Homeland Security News

Lebanon’s parliament on Monday elected octogenarian Michel Aoun, an ally of the militant Hezbollah group, as the country’s president, ending a two-year political impasse that crippled state institutions and deepened rifts among rival factions.

Aoun won support from 83 lawmakers in the 127-member chamber to become Lebanon’s 13th president, fulfilling a decades-old dream that has shaped his political career. He will serve a six-year term. Aoun’s supporters danced, cheered and hugged each other as they waved his Free Patriotic Movement party’s orange flag.

The Shiite Hezbollah’s championship of Aoun, a Maronite Christian, had encountered fierce resistance from a coalition of parties backed by Saudi Arabia. His election would be a victory for Hezbollah’s patron, Iran, and a reflection of the decline of Saudi influence in Lebanon, said Rosanna Bou Monsef, a political commentator for the An-Nahar daily.

Read more: Bloomberg

The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency has officially recognized an oath of allegiance sworn on behalf of a group of jihadists operating in Mali and neighboring countries.

Abu Walid al Sahrawi first swore bay’ah (an oath of allegiance) to the so-called caliphate more than seventeen months ago, but Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s enterprise did not advertise it until yesterday.  Amaq released a short statement acknowledging Sahrawi’s oath, as well as a video of him reading his pledge.  Sahrawi’s organization is commonly known as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS).

Sahrawi previously served as the spokesman for the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). In that role, Sahrawi was allied with Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who was originally a commander in al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Amaq’s statement reads like Sahrawi’s pledge of fealty is recent, but it is actually old news. 

Read more: Long War Journal

A Palestinian gunman opened fire on a West Bank checkpoint on Monday, wounding three Israeli soldiers before forces shot and killed him, the Israeli military said.

Israel's emergency rescue service MDA said one soldier was seriously wounded and two others were lightly injured in the attack, which took place near the West Bank city of Ramallah.  The shooting was the latest in more than a year of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Palestinian assailants, using knives, vehicles and guns, have killed 36 Israelis and two visiting Americans in near-daily attacks. 

Read more: AP

Her face puffy from lack of sleep, Vivika Barnabas peered down at the springs, rods and other parts of a disassembled assault rifle spread before her.  At last, midway through one of this country’s peculiar, grueling events known as patrol competitions, she had come upon an easy task.  Already, she and her three teammates had put out a fire, ridden a horse, identified medicinal herbs from the forest and played hide-and-seek with gun-wielding “enemies” in the woods at night.

The competitions, held nearly every weekend, are called war games, but are not intended as fun.  The Estonian Defense League, which organizes the events, requires its 25,400 volunteers to turn out occasionally for weekend training sessions that have taken on a serious hue since Russia’s incursions in Ukraine two years ago raised fears of a similar thrust by Moscow into the Baltic States.

Read more: New York Times

German authorities said Sunday they were investigating claims the Islamic State terrorist group, also called ISIS, was behind the Oct. 16 murder of a Hamburg teenager. ISIS claimed responsibility for the deadly stabbing Saturday.  A German police spokeswoman said authorities couldn’t independently verify the claim as it differs from the official account of the event.

On Oct. 16, a man approached two teenagers who were seated on the waterside of a Hamburg lake. He stabbed the 16-year-old boy several times and pushed the 15-year-old girl into the lake. The boy was rushed to the hospital but died soon after. The girl wasn’t injured but was taken to the hospital for psychiatric treatment. The attacker fled the scene and is yet to be identified.

Read more: International Business Times