Strong earthquake strikes off Japan

Magnitude 7.8 quake strikes off the east coast, swaying buildings in Tokyo, but with no reports of damage.

 

A strong earthquake has struck off Japan's Bonin Islands, but officials say there is no danger of a tsunami.
The quake shook buildings in Tokyo on Saturday, setting off car alarms as it rattled the Japanese capital.
Residential buildings swayed for around a minute as the quake built in intensity at around 8.30pm (1130 GMT).
Japan's Meteorological Agency says the offshore earthquake struck Saturday at 8:24 p.m. at a depth of 590 kilometers (370 miles). The US Geological Survey says the quake had a magnitude of 7.8 and a depth of 678 kilometres.
Public broadcaster NHK said there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
The meteorological agency did not issue a tsunami warning because the quake struck so far beneath the earth's surface.
The Ogasawara islands are about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south of Tokyo.

Syria barrel bomb attacks 'kill scores' in Aleppo

At least 75 people reported killed after government forces carry out raids in Aleppo province, monitoring group says.

 

Regime helicopters dropped barrel bombs on the city of Al-Bab and in eastern neighbourhoods of Aleppo [Getty Images]

A series of barrel bombs dropped by Syria's government has killed at least 75 people and wounded dozens others in Aleppo province, according to medical sources and a monitoring group.
The deaths occurred in two separate incidents on Saturday when helicopters dropped explosives-filled barrels, which are deemed illegal under international law.
One barrel bomb hit the rebel-held Shaar neighbourhood of the city of Aleppo, killing at least 20 people, most of them from the same family, local activists have told Al Jazeera.
In the second attack, at least 55 people were killed after bombs hit a busy market in al-Bab city - about 40km northeast of Aleppo city, which is controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents violence through a network of activists on the ground, dubbed the al-Bab attack as a "massacre", adding that the number of dead likely would rise because many of the wounded were in critical condition.
This comes a day after rebel fighters seized the last government-controlled town in the country's northwestern province of Idlib after government forces retreated to their coastal bases, according to activists and a monitoring group.
A Syrian coalition known as the Fattah Army seized the town of Ariha on Thursday, giving the group full control of Idlib province.
The Fattah Army is made up of several armed groups, notably the Nusra Front. Hadi al-Abdallah, a Syrian activist reporting from Ariha, told Al Jazeera that dozens of Syrian soldiers were killed in the clashes.

Fighters wrest town in Idlib from Syrian forces

Soldiers' retreat from Ariha in country's northwest gives coalition called Fattah Army control of Idlib province.

 

Many families fled after the Fattah Army captured Ariha, afraid of government's reaction to its loss [Reuters]

Doha, Qatar - Syrian fighters have seized the last government-controlled town in the country's northwestern province after government forces retreated to their coastal bases, according to activists and a monitoring group.
A Syrian coalition known as the Fattah Army seized the town of Ariha on Thursday, giving the group full control of Idlib province.

The Fattah Army is made up of several armed groups, notably the Nusra Front.

Hadi al-Abdallah, a Syrian activist reporting from Ariha, told Al Jazeera that dozens of Syrian soldiers were killed in the clashes.

Syrian rebels capture last regime held town in Idlib

"The Syrian army retreated from Ariha and the Fattah Army managed to attack at least three government tanks as they fled the city, leaving tens of government soldiers killed," Abdallah said.
"Government soldiers retreated to several cities outside Idlib province, and the Fattah Army now have full control of the city following major losses to the Syrian regime."
Last week the Fattah Army captured the largest remaining military base in Idlib after days of heavy clashes with regime forces.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday that clashes left many soldiers and armed rebels killed.
The monitor also reported that the group managed to take over several towns around Ariha after weeks of clashes with government forces and air strikes.
Dozens of families have reportedly fled Ariha, afraid of the government's reaction to the loss.
The Fattah Army seized Idlib city on March 28,  which was home to 40,000 people before the conflict began and the last remaining government-held city in the eponymous province, which borders Turkey.
It is strategically located near the main highway connecting Syria's second city Aleppo and the capital Damascus.

Source: Al Jazeera

Omar Khadr: I don't wish people to love me

The youngest person ever to be held at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has discussed his experience and his hopes for the future after he was freed on bail earlier this month.
In 2002, Canadian national Omar Khadr, aged 15 at the time, was alleged to have thrown a grenade at US troops in Afghanistan, killing one soldier.
Khadr spent a decade at the US-run detention camp, before he was transferred to Canada, where he was put in a maximum-security prison to serve the balance of his eight-year sentence.
In his first full-length interview since his release on bail on May 7, Khadr - now 28 - tells Al Jazeera that he worries whether his new freedom is going to last, as he appeals his conviction.
But having spent the last 13 of his 28 years behind bars, Khadr admitted that he would face a considerable degree of public suspicion.
"I don't wish people to love me. I don't wish people to hate me. I just wish for people to just give me a chance," Khadr said.
"People are just going to think that I am fake. You go through a struggle, you go through a trauma, you're going to be bitter, you're going to hate some people. It's just the normal thing to do - and this guy, not having these natural emotions, is probably hiding something."
Khadr, who was working as a translator for al-Qaeda operatives under orders from his father, discussed in detail about his arrest and subsequent detention and what he called antagonising conditions at the controversial military prison.

Deadly car explosion near Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia

Two reported dead in blast, which comes a week after a suicide bomber killed at least seven in Qatif province.

 

A car has exploded near a Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia's eastern city of Dammam, killing two people, the Reuters news agency reported, citing a witness.
The witness, identified only as Ahmed, told Reuters he was with his family near the mosque when "a quick explosion" happened. He did not know the cause of the blast.
He said acquaintances at the mosque told him an attendant was killed along with a bomber when he tried to prevent him from reaching it.
The bombing comes a week after a bomber detonated his explosives at a Shia mosque in the gulf kingdom's Qatif province during Friday prayers, killing at least seven people and wounding several others.

Iraqi forces in battle to retake Beiji refinery

Troops and Shia units challenge ISIL fighters holding facility, control of which has been hotly contested for months.

 

Iraqi forces and Shia units are involved in heavy fighting to retake the country's largest oil refinery from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
ISIL holds large sections of the Beiji refinery complex in northern Iraq where police, soldiers and elite special forces are holding out.
Speaking from Beiji, a member of the elite forces said they were aiming to retake the whole area.
"We stormed a building inside the Beiji refinery with the support of [Shia unit] Hashid Shaabi. As you can see, we are inside the refinery now. God willing, within the coming few hours, we will liberate the whole refinery and the area outside the refinery with the help of Almighty God," he said.
According to Hashid Shaabi, an area of 50km south of the town of Beiji, including the villages of al-Hajjaj and the rural area of al-Mazraa, has been retaken.
Control of the refinery has been hotly contested for months.
Smoke from fire
Iraqi government forces recaptured the Beiji refinery from ISIL in November 2014, lost control of it again and then recaptured it in April.
ISIL broke back into the perimeter of the complex earlier this month and have been slowly gaining ground.
Its fighters set large parts of the facility on fire on Monday in efforts to thwart advances by Iraqi security forces.

