Homeland Security News

An inmate already sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for aiding a terrorist organization was handed an additional 20-year sentence on Monday, Aug. 13 after attempting to murder his prison’s warden in Victorville in May 2016.

Fazliddin Kurbanov, 36, pleaded guilty in March to one count of attempted murder of a federal officer and admitted to trying to use a prison-made knife to slit the throat of the warden at a federal prison in Victorville.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said that during Monday’s hearing, the inmate told court attendees via an interpreter that he was not sorry for his actions and that his victim was supposed to die. He “expressed extreme animosity toward the United States,” prosecutors said in a statement.

Read more: The Mercury News

A report by UN sanctions monitors published Monday said the "Islamic State" (IS) militant group has between 20,000 and 30,000 fighters still in Iraq and Syria.

Despite major military setbacks and a near-halt on foreign fighters joining their ranks, the group continues to maintain a sizable presence "roughly equally distributed between the two countries," said the report.

"Among these is still a significant component of the many thousands of active foreign terrorist fighters," it added.

The group is "still able to mount attacks inside Syrian territory," the report noted. "It does not fully control any territory in Iraq, but it remains active through sleeper cells."

Read more: Deutsche Welle

The Taliban overran a base in northern Afghanistan, killing 17 soldiers, even as Afghan forces battled the insurgents for the fifth straight day in the eastern provincial capital of Ghazni on Tuesday, trying to flush them out of the city’s outskirts, officials said.

There were fears for the fate of the other troops from the base, known as Camp Chinaya, as the Taliban claimed that dozens had surrendered to them while others were captured in battle.

The attack in the north took place in Faryab province, in the district of Ghormach, according to the spokesman for the defense ministry, Ghafoor Ahmad Jawed. Along with the 17 troops killed, at least 19 soldiers were wounded, he said.

The Taliban had besieged the base, which housed about 140 Afghan troops, for three days before the massive push on it late on Monday night, said the local provincial council chief, Mohammad Tahir Rahmani.

Rahmani said the base fell to the Taliban after the soldiers, who had resisted the three-day onslaught, failed to get any reinforcements and ran out of ammunition, food and water. He said 43 troops were killed and wounded in the attack but didn’t give a breakdown.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, saying 57 Afghan soldiers had surrendered to the Taliban while 17 others were captured in battle. He said eight military Humvees were also seized.

Read more:  AP

Police arrested a man on suspicion of terrorism offences on Tuesday saying he appeared to deliberately drive into cyclists before ramming a car into security barriers outside the British parliament in what appeared to be the second attack on the building in just under 18 months.

The man, in his 20s, injured three people as he drove through a group of cyclists and pedestrians before hitting a barrier outside parliament during the early morning rush hour.

“Given that this appears to be a deliberate act, the method, and this being an iconic site, we are treating it as a terrorist incident,” London Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said.

Basu said the man was not co-operating with police. He was not believed to be known to security forces, he said.

None of the injuries were life-threatening, officials said.

Police said a silver Ford Fiesta collided with a number of cyclists and pedestrians before crashing into barriers outside the Houses of Parliament at 0637 GMT.

“The driver of the car, a man in his late 20s, was arrested at the scene by armed officers,” police said in a statement. “He was arrested on suspicion of terrorist offences. There was nobody else in the vehicle, which remains at the scene and is being searched. No weapons have been recovered at this stage.”

Read more:  Reuters

At least two people were killed and six wounded when a bomb went off at a crowded market in Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing in the Sadr City district, a stronghold of nationalist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr whose bloc won a parliamentary election in May.

Iraq declared victory over Islamic State in December but security officials say the hardline militant group is likely to wage an insurgency after its self-proclaimed caliphate collapsed and the militants were dislodged from all the territory they held in the country.

Source:  Reuters