Bloomberg
Obama Battles Congress on Islamic State Battle Plan

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama sent the U.S. Congress legislation Wednesday to authorize military force against Islamic State fighters, summoning lawmakers to "show the world we are united in our resolve" to defeat militants who have overrun parts of the Middle East and threaten attacks on the United States.

In urging Congress to back military force, the president ruled out "enduring offensive combat operations," a deliberately ambiguous phrase designed to satisfy lawmakers with widely different views on any role for U.S. ground troops.

Majority Republicans in Congress responded warily to the request.

The leader of House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner, expressed doubt it would "give our military commanders the flexibility and authorities they need to succeed and protect our people." He said changes were likely before the measure comes to a vote.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, like Boehner, said the proposal would receive serious consideration.

There was no timetable for Congress to act on the president's request, which triggers the first war powers vote in Congress since President George W. Bush sought and won an authorization in 2002 before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

View gallery

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merk …

In a letter to lawmakers that accompanied the three-page draft legislation, Obama said the Islamic State "poses a threat to the people and stability of Iraq, Syria and the broader Middle East and to U.S. national security."

While asking Congress to bar long-term, large scale ground combat operations like those in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama said he wants the flexibility for ground combat operations "in other more limited circumstances." Those include rescue missions, intelligence collection and the use of special operations forces in possible military action against IS leaders.

The issue of ground forces is likely to prove difficult in the administration's attempt to win passage of legislation.

While some Republicans favor their use, many Democrats oppose it, mindful of the long and deadly war in Iraq.

The House Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, issued a statement that refrained from endorsing Obama's proposal. It said Congress should act judiciously and promptly to pass legislation "narrowly tailored" to the fight against IS.

View gallery

FILE - In this undated file image posted on Monday, June 30, 2014, by the Raqqa Media Center of the …

Obama arranged to speak publicly about the request later Wednesday.

In his letter, he referred to four American hostages who have died in Islamic State custody — at least three of them beheaded. He said the group, if left unchecked, "will pose a threat beyond the Middle East, including to the United States homeland."

Among the four hostages was Kayla Mueller, a 26-year-old humanitarian worker whose death under unknown circumstances was confirmed Tuesday. In addition, the group has urged sympathizers to attacks Western targets.

Obama proposed a three-year time limit on the authorization for the use of force, a schedule that would leave the legislation in force through the first year of his successor's term in office.

He also proposed no geographic limitations where U.S. forces could pursue the militants. The authorization covers the Islamic State and "associated persons or forces," defined as those fighting on behalf of or alongside IS "or any closely-related successor entity in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners."

N'Djamena (AFP) - Boko Haram on Wednesday launched a pre-dawn raid in Gamboru, northeastern Nigeria, looking to overwhelm Chadian troops who had pushed them out of the border town.

The military in N'Djamena said the militants were repelled but the counter-attack was an indication of the task facing regional forces aiming to crush the rebellion.

Troops from Chad, Cameroon and Niger have been deployed to fight the Islamists, whose bloody insurgency has claimed more than 13,000 lives since 2009 and now threatens Nigeria's neighbours.

In Niger a suicide bomber was killed, without causing any other casualties, in the Diffa region bordering Nigeria on Wednesday, a local official told AFP.

The bomber, a man or woman wearing a hijab, was spotted by police who opened fire. "The explosion left no victims," the official said.

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan defended a decision to delay the country's general election by six weeks because of the unrest, saying he was "very hopeful" that the multi-national offensive will see successes against the Islamists in the coming weeks.

"Initially, our neighbours were not too committed" to fighting Boko Haram but the new cooperation was promising, he said.

Jonathan also dismissed allegations that his political interests motivated the decision to push back the polls initially scheduled for February 14, in his first public comments since the delay was announced.

"I was not consulted and I don't want to be consulted" on the postponement, Jonathan said in a nationally broadcast interview, insisting that election officials made an independent decision after receiving guidance from the security agencies.

- Counter-attack -

Boko Haram's counter-attack on Gamboru, which has been repeatedly targeted in the past, is an established tactic from the militants, who have seized dozens of towns and villages since mid-2014.

The extent of the rebels' control of the captured areas has been hard to verify, with claim and counter-claim that the authority has repeatedly switched between the insurgents and the military.

Boko Haram's apparent ability to regroup is a sign of its transformation from a rag-tag guerrilla group carrying out hit and run strikes to a more effective fighting force.

The insurgents were initially pushed out of Gamboru, which lies on the Nigerian side of the border with Cameroon in the eastern fringe of Borno state, on February 3.

Chadian ground troops crossed over the bridge marking the frontier after days of sustained bombardment. The following day, rebel fighters counter-attacked in the Cameroon town of Fotokol.

"The Boko Haram elements wanted to surprise us by attacking at about 4:00 am (0300 GMT)," a military source in N'Djamena told AFP of the latest attack.

"We were aware of it from the day before and were prepared. They arrived with 14 vehicles and two armoured vehicles. We repulsed them and they retreated.

"A helicopter was brought in to join the pursuit and destroy them."

One Chadian soldier and several Boko Haram fighters were killed, while eight troops were injured, the source said.

- Regional force -

Boko Haram has stepped up the frequency and intensity of its attacks since the turn of the year, in part to undermine the Nigerian elections.

A devastating attack on the fishing hub of Baga on January 3 has been seen as a turning point in regional cooperation, galvanising neighbouring powers into providing assistance to the Nigerian Army.

