Islamic extremist group Boko Haram attacked the Nigerian town of Damasak and left at least 70 people dead with local officials saying the death toll could top 100.
A witness told Reuters that a mass grave with the bodies was found under a concrete bridge after the terrorists were driven out of the town by Niger and Chadian troops.
“There are about 100 bodies spread around, under the bridge just outside of town,” Chad military spokesman Colonel Azem Bermandoa Agouna told AFP. “This is the work of Boko Haram.”
Agouna said that the killings likely happened two months ago because body parts are basically mummified from the desert conditions.
“There are heads here and bodies there,” Agouna explained. “The mass grave has become like a termite mound.”
Residents say that Boko Haram kidnapped at least 400 women and children from the town before they withdrew on Tuesday.
The retreat from the town is the latest by Boko Haram. The terrorists also withdrew from the town of Bama but committed a mass killing of their wives before they left the town so that they could not be married to non-Muslims.
ISIS has recruited at least 400 children since the start of the year and has given them military training and indoctrination into their extremist brand of Islam.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the children were recruited near schools and mosques where ISIS has carried out killings and punishments on people who do not live up to their extremist ideology. In many cases, the children go with the terrorists over their objections of their parents.
One boy is believed to be the half-brother of Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers, a Rabbi and three Jewish children in France in 2012.
“They use children because it is easy to brainwash them. They can build these children into what they want, they stop them from going to school and send them to IS schools instead,” said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the British-based Observatory.
The group said that ISIS has had children carry out beheadings and executions as a way to show them the “power” of ISIS. The children are also being used as informants after being returned to their families. They report on actions within their communities to the ISIS leadership.
Federal investigators are looking to a list published by ISIS that calls for jihadists in America to kill 100 U.S. soldiers.
The “kill list” was posted by the “hacking division” of the terrorist group. The list gave the names, addresses and photographs of the soldiers with instructions for “brothers in America” to “deal with them.”
The terrorists say the 100 troops listed were part of efforts to defeat the terrorists in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
“With the huge amount of data we have from various different servers and databases, we have decided to leak 100 addresses so that our brothers in America can deal with you,” the threatening message accompanying the list read. “And now we have made it easy for you by giving you addresses. All you need to do is take the final step, so what are you waiting for?”
U.S. officials say many of the soldiers on the list had never taken any actions against ISIS.
However, the situation is causing concern among military families who have been contacted by NCIS and other federal law enforcement agencies about being on the “list.” Parents are concerned that moving onto a base would be a victory for the terrorists in making them move out of fear.
Investigators say the names and addresses are of soldiers who are on social media or who have spoken to the press and that the information was not obtained through hacking.
A new report says that ISIS is training terrorists in Britain via video conference to carry out chemical weapons attacks on trains and other public transportation systems.
“I am convinced that IS (another name for ISIS) fighters are all being given training in chemical weapons and the British ones, who are likely to be more educated, will all be targeted in the hope they may return home,” said Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, the retired head of chemical and biological weapons for the British Army, according to the Mail Online.
The Colonel said that because of British laws, people can obtain large amounts of chlorine without a license, so the bomb could be a chlorine weapon.
“They will have a reasonable idea on how to use chlorine and other toxic chemicals as a terror weapon,” he added.
“This could happen on a train or tube or even at a big football match. Acquiring weapons and ammunition is very difficult in the UK but you can get up to 90 tonnes of chlorine without any license.”
Chlorine can burn the lungs when present in the air in a concentrated amount.
“Chlorine is not very toxic and the green and yellow clouds are easy to see and avoid. It is very non-persistent only lasting for a few minutes. It was used in the First World War but dropped because it did not work very well,” he continued.
“It is key that ISIS don’t get the advantage of an unexpected chemical attack in the UK. If you can hold your breath for 30 seconds and run in the opposite direction you will be okay. If outside you should aim to climb or reach higher ground.”
ISIS terrorists are starting a campaign to destabilize Yemen and overtake the government by launching twin mosque attacks that killed 46 during Friday prayers.
Witnesses say that at least four terrorists blew themselves up in the mosques used by the Shia Muslim Houthis. The attacks also left hundreds injured.
The terrorists also attacked the residents where the country’s former president has been living since the Houthis ousted him.
Local officials confirmed 46 dead but said that they also have many unaccounted for in the attacks. Rebel TV stations say that hospitals have reported 137 dead and 345 people have been injured.
Police reportedly stopped a fifth bomber attack on another mosque.
The attack is the first major terrorist action by ISIS in Yemen.
A U.S. Air Force veteran is jailed on charges of attempting to join the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.
Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh is facing charges of attempting to provide material support to terrorists and providing resources to a terrorist organization. He also was charged with obstruction of justice for destroying thumb drives containing evidence of his online interaction with the terrorist group.
Pugh had lost his job as an airplane mechanic, which was based in the middle east. After the job loss, he traveled from Egypt to Turkey with the intent of sneaking into Syria.
“Pugh, an American citizen and former member of our military, allegedly abandoned his allegiance to the United States and sought to provide material support to ISI[S],” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin said. “Identifying and bringing to justice individuals who provide or attempt to provide material support to terrorists is a key priority of the National Security Division.”
U.S. intelligence officials say that at least 150 Americans are fighting with the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.
At least three gunmen stormed a museum in Tunisia Wednesday attacking tourists and leaving at least 21 people dead.
The scene at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis was described as “horrific” by witnesses. In addition to the 21 confirmed dead, at least 21 others were wounded.
Officials say that 17 tourists are among the dead.
The government took the unusual step of taking tourists to a secured location for their safety while a manhunt took place for the shooters.
Tunisia’s internor ministry said the standoff with the gunmen ended when security forces stormed the museum. The attack was from “two or more terrorists armed with Kalashinkovs.” Local radio said the terrorists were in military-style clothing.
Witnesses say that many of the tourists were Italians who were part of a cruise that had docked in Tunis for the day.
The attackers were not immediately identified but Tunisia has been dealing with attacks by various Islamic terrorist groups, including several who have pledged support for ISIS.
The Islamic terrorist group ISIS is continuing their campaign to eradicate any religious historic emblems by destroying historic Christian churches in Iraq.
The Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor says they have obtainted pictuers of terrorists using sledgehammers and other tools to destroy crosses and other Christian iconography. Statues were torn down and then smashed to pieces.
“The images show ISIS men engaged in the destruction of various Christian symbols, which ISIS perceives as being polytheistic and idolatrous,” JTTM reports.
“They don’t care what it’s called; they are just following their ideology and that means getting rid of churches and minorities. It is the Islamic State, and there’s no room for anyone else,” MEMRI Director Steven Stalinsky said, according to The Daily Mail.
The United Nations calls the actions of ISIS a “war crime.”
“This is yet another attack against the Iraqi people, reminding us that nothing is safe from the cultural cleansing under way in the country: it targets human lives, minorities, and is marked by the systematic destruction of humanity’s ancient heritage,” UNESCO’s Irina Bokova said.
A former ISIS hostage has written that ISIS build their own version of “Guantanamo” to torture Western hostages near Aleppo.
They said that “Jihadi John” staged mock executions at the facility.
Javier Espinosa, a Spanish journalist, recorded his memories in the newspaper El Mundo.
Espinosa said that the prisoners called their guards “The Beatles” and that they focused on showing the prisoners what could happen to them.
“The Beatles … loved this sort of theatre. They had me sat on the floor, barefoot, with a shaven head, a thick beard and dressed in the ‘orange’ uniform’ that had made Guantanamo, the American prison, famous,” Espinosa wrote, according to Scotsman.
“Jihadi John wanted maximum drama. He had brought along an antique sword of the kind Muslim armies used in the Middle Ages. It was a blade of almost a meter in length with a silver handle,” added Espinosa, who was kidnapped on Sept. 16, 2013 and freed on March 29, 2014.
Espinosa said that executed American James Foley told him ISIS had been planning this for a long time.
“‘They had this project for a long time. The [head guard] told us at the beginning they wanted to intern Westerners in a high-security prison with cameras and lots of guards.’ ‘They told us that we would be here for a very long time, because we were the first ones they captured,'” Foley told him.
ISIS has released a statement that they plan to “Blow up the White House, Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower.”
ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani outlined the group’s plot to take over Portugal, Spain, Paris and Rome in a 30 minute broadcast. The message, aimed at the West, is called “So They Kill And Are Killed”. The title is a reference to a verse in the Koran.
“We won the day Europe and U.S. dreamt of reclaiming Tal Hamis, Mosul, Sinjar, Tikrit, Qaim, Derna, Tell Abyad, and more,” stated the ISIS mouthpiece, as transcribed by Ynet News.
“We — with Allah’s help — want Paris, before Rome and Islamic Iberia and after we blow up the White House, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower before Paris, and Rome,” al-Adnani warned. “The Muslims will return to power, to be the vanguard and lead in every place.”
Intelligence experts say the message is really an attempt to boost the morale among the members of ISIS after a series of big losses to Iraqi troops and U.S. airstrikes.