We have to just clear it, but maybe keep some parts as a museum for foreign people to come here to see how Kobani resisted the terrorists.” The city is still full of evidence of lives dramatically interrupted by the speed of Isis’s ferocious advance; tiny children’s clothes hanging to dry on a washing line months after their owners fled to Turkey, shelves stacked with food in areas where Kurdish discipline stopped looting. The front wall of a nearby house was ripped off by an explosion, but a display cabinet in one of the rooms sat pristine – with television and a wedding photo in pride of place and untouched stacks of china tea cups and plates, as if the owner had just popped out. Some civilians are starting to filter back despite the risks. Most are fed up with terrible conditions across the border. “I was in Turkey four months but, for me, it felt like four years. I am taking my family and coming back,” said Fatima, queueing in the dusk to pass through the Kurdish border gates with her five children. “If we have to die here that’s OK.” Their house had gone, she has been warned, but they were fed up with sleeping on the floor of a shop in the Turkish border town. “I will find somewhere, even if I have to sleep in the street I will come back.” There are perhaps 400 families in the western part of town, estimates Azad, a cook for the Kurdish YPG – People’s Protection U – fighters. His home survived undamaged apart from a hole torn in one wall to allow food deliveries without risking Isis snipers in the street. He brought his family back a month ago, including 10-month-old son Fouad. With a well, a generator and rations distributed by the military, he says they are living well, even though Kobani is a virtual ghost town without shops, neighbours or any communal life. Two ducks, rescued from an abandoned village, quack happily in their small yard and the soundtrack of battle no longer bothers even the baby. “He is used to it now,” he says. “My wife was frightened at first but now it’s normal for her, too. We are upset about the destruction but happy we got Isis out. At least we have that.” The only person leaving Kobani permanently was a Turkish member of Isis, returning to his family in a coffin after dying on the front line. “We are telling the world those people came to kill our children, take our women. But if they ask for their bodies, we will give them,” said Kobani defence minister Ismet Sheikh Hasan as the coffin was carried through the steel border gate into Turkey. It passed beside a crowd of fresh-faced recruits for the Kurdish forces, shuffling with nervous excitement. They clapped and sang until the door swung open, then raced into their battered home town with shouts of joy. They had come from refugee camps to carry on the fight against Isis, and must have known that many of them would fall in battle, but just then, elated with victory, no one seemed to care. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/31/kobani-kurdish-forces-retake-isis-destroyed-power-sanitation-bombs-residents-hopes