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Will NATO Begin to Arm Ukraine Amid Worsening Violence?

Moscow (AFP) - Russia on Thursday warned the United States against sending weapons to Ukraine, saying such action would cause "colossal damage" to ties between the former Cold War foes.

Moscow is "seriously concerned" by discussions in the West about possible arms supplies to Ukraine which is battling a pro-Kremlin insurgency, said foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.

"Without a doubt, if such a decision is realised, it will cause colossal damage to US-Russian relations, especially if the residents of Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk regions) start to be killed by American weapons," Lukashevich said.

"This would not only threaten to escalate the situation in the southeast of Ukraine, but threatens the security of Russia, whose territory has been repeatedly shelled from Ukraine."

The West has repeatedly accused Moscow of fuelling the insurgency in eastern Ukraine -- where more than 5,000 people have been killed since last April -- with weapons and regular army units, but Russia denies any involvement.

Russia warns U.S. against arming Ukraine

Paris (AFP) - The Islamic State group has learned from the mistakes of past jihadist movements and established a near-impregnable base of support within Iraq and Syria with spectacular appeal to many of the world's Sunni Muslims, a new book has warned.

The authors of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror", published this month in the US, spoke to dozens of fighters and members of the group to understand its allure and how it justifies its brutal tactics.

In a telephone interview with AFP, one of the authors, Syrian-born journalist Hassan Hassan, said it was vital to understand that some of the group's core religious beliefs were widely shared.

"It presents itself as an apocalyptic movement, talking about the end of days, the return of the caliphate and its eventual domination of the world," said Hassan, who lives in Abu Dhabi where he works as a researcher for a think tank.

"These beliefs are not on the margins -- they are absolutely mainstream. They are preached by mosques across the world, particularly in the Middle East.

"ISIS takes these existing beliefs and makes them more appealing by offering a project that is happening right now," he said, using an alternative name for IS.

Hassan's research along with co-author Michael Weiss -- a US-based journalist -- gave them a rare insight into IS training camps for new recruits, which vary in length from two weeks to one year.

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A screen shot taken on September 23, 2014, allegedly shows Islamic State group recruits riding in ar …

"Recruits receive military, political and religious training. They are also trained in counter-intelligence to avoid being infiltrated," said Hassan.

"After they graduate, recruits remain under scrutiny and can be expelled or punished if they show reservations, or sent back to the camps to 'strengthen their faith'."

IS uses certain texts and in-house clerics to provide religious justification for their violence, particularly a book called "The Management of Savagery", which argues that brutality is a useful tool for goading the West into an over-reaction.

- Six categories -

The authors outline six categories of IS recruit.

Only two are rooted in religion: the ultra-radicals who dominate the group's upper echelons, and recent converts to its extremist ideology.

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A screen shot taken on January 23, 2015 from an Islamic State group online video shows a young man p …

Others are merely opportunists seeking money or power; pragmatists who want stability and see IS as the only game in town; and foreign fighters whose motives vary widely but "are almost always fed by serious misapprehensions of what is taking place in Iraq and Syria".

The final and most important category of recruit is often under-appreciated by the West -- those drawn by the group's political ideology.

Many Sunni Muslims in the region feel threatened by Shias led by a resurgent Iran.

"Across the region, Shias are confident, bold and on the rise, while Sunnis feel insecure and persecuted," said Hassan.

"Many disagree with ISIS on ethical grounds but they see them as the only group capable of protecting them."

The authors also emphasise that IS is not new, but rather emerged from the ashes of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), one of the most brutal foes of the Americans following their 2003 invasion.

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Militants of the ruling Baath party wave their rifles in the air and the Iraqi flag during training …

AQI was largely defeated after the US convinced local tribes to rise up against them -- a strategy known as "The Awakening", which has deeply influenced IS strategy.

"From the beginning, they've been obsessed with the Awakening," said Hassan.

"They've done everything to prevent it happening again: built sleeper cells, bought loyalty, divided communities.

"They've succeeded in making internal resistance practically impossible. No tribe will fight them, because they will find themselves fighting their own brothers and cousins."

- Revenge of Saddam -

The authors also depict IS as the revenge of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime more than a decade after the late Iraqi dictator was thrown out of power.

Most of the top IS decision-makers served either in Saddam's military or security services, the book says.

Although the Baathists were originally a secular movement, Saddam introduced a "Faith campaign" in the 1990s that sought to Islamise society.

"Very few people have focused on the impact of that campaign," said Hassan.

"It radicalised many Baathists and they combined the violence of the regime with that of jihadism, making them even worse than Al-Qaeda."

Indeed, Osama bin Laden famously fell out with AQI leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi over his horrific brutality and sectarian attacks on Shia Muslims.

Zarqawi, who was killed by a US missile strike in 2006, was so fanatical that he made bin Laden look like a moderate, and it is his mantle that has been picked up by IS.

Hassan remains pessimistic about Western counter-insurgency efforts.

"I keep hearing this argument that you can fight ISIS with propaganda, that this is an information war.

