The English Voice of ISIS Comes Out of the Shadows
Mohammed
Khalifa, a 35-year-old Canadian citizen who was born in Saudi Arabia
and is of Ethiopian descent, says he is the narrator of multiple
English-language Islamic State videos.
More than four years ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation appealed to the public
to help identify the narrator in one of the Islamic State’s best-known
videos, showing captured Syrian soldiers digging their own graves and
then being shot in the head.
Speaking
fluent English with a North American accent, the man would go on to
narrate countless other videos and radio broadcasts by the Islamic
State, serving as the terrorist group’s faceless evangelist to Americans
and other English speakers seeking to learn about its toxic ideology.
Now
a 35-year-old Canadian citizen, who studied at a college in Toronto and
once worked in information technology at a company contracted by IBM,
says he is the anonymous narrator.
That
man, Mohammed Khalifa captured in Syria last month by an
American-backed militia, spoke in his first interview about being the
voice of the 2014 video, known as “Flames of War.” He described himself
as a rank-and-file employee of the Islamic State’s Ministry of Media,
the unit responsible for publicizing such brutal footage as the
beheading of the American journalist James Foley and the burning of a Jordanian pilot.
Following
President Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, the
bureau grew increasingly concerned about whether the president’s actions
constituted anti-American activity.
WASHINGTON — In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey
as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by
the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had
been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according
to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the
investigation.http://goforworldbd.blogspot.com/
The inquiry carried
explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to
consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible
threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr.
Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under
Moscow’s influence.
The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.
Agents
and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to
Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an
investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were
uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and
magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s
firing in May 2017, particularly two instances
in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia
investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the
inquiry, the people said.
Caroline Ventura leaving
flowers on Wednesday near the bike path in Manhattan where a day earlier
a motorist killed eight people.
The driver who sped down a crowded bike path in Lower Manhattan
on Tuesday, killing eight people and injuring 11, had been planning the
attack for weeks and appeared to have connections to people who were
the subjects of terrorism investigations, police officials said on Wednesday.
As counterterrorism investigators drilled into whether the attacker, identified by officials as Sayfullo Saipov,
had meaningful ties to terrorist organizations, it also became clear
that some of those close to the attacker had feared for years that he
was heading down the path of extremism.
Mr. Saipov, 29, rented a pickup truck from a Home Depot in New Jersey
before driving onto a bike path, crashing into a school bus, jumping
out with a pellet gun and paintball gun and shouting “Allahu akbar,”
Arabic for “God is great,” the authorities said. Near the truck was a
handwritten note with a few lines of Arabic indicating allegiance to the
Islamic State, law enforcement officials said.
Trail of Terror in the Manhattan Truck Attack
Diagrams showing what was hit along the route of the attack.
As
investigators looked into Mr. Saipov’s history, they discovered that he
had been on the radar of federal authorities. Law enforcement officials
said Mr. Saipov, who is from Uzbekistan, had come to the federal
authorities’ attention after coming into contact with an Uzbek who was
under investigation by terrorism investigators in New York.
“We will not be cowed,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Mr.
Saipov came to the United States in 2010 and was a legal permanent
resident. He drew concerns at a mosque in Tampa that he attended before
moving to New Jersey.
A
preacher at the mosque, Abdula, who agreed to speak on the condition
that only his first name be used because he feared reprisals from other
radicals, said he tried to steer Mr. Saipov away from the path of
extremism.
“I
used to tell him, ‘Hey, you are too much emotional,’” Abdula said.
“‘Read books more. Learn your religion first,’ He did not learn religion
properly. That’s the main disease in the Muslim community.”
He added, “I never thought that he would go to this extreme.”
Abdula
said he met Mr. Saipov on a visit to Ohio, where Mr. Saipov lived soon
after he arrived in the United States. He attended Mr. Saipov’s wedding
and said he even worked for a time as a dispatcher in a trucking company
that Mr. Saipov owned.
Mr.
Saipov moved to Florida in the summer of 2015, Abdula said. He
struggled to find regular work there, sometimes going one or two months
without a job. When things went smoothly, he could be a kind person. But
he was prone to explosions of anger.
