By Doina Chiacu and Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is not aware of any specific threat to the U.S. homeland from Islamic State militants, the Department of Homeland Security said on Friday after Britain raised its international terrorism threat level.

Islamic State militants and their supporters, however, "have demonstrated the intent and capability to target American citizens overseas," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement. He noted that DHS took steps over the summer to strengthen security at overseas airports with direct flights to the United States.

Johnson said he has spoken to UK Home Secretary Theresa May about Britain's decision to raise its terrorism alert to the second-highest level. It is the first time since mid-2011 that Britain has been placed on this high of an alert level.

May said on Friday that Britain increased its threat level because militant groups in Syria in Iraq were "planning attacks against the West" and some attack plots were "likely" to involve foreign fighters from Britain and elsewhere in western Europe.

However, UK authorities also have said they have no knowledge of any "imminent" plot to attack British targets.

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U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson testifies before a Senate Appropriations hearing on &qu …

U.S. and European officials have said that because of relaxed border controls between European Union countries, it is difficult to track travel to Syria and Iraq by would-be foreign fighters. Often suspected militants are not identified until after they return to their home countries.

U.S. authorities are particularly concerned about former foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq who have British or other European passports that would allow them to enter the United States with instant visas and minimal security vetting.

U.S. and European officials have estimated that as many as 100 Americans have traveled to Syria or Iraq to fight with militants, along with four or five times as many Britons and hundreds of other Western Europeans.

"This is a threat that the United States has been focused on. We've been coordinating closely with our allies, both the Brits, but others in Europe, about countering this threat and mitigating it," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a news briefing.

There was no plan to raise the U.S. threat assessment level, he said.

While the United States once characterized threats under a system of color coded warnings, the Obama administration abandoned that system and now issues warnings targeted to particular transport or economic sectors.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Mark Hosenball; Editing by Eric Beech and Andre Grenon)

Mourners Remember Michael Brown in St. Louis

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By Brendan O'Brien

(Reuters) - A police officer has resigned after pointing a rifle at protesters during racially charged demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, and another has been fired for inappropriate social media posts stemming from the two weeks of civil unrest, officials said on Friday.

Violent protests erupted in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson after white police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed black 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9, drawing global attention to the state of race relations in the United States.

Police and demonstrators in Ferguson clashed nightly for days after the shooting, with authorities coming under fire for mass arrests and the what critics said were the use of heavy-handed tactics and military gear.

At a protest on Aug. 19, Ray Albers, a police officer in the neighboring community of St. Ann, pointed his rifle at a Ferguson protester during a heated verbal exchange, an episode that was captured on video and widely circulated on social media.

St. Ann Police Chief Aaron Jimenez said Albers, a 20-year veteran of the force, submitted his resignation on Thursday after the municipality's Police Board of Commissioners recommended that he resign due to the incident in Ferguson and three prior disciplinary actions.

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Police officers keep watch while demonstrators (not pictured) protest the death of black teenager Mi …

"They were very lenient because they could have just said he was terminated ... knowing that 20 years counts for something, they asked him to resign," Jimenez said. "That was a very appropriate decision."

The other officer, Matthew Pappert, who worked in the nearby city of Glendale, was fired on Thursday for comments he made on Facebook during the protests, City Administrator Jaysen Christensen said.

Pappert, who was with the city's police department since 2008, wrote on his Facebook page that he thought protesters should be "put down like rabid dogs," according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper.

He also said protesters were "a burden on society and a blight on the community," the paper reported.

The city launched an internal investigation after officials learned of the posts, Christensen said.

"This officer's comments and views that were expressed in the posts are absolutely not the views or opinions of the Glendale police department or the City of Glendale," Christensen said.

In a statement released by his attorney, Pappert said he was "deeply remorseful" about the Facebook postings and "fully recognizes that his words were insensitive and hurtful."

(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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1 police officer resigns, 1 fired after Ferguson

One officer pointed a rifle at protesters, the other posted inflammatory comments on social media.
'Appropriate decision'

REUTERS/Jason Reed

President Barack Obama's message to Russian President Vladimir Putin when traveling to Europe next week is to not "even think about messing around" with the Baltic states, the White House said Friday.

Obama is traveling to Europe next week for a meeting in Wales with other NATO leaders. He'll also make a stop in Estonia, where he will meet with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in an attempt to reassure allies amid burgeoning Russian aggression in Ukraine.

"The two stops are essentially part of the same effort to send a message to the Russians that their behavior is unacceptable," Charles Kupchan, the White House's senior director for European affairs, said in a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon.

"You have in Estonia a large Russian population, and therefore part of the message that the President will be sending is, we stand with you. Article 5 constitutes an ironclad guarantee of your security. Russia, don’t even think about messing around in Estonia or in any of the Baltic areas in the same way that you have been messing around in Ukraine."

