Jordan warns of 'grave consequences' if Islamic State harms pilot

It turns out that the Islamic State, which seized large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria this year, is not so good at the whole running a state thing. According to The Washington Post, areas under ISIS' control are rapidly falling apart due to severe mismanagement:

In the Iraqi city of Mosul, the water has become undrinkable because supplies of chlorine have dried up, said a journalist living there, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his safety. Hepatitis is spreading, and flour is becoming scarce, he said. "Life in the city is nearly dead, and it is as though we are living in a giant prison," he said.

In the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group's self-styled capital, water and electricity are available for no more than three or four hours a day, garbage piles up uncollected, and the city's poor scavenge for scraps on streets crowded with sellers hawking anything they can find, residents say. [The Washington Post]

Wochit
Pakistan Kills 77 Militants After School Massacre

Pakistani security forces have killed a Taliban commander who allegedly facilitated the Peshawar school massacre, which left 150 people dead in the country's worst ever terror attack, officials said Friday.

Named only as "Saddam", the militant was killed Thursday night in a gunfight with security forces in the restive Khyber tribal area, which borders the northwestern city of Peshawar where last week's horrific attack took place.

"Commander Saddam was a dreaded terrorist, who was killed in an exchange of fire with the security forces in Jamrud town of Khyber tribal region," top local administration official Shahab Ali Shah told a press conference in Peshawar.

"Six of his accomplices were injured and arrested."

He added that Saddam is believed to have facilitated the school attack, although the extent or capacity of his alleged involvement was not yet known.

"Authorities are currently interrogating the injured terrorists," Shah said.

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Women supporters of Pakistani party Jammat-e-Islami (JI) pray for the victims of the Peshawar school …

He described Saddam as an important commander in the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and said he had masterminded several bomb attacks.

Saddam and his accomplices had been involved in several recent attacks on security forces that had resulted in heavy casualties, Shah said.

The Taliban and other militants have taken refuge in Khyber from a major army offensive launched in June in North Waziristan, another restive tribal area on the Afghan border that has been a hub for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants since the early 2000s.

Meanwhile, a US drone strike on a Taliban compound in North Waziristan killed at least four militants on Friday, officials said, the second such incident in a week.

Another drone strike in North Waziristan on December 20 killed at least five militants, officials said.

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File photo of Pakistani soldiers patrolling a town during a military operation against Taliban milit …

The area is generally off-limits to journalists, making it difficult to independently verify the number and identity of the dead.

Washington pressed Islamabad for years to wipe out militant sanctuaries in North Waziristan, which have been used to launch attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani military says it has killed more than 1,700 militants so far in its heavy offensive in the tribal zone, with 126 soldiers having lost their lives.

Pakistan has ramped up its anti-terror strategy in the wake of the December 16 slaughter at an army-run school in Peshawar, where 134 children were among the victims gunned down by heavily-armed Taliban militants.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced the establishment of military courts for terror-related cases in order to accelerate trials, and he has also lifted a six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.

Officials said Monday that Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants in the coming weeks.'Facilitator' of Taliban school attack killed in Pakistan

Wochit
Islamic State Targeted in 31 Strikes by U.S., Allies: Task Force

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Smoke rises on November 13, 2014 after shelling on the Syrian city of Kobane (AFP Photo/Aris Messini …

Washington (AFP) - The US-led coalition pounded the Islamic State jihadist group with 31 air strikes Friday, including more than a dozen in the flashpoint Syrian town of Kobane, the Pentagon said.

The 13 strikes in Kobane, which is known as Ain al-Arab in Arabic, destroyed 19 fighting positions, as well as IS buildings, staging areas and a vehicle, the Defense Department said in a statement.

Several tactical units were also hit by fighter and bomber aircraft, as well drones, the statement said.

Fighting over Kobane began in mid-September, when the IS launched a bid to take over the town on the border with Turkey. The US-led coalition has been launching air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria since September 23.

There were a total of 16 strikes in Syria, where coalition raids also struck a drilling tower, more vehicles, and another staging area.

In Iraq, strikes destroyed an IS rocket system near the town of Al Asad in Anbar province.

