From Russia Today
Demoralized ISIS militants deserting en masse amid Russian airstrikes – Defense Ministry
“The majority of armed gangs are demoralized. Discontent with field commanders is growing amid the fighters, and there are instances of disobeying orders,” senior Russian General Andrey Kartapolov told a media briefing.
Cases of desertion among the jihadists are no longer isolated, with them now fleeing “en masse,” the colonel general, who heads operations in the Russian general staff, added.
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From Ynet News
Report: Russia blocks Israeli jets over Lebanon
Lebanese newspaper claims Israeli jets turn back after confrontation with Russian aircraft over northern Lebanon.
Russian forces warned Israel over IAF flights in Russian controlled airspace near the Syrian–Lebanese border area after Israeli jets were detected nearby, according to a report Friday in the Lebanese media outlet As Safir.
The report comes a mere day after Russia announced that it had established a “hotline” with Israel in order to coordinate aerial activity over Lebanon and Syria.
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From Russia Today
Syrian civilians helping Russian airstrikes target ISIS – Defense Ministry
“Not far from Salma in Latakia province, a Su-24M bomber delivered a strike at a building, which was used as a terrorist training ground. According to intelligence, there were ISIL foreign instructors, who were training people, including suicide bombers, for guerrilla warfare in areas liberated by the Syrian army,” ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.
He added that the facility had its own explosives workshop, which was also destroyed by an airstrike.
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From Russia Today
Belgium providing most ISIS recruits per capita in Europe – UN
“The number of Belgian foreign fighters is reportedly the highest in Europe per capita among those travelling to join conflicts abroad such as in Syria and Iraq,” said human rights expert Elzbieta Karska, who heads the United Nations’ Working Group on the use of mercenaries, following a five-day assessment of Islamic State (IS formerly, ISIS/ISIL) recruit threat in Belgium.
The Group estimates over 500 recruits from Belgium have gone abroad to fight with the jihadists since 2010.
The experts say 207 Belgians have travelled to Syria, while 62 were denied entry, 128 have returned home, and 77 have died fighting abroad. The UN team also revealed that 46 foreign fighters, all associated with the group Sharia4Belgium, have been prosecuted.
“The profiles of foreign fighters are varied, with an average age around 23 years and decreasing,” Karska noted. “Women are also increasingly leaving.”
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From Russia Today
Russian Navy can strike ISIS positions in Syria anytime – general
Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov said the Russian warships in the Mediterranean can “definitely” be used to deliver strikes in Syria the way the Russian fleet in the Caspian Sea was already used.
“Our naval group in the Mediterranean is mostly used for supplying goals. But to ensure that our supply lines are not disrobed, we have a group of warships there too. This group also provides antiaircraft protection four our base [in Tartus],” he said in an interview to Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper published on Friday.
General Kartapolov heads Operations in the Russian general staff. He was personally supervising the creation of the so-called coordination center in Baghdad, which Russia, Syria, Iraq and Iran created to share intelligence on terrorist forces and coordinate their war effort. The center plays a big part in fighting the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS or ISIL), the general told the newspaper.
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From The Times of Israel
Adelson said warming to presidential hopeful Rubio
Billionaire Jewish megadonor speaks regularly with the Republican senator about his campaign — and Israel
October 14, 2015, 9:15 am
The billionaire American Jewish casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is said to be leaning toward supporting Senator Marco Rubio as the Republican nominee for president.
The two met last week at Adelson’s Venetian Las Vegas casino, where Adelson, “seated at the head of his conference table, heaped praise on Rubio’s performance while he discussed the dynamics of the 2016 race,” the Washington political magazine Politico reported.
Rubio’s campaign manager Terry Sullivan and two top advisers to Adelson, Rob Goldstein and Patrick Dumont, were said to have been present at the meeting.
“Those briefed on the meeting described it as short but said it had an air of importance,” the magazine related.
Adelson famously spent some $100 million on the 2012 Republican primary and presidential campaigns, under US campaign finance rules that allow unlimited funding of groups that endorse candidates but do not coordinate with their campaigns.
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Argentine court requests arrest of Hezbollah member in ’92 embassy bombing
BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — Argentina’s Supreme Court of Justice issued an international arrest warrant against Hussein Mohamad Ibrahim Suleiman, a Hezbollah member who is being investigated for his involvement in the 1992 attack against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.
The attack, which came two years before the bombing of Jewish organization AMIA in Buenos Aires, killed 22 people and injured more than 200. The court on Thursday also reiterated the warrant to arrest Jose Salman El Reda Reda, also as a suspect in the deadly attack.
Suleiman was arrested in Jordan in 2001 and confessed that in 1991 he traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil, later transporting to Buenos Aires the explosives used in the deadly blast.
The ruling from Argentina’s highest court said, “Since 2005, this Court has been investigating Hussein Mohamad Ibrahim Suleiman as an operative agent of the Hezbollah terrorist organization and a member of the Islamic Jihad.”
The ruling added that: “Recently, in September, 2015, the Israel Embassy in Buenos Aires, through the Foreign Affairs Ministry, confirmed the information and thus the international arrest warrant was issued on the named”
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Study: Haredi Orthodox will make up half UK’s Jews by 2031
Accelerating birth rates among the strictly observant religious Jewish communities mean they are expected “to constitute a majority of the British Jewish population before the 21st century is over,” a report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research says, The Independentreported Thursday.
If high haredi birth rates continue, half of all Jewish children and around 30 percent of young Jewish adults living in the United Kingdom will be haredi by 2031, the report, which was published Thursday, says.
The report says Orthodox Jewish leaders should take note of the population boom. “The demographic dynamic of this community is conducive to the outbreak of social unrest,” it states, warning of an urgent need for job opportunities. Without these, “the probability [is] that youth will engage in antisocial activities, experience high levels of disillusionment, or abandon the strictly Orthodox lifestyle altogether.”
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From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Dutch lawmakers mull extra protection for Israeli tourists
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Senior lawmakers for the Netherlands’ ruling party suggested beefing up security for Israeli tourists following a threat.
Han ten Broeke and Sjoerd Potters of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy made the suggestion in a parliamentary query they filed Thursday with the kingdom’s minister for foreign affairs and his counterpart in charge of social affairs and employment.
The query followed the publication on Facebook of a call to “smite down” Israeli tourists published by Younnes Ouaali, a café owner and a representative of the Dutch aid group World Wide Relief, as revenge for perceived attacks on Palestinians by Israel.
“What travel advice does the Israeli government employ for the Netherlands?” the lawmakers asked the ministers. “Are you planning to take extra measures for the protection of Israeli tourists?”
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From Russia Today
Teen ‘diamond boy’ crashes $240,000 Ferrari in downtown Moscow and flees (VIDEO)
The incident happened late Thursday, when the Ferrari driver mistakenly took Moscow’s Garden Ring for a racetrack. Having taken the car, worth hundreds of thousands dollars, up to speeds of 200 km/h (125 mph), the driver started making dangerous maneuvers on the road, traffic cameras showed, according to TV channel Rossiya. The driver eventually lost control of the car, and crashed into two other vehicles on a bridge.
From Russia Today
Poland probes US historian for saying that ‘Poles killed more Jews than Germans’
Jan Tomasz Gross, a US Princeton University professor of history and sociology, who is himself of Polish origin, is being accused of public insult as well as defaming Poland and sullying the country’s good name.
The case against Gross is based on Article 133 of the Polish Criminal Code, according to which the American professor could face up to three years imprisonment for “publicly insulting the Polish nation or the Republic of Poland,” Przemyslaw Nowak, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, said on Thursday.
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