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International Criminal Court ‘about to probe US war crimes in Afghanistan’ – report

The International Criminal Court's preliminary probe into the activities of the US armed forces and the CIA in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2004 shows there to be a “reasonable basis to believe that, in the course of interrogating these detainees […] members of the US armed forces and the US Central Intelligence Agency resorted to techniques amounting to the commission of the war crimes of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape,” Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said, as cited by AFP.

She discovered that most of the alleged abuses took place between 2003 and 2004, but did not cease in the following years. She also pointed out that the abuses appear to have been “approved interrogation techniques,” utilized deliberately in “an attempt to extract ‘actionable intelligence’ from detainees,” as the report states.

“These alleged crimes were not the abuses of a few isolated individuals.”

The report stated that the US Army soldiers subjected at least 61 detainees to torture practices, and CIA officers did so to at least 27 detainees, mostly between May, 2003 and December, 2004.

It highlighted some 25 of the most frequently reported methods of abuse, supposedly executed through more than 140 means, including beatings, sexual violence, deprivation of sleep and water, forced feeding and waterboarding.

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The #ICC Prosecutor, Fatou #Bensouda, issues her annual Report on Preliminary Examination Activities (2016) https://www.icc-cpi.int//Pages/item.aspx?name=pr1252 …

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“The alleged victims were typically male, with 70 percent of them aged between 18 to 34 years and 44 under the age of 18 at the time of the arrest and/or detention,” the report details.

The US military faced allegations of torture before. In December 2014, the US Senate issued the so-called ‘torture report’, which revealed that CIA officials lied to the government and public about its post-9/11 torture program, most notably by distorting records of interrogations, which used far more brutal methods than they let show. Then nearly a year ago, in late November of 2015, the US Department of Defense responded to the allegations, saying that the Department of Defense already had conducted nearly 200 investigations of detainee abuse, which led to prosecution or disciplinary action against “hundreds of service members” for “misconduct and mistreatment of detainees.”

READ MORE: 10 most shocking facts we found in CIA torture report

Should formal charges be filed following Bensouda’s report, Washington may be found in violation of several ‘war crimes’ provisions of the ICC Rome Statute. However, as the United States has not ratified the Rome Statute, observers believe it is unlikely that its soldiers in foreign missions will be prosecuted.

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Scores of civilians killed in alleged US airstrikes to support ground op in Afghanistan (GRAPHIC)

‘Unlawful killings’ by UK

Britain is also mentioned in the ICC probe. It says it’s looking into a total of 1,390 victim accounts it received from the NGO European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and Public Interest Lawyers (PIL). It appeared that 1,071 of those accounts related to alleged ill-treatment of detainees, and another 319 suggested alleged “unlawful killings” committed by the British personnel in Iraq between 2003 and 2008.

“According to PIL, British personnel committed 319 cases of unlawful killings out of which 267 were committed in the course of military operations other than arrest and detention, and 52 were committed against persons in custody of UK authorities,” the ICC said.

In her annual “Report on Preliminary Examination Activities,” the ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda covered investigations being conducted against UK officials’ alleged “responsibility for war crimes” in Iraq between 2003 and 2008, as well as in connection with the situations in Ukraine and Palestine.


(RT)

According to the German media, police have searched offices and mosques believed to have links to the Islamist missionary network ‘The True Religion,’ which is known to have been distributing free Korans at infostands throughout Germany.

Germany’s Interior Ministry banned the organization on Tuesday morning. A spokeswoman for the ministry said that authorities believe the group has acted in violation of Germany’s constitution and incited hatred.The media states that the group advocates armed jihad and supports terrorist organizations, citing law enforcement authorities.

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‘Highly dangerous’ terror suspect arrested in Berlin is alleged ISIS member – prosecutors

Authorities believe over 500 people to be part of the group, which has some 60 local initiatives throughout the country. The investigators are reportedly after the group’s founder, Abou-Nagie, an Islamist hate preacher of Pakistani origin who lives in Cologne. His home in Cologne has been searched, as well as his girlfriend’s in Bonn.

