MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed with his Security Council on Monday potential cooperation with other countries on fighting against Islamic State, Russian news agencies cited the Kremlin's spokesman as saying.

Russia, whose ties with Washington are at their lowest since the end of the Cold War, has not yet responded to calls from the United States to build an international coalition to destroy the radical Sunni Muslim group, which has seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

"Permanent members of the Security Council exchanged opinions on possible forms of cooperation with other partners on a plan to counter Islamic State in the framework of international law," Interfax quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.

He did not say who the other partners were.

Islamic State could potentially threaten Moscow as it includes in its ranks a number of Muslims from Russia's North Caucasus region, who have been waging their own insurgency in the mountainous region following two wars between Moscow and separatists in Chechnya in 1994-96 and 1999-2000.

U.S. and French warplanes have struck Islamic State targets in Iraq and on Sunday the United States said other countries had indicated a willingness to join it if it goes ahead with air strikes against the group in Syria too.

(Writing by Thomas Grove, editing by Elizabeth Piper and Dominic Evans)

September 22, 2014

On the eve of the Iraq War in 2003, while commanding the 101st Airborne Division, then-Maj. Gen. David Petraeus repeatedly asked Rick Atkinson the rhetorical question: “Tell me how this ends.” What began as a private joke between a military commander and an embedded journalist has become a warning for the need to define clear objectives and be cognizant of unexpected outcomes before going to war. Last week, President Barack Obama attempted to provide clear strategic guidance for the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL), declaring: “Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL.”

I published a column in Foreign Policy recently that highlights two troubling elements about Obama’s declared end state.

First, other Obama administration officials have offered their own end states that confuse or contradict what the president stated just eight days ago. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough stated recently: “Success looks like an ISIL that no longer threatens our friends in the region, no longer threatens the United States. An ISIL that can’t accumulate followers, or threaten Muslims in Syria, Iran, Iraq, or otherwise.” Also, Secretary of State John Kerry declared before the the Senate Foreign Relations Committee something else: “The military action ends when we have ended the capacity of ISIL to engage in broad-based terrorist activity that threatens the state of Iraq, threatens the United States, threatens the region. That’s our goal.” Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told the House Armed Services Committee that “success” included “stability in the Middle East.”

Second, the United States—and any combination of partners or allies—will never “destroy” ISIS. The evidence supporting this assertion is simple: Both Presidents George W. Bush and Obama declared that the Taliban and al-Qaeda and its affiliates would be “defeated” and “destroyed.” Meanwhile, the size and lethality of these groups has increased almost everywhere that they exist. The reason that presidents make such absolutist and totally unachievable pronouncements says more about American political culture than providing realist military campaign objectives. As I wrote in my column, a courageous president would tell the American people the truth, which is:

“The United States will attempt to diminish the threat that [ISIL] poses to U.S. personnel in the region to the greatest extent possible based upon the political will and resources that the United States and countries in the region are willing to commit.”

That is a strategy of mitigating ISIS’ threats and containing its influence within Iraq and the surrounding region. Yet, while mitigation and containment will drive the U.S. counterterrorism strategy regarding ISIS as a reality, the Obama administration (and Congress and the media) will pretend that the strategic end state is to defeat and destroy them. So when you hear the White House promise to destroy ISIS, don’t believe them, but consider why it is politically mandatory that they make such an outrageous and impossible claim.

This article first appeared on CFR's blog channel: Power, Politics, and Preventive Action here.

Image: U.S. Army Flickr.

By Julia Edwards and Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A decorated Iraq war veteran who scaled a fence on Friday night and got into the White House had over 800 rounds of ammunition in his car and was arrested in July with a sniper rifle and a map marking the executive mansion, a federal prosecutor said on Monday.

Omar Gonzalez, 42, was also stopped, but not arrested in August walking by the White House with a hatchet in his waistband, federal prosecutor David Mudd told a federal judge.

The previous interactions that Gonzalez had with the U.S. Secret Service is part of a sweeping internal review underway of how the agency failed to stop him from getting inside the White House, and whether more security is needed, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

The incident with Gonzalez follows a number of security lapses involving the president's security detail, including a prostitution scandal in 2012.

Asked on Monday whether he has confidence in the agency, President Barack Obama said: "Secret Service does a great job. And I’m grateful for the sacrifices they make on my behalf and my family’s behalf."

View gallery

A member of the Secret Service Uniformed Division with a K-9 walks along the perimeter fence along P …

Gonzalez faces charges of unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a "deadly or dangerous weapon." He was carrying a knife when he entered the White House. The charge carries up to 10 years in prison.

He consented to a search of his car after his arrest, and officers found more than 800 rounds of ammunition, two hatchets and a machete.

Mudd said Gonzalez's "preoccupation with the White House and accumulation of large amounts of ammunition in apparently a short period of time renders him a danger to the president," in arguing that he not be released on bond.

Although Obama and his family were not home at the time, the incident raised questions about the U.S. Secret Service's White House security procedures.

Representatives for the Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

"I encourage all of us to not rush to judgment about the event and not second-guess the judgment of security officers who had only seconds to act, until all the facts are in," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement.

The agency is considering ways to beef up staffing and expand the security zone around the White House to keep tourists and other members of the public farther away, Earnest said.

One possible measure includes blocking the sidewalks around the White House or screening tourists before allowing them to use the walkways. Additionally, visitors to the complex, now screened at the entrance gates, could instead be screened blocks away, the New York Times and Washington Post reported.

