French security officials have warned more jihadist attacks are expected in the country as the level of terrorist threat has “reached a level without precedent.” Counter-terrorism officials described the threat as “permanent”.

“Not one day goes by without an alert, the discovery of a network trying to send people to Syria or Iraq, or an intervention (by the security services),” a high-level official from the Defense Ministry of France told AFP on condition of anonymity.

According to the source, there are currently around 4,000 people who are “identified or suspected of evil intentions” in France.

These aren’t just amateurs, they include some highly educated people – “pros, not drop-outs,” he added.

The French security services are forced to “play catch-up” with the terrorists as they “use the best encryption and concealment techniques,” the official stressed.

"Every time we get our hands on a network, we see they are each using seven or eight SIM cards, changing them constantly. And the most cunning don't go near phones at all - they use messengers," he said.

Read more​France moves to legalize warrantless data surveillance

According to another unnamed counter-terrorist official, the source of biggest concern are former so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS/ISIL) fighters, who returned to France after taking part in military action in Iraq and Syria.

Those 200 individuals are especially dangerous as “they have lost all inhibitions about violence," he explained.

Security services are trying to put them under the tightest possible surveillance, but their resources are limited, the source said, adding that terrorists may wait for years before executing their plots.

As an example, he cited the Kouachi brothers responsible for the deadly attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris this January, when 17 people were killed.

Read moreFrench PM predicts 10,000 Europeans to join ISIS before 2015 ends

The duo was known to be connected to jihadist networks in France, but they had been ‘sleeping’ for several years and had eventually fallen off the radar of anti-terrorist officials. Since then the French security services have been put on high alert.

But security officials told AFP that even such desperate measures as deployment of police and military at media HQs, synagogues and other vulnerable sites, will unlikely prevent new attacks.

"The problem is not to know if there will be a new attack. It is to know when and where," said French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, as he unveiled new surveillance laws last week.

There are also fears that competition between different terrorist organizations may lead to even more violence in France.

"Al-Qaeda needs to restore its prestige and will try to compete with IS with complex and major actions,"the official noted.

He added that security services are concerned that an Al-Qaeda wing known as Khorasan is planning an attack on a major airline.

The Islamic State “is in the process of training commandos and sending them to our territory with high-quality equipment," the source said.

(RT)

The United States has confirmed that it is seized of North Korea's threat of developing a submarine-launched ballistic missile. This was officially acknowledged by Adm. Cecil D. Haney, the top commander, while briefing the U.S Congress on Thursday about emerging threats including China’s multi-warhead missiles.

According to Pentagon, the first flight test of North Korea's KN-11 SLBM was held in February 2014. Haney said North Korea is continuing its advance in nuclear weapon capabilities and have “a miniaturised warhead capable of delivery by ballistic missile.” The February test was followed a land-based ejection test in November, from a static launcher at its Sinpo South Shipyard.

Haney said the complex and dangerous global security environment is seeing nations around the world continue to execute long-term military modernisation programs including capabilities that pose an existential threat to the United States, adding that military forces of nations and groups are “improving across all domains.”

In his prepared testimony, the Admiral endorsed reports that North Korea is working on a new underwater missile capability and has put to rest the skepticism whether the communist state had the technical expertise to build a missile capable of being fired from a submerged submarine.

Open Threat

The statement of U.S Admiral is significant in the context of North Korea’s U. K Ambassador Hyun Hak-bong’s claim that his country is ready to go for a nuclear strike. He told Sky News in London that, “We don't say empty words. We mean what we mean. It is not the United States that has a monopoly on nuclear weapons strikes. We are prepared. A sparkle of a fire is made on the Korean peninsula will lead to a nuclear war.” On being asked whether North Korea has the ability to fire a nuclear missile? "Anytime, anytime, yes." the ambassador claimed.

Meanwhile, North Korea continues to hold out military threats. The latest is its response to balloons that South Korean activists are planning to send along with 10,000 DVDs of the Hollywood film “The Interview”. The film is a comedy about a fictional CIA plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jon Un. The DVDs are to be accompanied by 500,000 propaganda leaflets across the de-militarized zone on March 26. But, Pyongyang's News Agency called the launch a "de facto declaration of war." South Korea’s military warned that it would retaliate if North Korea opens fire on it territory.

China’s Coercion

Admiral Haney also apprised the Senate panel of China’s “low intensity coercion” in the Asia Pacific and its pursuit of space weapons developments as part of its global aspirations. The U.S. officials have confirmed that China had conducted the first flight test of a new missile called the DF-31B, which is a multi-warhead version of its existing DF-31A, which is known for hard to track nature ability to launch with little warning.

The Admiral also said China is also into testing of ballistic missile submarines and "developing multi-dimensional space capabilities supporting their access-denial campaign.” Access denial refers to weapons are designed to drive U.S. forces out of Asia to allow Beijing to become the dominant power there.