Smoke could be seen as the Iraqi army and Shia units  advanced to within 2km of the facility, which lies about 200km from the capital Baghdad.
Colonel Maan al-Saeedi, the commander of the second federal police brigade, told Al Jazeera: "ISIL has rigged [Beiji] with booby-trapped trenches, sand barracks and roadside bombs.
"We are hoping that our forces will overcome these obstacles, the enemy is desperate and lost manpower and firepower and therefore is trying different methods to halt our advance."
A Pentagon spokesperson said this month that the refinery was not operational and its primary importance at the moment was that it sat astride a route to Mosul.
Mosul is the Iraqi city where an ISIL leader last year proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims.
Bodies exhumed
In other Iraq-related developments, authorities have exhumed the remains of 470 people believed to have been executed by ISIL near the city of Tikrit last year, according to Iraq's health minister.
"We have exhumed the bodies of 470 Speicher martyrs from burial sites in Tikrit," Adila Hammoud announced on Thursday in Baghdad, referring to the nearby military base that the massacre was named after.
In June 2014, armed men belonging or allied to ISIL abducted hundreds of young, mostly Shia recruits from Speicher base, just outside Tikrit.
They were then lined up in several locations and executed one by one, as shown in pictures and footage that has emerged since.
The highest estimate for the number of people killed in one of the worst atrocities ever committed by ISIL stands at 1,700.
Some of their bodies were pushed into the Tigris River and others hastily buried in locations that were discovered when government and allied forces retook Tikrit from the fighters about two months ago.

Nusra leader: Our mission is to defeat Syrian regime

Abu Mohammed al-Golani in exclusive interview to Al Jazeera says his group has no specific agenda to target West.

 

The leader of the Nusra Front, one of Syria's most powerful rebel groups, has said that his group's main mission is to dislodge the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and that it has no agenda to target the West unless provoked.
"We are only here to accomplish one mission, to fight the regime and its agents on the ground, including Hezbollah and others," Abu Mohammed al-Golani said in an exclusive interview aired on Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
"Nusra Front doesn’t have any plans or directives to target the West. We received clear orders not to use Syria as a launching pad to attack the US or Europe in order to not sabotage the true mission against the regime. Maybe al-Qaeda does that but not here in Syria," he said.
But his statements did include a warning against the US over its attacks on the armed group, which has been blacklisted a "terrorist organisation" by the US.

Analysis: Propaganda and Syria's war

"Our options are open when it comes to targeting the Americans if they will continue their attacks against us in Syria. Everyone has the right to defend themselves," he said in an interview with the Doha-based network.
'Khorasan fabricated'
Golani not only accused Western nations of backing the government of President Assad against the rebels, but of also fabricating the "Khorasan" group - which Washington says is a covert faction in Syria that aspires to attack the US.
"The West is targeting Nusra because they know we are the real threat to the Assad regime. This is why they came out and said they are only targeting this group that they called Khorasan," the leader of al-Qaeda's Syria branch said.
"There is nothing called Khorasan group.The Americans came up with it to deceive the public. They claim that this secret group was set up to target the Americans but this is not right."
He also noted that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL), which has been accused of rampant atrocities and controls large parts of the country, was a main threat to the Nusra Front.
"Assad forces are fighting us on one end, Hezbollah on another and ISIL on a third front. It is all about their mutual interests."
Alawites will not be targeted
When questioned whether the Nusra Front planned to establish Islamic state in Syria, Golani said that after the whole war is over, all factions and groups in the country will be consulted before considering
"establishing an Islamic state".
Golani also said that his group will not target the country's Alawite minority despite their support for Bashar al-Assad's government.
"The battle does not end in Qardaha, the Alawite village and the birthplace of the Assad clan," he said.
"Our war is not a matter of revenge against the Alawites despite the fact that in Islam, they are considered to be heretics.

Senior FIFA officials indicted on corruption charges

US indicts 14 officials as Swiss authorities announce criminal investigation into 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids.

 

Swiss authorities have arrested six leading FIFA-linked officials in Zurich on racketeering and bribery charges brought by the United States and announced they have opened a criminal case in connection with the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
The arrested officials are among 14 people named in a 47-count indictment that was unsealed in federal court in New York City on Wednesday.
Among those charged in the indictment are Jeffrey Webb and Jack Warner - the current and former presidents of CONCACAF (the continental confederation under FIFA headquartered in the US).

"The defendants also include US and South American sports marketing executives who are alleged to have systematically paid and agreed to pay well over $150 million in bribes and kickbacks to obtain lucrative media and marketing rights to international soccer tournaments," the US Justice Department said in a statement.
“The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted both abroad and here in the United States,” said US Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
FIFA officials are in Switzerland for the FIFA Congress as the body gets ready to elect  its next president. FIFA President Sepp Blatter was not among the men arrested, FIFA spokesperson Walter de Gregorio told the Associated Press.
World Cup investigation

FIFA Elections

Football's world governing body is set to hold its Congress on Friday where the next FIFA president is due to be elected. Current president Sepp Blatter is widely expected to win the polls - and a fifth term in the office - with Jordan's Prince Ali al-Hussein the only person standing against him in the elections. Luis Figo and Michael van Praag withdrew just days before the election.

Separate to the US indictment, the Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG) issued a statement saying it has "opened criminal proceedings against persons unknown on suspicion of criminal mismanagement and of money laundering in connection with the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 Football World Cups".
The OAG said it has seized data and documents from FIFA's IT systems on Wednesday as part of its investigation.
"It is suspected that irregularities occurred in the allocation of the FIFA World Cups of 2018 and 2022," the OAG statement said.
"The OAG and the Swiss Federal Criminal Police will be questioning 10 persons who took part in voting on the allocation of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups as members of the Executive Committee in 2010."
The US is expected to seek extradition of the officials who have been arrested.
Al Jazeera's sports correspondent Andy Richardson, reporting from London, said it was too early to know what the ramifications of the operation in Zurich may be on football's governing body. He added that FIFA and the officials were surprised by the timing of the raid.

Guesthouse targeted as multiple explosions rock Kabul

Heavy gunfire and blasts in Afghan capital as a guesthouse hosting foreigners in Wazir Akbar Khan comes under attack.

 

Teams of Afghan security forces have been deployed to the Wazir Akbar Khan area [EPA]

Heavy gunfire and a series of explosions have been heard in the centre of Afghanistan's capital Kabul as a guesthouse hosting foreigners was targeted by unknown attackers.
Teams of Afghan security forces have been deployed to the Wazir Akbar Khan area, an exclusive neighbourhood where many embassies and government buildings are located.
Al Jazeera's Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said there were reports that the guesthouse, formerly known as the Heetal Hotel, targeted on Tuesday night served as accommodation for foreign contractors.
She quoted police as saying that a suicide bomber detonated a bomb, then gunfire erupted as security forces shot at suspects in a "complex" attack which appeared to involve several targets.
More than a dozen explosions were heard in an hour and heavy gunfire was continuing, reports said.
Most of the blasts sounded like rockets, but several more powerful explosions could have been suicide bombings, an Afghan security source told Reuters news agency.
"We have surrounded the area and cornered them," Kabul police spokesman Ebadullah Karimi told the AFP news agency, adding that no casualties have been reported.

"The attackers wanted to get into Heetal Hotel but failed. They have now taken position among the trees behind the hotel and are firing at security forces."
The manager of the guesthouse, owned by the family of Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, said all guests were in safe rooms and no one was hurt.

"Heetal is very well fortified. After one or two initial explosions, our guards started firing on attackers who were unable to get inside," manager Beizhan told AFP by telephone from inside the guesthouse.

"Gunshots and blasts can still be heard from a distance."
Nationwide attacks
Earlier on Tuesday, Taliban fighters attacked a police headquarters in southern Afghanistan, killing 20 security personnel and seizing three army checkpoints.
Glasse said fighting occurred in three areas of Helmand province, with clashes in the districts of Sangin, Musa Qala and Nawzad.
"In Nawzad, the standoff was particularly difficult and went on for hours, with the Taliban taking three army checkpoints and surrounding the district's headquarters," she said.
"At least 20 army and police officers have been killed in that attack and local officials have called for reinforcements."
Thirteen of the victims were police officers and seven were soldiers.
Fighting was also reported in the southern province of Kandahar on Tuesday.
Elsewhere, in the eastern province of Wardak, four suicide bombers attacked a local court, with all four of the assailants reported killed, along with two police officers.
The Taliban has launched a wave of attacks around the country since the withdrawal of foreign troops last year.
The group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Kabul guesthouse earlier this month that left 14 people dead, including nine foreigners.
According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), in the first three months of 2015, civilian casualties from ground fighting increased by eight percent on the same period last year.