“He had a character problem,” he said.
Abdula
recalled Mr. Saipov getting emotional over issues related to the Muslim
community. He said Mr. Saipov was devoted to outward observances of
Islam, like his beard, but not necessarily the substance. Abdula said he
never spoke of committing violence.
“I didn’t hear him talking about killing people,” Abdula said.
Mr. Saipov moved to New Jersey
in March to be closer to his wife’s family. She was due to have their
third child, his first son, who was born sometime in the summer,
probably July, Abdula said.
“He was hoping to have a son for a long time,” Abdula said. “I would never think that he would do this kind of thing.”
Rohingya
refugees walk after crossing the Naf river at the Bangladesh-Myanmar
border in Palong Khali, near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh November 1, 2017.
European Union (EU) Commissioner for
Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides today said
EU wanted “safe and dignified” return of Rohingyas to their homeland in
Myanmar as he called on foreign minister AH Mahmood Ali at his office.
“Of course, I hope the Rohingyas will
be able to return soon in a safe and dignified way in Myanmar's Rakhine
State,” he told a media briefing emerging from the meeting with Ali at
the State Guest House Padma this afternoon.
Stylianides, who earlier, described the
Rohingya crisis as the world's “fastest-growing crisis” while visiting
their makeshift abodes in Cox's Bazar, today stressed the need for
political solution of Rohingya crisis through Bangladesh's continued
engagement with Myanmar as the crisis originated there.
He said the two governments should
continue to engage in dialogue to discuss a lot about the issue as “this
is the only way to ensure safe and dignified return of Rohingya people
in their homes.”
Stylianides described the state of
humanitarian and human rights violation in Myanmar's Rakhine State as
“beyond imagination” adding that the EU and international community
expressed serious concerns over situation in Rakhine state.
He, however, said EU would expand its
support for Bangladesh for the cause of forcibly displaced Rohingyas
while acknowledging problems caused by the massive exodus of Rohingyas
since August 25.
“I am visiting Bangladesh to send a strong message that EU stands with Bangladesh in this difficult time,” he said.
The EU Commissioner thanked the
government and the people of Bangladesh for giving shelter to the
distressed Rohingyas and deeply appreciated Bangladesh's humanity and
generosity.
Earlier, in the meeting the foreign
minister briefed the EU Commissioner about the current situation
regarding influx of Rohingyas and apprised that over one million
Rohingyas are now living in Bangladesh.
He also mentioned the presence of this
huge number of forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals created massive
socio-economic and environmental challenge for Bangladesh.
The foreign minister also sought EU's
sustained political support so a sustainable solution to the crisis
could be reached in light of the recommendations of Kofi Annan
Commission.
The European Commissioner arrived in
the city from Cox's Bazar today after visiting the Rohingya camps where
the forcibly displaced Myanmar Nationals have taken shelter.
New research has found that breastfeeding for at least two months cuts a baby's risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) almost in half.
A new international study has found that breastfeeding for just two months cuts a baby's risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) almost in half.
Carried out by the University of Virginia School of Medicine, the
research looked at eight major international studies that examined 2,259
cases of SIDS and 6,894 control infants where death did not occur.
The results showed that breastfeeding for just two months reduces the risk of SIDS by almost half, and the longer babies are breastfed the greater the protection. Breastfeeding for less than two months did not offer such a benefit.
Another important finding from the study showed that both partial and exclusive breastfeeding reduces the risk of SIDS, which could come as good news for women who can't or choose not to rely solely on breastfeeding.
Researcher Kawai Tanabe, MPH, of the University of Virginia School of
Medicine commented on the findings saying, "These results are very
powerful! Breastfeeding is beneficial for so many reasons, and this is really an important one."
The large collective sample used in the research also provides
convincing evidence of the reliability and consistency of the findings,
despite differing cultural behaviours across countries.
Previous studies have also suggested that breastfeeding
is associated with a decreased risk of SIDS, the leading cause of death
for infants between one month and one year of age, but this is the
first study to determine the duration necessary to provide that protection.