The jets and drones also targeted IS vehicles, fighting positions, equipment, tactical units, and a storage container, in a total of 15 raids across seven locations in Iraq.

An NYPD logo is pictured on wall above makeshift memorial at the site where two police officers were shot in the head in the Brooklyn borough of New York, December 22, 2014. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

By Jonathan Allen and Sebastien Malo

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Police officers in dress uniform and other mourners joined a somber, four-block line outside a New York City church on Friday for the wake of one of two officers shot by a man who said he was avenging the killing of unarmed black men by police.

Targeted for their uniform, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were slain last Saturday afternoon while sitting in their patrol car in Brooklyn in what is only the seventh instance of police partners being killed together in the city in more than 40 years.

Draped in the New York Police Department's green, white and blue flag, Ramos's coffin was carried into a church in his suburban Queens neighborhood by police officers as colleagues from his Brooklyn station house stood saluting.

"He was this beam of light," Elizabeth Vidal, who had known Ramos for more than a decade as a fellow usher at Christ Tabernacle Church, said as she waited to go inside, her voice cracking with sadness.

Ramos, 40, had been on the force for two years and was raising two teenage sons with his wife, Maritza.

His funeral on Saturday will come at the end of a week in which blame swirled and heated rhetoric flashed across a city that had largely escaped some of the more violent outbursts seen in six months of nationwide protests against police use of force.

In extraordinary scenes at the hospital where Liu and Ramos were taken on Saturday, police union leaders, angered by Mayor Bill de Blasio's qualified support of the protesters, said the mayor had "blood on his hands". As the mayor arrived at the hospital, some officers turned their backs to him in a pointed display of disrespect.

Two days later, a visibly angered de Blasio chastised journalists at a news conference for what he called "divisive" coverage, while urging activists to halt demonstrations until after the police funerals. Over the week, however, small groups of protesters continued to take to the streets chanting "How do you spell murderer? NYPD" and other anti-police chants.

The mayor has said he hopes the funerals will help mend the city's fractured mood. Some people attending the wake saw little reason to refrain from criticism.

Marta Mares, who said she only learned Ramos was a neighbor after his death, arrived at the church two hours early.

"We want to support NYPD officers because now we can see what danger they are in, especially under Mayor de Blasio," she said.

"We love you guys," a woman shouted from a crowd of onlookers as Bill Bratton, the city's police commissioner, headed into the church. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic Archbishop of New York, and Rudy Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, also visited.

Thousands of police officers from departments around the country, including those in St. Louis, Atlanta, Boston, New Orleans and Washington, D.C., were expected to join U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and other officials for the funeral service at the church on Saturday. Nearly 700 officers had taken up an offer JetBlue Airways Corp to fly two members of each law enforcement agency to New York for free, an airline spokeswoman said.

With a crowd of thousands expected, a large screen was set up on an intersection near the church to relay the service to the overflow. Security was tight, with about a dozen blocks closed to traffic. Police dogs sniffed the streets, and officers could be seen watching on nearby rooftops.

Police had yet to announce details for the funeral of Liu, 32, while federal officials helped relatives in China travel to the United States.

The execution-style killing was so swift, according to the city's police commissioner, that the officers may never have seen their assailant, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, who soon after shot himself and died in a nearby subway station.

Brinsley, who was black, wrote online that he wanted to kill police officers to avenge the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, unarmed black men killed by white policemen in New York and Ferguson, Missouri. Ramos and Liu were not involved in those cases and others that have sparked protests.

The deaths of Garner and Brown and the decisions not to prosecute the officers responsible ignited protests across the country, renewing a debate about race in America that has drawn in U.S. President Barack Obama.

Protest leaders expressed horror at the killings, saying they were not responsible for the actions of a man described by city officials as emotionally troubled. Brinsley shot and wounded his ex-girlfriend in Baltimore before traveling to Brooklyn.

Relatives of Garner joined civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton on Christmas Day to say prayers for both Ramos and Liu.

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington, Jonathan Kaminsky in New Orleans and Mark Guarino in Chicago; Editing by Howard Goller and Christian Plumb)