Rocket from Gaza lands in southern Israel

GAZA CITY, GAZA - DECEMBER 14: Palestinian Hamas movement organized on Sunday an elaborate military parade in Gaza City to commemorate the passage of 27 years since its foundation, and also demonstrated Qassam rockets and M75 rockets. Hundreds of masked fighters from the group''s military wing, the Ezzedin Al-Qassam Brigades, marched through the city''s main roads holding locally-manufactured and other rifles as well as mortar shells.

One out of five experimental rockets launched from the Gaza Strip has landed in southern Israel, Al Jazeera has learned.
Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian group Hamas, confirmed that they fired five experimental rockets on Tuesday into the sea but one of them landed by mistake in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, on the Mediterranean coast.
The last time a rocket was fired from Gaza, with no group claiming responsibility, was April 23.
In response, Israeli tanks opened fired on a northern Gaza military training camp belonging to Qassam Brigades, Israeli security sources said.
No injuries were reported.

Iraqi forces surround Ramadi in ISIL counteroffensive

Government troops and Shia militias are believed to have surrounded provincial capital Ramadi on three sides. 

 

 iraqi forces have launched a counteroffensive to retake areas of Anbar province recently captured by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Officials in Iraq's Anbar province told the Associated Press on Tuesday that there were air strikes and fighting on the ground west and south of the provincial capital, Ramadi.
A Shia militia spokesman told the AFP news agency that Iraqi forces have surrounded the city from three sides.
Thousands of Iraqi forces, made up of government troops and fighters from allied Shia militias under the Popular Mobilisation Forces banner, have been gathering at the Habbaniyah military base in preparation for the counteroffensive since Ramadi fell on May 17.
Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said that the fight for Ramadi was "likely to be a very protracted battle", adding that control over the major highways in the province would be key.

"It is quite likely to be a very big operation, mounted in stages along some of the main roads in Anbar province," he said.
Since the fall of Ramadi, Iraq and the US have traded blows over who was to blame for the failure to maintain control of the provincial capital, which had been among just a few towns and cities to remain under government control in mainly Sunni Anbar.
"The Iraqis have got a very big point to prove that they can retake this province," our correspondent said.
Many tribal leaders in Anbar have voiced concerns that the inclusion of Shia militias in the fight could cause sectarian divisions in the province.
Tens of thousands of residents from Ramadi have fled the city in recent weeks, causing a humanitarian crisis.

'Hundreds killed' in Palmyra after ISIL takeover

Activists say government forces were targeted and killed, while regime officials claim massacre of civilians.

 

The Syrian military is reportedly preparing to launch a counterattack to recapture Palmyra [Reuters]

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has reportedly killed hundreds after seizing the ancient town of Palmyra last week.
Syrian state TV reported that about 400 civilians had been killed by the group since Wednesday, while activists in Palmyra said ISIL fighters hunted down President Bashar al-Assad's troops and loyalists, killing up to 300 of them.
Nasser, of the Palmyra Media Centre - a monitoring group on the ground - told Al Jazeera that most of those killed were government troops captured by the fighters after taking over the town.
"Shabiha [a term used to describe pro-regime militias and supporters], including men and women, were the ones targeted and killed," he said.
A Facebook page used by ISIL to publish its statements posted a photo of 20 Syrian soldiers in uniform captured in Palmyra, known as Tadmur in Arabic.
Nasser also said that Palmyra has been besieged by ISIL, which is not allowing civilians to leave or enter it, and that basic services have been cut off in the town.
"Water, electricity and phone landlines have been cut off there," he added.
Air strikes
Meanwhile, the Syrian military was deploying troops in areas near Palmyra, in an apparent preparation for a counterattack to retake it.
Local activists said government fighter jets carried out more than 10 attacks on the city on Monday morning, resulting in a number of casualties.
Talal Barazi, the governor of the central province of Homs, which includes Palmyra, told the Associated Press news agency on Sunday that the military has been fighting ISIL members in a nearby area called Jizl.
Barazi confirmed that there were plans from the government forces to launch a counterattack against ISIL fighters in Palmyra.
"There are plans, but we don't know when the zero hour for a military act in Palmyra [will be]," Barazi said without elaborating.
The capture of Palmyra has stoked fears that ISIL might try to destroy one of the Middle East's most spectacular archaeological sites - a well-preserved, 2,000-year-old Roman-era city on the town's edge - as they have destroyed others in Syria and Iraq.
Ryan Rifai in Doha contributed to this report

Activists distributed footage of regime air strikes on Monday morning

Iraqi and Syrian forces ramp up attacks on ISIL

Iraqi soldiers and Shia fighters bolster efforts to retake Ramadi, while Syrian forces launch air strikes on Palmyra. 

 

Iraqi security forces and Shia paramilitaries have renewed efforts to retake the western Iraqi city of Ramadi [AFP]

Forces in Iraq and Syria are bolstering their offensives on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, in a bid to retake key cities in both countries.
Iraqi security forces and Shia fighters renewed efforts to retake the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on Monday, as ISIL poured more fighters into the city that it claimed a week ago.
Police sources said Iraqi forces had regained ground east of the city since launching a counter-offensive on Saturday, and on Monday has retaken parts of al-Tash, 20 km south of Ramadi, which lies only a short distance from Baghdad.
Ramadi residents said trucks carrying ISIL fighters arrived on Sunday evening before spreading out across the city.
Syria launches air strikes
In Syria, the Syrian air force launched strikes on Monday at buildings captured by ISIL in the historic city of Palmyra.
ISIL has reportedly killed hundreds of people since it moved into the Palmyra area 10 days ago, and its occupation of the city has raised fears that its fighters will destroy its famed Roman ruins.
Syrian state TV reported that about 400 civilians had been killed by the group since Wednesday, while activists in Palmyra said ISIL fighters hunted down President Bashar al-Assad's troops and loyalists, killing up to 300 of them.
The seizures of Iraq's Ramadi and Syria's Palmyra were the group's biggest successes since a US-led coalition launched an air war against it last year.
Criticisms of strategy flies
The near simultaneous victories against the Iraqi and Syrian armies have forced Washington to examine its strategy, which involves bombing from the air but leaving fighting on the ground to local forces.

In a sharp criticism, Ashton Carter, the US defence secretary, on Sunday accused the Iraqi army of abandoning Ramadi to a much smaller enemy force.
"The Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight," he told CNN's State of the Union programme.
However, on Monday, both Iraq and Iran hit back against Carter's criticisms, with an Iranian general going as far as saying the US had "no will" to fight ISIL.
In Baghdad, a spokesman for Iraq's prime minister, Saad al-Hadithi, suggested Carter had "incorrect information," while General Hassem Soleimani, the head of the elite Quds forces in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, said US and other forces were failing to confront ISIL.
"Carter was likely given incorrect information because the situation on ground is different," al-Hadithi told The Associated Press. "We should not judge the whole army based on one incident."

Al-Hadithi said the Iraqi government believed the fall of Ramadi was due to mismanagement and poor planning by some senior military commanders in charge. However, he did not elaborate, nor has any action been taken against those commanders.
The general in charge of Iran's paramilitary activities in the Middle East, Soleimani, who is often seen on the battlefields of Iraq, said: "Today, in the fight against this dangerous phenomenon, nobody is present except Iran."
Meanwhile, in a move that could mark an expansion of US involvement in the conflict, Turkey said it and the US had agreed in principle to give air support to some forces from Syria's mainstream opposition.