In total, some 190 mosques, offices, and apartments associated with the group have reportedly been searched in 10 federal states.

The raids were carried out in Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Bremen, Lower Saxony and Hamburg. The operation is also being carried out in the capital, Berlin, where some 50 apartments and offices have been searched. In total, police raided the network’s premises in 60 German cities, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maziere said at a press conference that followed the operation.

There have been no reports of arrests as of yet.

The group is widely known for its ‘Lies!’ (read) initiative, which distributes free copies of the Koran while calling on Germans to “read the noble” book.

This morning, apparently in response to the police operation, they wrote a post declaring that “Germany has banned the Koran.”

Numerous young Muslims have been radicalized during the Koran distribution campaigns, Interior Minister Thomas de Maziere told reporters. At least 140 ‘Lies!’ activists and supporters have already moved to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside the jihadists, he said. Some terror suspects in Essen, who participated in a bomb attack on a Sikh temple in April, were previously known as ‘Lies!’ activists, according to Die Welt.

READ MORE: 20 Islamist infiltrators exposed in German army – reports

Germany has been on high terror alert in recent months. In July of this year, the country suffered three lone-wolf assaults. In all cases, the perpetrators had either direct links to the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terror group or were inspired by radicalism.

De Maiziere warned back in September that there were more people in Germany capable of committing terrorist acts than ever before. According to the minister’s data, more than 520 people are could potentially commit “unexpected” and “high-profile” terrorist attacks inspired by Islamism.

Anti-terror raids have been carried out across the country on several occasions, in which a number of suspected radicals have been detained. In October, German police conducted several raids in five federal states in response to an “imminent terror threat.”

(RT)

The group was created by an Islamic State emissary who was eliminated during a special operation in Ingushetia in early October, FSB press service reports, as cited by Russian news agencies.

“Russia’s FSB... has suppressed the activity of the group, which was designed to commit crimes of a terrorist and extremist nature on the territory of Ingushetia and Moscow and is connected with the international terrorist Islamic State organization,” the FSB reported.

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FSB detains 10 terror suspects, Moscow, St. Petersburg on their target list

Five members of the gang were detained in houses where they took refuge. The FSB has found an arsenal that included, among other things, five trunks of firearms, two ready-made improvised explosive devices (each equivalent to about 10 kilograms of TNT), and the components of a sniper rifle.

On Saturday, Russian security services thwarted a plot to blow up targets in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the FSB reported. The suspects of Central Asian origin were arrested in collaboration with law enforcement in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, it has been reported.

“An operation conducted on November 12 in Moscow and St. Petersburg resulted in the arrests of 10 terrorists. They had a total of four powerful IEDs in their arsenals, which were seized,”the FSB said in a statement on Saturday, adding that the suspects “confessed to having contacts with leaders of the terrorist group Islamic State based in the Middle East.”

“They also identified targets of their attack, accomplices and a support base, both in Russia and in other countries,”it added.

READ MORE: As many as 5,000 ISIS recruits to return to Europe – Belgian minister

Islamic State is a terrorist group based mostly in Iraq and Syria, which has also expanded into Libya and Afghanistan. It has masterminded several high-profile attacks in large European cities over the past two years, most notably in Paris and Brussels.

On November 13 of last year, a cell of the group carried out a wave of bombings and shootings, killing 130 people and injuring hundreds more in the French capital. In March, a connected cell launched suicide attacks in the airport and a metro station in Brussels, leaving 23 people dead and more than 300 injured. The terrorist cells behind the deadly Paris and Brussels attacks received their orders from someone “very high” in the Islamic State chain of command, Belgium’s federal prosecutor said last week.

READ MORE: Alleged ISIS video threatens Putin, Russia with attacks

Russia’s military is currently fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria, where the terrorist group is trying to impose a fundamentalist Islamic regime.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu estimated in July that some 2,000 fighters hailing from Russia, including 17 warlords, had been killed in the course of the large-scale air campaign in Syria.

(RT)