Although it remains unclear why breastfeeding
has a protective effect, the researchers suggest that it may provide
immune benefits and have a beneficial effect on infant sleeping
patterns.
Based on the results, the researchers are now calling for "ongoing concerted efforts" to increase rates of breastfeeding around the world, with the team reporting that data from 2007 showed a quarter of U.S. babies had never been breastfed.
The World Health Organization has set a goal of ensuring that more
than half of infants worldwide are breastfed exclusively for at least
six months by 2025.
"It's great for mothers to know that breastfeeding
for at least two months provides such a strong protective effect
against SIDS," said researcher Rachel Moon, MD, of the UVA School of
Medicine and the UVA Children's Hospital. "We strongly support
international and national efforts to promote breastfeeding."
With elections putting her majority
in doubt, Prime Minister Theresa May declared that the Conservatives
would bring stability to Britain if they won the most seats in
Parliament.
LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain
suffered a major setback in a tumultuous election on Thursday, losing
her overall majority in Parliament and throwing her government into
uncertainty less than two weeks before it is scheduled to begin
negotiations over withdrawing from the European Union.
Mrs. May, the Conservative leader, called the snap election three years early, expecting to cruise to a smashing victory that would win her a mandate to see Britain through the long and difficult negotiations with European leaders over the terms of leaving the union.
But
according to results reported early Friday morning, the extraordinary
gamble Mrs. May made in calling the election backfired. She could no
longer command enough seats to avoid a hung Parliament, meaning that no party has enough lawmakers to establish outright control.
With
all but one of the 650 seats in the House of Commons accounted for, the
BBC reported that Mrs. May’s Conservatives would remain the largest
party. But they were projected to win only 318 seats, down from the 331
they won in 2015, and eight seats short of a majority.
Britons quickly started wondering whether Mrs. May would have to resign.
One
Conservative lawmaker, Anna Soubry, said on national television that it
had been a “dreadful campaign” and would force the prime minister to
“consider her position.”
The opposition Labour Party,
led by Jeremy Corbyn, was projected to be on track for 262 seats, up 30
from 2015, significantly elevating Mr. Corbyn’s standing after
predictions that his party would be further weakened.
“Whatever the final result, we have already changed the face of British politics,” Mr. Corbyn said.
Photo
The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, arriving at party headquarters in London on Friday.Credit
Odd Andersen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Last
month, in an effort to show “just how much is at stake” in the
election, Mrs. May acknowledged that even a small loss of seats would
amount to a defeat.
“The
cold, hard fact is that if I lose just six seats, I will lose this
election, and Jeremy Corbyn will be sitting down to negotiate with the
presidents, prime ministers and chancellors of Europe,” she
But
early on Friday, Mrs. May hinted that her Conservative Party would try
to form a government even if it did not have a majority, arguing that
Britain needed “a period of stability.”
If the Conservative Party “has won the most seats and probably the most votes, then it will be incumbent on us,” she said.
The Scottish National Party
was projected to fall to 35 seats from 56, while the centrist Liberal
Democrats were projected to win 12 seats, up four from 2015.
The
forecast raised the prospect that neither major party would be able to
form a government without help from another party. If a coalition cannot
be formed, another election could be in the offing.
And
there was a wild card. Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein party, which won
seven seats, said it would not occupy them, in keeping with its
longstanding policy. That would lower the threshold for Mrs. May’s party
to establish an effective majority.
The
former chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said that for Mrs.
May losing a majority would be “completely catastrophic” for her and the
Conservative Party. But he added that it was also difficult to see how
the Labour Party could put together a coalition government.
Voters leaving a polling station at a former fire station in London.Credit
Leon Neal/Getty Images
“So it’s on a real knife edge,” he said.
Clearly,
Britons confounded expectations and the betting markets once again. The
uncertainty could complicate Britain’s exit from the European Union,
known as Brexit. Negotiations over the withdrawal are scheduled to start
in just 11 days. European leaders want a stable, credible British
government capable of negotiating, but Mrs. May’s plea to voters for a
strong mandate for Brexit failed badly.