Key Syria-Iraq border crossing falls to ISIL

ISIL fighters capture the last border crossing with Iraq still held by the Syrian government

 

ISIL sparked international outrage this year when it blew up the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq [AP]

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group have reinforced their self-declared "caliphate" with the capture of the Al-Tanaf to Al-Walid crossing on the Damascus-Baghdad highway.
Al-Walid crossing is the last border crossing with Iraq that was held by the Damascus government. Except for a short section of frontier in the north under Kurdish control, all the rest are now held by ISIL.

A fighter hammers away at a face on a wall in Hatra, a large fortified city recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site [AP]

ISIL's advance, which was preceeded by the capture of Anbar capital Ramadi and the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in the past week, comes despite eight months of US-led air strikes aimed at pushing them back.
It has sparked an exodus of tens of thousands of civilians in both countries and raised fears that the ISIL will repeat at Palmyra the destruction they have already wreaked at ancient sites in Iraq.
As ISIL fighters fanned out across Palmyra on Thursday, they went door to door executing suspected loyalists of the Damascus government, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Activists said ISIL had searched through Palmyra for government troops and fighters, using lists of names and informers to track them down and shooting some in the head on the spot, estimating at least 150 have been killed in the past two days.

ISIL takes half of Syria
ISIL now controls "more than 95,000 square km in Syria, which is 50 percent of the country's territory," the observatory said.
Fabrice Balanche, a French expert on Syria, said "ISIL now dominates central Syria, a crossroads of primary importance" that could allow it to advance towards the capital and third city Homs.
Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, said the ISIL advance boosted its claim to be the most effective of the armed groups fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
"It reinforces ISIL's position as the single opposition group that controls the most territory in Syria," he said.
The rivals of ISIL, al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front, have also been on the offensive as part of a rebel alliance that has stormed through nearly all of the northwestern province of Idlib.
The rebels on Friday overran a hospital in the town of Jisr al-Shughur where at least 150 regime forces and dozens of civilians were trapped for nearly a month, the Observatory said.
President Barack Obama played down the ISIL advance as a tactical "setback" and denied the US-led coalition was "losing" to the group.
UNESCO chief Irina Bokova called the 1st and 2nd Century ruins "the birthplace of human civilisation", adding: "It belongs to the whole of humanity and I think everyone today should be worried about what is happening."

ISIL claims responsibility for Saudi mosque attack

At least 19 people are killed after a bomber detonates explosives during Friday prayers in Qatif province.

 

About 150 people were praying in the mosque when it was attacked [Twitter]

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has claimed in an online statement that it carried out a deadly bomb attack at a mosque in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province of Qatif.
The statement said "the soldiers of the Caliphate" were behind Friday's attack by a suicide bomber "who detonated an explosives belt" in the mosque in the Shia-majority city of Qatif.
The group identified the bomber as Abu Amer al-Najdi, and published a picture of him.
Earlier on Friday, the Saudi interior ministry said in a statement that a suicide bomber had set off an explosion during weekly prayers at a Shia mosque, leaving at least 19 dead.
"It has been established that an individual detonated a bomb he was wearing under his clothes during Friday prayers at Ali Ibn Abi Taleb mosque in Kudeih in Qatif province," the statement, which was carried by the official SPA news agency, said.
The ministry spokesman called the attack an act of terrorism, vowing that "Security authorities will spare no effort in the pursuit of all those involved in this terrorist crime".
Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from the capital Riyadh, said authorities expected the death toll to rise.
Pictures posted on social media purported to show the devastation, with dead bodies strewn across the floor and shattered glass covering the courtyard of the mosque.
Saudi Arabia's Shia population is mostly based in two oasis districts of the Eastern Province, Qatif on the Gulf coast, and al-Ahsa, southwest of the provincial capital al-Khobar.
The community accounts for between 10 to 15 percent of the total population.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, the first to target the Shia community in Saudi Arabia since November when gunmen killed at least eight people in an attack on a religious anniversary celebration, also in the east.

Fears mount over fate of Syria's ancient Palmyra ruins

UNESCO chief says destruction of historical city seized by ISIL would be an "enormous loss to humanity".

 

UNESCO has warned that the destruction of Syria's ancient city of Palmyra would be "an enormous loss to humanity," after fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized the desert oasis, one of the Middle East's most famous heritage sites.
Irina Bokova, the head of the UN's cultural body UNESCO, called the ancient metropolis "the birthplace of human civilisation", adding: "It belongs to the whole of humanity and I think everyone today should be worried about what is happening."
Nicknamed "the pearl of the desert", UNESCO has described Palmyra, known as Tadmur in Arabic, as a heritage site of "outstanding universal value".

Concern has also been raised over the civilian population trapped in the city as regime forces bombarded ISIL positions.
Nasser, a journalist in Palmyra, told Al Jazeera that residents in the city could not leave and government forces offered no way out.
"There are almost 170,000 people here, including 50,000 internally displaced people from Homs and Der Ezzor," he said.
He added that hospitals and clinics were being bombed. "There are not enough medical supplies or doctors to treat the injured."
ISIL proclaimed Palmyra's capture online and posted video and several pictures on Thursday, including of the notorious Tadmur prison, where extensive human rights abuses, torture and summary executions have taken place, but none of the ancient site.
The group has been condemned for demolishing archaeological treasures elsewhere since declaring a "caliphate" last year straddling Iraq and Syria.
It has ransacked and demolished several ancient sites, including Muslim shrines, in order to eliminate what it views as heresy, whilst allegedly selling artefacts on the black market in order to finance its campaign.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group monitoring the civil war through activists on the ground, said ISIL spread out on Thursday through Palmyra, including at the archaeological site in the city's southwest, and killed 17 people accused of "working with the regime".
Syrian state media said loyalist troops withdrew after "a large number of ISIL fighters entered the city" at the crossroads of key highways leading west to Damascus and Homs, and east to Iraq.

Experts said the capture of the 2,000-year-old metropolis leaves ISIL strongly placed to wrest control of more territory from Syria's government and comes days after it expanded its grip in Iraq.
On Thursday the group seized al-Tanaf, the last regime-held crossing on the border with Iraq, according to the Syrian Observatory. The group now controls all of Syria's porous border with Iraq.
ISIL has recently threatened a number of regime strongholds, including Deir Ezzor city in the east and military airports in the north and south. The group now dominates the provinces of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa and has a strong presence in Hasakeh, Aleppo, Homs and Hama.

Palmyra, a 2,000-year-old desert oasis, is believed to be home to more than 100,000 people [AFP]

Bomber attacks Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia

At least four people reportedly killed after attacker detonates explosives during Friday prayers in Qatif province.

 

A bomber has detonated his explosives at a Shia mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia during Friday prayers, killing four people and wounding several others, witnesses said.
One witness described a huge explosion at the Imam Ali Mosque in a village in the province of Qatif, where more than 150 people were praying.
An activist told the AFP news agency that at least four worshippers were killed, while a source told the Reuters news agency that there appeared to be at least 30 casualties in the attack.
The Saudi state news agency confirmed an explosion had occurred at a mosque and said more details would be provided later.
Saudi Arabia's Shia population is mostly based in two oasis districts of the Eastern Province - Qatif on the Gulf coast, and al-Ahsa, southwest of the provincial capital al-Khobar.
Qatif and al-Ahsa have historically been the focal point of anti-government demonstrations.
The kingdom's Shia community accounts for between 10 to 15 percent of the total population. They say they face discrimination in seeking educational opportunities or government employment and that they are referred to disparagingly in text books and by some Sunni officials and state-funded clerics.
They also complain of restrictions on setting up places of worship and marking Shia holidays, and say that Qatif and al-Ahsa receive less state funding than Sunni communities of equivalent size.
The Saudi government denies allegations of discrimination.

ISIL gains ground with capture of Syria's Palmyra

Syrian Observatory says group now in control of almost half of country as Palmyra residents report worsening conditions.

