Heavily-armed gunmen shouting Islamist slogans stormed the Charlie Hebdo (a satirical newspaper) office in Paris on Wednesday and shot dead 12 people including its editor-in-chief Stephane Charbonnier, known as Charb.
Al Qaeda, which has announced the creation of a separate wing for India, wants to portray Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an enemy of Islam and as such India should take its threat "very seriously", a well-known American counter-terror expert said on Friday even as the United States tried to downplay the terrorist outfit's capabilities.
Michael Knights, a Boston-based Lafer Fellow of The Washington Institute who specialised in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Persian Gulf, spoke to Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa about power of the ISIS and the reasons behind its growth
A deputy leader of Al Qaeda's branch in the Indian subcontinent, who was seen as a "rising star" in terrorist circles, died in an American drone strike in Pakistan in January that also killed an American and Italian hostage, according to a media report.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a dangerous phenomenon, but the terrorist organisation can not be defeated by air strikes alone, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said.
The moderator, at times, had a tough time in controlling Kaine and Pence.
Brazil held 10 presumed Islamist militants in isolation cells at a maximum security jail on Friday as police combed their computers and mobile phones for information about possible threats to next month's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
The Chinese President dethroned Russian President Vladimir Putin as the most influential person on the planet.
A 'soft' approach must be nurtured to complement the hard-line of spending billions in physical conflict; that is the only way to 'degrade and destroy' ISIS.
The ground situation in Iraq is so bad that there is no scope for any non-conventional action or any kind of bravery. Patience, slow movement, and full backing to Indian negotiators would help in a big way, says Sheela Bhatt.
The US and its allies must evolve a more comprehensive long-term plan to defeat the new danger that the caliphate poses to the world order. And India too must do its bit for course correction, says strategic expert Gurmeet Kanwal.
The next big destination for IS in South Asia could be India. In India, the SIMI-IM network can provide the logistics for an IS staging area, says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd).
Identifying Islamic State terrorists as uniquely brutal, United States President Barack Obama has announced that the country will lead a broad coalition to roll back the threat posed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his militia.
'Disgruntled, disillusioned, Muslim youth -- of whom there is no dearth, given the Muslim world's sorry state -- are ready to take on the might of the West and attack it in any way they can.' 'For them, it is their faith, and not the reasoning of Newton or Descartes that has stayed with them, sustained them through the misery their world had sunk into,' says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
ISIS's online propaganda radicalises Muslim youth in Kerala. A revealing excerpt from Stanly Johny's new book, The ISIS Caliphate From Syria to the Doorsteps of India.
'We could crack IM modules in the country because one arrested member would spill beans on the other.' 'With ISIS, every module is different and is possibly being handled by different operators abroad.'
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Thursday
Through its early days to the 1980s, Pakistan sought to expand its sphere of Islamic influence through Afghanistan to Central Asia and got Pakistani citizens recruited in the Afghan government institutions in the 1990s when the Taliban were power. Now, it is looking eastward through India to Bangladesh and Myanmar to establish an imaginary caliphate.
Driven from its self-styled caliphate in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State is down but not out. Where once they confronted armies, the extremist Islamist group's adherents have now staged hit-and-run raids and suicide attacks. In some cases, the group has claimed responsibility for atrocities, including the bombings of churches and hotels in Sri Lanka that killed at least 253 people. Its involvement is not always proven, but even if the link is ideological rather than operational, Islamic State still poses a security threat in many countries.
Any attempt to defang Islamic State must first cut off its main sources of funding, especially its revenue from oil sales, extortion and crime, ransom payments, and support from foreign donors. This will also be need to be backed up by efficient forces on the ground.
Unlike Al Qaeda, ISIS recruiters are proactive and internet savvy. They know there is angst among Muslims about their helplessness even in a vibrant democracy like India, leave alone other parts of the world where Muslims live. So ISIS feeds them a regular diet of the golden age of the Ummah, creating for these youngsters a live yet make-believe world which is completely disconnected from the reality around them, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'Parents would do well by the nation if they were to persuade their sons and daughters not to become puppets in the hands of the Islamists,' feels Lieutenant General Ashok Joshi (retd).
As far as India is concerned, the danger is the potential of the IS to create mischief rather than its actual capability as of now, says Rajiv Kumar
We sorted through countless photographs taken around the world to come up with the top photos of 2019. Together these images tell the story of the year -- capturing moments of hope and heartbreak, triumph and tragedy.
The year 2014 is coming to an end. It was the year of conflict, the year of strife. Year 2014 will be remembered for several reasons -- the rise and threat of the Islamic State, the downing of two Malayasia Airlines aircraft and the sudden and effective way of using hastags on social media to generate a buzz about the event. After all, who can forget #theicebucket challenge and the phenomenon it grew into. Read on as we bring you an overview of international news and events of 2014.
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