The
official outcome of the vote may not be known until lunchtime on
Friday. But the British pound fell sharply after a national exit poll
showing that the Conservatives could lose their majority. Within seconds
of the exit poll’s release, the pound lost more than 2 cents against
the dollar, falling from $1.2955 to $1.2752.
Simon
Hix, a professor of political science at the London School of
Economics, said the projections showed the public’s resistance to the
complete break from Europe that Mrs. May has championed. Still, Mrs. May
was set to win, he asserted. “She hasn’t lost this election,” he said.
But
Steven Fielding, professor of political history at the University of
Nottingham, said that he was almost speechless at the projections. If
they held, he said, Mrs. May “is gone.”
“It’s
just a matter of time — even if they have a reduced majority,” he
continued. “She asked for a mandate, she expected a strong endorsement,
so her judgment is completely under question.”
“She was terrible in the campaign,” he added. “She is primarily the person who will be seen to be responsible for this.”
Kallum Pickering, a senior economist at Berenberg Bank in London, also suggested that Mrs. May was in trouble.
“Even
if May manages to cling on to a majority, we see a real risk that her
leadership is challenged, especially following an unsuccessful election
campaign that has managed to both weaken her personal credibility and
make far-left Labour leader Corbyn relevant again,” he said as the votes
were being counted.
Interactive Graphic
How Britain Voted
Results and analysis from the British general election.
Given the two terrorist attacks that took place during the campaign, security was tight on Thursday as Britons voted, with a heavy police presence.
Maria
Balas, 28, a waitress, said security was the prime issue. “England is
under attack and at this time we need a strong leader more than ever,”
Ms. Balas said after casting her vote for the governing Conservative
Party. “I don’t like Theresa May, and I wouldn’t have bothered to vote
if this election was all about giving her more power to take us into the
mess of Brexit, but now we are dealing with a security crisis and I
think she is the most qualified person in the running who can deal with
that.”
In London’s eastern borough of Hackney, however, young people seemed more concerned about future job prospects.
“The
Tories only care about the rich and their interests,” said Luke Wright,
26, who earns £7.50 an hour, or about $9.70, working at a stationery
shop. “If Labour won I’d have a chance to make more cash and get out of
this job that I’m overqualified for.”
Mrs. May, 60, rolled the dice on April 18
when she broke her promise not to call an early election, three years
ahead of schedule, but did so only because she believed the dice were
loaded in her favor.
She
went into this election with a 20-point lead in most polls and a
working majority of just 17 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons, the
lower house of Parliament.
While
she was personally against Britain’s exit from the European Union, or
Brexit, in the June 2016 referendum, the vote in favor caused David Cameron to resign, and she emerged as a kind of accidental prime minister.
But
she promised voters that she would honor the results of the referendum,
using her reputation for toughness “to get the best deal for Britain.”
Counting votes in Emirates Arena in Glasgow on Thursday.Credit
Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated Press
Now,
her decision to call a snap election is raising comparisons to Mr.
Cameron’s decision to hold the referendum in the first place.
“May
is a policy politician; she does a very good job in office, and she is a
lousy campaigner,” said Robert Worcester, the founder of the MORI/Ipsos
polling and research organization. “There was just mistake after
mistake after mistake coming through.”
Mrs.
May pledged to curtail immigration, an effort to reach out to the
nearly 13 percent of voters in 2015 who voted for the U.K. Independence
Party, whose platform was anti-immigrant and pro-Brexit. Many of those
voters, especially in the West Midlands and the north, were
traditionally Labour supporters, but with the collapse of UKIP, many of
them were thought to lean to the Conservatives.
That
meant Labour-held seats seemed ripe for the picking, especially since
northerners were not enamored of Mr. Corbyn, 68, a far-left urbanite. He
seemed weak on defense and security, shaky on economic management and
passionate about places like Venezuela and Nicaragua, and had once had
strong sympathies for the Irish Republican Army and liked to make jam.