 The Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL) has captured Syria's ancient city of Palmyra, giving them control of almost half of the country, according to a monitoring group.

Located in central Homs province and in the heart of Syria, Palmyra lies 210km northeast of Damascus in desert that stretches to the Iraqi frontier to the east.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday that ISIL now controls approximately 95,000sq km of land in nine out of 14 provinces since they declared their alleged caliphate - which puts them in control of almost half of the country.

Lining up for water in Palmyra on Thursday

The Syrian government previously lost the town of Bosra in Deraa province to ISIL in March, which had also been declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
In April, ISIL managed to capture and control most of Yarmouk refugee camp, which is 8km away from the centre of Damascus.
Yarmouk is inhabited by Palestinian refugees.
Activists in Palmyra, who requested anonymity, told Al Jazeera that ISIL took full control of the city on Wednesday evening and people are trying to escape, with many left stranded on the streets.
"ISIL have infiltrated the city overnight. Power is down and we barely have any electricity or water. There is fear among residents and we do not know what to expect next," one activist said.
"The Syrian regime have bombed several targets for ISIL since last night, but air strikes also targeted two mosques in the city - Othman Bin Affan and al-Iman mosques, several people have been killed and others injured.

Nasser, a local activist, describes the current situation in Palmyra

ISIL has captured Palmyra's prison, weapon stores, government buildings, the local museum and central bank. Prisoners were evacuated days beforehand and relocated to Damascus and Homs. ISIL captured the towns of al-Sekhna and al-Amirya. No non-governmental organisations are operating in Palmyra and locals are in desperate need of aid and medical supplies.

"Hospitals and clinics are being bombed too. There are not enough medical supplies or doctors to treat the injured."
Activists and journalists working at the Palmyra Media Centre made it clear to Al Jazeera that they are incapable of leaving their homes.
Nasser, a journalist in Palmyra, told Al Jazeera that residents in the city could not leave and government forces offered no way out.
"There are almost 170,000 people here, including 50,000 internally displaced people from Homs and Der Ezzor," he said.
"ISIL is hated by residents here and labelled terrorists. ISIL will not treat us any different than those elsewhere in areas they control. This is a new siege."
At least 462 people were killed since ISIL's offensive began on Palmyra on May 13, the observatory reported.
ISIL now control over the vast majority of the gas and oil fields in Syria and were able to capture two gas fields around Palmyra since they launched their attack on Palmyra, the Syrian Observatory reported, leaving the only government-held gas fields in the suburbs of Homs and al-Hasakah out of its control.
Apart from being a historical and World Heritage site that dates back to the 1st and 2nd century AD, capturing Palmyra means ISIL have control over areas that stretch to the Syrian-Iraqi border.

Palmyra's north after ISIL's takeover on Thursday [Nasser/Al Jazeera]

ISIL previously looted and destroyed artefacts in Iraq, and have reportedly destroyed historic temples and statues in areas it controls in Syria and Iraq.
Officials say they have also looted and sold artefacts to fund their group.
Syrian state TV said the army retreated after they secured the evacuation of most residents in Palmyra to save them from ISIL "brutality", acknowledging that ISIL entered the city in large numbers.
Maamoun Abdulkareem, director-general of Museums and Antiquities in Syria, said on Wednesday that ISIL's attack on Palmyra is "revenge on Syrian society and civilisation".
"We hoped the international community wouldn't fail to defend Palmyra, but we didn't see any actual reaction from them," Abdulkareem said.
Hundreds of statues and ancient artefacts from Palmyra's museum have already been transferred out of the city, he said.

Canadians arrested for trying to join 'jihadist groups'

Ten youths suspected of joining armed groups in Middle East were arrested at Montreal airport last week, police say.

 

Canadian police have arrested 10 young people for allegedly attempting to join jihadist groups in the Middle East, reports said.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement, cited by The Canadian Press on Wednesday, that no charges had been laid yet and that the investigation was ongoing.
The RCMP statement did not specifically mention which group they were joining, but said the 10 youths were "suspected of wanting to leave the country to join jihadist groups".
The youths, whose names and ages were not reported by the police, were arrested at Montreal's Trudeau International Airport last Friday, the report said.
"These are very difficult times for the relatives and loved ones of the persons arrested," the RCMP said in the statement.
"As a result, family members often find themselves at a complete loss and unable to understand the decision made by the youth."
The arrests come months after five boys and two girls from the Montreal area left the country and apparently joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL).
Another Canadian teen was arrested in March for aiming to join the armed group that holds sway over vast area of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

N Korea claims to miniaturise nuclear weapons

Latest assertion means nuclear weapons can be delivered by missile, while US questions North's earlier missile test.

 

A top US military official claimed that purported photos of the North's missile launch had manipulated by state propagandists [EPA]

North Korea claims it has succeeded in miniaturising its nuclear weapons, a development which could allow them to be delivered by missile.
"It has been a long time since we began miniaturising and diversifying our means of nuclear strike," the powerful National Defence Commission (NDC) said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
"We have also reached the stage where the highest accuracy rate is guaranteed not only for short- and medium-range missiles but long-range missiles as well. We don't hide this fact."

The NDC, the country's highest military body chaired by leader Kim Jong-un, berated the United States and its allies for condemning what the North described as a submarine-launched ballistic missile test on May 8.
Washington and its allies said the test was a breach of a United Nations ban on the North's use of ballistic missile technology.
A top US military official claimed on Tuesday, however, that purported photos of the North's missile launch had manipulated by state propagandists, and the isolated country may still be years away from developing the technology.
"They have not gotten as far as their clever video editors and spinmeisters would have us believe," said Admiral James Winnefeld, vice chair of the joint chiefs of staff.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that an invitation for him to visit the North's Kaesong Industrial Complex had been reversed.
"No explanation was given for this last-minute change," Ban said at a digital forum in Seoul.
"This decision by Pyongyang is deeply regrettable. However, I as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, will not spare any efforts to encourage the DPRK to work with the international community for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and beyond."

Iraq deploys tanks as Islamic State tightens grip on Ramadi

Iraqi security forces on Tuesday deployed tanks and artillery around Ramadi to confront Islamic State fighters who have captured the city in a major defeat for the Baghdad government and its Western backers.
After Ramadi fell on Sunday, Shi'ite militiamen allied to the Iraqi army had advanced to a nearby base in preparation for a counterattack on the city, which lies in the Sunni Muslim province of Anbar, just 110 km (70 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
As pressure mounted for action to retake the city, a local government official urged Ramadi residents to join the police and the army for what the Shi'ite militiamen said would be the "Battle of Anbar".
The White House said a U.S.-led air campaign would back multi-sectarian Iraqi forces in their attempt to regain Ramadi, whose fall exposed the limits of U.S. airpower in its battle against the radical Sunni Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria.
"The United States will be very supportive of multi-sectarian efforts who are taking command-and-control orders from the Iraqi central government," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in Washington.
The United States is anxious that the Shi'ite militia are controlled by the Iraqi authorities rather than Iranian advisors. It is likewise worried that the fighting in Iraq will become a polarizing clash between Shi'ites and Sunnis.
Islamic State fighters set up defensive positions and laid landmines, witnesses said. The Islamists were also going house to house searching for members of the police and armed forces.
The group has promised to set up courts based on Islamic Sharia law, as they had done in other towns and cities they have conquered. They released about 100 prisoners from the counter-terrorism detention center in the city.
Saed Hammad al-Dulaimi, 37, a school teacher who is still in the city, said: "Islamic State used loudspeakers urging people who have relatives in prison to gather at the main mosque in the city center to pick them up. I saw men rushing to the mosque to receive their prisoners."
The move could prove popular with residents who have complained that people are often subject to arbitrary detention.
Sami Abed Saheb, 37, a Ramadi restaurant owner, said Islamic State found 30 women and 71 men in the detention center. They had been shot in the feet to prevent them escaping when their captors fled.
Witnesses said the black flag of Islamic State was flying over the main mosque, government offices and other prominent buildings in Ramadi.