NATO's Article 5 requires that all members of the alliance come to the defense of any member that is attacked or targeted.

Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and it has been one of Russia's goals to keep Ukraine from entering into both NATO and the European Union and thus forge closer ties with the West. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said Friday the country would begin the process of seeking NATO membership.

When asked about Ukraine's possible future membership, Kupchan said it was not under discussion by NATO at this time but added that the "door is open" to any country that is "willing to contribute to security in the Euro-Atlantic space."

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NATO

Ukraine said it would seek to become a member of NATO.

Russia's neighbors like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — which all have substantial Russian-speaking populations — have grown concerned in the face of increasing Russian intervention in Ukraine, which amplified this week.

Pro-Russian separatist rebels have opened a new front in the cities of Amvrosiivka and Starobeshevo, creating a fear is that Russia is attempting to create a land link between Russia and the strategic peninsula of Crimea. Russia annexed the peninsula special forces troops in March.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Russian troops are leading a separatist counteroffensive in the east, bringing in tanks and firing artillery from inside Ukrainian territory. NATO subsequently backed up his claims, saying more than 1,000 Russian troops had crossed the border and were fighting in Ukraine.

"I think what you’ll see is progress on the defense spending side, progress particularly on increasing the readiness times of NATO forces," Kupchan said.

"Because I think one of the things that we’ve learned from the situation in Ukraine is that oftentimes in this new world that we live in, NATO or individual countries may be facing not armored columns coming across their border, which you can usually see in advance, but guys coming across in masks, you don’t know who they are — what we could call hybrid warfare, or asymmetric warfare. And that requires a very different kind of military response than NATO has traditionally been focused on."

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Senegal Reports First Case Of Ebola

Dakar (AFP) - The Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 1,500 people across West Africa spread to a fifth country in the region on Friday with the first confirmed case of the deadly virus in Senegal.

The case marks the first time a new country has been hit by the outbreak since July and comes a day after the World Health Organization warned the number of infections was increasing rapidly.

Scientists meanwhile said the first human trials of a potential vaccine would start next week using a product made by pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline and the US government.

On Friday, scientists writing in the journal Nature said 18 lab monkeys given high doses of the Ebola virus fully recovered after being given the prototype drug ZMapp, which reversed bleeding in the animals.

ZMapp has been given to a handful of frontline health workers who have contracted Ebola, two of whom have recovered, and two of whom have died. Three others are still receiving the treatment.

Senegal's health ministry said the country's first Ebola patient was a young Guinean man who was immediately quarantined at a Dakar hospital, where he was in a "satisfactory condition".

The man is believed to have been infected in Guinea's capital Conakry, and may have travelled to Senegal before Dakar closed its land border with Guinea on August 21.

Authorities are now scrabbling to piece together where he went and who he encountered, in a bid to halt the spread of the deadly virus.

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Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical staff wearing protective clothing treat the body of an Ebola …

New figures released by the WHO on Thursday revealed the massive scale of the crisis, which it said indicated a "rapid increase still in the intensity of transmission" that could cost at least $490 million (370 million euros) to tackle.

In a sign that affected countries are struggling to stop its spread, the UN agency said the number of cases could exceed 20,000 before the epidemic is brought under control.

- Under surveillance -

Never before has there been an Ebola outbreak so large, nor has the virus -- which was first detected in 1976 -- ever infected people in West Africa until now.

As of August 26, 1,552 people had been confirmed dead from Ebola in four countries -- Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.

Liberia was the worst affected with 694 deaths; 422 people have died in Sierra Leone; and 430 in Guinea, where the virus emerged at the start of the year. Nigeria has now recorded six deaths.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has also confirmed two cases of Ebola, but officials there insist it is unconnected to the current outbreak in West Africa.

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Health workers disinfect the walls at the Pita hospital in Guinea on August 25, 2014 (AFP Photo/Cell …

Sierra Leone President Ernest Koroma on Friday sacked health minister Miatta Kargbo.

A presidential statement read on state television said the decision was made "in order to create a conducive environment for more efficient and effective handling of the Ebola outbreak."

Nigeria's latest death -- in the southeastern oil city of Port Harcourt -- was the first outside its biggest city, Lagos, and dashed hopes that the country had successfully contained the virus.

The victim, a doctor named Ikyke Samuel Enuemo, is believed to have caught the virus from a patient he treated who travelled to the city after coming into contact with an infected Liberian-American man.

Some 160 people are now under surveillance in Port Harcourt following the doctor's death, the local government said on Friday.

Meanwhile a curfew was imposed in N'Zerekore, Guinea's second-largest city, a day after 20 people were injured during a protest by market stall holders against a team of health workers sent, without notice, to spray their market with disinfectant.