ISIS Threat

Meanwhile, the U.S. Marine Corps on Sunday urged “vigilance” after a group claiming to be Islamic State hackers, published names and addresses of 100 U.S military personnel with an appeal to supporters to kill them, reports AFP. The Islamic State Hacking Division posted the detailed online information about personnel of the U.S Air force, Army and Navy with their photos and ranks, monitoring group SITE Intelligence reported.

In its response, the U.S. Marine Corps said it is contacting all affected staff, and urged caution. Vigilance and force protection considerations remain a priority for commanders and their personnel, said U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel John Caldwell. However, Caldwell said the threat remained "unverified."

ISIS, in its message gave the rationale of such an action and said these 100 military staff had targeted the Islamic State group in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The radical group said "with the huge amount of data we have from various different servers and databases, we have decided to leak 100 addresses so that our brothers residing in America can deal with you. Now we have made it easy for you by giving you addresses, all you need to do is take the final step, so what are you waiting for?” the radical group wrote.

(For feedback/comments, contact the writer at kalyanaussie@gmail.com)

(International Business Times)

WSJ Live
New Details on Germanwings Crash Emerge

SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France (AP) — A black box recovered from the scene and pulverized pieces of debris strewn across Alpine mountainsides held clues to what caused a German jetliner to take an unexplained eight-minute dive Tuesday midway through a flight from Spain to Germany, apparently killing all 150 people on board.

The victims included two babies, two opera singers and 16 German high school students and their teachers returning from an exchange trip to Spain. It was the deadliest crash in France in decades.

The Airbus A320 operated by Germanwings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, was less than an hour from landing in Duesseldorf on a flight from Barcelona when it unexpectedly went into a rapid descent. The pilots sent out no distress call and had lost radio contact with their control center, France's aviation authority said, deepening the mystery.

While investigators searched through debris from Flight 9525 on steep and desolate slopes, families across Europe reeled with shock and grief. Sobbing relatives at both airports were led away by airport workers and crisis counselors.

"The site is a picture of horror. The grief of the families and friends is immeasurable," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after being flown over the crash scene. "We must now stand together. We are united in our great grief."

It took investigators hours to reach the site, led by mountain guides to the craggy ravine in the southern French Alps, not far from the Italian border and the French Riviera.

Video shot from a helicopter and aired by BFM TV showed rescuers walking in the crevices of a rocky mountainside scattered with plane parts. Photos of the crash site showed white flecks of debris across a mountain and larger airplane body sections with windows. A helicopter crew that landed briefly in the area saw no signs of life, French officials said.

"Everything is pulverized. The largest pieces of debris are the size of a small car. No one can access the site from the ground," Gilbert Sauvan, president of the general council, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, told The Associated Press.

View gallery

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A screengrab taken on March 24, 2015 shows search and rescue personnel at the crash site of the Germanwings Airbus …

The White House and the airline chief said there was no sign that terrorism was involved, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged reporters not to speculate on the cause.

"We still don't know much beyond the bare information on the flight, and there should be no speculation on the cause of the crash," she said in Berlin. "All that will be investigated thoroughly."

Lufthansa Vice President Heike Birlenbach told reporters in Barcelona that for now "we say it is an accident."

In Washington, the White House said American officials were in contact with their French, Spanish and German counterparts. "There is no indication of a nexus to terrorism at this time," said U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan.

Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy were to visit the site Wednesday.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said a black box had been located at the crash site and "will be immediately investigated." He did not say whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.

The two devices — actually orange boxes designed to survive extreme heat and pressure — should provide investigators with a second-by-second timeline of the plane's flight.

The voice recorder takes audio feeds from four microphones within the cockpit and records all the conversations between the pilots, air traffic controllers as well as any noises heard in the cockpit. The flight data recorder captures 25 hours' worth of information on the position and condition of almost every major part in a plane.

View gallery

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A student places a lit candle outside the Josef-Koenig-Gymnasium high school in Haltern am See, March, 24, 2015. …

Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr called it the "blackest day of our company's 60-year history." He insisted, however, that flying "remains after this terrible day the safest mode of transport."

Germanwings said 144 passengers and six crew members were on board. Authorities said 67 Germans were believed among the victims, including the 16 high school students and two opera singers, as well as many Spaniards, two Australians and one person each from the Netherlands, Turkey and Denmark.

Contralto Maria Radner was returning to Germany with her husband and baby after performing in Wagner's "Siegfried," according to Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu. Bass baritone Oleg Bryjak had appeared in the same opera, according to the opera house in Duesseldorf.

The plane left Barcelona Airport at 10:01 a.m. and had reached its cruising height of 38,000 feet when it suddenly went into an eight-minute descent to just over 6,000 feet, Germanwings CEO Thomas Winkelmann told reporters in Cologne.

"We cannot say at the moment why our colleague went into the descent, and so quickly, and without previously consulting air traffic control," said Germanwings' director of flight operations, Stefan-Kenan Scheib.