Jasim Mohammed, 49, who owns a women's clothing shop, said an Islamic State member had told him he must now sell only traditional Islamic garments.
"I had to remove the mannequins and replace them with other means of displaying the clothes. He told me that I shouldn't sell underwear because it's forbidden," he said.
Islamic State had also promised that food, medicine and doctors would soon be available.
Dulaimi said Islamic State fighters were using cranes to lift blast walls from the streets and bulldozers to shovel away sand barriers built by security forces before they fled.
"I think they (Islamic State) are trying to win the sympathy of people in Ramadi and give them moments of peace and freedom," he said.
SECTARIAN HOSTILITY
The decision by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is a Shi'ite, to send in the militia, known as Hashid Shaabi or Popular Mobilization, to try to retake the predominantly Sunni city could add to sectarian hostility in one of the most violent parts of Iraq.
The Abadi government had pledged to equip and train pro-government Sunni tribes with a view to replicating the model applied during the "surge" campaign of 2006-07, when U.S. Marines turned the tide against al Qaeda fighters -- forerunners of Islamic State -- by arming and paying local tribes in a movement known as the Anbar Awakening.
But a repeat will be more difficult. Sunni tribal leaders complain that the government was not serious about arming them again, and say they received only token support.
There are fears that weapons provided to Sunni tribes could end up with Islamic State.
    When the Iraqi forces beat a hasty retreated from Ramadi at the weekend, they left behind a large amount of military supplies, including about a half a dozen tanks, around 100 wheeled vehicles and some artillery, the Pentagon said.
Asked whether the regular troops should have eliminated such material before quitting the city, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said: "It certainly would have been preferable if they had been destroyed."
Iraqi ministers on Tuesday stressed the need to arm and train police and tribal fighters. Abadi called for national unity in the battle to defend Iraq.
A spokesman for Iraqi military operations, Saad Maan, said the armed forces controlled areas between Ramadi and the Habbaniya military base about 30 km (20 miles) away, where the militia fighters are waiting.
"Security forces are reinforcing their positions and setting three defensive lines around Ramadi to repel any attempts by terrorists to launch further attacks," Maan said.
"All these three defensive lines will become offensive launch-pads once we determine the zero hour to liberate Ramadi."
The International Organization for Migration said 40,000 people had been forced to flee the city in the past four days.
About 500 people were killed in the fighting for Ramadi in recent days, local officials said.
Islamic State gains in Ramadi mean it will take longer for Iraqi forces to move against them in Mosul, where militants celebrated victory in Anbar by firing shots into the air, sounding car horns and playing Islamic anthems, residents said.

Thousands flee as Shia militias mass outside Ramadi

UN says at least 25,000 people escape Iraqi city as thousands of Shia fighters prepare to battle against a defiant ISIL.

 

The UN says nearly 25,000 people have fled from Ramadi since fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) captured the Iraqi city from government forces over the past few days.
Residents continue to flee, mainly towards the capital, Baghdad, as thousands of Shia militias were massing around Ramadi to retake the Anbar province's capital city.
ISIL fighters seem defiant as they spread out in anticipation of the fight with Shia militias, who were asked to deploy by the government in the wake of the government forces' defeat.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Baghdad, said on Tuesday that ISIL fighters in Ramadi were "still very much defiant".

"They tried to advance from their stronghold in Ramadi city, east towards the Habbaniya military base where we understand thousands of Shia militiamen have been gathering to prepare for the counter-offensive," our correspondent said.
"We understand ISIL was not able to reach the base - they did face resistance. But clearly it is a message that this is not going to be an easy fight.
"ISIL is deeply entrenched in Anbar province. It does have support from people in this province and it doesn't just control Ramadi, it controls vast areas of Anbar."
The moves and counter-moves come two days after ISIL overran Ramadi on Sunday, forcing government troops out from one of the few towns and cities that it controlled in the mainly Sunni Anbar province.
At least 3,000 Shia-led fighters arrived near Ramadi in Iraq's western Anbar province on Monday.
The decision to include the Shia militias in the fight to retake the key city has upset many, including tribal elders in Anbar - who believe that the government should be arming volunteer fighters there, not deploying militias.
'Militias not welcome'
Tarik al-Abdullah, secretary-general of the Anbar council, told Al Jazeera on Monday that the Shia fighters are "not very welcome".
"We need the support of the government. We have a big number of volunteers waiting to participate to liberate our province from [ISIL]," Abdullah said.

Meanwhile, the UN said the World Food Programme has distributed thousands of emergency response rations to internally displaced people fleeing Ramadi - enough to last three days.
Other UN agencies, in tandem with international NGOs, are also distributing water and health kits to those displaced by the fighting.
"Within the past month, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations have provided life-assistance to more than 130,000 people who fled Ramadi following ISIL attacks in April," the UN said in a statement.
A senior Iranian official said on Monday that his country was ready to help confront ISIL and that he was certain Ramadi would be "liberated" from their grip.
"If the Iraqi government made an official request to the Iranian government in it's capacity as a friendly and brotherly country to Iraq, which can take on a role to help Iraq to confront these extremist phenomena - then the Islamic Republic will respond to this request," said Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

ISIL overruns last Iraqi holdout in Ramadi

Fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group have overrun one of the last remaining districts held by government forces in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, security officials have said.
Iraqi special forces soldiers were reported to be fleeing the city on Sunday as the armed group succeeded in breaching their last holdout.
The armed group had earlier made significant gains in its battle to control Ramadi, besieging the army base and killing 15 soldiers in multiple suicide car bomb attacks.
Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Baghdad, said government officials had requested reinforcements from Shia factions in response to the ISIL advance, a move that could provoke opposition from the government's Sunni tribal allies.
"There are many influential tribes in Anbar who have warned against this decision for some time now," Khodr said.
The involvement of Shia militias has been condemned by leading tribal figure, Sheikh Ali al-Hatim, who said it would be considered an "Iranian occupation".
Chaotic situation
ISIL fighters had seized most of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, on Friday planting their flag on the local government headquarters in the centre of the city, but a contingent of Iraqi special forces was holding out in the Malaab neighbourhood.
Security sources said those forces retreated on Sunday to an area east of the city after suffering high casualties.
"We are now surrounded inside the Operations Command by ISIL, and mortars are raining down," a military officer inside the base told the Reuters news agency.
"Daesh fighters are in almost every street. It's a chaotic situation and things are sliding out of control. Ramadi is falling into the hands of Daesh".
If Ramadi were to fall, it would be the first major city to be seized by the insurgents in Iraq since security forces and paramilitary groups began pushing them back last year, helped by air strikes from a US-led coalition.
Ramadi is the capital of Anbar, Iraq's largest province, and one of just a few towns and cities to have remained under government control.

FBI says plane hacker a threat to public safety

Did a well-known computer security researcher endanger public safety by hacking into aircraft control systems?

 

The FBI has asked a federal court in New York for a warrant to search the electronic devices it took from well-known computer security researcher Chris Roberts on April 17.
The bureau says Roberts "had the ability and willingness to use the equipment... to access the In Flight Entertainment [system]" and "that it would endanger public safety".
In February this year Roberts met with the FBI to discuss vulnerabilities with in-flight entertainment systems on Boeing 737-800, 737-900 and 757-200 aircraft along with Airbus A-320s.
The FBI says he told them he:

• hacked into the systems 15 to 20 times from 2011 to 2014.
• accessed the system through the Seat Electronic Box, found under seats containing video monitors.
• was able to connect his laptop to this system using an Ethernet cable.
• was able to overwrite code on the aircraft's Thrust Management Computer and give one of the plane's engines the command to climb.
• was also able to monitor the cockpit system.

