Homeland Security News

Islamic State has begun distributing increasingly long “kill lists” of ordinary Americans purportedly encouraging its followers to target those individuals, vexing authorities who are at odds over whether the lists pose an actual threat or are merely scare tactics.

A list distributed late last month contained the names of more than 2,000 New Yorkers, while another listed about 1,500 Texans. None of the people had known connections to government or to issues that the terror group cares about, according to counterterrorism officials.

That development is sparking a debate among counterterrorism officials about whether the government should keep notifying all the individuals identified. While ISIS has distributed kill lists for more than a year—typically over  Twitter  and other social-media platforms—officials say such lists are increasing greatly in size and have moved from targeting dozens of military or government officials at a time to thousands of ordinary citizens.

Read more: The Wall Street Journal

A suicide car bomber detonated outside the home of an anti-Taliban fighter in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar Tuesday, killing at least ten people and wounding 23 more, local officials said.

The bomber "detonated his explosives-laden car outside the house of a local 'uprising' commander this evening", said Nangarhar police chief Zrawar Zahed, referring to Afghan villagers who take up arms against the Taliban with the government's backing.

Read more: Yahoo News

A car bomb killed three people and wounded 45 when it struck a police vehicle on Tuesday in Diyarbakir, the main city in southeastern Turkey where security forces are trying to crush a Kurdish militant insurgency, the governor's office said.

Explosives in the vehicle were detonated from a distance as an armored police van passed, wounding 12 police officers, the governor's office said. A Reuters witness heard a big explosion in the city center, followed by ambulance sirens. Black smoke rose over the site and debris was scattered along a wide avenue.

Five of the wounded were inmates being moved while under police custody, a security source said. A senior official said some of them were members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group being taken to hospital and that they may have been targeted for being suspected informants.

Read more: Reuters

A joint raid by U.S. and Afghan forces on Tuesday rescued the son of a former Pakistani prime minister from a three-year-long Taliban captivity in Afghanistan, officials said.

Ali Hiader Gilani was found during the raid conducted near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, according to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's office. Gilani, believed to be in his 30s, is the son of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani whose secular anti-Taliban Pakistan People's Party's led several major offensives against Islamic militants.

Read more: ABC News

A key leader of so-called Islamic State (IS) in Iraq's Anbar province has been killed in a US-led coalition air strike, the Pentagon says.  Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Abu Waheeb and three others died when their vehicle was hit on 6 May near Rutba.

"It is dangerous to be an Isil leader in Iraq and Syria nowadays," Mr Cook added, using an acronym based on the former name of IS.  Abu Waheeb has falsely been declared dead on several previous occasions.

The Pentagon described Abu Waheeb, who is also known as Shakir Waheeb, as the IS "military emir for Anbar".

The jihadist group seized control of much of the predominantly Sunni Arab western province, Iraq's largest, in 2014.

Read more:  BBC News