Since then, there have been repeated attacks in northern Cameroon, while the Islamists last weekend opened up a new front across the border in Niger, attacking the border region of Diffa.

Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou on Wednesday urged his nation to stand up to Boko Haram Islamists.

"Our country will not go down in history as having been cowed by an enemy that wants to cover our country in darkness," Issoufou said in a speech broadcast on national radio, urging Nigeriens to support their security forces in their battle against the militants.

The appeal came a day after Niamey imposed a 15-day state of emergency in Diffa, where thousands of Nigerians have fled the violence.

Nigeria maintains the involvement of troops from Chad, Cameroon and now Niger, after the parliament in Niamey approved the deployment of soldiers, is part of an existing agreement.

At the same time, all four countries, whose borders converge on Lake Chad, with Benin, Nigeria's neighbour to the west, agreed to provide 8,700 personnel for an African Union-backed regional force.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said in a video published on Monday that the group would defeat the regional forces.

The head of the FBI’s counterterrorism division was blunt about the threat here at home from Americans who’ve trained withterrorist groups like ISIS overseas: “We don’t have it under control.”

“It’s not even close to being under control,” FBI Deputy Assistant Director Michael Steinbach told House members today.

Over nearly three hours of testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee, Steinbach laid out the evolving threats facing the U.S. homeland and the efforts underway to stop them. He was joined by the director of the National Counterterrorism Center and the Department of Homeland Security’s top intelligence official.

All three agreed that because of few intelligence assets on the ground in the region, particularly in Syria, the U.S. government has little insight into who’s joining terrorist groups there, and who’s then leaving with what NCTC director Nicholas Rasmussen described as “training in weapons and explosives” and “access to terror networks that may be ultimately planning attacks” against the West.

“In many cases the information we have on foreign fighters traveling to the conflict zone stops when they get there,” Rasmussen warned.

Within its ranks, ISIS is estimated to have 50,000 “barbarians,” as the committee’s chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, put it. In Syria and Iraq, fighting with ISIS and other groups, there are more than 20,000 foreign fighters, including at least 3,400 recruited from Western countries, the U.S. officials said today.

“It exceeds the rate of travelers who went to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, orSomalia or other prominent conflict zones ... at any point in the last 20 years," Rasmussen said.

Of the dozens of Americans who have gone to Syria or Iraq and trained with terrorists there, “a small group” of them have returned to the United States and are now being tracked by the FBI, sources previously told ABC News.

But today, Steinbach told lawmakers: "It would not be true if I told you that we knew about all of the returnees. … We know what we know.”

Nevertheless, authorities are “doing the best we can” to keep tabs on Americans and others traveling to Syria or Iraq, and to develop new “processes” to identify travelers, Steinbach said. He suggested automated searches of social media could help deal with the problem.

Steinbach described ISIS’ online efforts as “dangerously competent like no other group before,” using social media and other Internet forums “to both radicalize and recruit.”

Since the beginning of last month alone, ISIS has published more than 250 “official products” online, and those postings “reach wide and far almost instantaneously, with reposting and regeneration of follow-on links” in “an ever-growing number” of languages, according to Rasmussen.

Such a proliferation has spawned a new “blended threat,” bringing “foreign-fighter ideology” to homegrown extremists who have no real connection to terrorist groups overseas and are difficult to detect, Steinbach said.

“With the widespread horizontal distribution of social media, terrorists can identify sympathetic individuals of all ages in the United States – spot, assess, recruit, and radicalize either to travel or conduct a homeland attack,” Steinbach said. "A foreign terrorist now has direct access into the United States like never before."

Indeed, U.S. officials believe there are “a few hundred individuals” inside the United States who could be inclined to launch their own attacks, and the public should expect several – but fewer than 10 – “uncoordinated and unsophisticated plots” each year, Rasmussen said in a written statement submitted to the House committee before his testimony.

The head of Intelligence and Analysis at DHS, Under Secretary Francis Taylor, said such threats underscore the need for "increased vigilance" across government and in public.

Fighting online recruitment and radicalization efforts is difficult and complicated, the U.S. officials noted. While the U.S. government has “direct engagement” with the big companies such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, a “large number” of social media sites are hosted overseas by companies “who flaunt their lack of cooperation with law enforcement,” according to Steinbach.

Still, Steinbach said he has a “grave concern” over new phones and other devices being developed by the major tech companies, devices that allegedly leave no ability for authorities to collect information, even when a court approves it. The FBI has dubbed the growing issue “Going Dark.”

“This real and growing gap … must be urgently addressed because the risks of going Dark are great,” Steinbach, adding, "Without that lawful tool, we risk an attack."

Jerusalem (AFP) - Israel's Shin Bet security service said on Wednesday that in a joint operation with the navy it foiled a Palestinian attempt to sail rocket-making materials from Egypt into Gaza.

It said in a statement that three Gazans appeared in an Israeli court charged with "security offences" after being arrested at sea last month with a cargo of liquid fibreglass.

It added that under interrogation, the men said the substance was intended for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamist Hamas movement, "and was meant to provide the raw material used to produce rockets and mortars".

Hamas has issued no statement on any interception.

Shin Bet said seaborne smuggling attempts have increased recently as a result of the Egyptian army's destruction of hundreds of tunnels between its troubled Sinai region and the neighbouring Palestinian territory where Hamas is the de facto power.

Since Egypt's military ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, the authorities have accused Hamas of aiding jihadists who have waged a string of deadly attacks on Egyptian security forces in the Sinai.