The FBI says it warned Roberts he was breaking the law and advised him to stop doing so.
On April 15th the FBI says Roberts sent a series of tweets that suggested he had or could hack these systems during a series of internal US flights he was taking at the time.
He was subsequently banned from travelling on United Airlines.
FBI says it inspected the Seat Electronic Box under one of the seats Roberts had just flown on, and discovered it had been tampered with.
Roberts has not yet been charged with a crime, and the FBI's allegations have not been proven in court.
Roberts says he:

• did hack into the in-flight entertainment system but never interupted the flight.
• has caused a plane to climb during flight, but only during a simulated test.
• never connected his laptop to the system on the flight the FBI says showed evidence of tampering.

Roberts has tweeted "Over last 5 years my only interest has been to improve aircraft security...given the current situation I've been advised against saying much."
He adds "Sorry it's so generic, but there's a whole 5 years of stuff that the affidavit incorrectly compressed into 1 paragraph....lots to untangle."
"The onward march of technology throws up significant challenges all the time," says independent aviation analyst Chris Yates told Al Jazeera.
"The move to an increasingly electronic cockpit leaves airplanes open to possible hacking attempts such as this."
"There is a lot more wireless communication on board the aircraft," says Anil Padhra, a Senior Lecturer in Aviation Studies at Kingston University London
"But technically it's very challenging to hack an aircraft and the ordinary passeneger wouldn't even get close."
Roberts is the founder of One World Labs and he is widely viewed as an expert on counter threat cyber security. He is reported to have been issuing warnings about vulnerabilities in inflight entertainment systems for years.

Hundreds killed in Syria fighting over Palmyra

Fighting between ISIL and Syrian army kills nearly 300 in ancient city, including 37 civilians, activists say.

 

At least 57 civilians were killed in the clashes, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported [EPA]

Nearly 300 people have been killed after several days of fighting between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and the Syrian government in the historic town of Palmyra, activists said.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday the dead included 123 Syrian government soldiers and allied militiamen, 115 ISIL fighters, and 57 civilians.
Reports of the deaths came as the Syrian government claimed it had repelled ISIL fighters from the ancient city, where the armed group had seized the northern part of the modern settlement, Tadmur.
Provincial governor Talal Barazi told the AFP news agency that the army had recaptured districts of the town which ISIL had overrun on Saturday.
Barazi said the army was "still combing the streets for bombs," but that "the situation in the city and its outskirts is good."
The ISIL advance on Palmyra had sparked international concern for the safety of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Syrian officials expressed relief that the armed group had been pushed back.
"We have good news today, we feel much better," said antiquities chief Mamoun Abdulkarim.
"There was no damage to the ruins, but this does not mean we should not be afraid."
ISIL launched a lightning offensive across the desert last week from their stronghold in the Euphrates Valley to the east, triggering ferocious fighting with the army, which has a major base just outside the oasis town.

Nasrallah declares victory in Syria's Qalamoun

Analysts say Hezbollah's claim on Qalamoun is more of a media campaign than a real battle on the ground.

 

Nasrallah said 13 Hezbollah fighters had been killed in Qalamoun clashes [Al Jazeera]

Hezbollah's leader has claimed to have made significant progress in the ongoing clashes in the Qalamoun mountain range on the Syrian-Lebanese border, but warned that the battles are far from being over.

"A strong defeat was dealt to the armed militants and they left the areas of battlefield," Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address on Saturday night. "Around 300km was retrieved from the control of the militants, most of it is in Syrian territory."
Yet analysts claimed that the Lebanese group, currently fighting in Syria alongside the Syrian government, was attempting to oversell the battle of Qalamoun in order to make up for the string of losses the group and the Syrian regime have faced in recent months.
The armed group, along with the Syrian army and other pro-regime outfits, have been embroiled in a series of clashes with fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and al-Qaeda's affiliate the Nusra Front in the Qalamoun mountain range, which straddles both Syria and Lebanon.
"There were many battles that led to the defeat of the armed militants," Nasrallah said, adding that it is far from over. "We are still at the heart of the battle."

In a surprise move, Nasrallah revealed that 13 Hezbollah fighters and seven Syrian soldiers were killed in the recent battles, which started approximately 10 days ago. He said he was doing so in order to reveal what he called lies being perpetrated by opposition media channels who have claimed up to 150 Hezbollah fighters had been killed.
According to an analyst, Nasrallah's speech was an attempt to cover up for the losses inflicted on the group in recent months; not just in Syria, but in Iraq and Yemen as well.
"The Iranians and Hezbollah are now in a declining phase across the region," Sami Nader, a professor in politics at the University of Saint Joseph in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera.
"So they are in desperate need for an achievement to counter balance their losses; they need to sell it to their consitutients in order to justify the the continuing battle and involvement in Syria.

"Their community is under extensive pressure, and [Hezbollah] needs to sell them something," he said.

The Syrian regime and Hezbollah have faced several key losses over several months, especially in Aleppo and Daraa, where they were unable to dislodge rebel fighters.
Syrian government forces have recently seen Idlib fall into the hands of al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, while they are still fighting to regain the area of Jisr al-Shoghour.
"Given how the dynamics were in their favour last year, the tide has turned and it is for their detriment," said Nader. "So Qalamoun is more of a media campaign than a real battle on the ground."

Qalamoun is considered a strategic area for both the rebels and the Hezbollah-Syrian army alliance, as it links Damascus to Homs and the Syrian coast, as well as provides key supply routes.

Egypt sentences Mohamed Morsi to death

Verdict against former president sent to Grand Mufti for confirmation after he is convicted for 2011 mass prison break.

 

The court will pronounce its final decision on June 2 [AP]

An Egypt court has sentenced former President Mohamed Morsi to death for a mass prison break in 2011, prompting immediate condemnations from Amnesty International and the Turkish President.
The court ruled on Saturday that the sentencing of Morsi and 105 others will be referred to the Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority in Egypt, for confirmation. Many of those sentenced were tried in absentia.

The court will pronounce its final decision on June 2.
Widespread condemnation
Mohamed Soudan, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, told Al Jazeera the decision was "farcical".
"They're insisting on issuing these verdicts against anyone who participated in the January 25 Revolution...all of the verdicts fail to meet international standards of law...they are farcical and will be dismissed as a failing of the coup" said Soudan, who fled Egypt for the UK after Morsi's overthrow.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan criticised Egypt over the decision and accused the West of hypocrisy, according to the state-run Anatolian news agency said.
"While the West is abolishing the death penalty, they are just watching the continuation of death sentences in Egypt. They don't do anything about it," Erdogan was quoted as saying.
Human rights group Amnesty International said the trial was a "charade" and based on "void procedures".
"Condemning Mohamed Morsi to death after more grossly unfair trials shows a complete disregard for human rights...he was held for months incommunicado without judicial oversight and that he didn’t have a lawyer to represent him," the organisation said in a statement.

Abdullah al-Arian, assistant professor of History at Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service in Qatar, told Al Jazeera the death sentences handed down on Saturday would "come as no surprise to anyone who has been following developments in Egypt over the past two years".

"With these highly politicized trials that contravene all standards of justice, the judiciary is doing its part to cement a new political reality in Egypt, one that seeks to silence all dissent and restore the full strength of the authoritarian system that was in place for decades," al-Arian said.