"But they have combined religion, geopolitics, economics and much more in their ideology. It's not a fragile ideology -- it has mass appeal."

Dubai (AFP) - Al-Qaeda said Thursday that Harith al-Nadhari, a senior figure who threatened more attacks on France after last month's Charlie Hebdo killings, had died in a US drone strike in Yemen.

Nadhari and three other militants were killed in a January 31 "crusader American drone strike against their car" in the southern Shabwa province, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said on Twitter.

AQAP named the others as Said Bafaraj, Abdelsamie al-Haddaa and Azzam al-Hadrami.

Tribal sources had said at the time that four suspected militants were left charred in their car after a drone strike.

Nadhari was considered to be one of AQAP's senior religious scholars tasked with promoting sharia, Islamic law.

He had urgedmore attacks on France such as those on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris that killed 17 people.

"It is better for you to stop your aggression against the Muslims, so perhaps you will live safely," Nadhari was quoted saying in a January 10 video after the attacks.

Four days later, AQAP ideologue Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi claimed the Charlie Hebdo assault on behalf of the group.

Despite an ongoing political crisis in Yemen, US President Barack Obama vowed on January 25 not to let up in Washington's campaign against jihadists there.

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A US drone killed one of Al-Qaeda's top militants in Yemen (AFP Photo/Johannes Eisele)

He ruled out deploying troops, but said Washington would continue "to go after high value targets inside Yemen".

At least 11 suspected Al-Qaeda militants have been killed in drone strikes in central and southern Yemen since then.

Western governments say it is unclear if AQAP directly orchestrated the Charlie Hebdo attack, although they do believe one or both of the perpetrators, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, spent time with jihadists in Yemen.

AQAP was formed in 2009 after a merger between militants in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

- US talks to Huthis -

According to the New America Foundation, the United States has carried out more than 110 strikes in Yemen since 2009, mostly using drones.

In September 2011, a drone strike killed US-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi, the AQAP leader accused of instigating a string of attacks against the United States.

That attack followed "statements by US officials on further intelligence cooperation with the Huthis on fighting terrorism," AQAP said Thursday, referring to the powerful Shiite militia that seized Yemen's capital in September and has clashed with Sunni Al-Qaeda regularly since then.

"Huthis have become faithful US partners in preserving its interests and implementing its plans in the Arabian Peninsula," said AQAP, vowing to continue fighting "Americans, crusaders and Huthis".

The Huthis seized the presidential palace and key government buildings on January 20, plunging the country deeper into crisis and prompting President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi and his premier to resign.

Since they overran the capital and towns farther south, they have met resistance not only from Al-Qaeda but also from Sunni tribesmen.

The Pentagon has said US officials were holding discussions with representatives of the militia but were not sharing intelligence on Al-Qaeda.

The Wall Street Journal reported this month that US officials were in touch with Huthi fighters largely through intermediaries.

AQAP took advantage of a 2011 uprising that forced veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh from power to seize large swathes of the south and east.

The army recaptured several major towns in 2012 but has struggled to reassert control in rural areas despite recruiting militia allies among local tribes.

Also on Thursday, four policemen were killed by gunmen in the southern city of Aden, with security sources blaming separatists for the attack in which they said the assailants also fired shells.

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Jordan's King Abdullah Launches Revenge on ISIS

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordanian fighter jets pounded Islamic State hideouts in Syria on Thursday and then roared over the hometown of a pilot killed by the militants, while below them King Abdullah consoled the victim's family.

An armed forces statement said tens of Jordanian fighter jets were deployed in the attacks, which destroyed ammunition depots and training camps run by the Islamic State. The attacks were "just the beginning", it said.

Witnesses overheard the monarch telling the pilot's father the planes were returning from the militant-held city of Raqqa. A security source told Reuters the strikes hit targets in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor and near Raqqa.

The show of force came two days after the ultra-hardline Islamic State released a video showing captured Jordanian pilot Mouath al-Kasaesbeh being burned alive in a cage as masked militants in camouflage uniforms looked on.

State television aired footage of fighter jets taking off to carry out the raids. Several men and women were shown writing Koranic verses and anti-Islamic State slogans on what appeared to be the bombs used in the attacks. It later broadcast the actual bombing, before the jets returned safely to Jordan.

U.S. aircraft joined the mission to provide intelligence, surveillance as well as reconnaissance and targeting support, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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Jordan's King Abdullah (C) embraces Fahed al-Kasaesbeh, the uncle of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Ka …

The official also said the strikes focused on multiple targets around Raqqa.

Military commanders briefed King Abdullah after the missions about the details of the strikes, state television said.

The monarch has vowed to avenge Kasaesbeh's killing and ordered commanders to prepare for a stepped-up military role in the U.S.-led coalition against the group. But many Jordanians fear being dragged into a conflict that could trigger a backlash by hardline militants inside the kingdom.

Jordan is a major U.S. ally in the fight against hardline Islamist groups, and hosted U.S. troops during operations that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It is home to hundreds of U.S. military trainers bolstering defences at the Syrian and Iraqi borders and is determined to keep the jihadists in Syria away from its frontiers.