At 10:30, the plane lost radio contact with the control center but "never declared a distress alert," Eric Heraud of the French Civil Aviation Authority told the AP.

The plane crashed at an altitude of about 6,550 feet (2,000 meters) at Meolans-Revels, near the popular ski resort of Pra Loup. The site is 430 miles (700 kilometers) south-southeast of Paris.

"It was a deafening noise. I thought it was an avalanche, although it sounded slightly different. It was short noise and lasted just a few seconds," Sandrine Boisse, the president of the Pra Loup tourism office, told the AP.

Authorities faced a long and difficult search-and-recovery operation because of the area's remoteness. The weather, which had been clear earlier in the day, deteriorated Tuesday afternoon, with a chilly rain falling. Snow coated nearby mountaintops.

French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said the crash site covered several acres, with thousands of pieces of debris, "which leads us to think the impact must have been extremely violent at very high speed."

Search operations were suspended overnight and were to resume at daybreak, though about 10 gendarmes remained in the desolate ravine to guard the crash site, authorities said.

Winkelmann said the pilot, whom he did not name, had more than 10 years' experience working for Germanwings and its parent airline Lufthansa.

The aircraft was delivered to Lufthansa in 1991, had approximately 58,300 flight hours in some 46,700 flights, Airbus said. The plane underwent a routine check in Duesseldorf on Monday, and its last regular full check took place in the summer of 2013.

The A320 plane is a workhorse of modern aviation, with a good safety record.

The last time a passenger jet crashed in France was the 2000 Concorde accident, which left 113 dead.

___

Charlton reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Lori Hinnant, Thomas Adamson and Elaine Ganley in Paris; Claude Paris in Seyne-les-Alpes; David McHugh in Frankfurt; Geir Moulson and David Rising in Berlin; Frank Augstein in Duesseldorf; Al Clendenning in Madrid; Joe Wilson in Barcelona; Kirsten Grieshaber in Haltern, Germany, and AP Airlines writer Scott Mayerowitz in New York contributed to this report.

Now that President Obama is calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an unwilling partner in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Palestinian representatives in the United States have a simple message for him: We told you so.

“Ever since [Netanyahu] came to power in 2009, he did not have any intention whatsoever to deal with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” said Maen Areikat, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s representative to the United States.

“I think he is telling the world, 'Here I am. I want to show you my true skin,'” he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Gets Vote of Confidence

Israel Elections May Have Tipped in Benjamin Netanyahu's Favor

President Obama said the United States would re-evaluate its policies towards Israeli-Palestinian issues after Netanyahu said, the day before parliamentary elections, that he would not see a Palestinian state established if he were re-elected.

“We take him at his word when he said that it wouldn’t happen during his prime ministership," Obama said in an interview with The Huffington Post Saturday. "And so, that’s why we’ve got to evaluate what other options are available to make sure that we don’t see a chaotic situation in the region.”

Netanyahu’s Likud party went on to victory, which many political observers attributed to Netanyahu's comments on a Palestinian state and other comments that were seen as driving divisions between Israeli Jews and minorities. He has walked back those statements -- most recently apologizing to Israeli Arabs in remarks at his official residence Monday evening -- but the White House insisted the damage was done.

Areikat said the government he represents understands why Obama gave Netanyahu the benefit of the doubt until now, but that just looking at domestic Israeli politics, it was clear he was never serious about peace talks -- which have started and stopped twice since Obama and Netanyahu took office.

Netanyahu ran his campaign largely on security issues and the threat he said would befall Israel if his center-left opponents took over.

“This whole shift in Israeli politics in recent years was fundamentally based on misperceptions, false presentations, a culture of fear exported to the Israeli people about the security issues,” Areikat said. “This current government succeeded in somehow selling what it sold its own public to the rest of the world, especially the United States.”

The Israeli embassy in the United States did not respond to requests for comment on the issue.

One policy shift the Obama administration has already floated is to support, or at least not actively oppose, a United Nations Security Council resolution defining Palestinian statehood, which it had previously opposed because it believed such a move could jeopardize direct talks, which it believed were more effective.

Last week, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Netanyahu’s comments “have consequences for actions that we take at the United Nations and other places,” although during the Huffington Post interview Obama would not say whether or not he would support such a resolution.

But the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N., Riyad Mansour, suggested that was one way the U.S. could register its disillusionment with Netanyahu.

“A United Nations Security Council resolution legislating the two-state solution would be an appropriate option to defend the two-state solution which enjoys a global consensus,” he said.

Airekat said that while supporting a U.N. resolution would be a step in the right direction, he wanted the U.S. to also urge Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank.

“Nobody knows what the United States is planning to do. We are hoping together to hear from them in the coming days about what they have in mind,” he said.

So far, the United States has only signaled that it might make changes, without actually making any yet. But long wait times are nothing new for participants in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process -- something Mansour seemed to acknowledge when he spoke generally of this new shift in U.S. policy.

“This process will likely take time," he said. "However, we do hope it happens quickly.”