Another analyst, Yehia Ghanem, a former managing editor of the Al  Ahram  newspaper, told Al Jazeera the death sentence was an expected outcome and that the decision of the Grand Muft was "not compelling to the judiciary".
Judges killed
Saturday's sentence came as an attack in the Sinai peninsula left three judges dead and another three wounded.
The group were travelling by car from Ismailiya to El Arish when they were shot at by unidentified gunmen.
Since Morsi's removal by now President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a series of attacks have targeted security forces in Sinai, but Saturday's attack was the first against members of the judiciary.
Morsi, who was overthrown by the army in 2013 amid protests against his government, was spared the death sentence in the first of two trials that  concluded on Thursday, in which the court advised death sentences for 16  defendants on espionage charges.

They had been charged with colluding with foreign powers, the Palestinian group  Hamas and Iran to destabilise Egypt.
Egyptian authories have banned Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood since his overthrow and arrested thousands of his supporters.

Last month, an Egypt court  sentenced Morsi and 12 other defendants to 20 years in prison for ordering the arrest and torture of protesters in clashes outside the presidential palace in December 2012.

The court acquitted the former president of murder charges that could have seen him face the death penalty.

US court sentences Boston bomber Tsarnaev to death

Jury decided Tsarnaev should be executed for his role in 2013 marathon bombing after 14 hours of deliberations.

 

The jury reached its decision that Tsarnaev should be executed after 14 hours of deliberations [AP]

A US jury has decided Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should die for his role in the Boston marathon bombing in April 2013.
The sentence on Friday came after 14 hours of deliberations on whether Tsarnaev, who was a teenager when he carried out the attacks with his elder brother Tamerlan, should be imprisoned for the rest of his life or be executed.
The 21-year-old did not react when the sentence was read out, the Associated Press news agency reported.
Tsarnaev was convicted last month of all 30 federal charges against him, 17 of which carried the possibility of the death penalty.
Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when two pressure-cooker bombs packed with shrapnel exploded near the marathon finish line on April 15, 2013. Dzhokar and Tamerlan also killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer days later.
Tsarnaev's lawyer, Judy Clarke, admitted from the beginning that he participated in the bombings, bluntly telling jurors in her opening statement: "It was him".
But the defense sought to show that most of the blame for the attack fell on his older brother, who wanted to punish the US for its actions in Muslim countries. They said Dzhokhar was an impressionable 19-year-old who fell under the influence of a brother he admired.
Prosecutors portrayed Tsarnaev as an equal partner in the attack, saying he was so heartless he put a bomb behind a group of children, killing an 8-year-old boy.

US jails ex-Bin Laden aide to life for embassy attacks

Khaled al-Fawwaz, an aide to the former al-Qaeda leader, describes remorse as court sentences him to life in prison.

 

Fawwaz said he was 'terribly sad and sorry' and that he did not support violence [AP]

A former aide to Osama bin Laden has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in the US for conspiring in the deadly 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa.
Judge Lewis Kaplan said on Friday that Khaled al-Fawwaz was an eager supporter of bin Laden's goals even before the attacks in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including a dozen US citizens.
Fawwaz turned toward victims of the bombings and spoke of his remorse minutes before his sentence was announced.
"I can't find words to describe how terribly sad and sorry I am," Fawwaz said.
"I don't support violence...I hope one day people will find other ways to live with their differences other than violence."
Kaplan announced Fawwaz's sentence after three victims spoke, including Ellen Karas, who was left blind by the attacks, the Associated Press news agency reported.
"I worship the same God as you," she told the defendant. "But he is not an angry God. He is not a vengeful God."
Fawwaz lawyer had asked that he be sentenced to less than life in prison, saying he was less culpable than others.
Al-Qaeda 'number nine'
In court papers, prosecutors said they proved at trial that Fawwaz was an al-Qaeda leader who directed a military training camp in Afghanistan in 1991, led a terror cell in Kenya in 1993 and ensured bin Laden's 1996 declaration of war against the US reached the world.
Prosecuting lawyers told jurors that Fawwaz was Number nine on a list of al-Qaeda members that was recovered by U.S. special forces from an al-Qaeda leader's home after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
Buckley said at sentencing that Fawwaz was the last of the men who had been arrested in the case to face trial.
Saudi Arabia-born Fawwaz was arrested in London weeks after the August 1998 attacks at the request of the US but was not extradited from the UK until 2012.
He had been scheduled to stand trial with Abu Anas al-Libi, who was snatched off the streets of Libya in 2013, but al-Libi died in January after a long illness.
Another co-defendant, Egyptian lawyer Adel Abdul Bary, was sentenced in February to 25 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in what Kaplan called an "enormously generous plea bargain" that will enable him to be freed in about eight years.

ISIL seizes main government compound in Iraq's Ramadi

Officials say group has taken major complex, giving nearly full control over Anbar's provincial capital.

 

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has taken over the main government compound in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, and edged closer to what would be their biggest victory in Iraq this year, officials have said.
Hikmat Suleiman, the spokesman for Anbar's governor, told Al Jazeera that the fighters managed to seize the heavily fortified complex on Friday mainly due to a lack of backing from the central Baghdad government.
"For months we were complaining and telling the Security Ministries that there was no coordination," he said, adding that the military ignored requests for much needed weapons.
The government compound contained Anbar's governor's office, police headquarters and intelligence headquarters.
ISIL itself issued a statement in which it said its fighters "broke into the Safavid government complex in the centre of Ramadi".
The operation "resulted in the control of it after killing the 'murtadeen' then blowing up the adjacent buildings of Anbar's governorate and the Safavid Anbar police HQ."
Safavid is a term used by ISIL in a derogatory way to refer to government forces and "murtadeen" designates Sunni tribal fighters battling alongside the government.
But Suleiman denied that the city of Ramadi had fully fallen to ISIL, as the Anbar Operations Command, which is the military command in Ramadi, remains under the control of authorities.
Al Jazeera's Osama Mohamed, reporting from Iraq's capital Baghdad, said that Iraqi army helicopters have continued to strike several parts of the government compound in an attempt to regain control over it from ISIL.
Provincial council member Adhal Obeid al-Fahdawi had described the situation as "critical" moments earlier and said civilians were fleeing the city centre, the second time in a month they have done so following another ISIL offensive in April.
"Families are trying to flee on foot, leaving their cars and homes behind, but most areas around Ramadi are under ISIL control," said Sheikh Jabbar Adjadj al-Assafi, a tribal leader.
The loss of the capital of Anbar province, which Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had said would be the next target of government forces after wresting back Tikrit last month, would be a major setback for Baghdad.
ISIL has threatened to take control of Ramadi for months and the breakthrough came after a wide offensive on several fronts in the province, including an assault using several suicide car bombs in Ramadi on Thursday.

N Korea defence chief's execution 'not confirmed'

S Korea's spy agency says it is unable to verify Hyon's execution a day after local media reported he had been killed.

 

The grim details of Hyon's alleged demise dominated headlines, but the NIS stresses there is no concrete information of the issue [AP]

South Korea's spy agency has said it had been unable to verify whether North Korea's defence chief was put to death.
On Wednesday, various members of the parliament said Seoul's National Intelligence Service (NIS) believed that Hyon Yong-chol had been killed by anti-aircraft gunfire at a shooting range in Pyongyang for treason. The MPs were briefed in a parliamentary committee meeting.
The grim details of Hyon's alleged death dominated headlines, but the NIS on Thursday stressed that his execution had never been confirmed.
"Hyon has been purged," an NIS spokesman told the AFP news agency.
"And there are intelligence reports that he might have been executed, but this has not yet been verified," the spokesman said.
The confusion is partly the result of the way NIS briefings to parliament are carried out and reported.
They take place behind closed doors, after which selected members of the parliament pass on the information to the South Korean media, resulting in several degrees of separation between the original NIS briefing and the resulting headlines.
According to the MPs, the NIS said Hyon was purged for disloyalty and dozing off during official events presided over by leader Kim Jong-Un.
If confirmed, it marks the most high-profile take-down of a top Pyongyang official, since the purge and execution of Kim's powerful uncle, Jang Song-thaek, in December 2013.