And
the centrist Liberal Democrats, who emphasized rerunning the Brexit
debate in a second referendum, were getting very little traction. While
the business elite were laser-focused on the issue of Britain’s future
relationship with the European Union, opinion polls showed that the
general population had moved beyond that and cared more about domestic
issues.
Strangely,
for such an important issue, the economic impact of Brexit barely
figured in this campaign, perhaps because its strongest effects, should
they materialize, will not be felt for some time.
Mrs.
May and the Conservatives ran an unusually personal campaign, trying to
emphasize the differences between her and Mr. Corbyn on questions of
leadership, reliability, economic competence and security, helped by the
rabidly anti-Corbyn, pro-Brexit tabloid press.
But
the Conservatives did not count on her poor performance on television
and shaky presence on the campaign trail, particularly when confronted
by hostile questioning. Rather than “strong and stable,” as her mantra
went, Mrs. May could seem brittle and querulous, repeating slogans
rather than dipping into substance.
The news media outside 10 Downing Street in London on Friday.Credit
Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Her
party’s manifesto was also vague on figures, and her effort to find
more funds for social benefits backfired when she announced, with little
consultation with her cabinet colleagues, her intention to charge the
better-off more for extended benefits, saying that old people could keep
assets up to 100,000 pounds, including the value of their homes.
Quickly labeled “the dementia tax,” it damaged her badly with the
Conservatives’ main supporters: older Britons.
“Theresa
May doesn’t look happy on the campaign trail,” said Mark Wickham-Jones,
professor of political science at the University of Bristol. “And
Labour have proved quite effective at chipping away at things like her
reluctance to debate.”
At
the same time, Mr. Corbyn, who survived an attempt last year by his own
members of Parliament to unseat him as Labour leader, had a very good
campaign. Appealing to the young, especially in the big cities, Mr.
Corbyn ran on a platform promising more social justice, free college
tuition, more money for the National Health Service and welfare, the
re-nationalization of the railways and utilities, and much higher taxes
on corporations and those earning over £80,000, about $104,000, a year.
His
performances on television were calm and avuncular, with a touch of
humor. And as the campaign wore on, he appeared to win back the support
of most Labour voters in 2015, plus some Liberal Democrats and Greens.
The
polls narrowed. But the Conservatives never lost their lead in any
major poll. And party professionals on the ground, especially in
marginal seats in the Midlands and the north that the Conservatives had
targeted, reported continuing resistance to Mr. Corbyn as a credible
prime minister.
The campaign was also marred by two terrorist attacks that caused numerous casualties, in Manchester on May 22 and then, last Saturday, in London.
These also seemed to work against Mrs. May, at least at first. As home
secretary for six years before becoming prime minister, she was
criticized for the security services’ failure to stop the plots and for
supporting cuts in beat policing.
Yet,
late polling indicated that she benefited from her tough response —
especially after the London attack, when she promised new
counterterrorism legislation — and had widened the gap with Labour at
the end.
The
candidates spent the last day of official campaigning racing around the
country — Mrs. May by jet, Mr. Corbyn by train. “They underestimated
us, didn’t they?” he told a rally in Glasgow.
Correction: June 8, 2017
An earlier version of this article misstated the number of
parliamentary seats held by the Scottish National Party heading into the
election. It was 56, not 59.
Bangladeshi-origin candidates Tulip Rizwana Siddiq, Rushanara
Ali and Rupa Huq were re-elected in UK national election, according to
primary results.
From Labour Party in the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency, Tulip
Siddiq bagged 34,464 votes while her Conservative counterpart
Claire-Louise Leyland got 18, 904 votes, says BBC polls result.
She is the granddaughter of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and niece of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Labour Party candidate Rupa Huq retained the Ealing Central and Acton
seat for Labour with 33,037 votes while her counterpart Conservative
Party candidate Joy Morrissey got 19,230 votes.
Her ancestral home is in Pabna district of Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, Rushanara Ali, the first British lawmaker with roots in
Bangladesh, has secured a third consecutive victory in her safe Bethnal
Green and Bow constituency in east London.