- A shield around the region -

In a bid to stop the spread of the virus, many African governments have sought to ringfence Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

But member states of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS complained Thursday that some of the security measures taken by other countries, including travel bans, had unfairly hit the region.

A number of airlines, including Air France and British Airways, have suspended their services to Freetown and Monrovia, the capitals of Sierra Leone and Liberia respectively.

Bruce Aylward, the WHO's head of emergency programmes, said it was "absolutely vital" that airlines resume flights because bans were hindering the emergency response.

The outbreak has also caused sporting chaos, with Sierra Leone having to field all players for the qualifying games for the African Cup of Nations from outside the country over a growing quarantine.

Morocco, which will host the tournament next year, said on Friday it was launching a national commission tasked with drawing up a health plan to deal with the risk from Ebola.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blamed Hamas on Friday for extending fighting with Israel in the Gaza Strip, casting doubt on the future of the Palestinian unity government that the Islamic militant group backs, while Israel's premier said the end of the war could mark resumption of peace talks with Abbas.

Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that it is still early to tell "if the new reality" would allow a political process to resume but said he is examining the possibility.

The remarks by the leaders come a few days after Israel and Hamas militants reached a truce after 50 bitter days of fighting.

More than 2,100 Palestinians were killed, including hundreds of civilians. Seventy one people on the Israeli side, including six civilians were killed.

Several Egyptian mediated cease-fire attempts during the conflict failed. Hamas eventually accepted almost the same truce offered at the beginning.

"It was possible for us to avoid all of that, 2,000 martyrs, 10,000 injured, 50,000 houses (destroyed)," Abbas told Palestine TV in remarks broadcast Friday. He said Hamas had insisted on discussing demands first before ending the war, which only served to prolong the violence needlessly.

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Palestinians hold a mock rocket and a model of a Hamas-made drone during a rally celebrating what th …

The war began after three Israeli teens were killed in the West Bank by Hamas operatives in June, prompting Israel to arrest hundreds of Hamas members there. Rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli cities then escalated and Israel launched a massive air and later ground campaign in retaliation. Fighting lasted almost two months.

Egyptian mediators tried early on to get the sides to agree to a ceasefire. Several temporary truces were broken by Gaza militants.

"The Egyptian formula was on the table on July 15th, it was backed by the Arab League, it was accepted by Israel but rejected by Hamas then and now more than a month later has belatedly been accepted by Hamas," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.

"As the dust clears from the conflict I'm sure many people in Gaza will be asking why did Hamas reject a month ago what it accepted today, and if it had accepted then what it accepted now, how much bloodshed could have been avoided."

The two sides agreed on Tuesday to an open-ended truce. The cease-fire brought an immediate end to the fighting but left key issues unresolved. Hamas immediately declared victory, even though it has very little to show for the war.

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Palestinians inspect the wreckage of a vehicle following an Israeli airstrike at the main street in …

While Israel agreed to loosen a long-standing blockade to allow humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials into Gaza, many of the border restrictions will remain in place. Hamas, meanwhile, rejected Israel's demands that it disarm.

These deeper matters are to be addressed in indirect talks in Egypt next month.

Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority formed a unity government backed by Hamas earlier this year questioned the future of that arrangement in the interview.

The unity government was meant to put an end to the animosity between the two Palestinian groups from when Hamas overran Gaza in 2007, ousting forces from the Fatah party, led by the Western-backed secular Abbas, in bloody street battles. Abbas has since governed only in parts of the West Bank, and Hamas has ruled Gaza.

Abbas is eager to regain a foothold in Gaza. With the international community shunning Hamas as a terrorist group, Abbas would be likely to operate Gaza's borders and oversee internationally funded reconstruction efforts.

"They (Hamas) have a shadow government, if this continues it means no unity. The test is coming soon. The government needs to do its job and handle everything," Abbas said. "I'm not saying everything needs to come to an end in one moment, this is a seven-year split that needs months or years," Abbas said.

Netanyahu, in an interview to channel 10 TV, said the end of the war with Hamas could mark the resumption of political negotiations with Abbas.

"There is today perhaps a reality that allows us to act in a way to promote our security interests and open a responsible political process based on the new reality. It is early to say that but it is not early to check it and I am checking it," Netanyahu said.

"I really hope we can cooperate with him (Abbas) in the political process," he said.

Netanyahu said Abbas "needs to choose between peace with Israel and Hamas."

"He (Abbas) understands this group (Hamas) was about to topple him, we exposed that," Netanyahu said. Earlier this month Israel said it had arrested nearly 100 Hamas operatives in the West Bank in an alleged plot to bring down Abbas.

U.S.-backed peace talks collapsed in April.

Palestine blames Hamas for extending Gaza war