After being apprehended, Gonzalez, a retired Army sergeant, told a Secret Service agent "he was concerned that the atmosphere was collapsing" and needed to get the information to the president, according to an affidavit released by prosecutors.

White House fence jumpers are not uncommon - and last month a toddler squeezed through the White House gates. But an intruder getting into the building caused concern and critics said the lapse could encourage deadly attackers.

The Secret Service also faced scrutiny after a 2009 breach involving an uninvited couple at a White House dinner, although a 2013 Department of Homeland Security report found no evidence of misconduct or inappropriate behavior at the Secret Service.

(Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha, Julia Edwards, Steve Holland, Roberta Rampton and Susan Heavey; Editing by Jim Loney, Doina Chiacu and Andrew Hay)

Secret Service takes heat after intruder enters White House (video)

Some of the estimated 100 Americans who have tried to get to Syria and join up with groups like the Islamic State have returned to the United States and are under FBI scrutiny, a top official told reporters on Monday.

For months, top American officials have warned that U.S. citizens trying to swell the ranks of the Islamic State and other groups fighting to topple Bashar Assad pose an exceptional security risk.

Asked whether there were 100 Americans now in Syria, a senior administration official told reporters that the figure “includes those who’ve gone, those who’ve tried to go, some who’ve come back and who are under active – the FBI is looking at them.” The official was speaking at a briefing organized by the White House; the ground rules required that the official be anonymous.

Earlier, Secretary of State John Kerry highlighted the administration’s concerns in an interview with MSNBC.

“We have over a hundred fighters there from America. They have passports. They can come back here,” having acquired deadly expertise on Syrian battlefields, Kerry said.

On Sept. 17, President Obama chaired a special meeting of his national security team that focused on the danger posed by American fighters joining the foreign cause.

“With respect to the Americans who may be engaged in combat in Iraq and Syria, this is something that our national security agencies and counterterrorism team are taking very seriously,” National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Friday.

View photo

.

“It’s something we track closely. And we are doing obviously all that we can to both gather the necessary information and take the appropriate precautions to the greatest extent that we possibly can,” Rice said.

Asked whether 100 was a relatively low number that might signal success in keeping Americans off Syrian battlefields, the anonymous official replied: “I think that success is 0.”

“One American going is too much.”

Related Video

Americans who fought in Syria have returned

Some of the Americans who have traveled to Syria to join up with groups like the Islamic State are under FBI scrutiny.
Security risk

Muslim youths around the globe have been using #NotInMyName on Twitter and other social media sites the past few days to denounce the well-publicized atrocities of Islamic State.

Launched by the British community organization Active Change Foundation, based in east London, the social media campaign urges young Muslim Twitter users to “fight back against ISIS,” as the rogue terror organization sweeping through Iraq and Syria has been called, and “denounce their violent actions in your own words.”

“I was appalled and sickened,” says Active Change’s founder, Hanif Qadir, on a video posted on the organization’s website. “There’s no rationale, there’s no religious understanding that these guys are applying to justify what they’re doing.” Mr. Qadir founded his community organization in 2003 to worked to help prevent violent street crime, community tensions, and violent extremism on east London streets.

Recommended: Are you smarter than an atheist? A religious quiz

The social media campaign comes as Islamic State has proven to have its own sophisticated social media campaign. Using what observers have called a “well-oiled” team of media and public relations experts, the group, also known as ISIL, has produced slick videos, well-timed tweets, and even developed an Arabic-language Twitter app called “The Dawn of Glad Tidings,” an official Islamic State product used to keep its users up-to-date on its latest posts and news.

But for the past few days, nearly 20,000 Tweets have used #NotInMyName to denounce the terror group on social media. This includes more than 3,000 messages posted Sunday evening to Monday morning Eastern time, according to Topsy, a social media metrics company based in San Francisco.

And the local British-based campaign has begun to go viral as users across the globe begin to post messages under the hashtag.

Mustafa Abu Bakr, a user in Nigeria, tweeted:

ISIS, Boko Haram, Taliban, Al-Qaeda…none of these represent #Islam. #NotInMyName campaign is long overdue to educate people about Islam.— Mustapha Abu Bakr (@Mustyblax) September 22, 2014

Ahmad Salkida, a user in the United Arab Emirates, tweeted:

True Islam teaches that forgiveness is the highest level of strength, and revenge is the highest level of weakness #NotInMyName— Ahmad Salkida (@ContactSalkida) September 22, 2014

But even as thousands tweet such messages, others have used the hashtag to taunt the message, and even to post Tweets supporting IS.

The social media campaign was launched last week with a video of young Muslims denouncing the terror group, which the Central Intelligence Agency has recently estimated has up to 31,500 fighters at its disposal, including 2,000 Western volunteers.

And experts say its media campaign on social media has helped recruit many of these fighter from the West, including as many as 100 Americans, officials say.

"No one else in extremism is using social media as effectively as the Islamic State right now," J.M. Berger, editor of INTELWIRE.com and author of the recent study "How ISIS Games Twitter," told the Los Angeles Times. "I am sure many are watching what they do with the intention to emulate it."

Organizers of #NotInMyName are hoping to fight back with a widespread campaign of their own.

“Young British Muslims are sick and tired of the hate-filled propaganda the terrorists ISIS and their supporters churn out on social media,” said Qadir, head of Active Change, toHuffington Post UK. “They are angry that the criminals are using the platforms to radicalize young people and spread their poisonous words of violence in the name of Islam.”

Muslim youths counter IS with #NotInMyName

The Islamic State is waging a propaganda campaign on social media, but young Muslims are fighting back on Twitter.
20,000 tweets