"NO HUMANITY"

State television showed a sombre king sitting alongside the army chief and senior officials visiting the Kasaesbeh tribal family in Aya, a village some 100 km (60 miles) south of the capital Amman.

The king, wearing a traditional Arab head dress, was met by cheering crowds with cries of "Long Live his Majesty the King, Long Live the King" in traditional Bedouin chanting.

Thousands of Jordanians flocked to pay their respects. The region's influential tribes form an important pillar of support for the Hashemite monarchy and supply the army and security forces with their manpower.

"You are a wise monarch. These criminals violated the rules of war in Islam and they have no humanity. Even humanity disowns them," Safi Kasaesbeh, father of the pilot, told the king.

The Jordanian monarch has vowed that the pilot's death, which has stirred nationalist fervour across the country, will bring severe retaliation against Islamic State.

Hours after the release of the video showing the pilot burning to death, the authorities executed two al Qaeda militants who had been on death row, including a woman who had tried to blow herself up in a suicide bombing and whose release had been demanded by Islamic State.

(Writing by Mariam Karouny and Sylvia Westall; Additional reporting by Phillip Stewart in Washington; Editing by Tom Heneghan and Mark Trevelyan)

France's president warned that the world was not doing enough to end the wanton killings by the militants, who have waged a campaign of terror in a broad swath of northeastern Nigeria, where they declared an Islamic caliphate in August.

At least 91 villagers were killed and more than 500 were wounded in the northern Cameroon town of Fotokol on the border with Nigeria, where fighting began Wednesday and continued Thursday, Cameroonian officials said.

While Boko Haram has previously carried out attacks in Cameroon, the latest bloodshed came after the group warned Nigeria's neighbors against uniting against it. Cameroon and Chad joined Nigeria in launching an air and ground offensive against the insurgents on at least two fronts this week.

Military involvement by other African nations in the fight against the insurgents stands to grow even bigger. African Union officials met Thursday to finalize plans for a multinational force to attack Boko Haram, though its deployment could be delayed by funding issues.

Last week, African leaders authorized a 7,500-strong force to fight the Islamic extremists, including pledges of a battalion each from Nigeria and its four neighbors, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin.

"We consider Boko Haram to be a cancer, and if the international community does not focus its mind on this disease it will spread not only in Central Africa but other regions, all over the continent," Cameroon's Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said at the start of the three-day meeting in Yaounde, Cameroon's capital.

Officials from the United States, France, Russia, Britain and the European Union were attending, along with senior officials from the U.N. peacekeeping department.

Earlier, Bakary told The Associated Press that some 800 Boko Haram fighters were rampaging through the frontier town of Fotokol, located in a thin northern panhandle of the West African nation.

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A family, that escaped Boko Haram attacks in both Michika and Cameroon, seek shelter in an uncomplet …

They have "burned churches, mosques and villages and slaughtered youth who resisted joining them," he said, adding that the insurgents also stole livestock and food. Schools were also being targeted by the insurgents, whose nickname means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language.

Hundreds of Boko Haram fighters were killed Wednesday, according to Cameroon's defense minister, Edgard Alain Mebe Ngo, who said 13 Chadian and six Cameroonian troops were killed in the fighting. There was no way to independently confirm the account.

At least 91 civilians were killed, Ngo said, adding that most of the 500 wounded were trapped and could not be taken to hospitals.

The Boko Haram fighters are believed to have crossed into Cameroon from nearby Gamboru, a Nigerian border town that had been an extremist stronghold since November. Gamboru was retaken earlier this week and the fighters driven out amid Chadian and Nigerian airstrikes supported by Chadian ground troops.

French jets also were flying over the area to provide intelligence, French defense officials in Paris said.

The French leader told a Paris news conference that France supports African forces fighting what he called a "terrorist sect" that has carried out "horrible massacres."

He issued a stern call to other world powers, saying: "France can't resolve all the conflicts in the world."

"Do your work. Don't give lectures. Take action."

France previously took the forefront in attacking al-Qaida-linked militants that controlled northern Mali, France's former colony, in 2013 and ousting the insurgents from the main cities. Battle-hardened troops from Chad also took part in the operations against the Islamic militants.

At the Yaounde meeting, U.S. Ambassador Michael S. Hoza said the United States would help in the fight against Boko Haram, though he did not provide details.

Relations between Washington and Nigeria have been strained because the United States has refused to sell Nigeria helicopter gunships and other military weaponry that U.S. law prohibits from being sold to countries whose militaries are accused of gross human rights abuses. The Nigerian military is accused of killing thousands of civilians under state of emergency powers that were declared to curb Boko Haram's rebellion.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, has the continent's biggest economy and is its top oil producer, with most reserves being in the southwest of the country and offshore.

International concern has grown as Boko Haram has increased the tempo and ferocity of its attacks just as Nigeria is preparing for presidential and legislative elections on Feb. 14.

Some 10,000 people were killed in Boko Haram violence last year compared to 2,000 in the first four years of Nigeria's Islamic uprising, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

___

Faul reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Jamey Keaten in Paris contributed to this report.