US NAVY SAILORS HELD BY IRAN ARE RELEASED WITH THEIR BOATS

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January 13, 2016

BY ALI AKBAR DAREINI AND ADAM SCHRECK

bde58c59-01ca-4ea2-8a20-7e247288c647-large16x9_MideastIranU_Leak — This picture released by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016, shows detained American Navy sailors in an undisclosed location in Iran. Iranian state television is reporting that all 10 U.S. sailors detained by Iran after entering its territorial waters have been released. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said the sailors were released Wednesday after it was determined that their entry was not intentional. (Sepahnews via AP)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — All 10 U.S. Navy sailors detained by Iran after their two small boats allegedly drifted into Iranian territorial waters around one of Iran’s Persian Gulf islands a day earlier have been freed, the United States and Iran said Wednesday.

The sailors’ swift release quickly diffused what could have escalated into an international crisis days before Iran is expected to meet the terms of last summer’s nuclear deal with world powers. The deal gives Iran significant relief from painful economic sanctions.

The nine men and one woman were held at an Iranian base on Farsi Island after they were detained nearby on Tuesday. The tiny outpost has been used as a base for Revolutionary Guard speedboats as far back as the 1980s.

The Navy said there were no indications they had been harmed while in custody. Iranian state television aired later Wednesday dramatic sunset images of the moment the Revolutionary Guard forces boarded the American vessels and captured the sailors, showing them all kneeling on the deck, their hands on their heads.

After their release, the sailors departed the island at 0843 GMT aboard the boats they were detained with, the Navy said. They were picked up by Navy aircraft and other sailors took control of their boats for the return voyage to Bahrain, where the U.S. 5th Fleet is based.

The sailors will be taken ashore somewhere in the region so that they can receive support to reintegrate with their unit, said 5th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Kevin Stephens. He declined to say where they were traveling to or provide details on their identities. Stephens said the priority now is “determining … how exactly these sailors found themselves in Iran. And that’s something we’re going to be looking at.”

The Revolutionary Guard’s official website published images of the detained U.S. sailors before their release, showing them sitting on the floor of a room. They look mostly bored or annoyed, though at least one of the sailors appears to be smiling. The sole woman had her hair covered by a brown cloth. The pictures also showed what appeared to be their two boats.

“After determining that their entry into Iran’s territorial waters was not intentional and their apology, the detained American sailors were released in international waters,” a statement posted online by the Guard said Wednesday.

Vice President Joe Biden, speaking later to “CBS This Morning,” denied that Americans made any apology.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Biden said. “When you have a problem with the boat you apologize the boat had a problem? No, and there was no looking for any apology. This was just standard nautical practice.”

Gen. Ali Fadavi, the navy chief of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, was quoted earlier Wednesday by Iranian state TV as saying that an investigation had shown the Americans entered Iranian territorial waters because of “mechanical problems in their navigation system.”

U.S. officials also blamed mechanical trouble for the incident. They had said on Tuesday that Tehran assured them the crew and vessels would be returned safely and promptly.

Fadavi said the American boats had shown “unprofessional acts” for 40 minutes before being picked up by Iranian forces after entering the country’s territorial waters. He said Tehran did not consider the U.S. Navy boats violating Iranian territorial waters as an “innocent passage.”

The sailors were nonetheless allowed to make contact with the U.S. military, based on Iran’s “responsibilities and Islamic mercy” late Tuesday, he said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who forged a personal relationship with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif during the three years of nuclear negotiations, called his Iranian counterpart immediately on learning of the incident, according to a senior U.S. official. Kerry “personally engaged” with Zarif on the issue, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Kerry later issued a statement saying he wanted to express his “gratitude to Iranian authorities for their cooperation ?in swiftly resolving this matter.”

Fadavi said Zarif “had a firm stance” during the telephone conversation with Kerry about the sailors’ presence in Iran’s territorial waters and “said they should not have come and should apologize.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he was pleased with the sailors’ release and he thanked Kerry for his diplomatic efforts. “Around the world, the U.S. Navy routinely provides assistance to foreign sailors in distress, and we appreciate the timely way in which this situation was resolved,” Carter said.

The quick resolution stood in contrast to Iran’s March 2007 seizure of 15 British sailors and marines who were searching for a merchant ship in the Persian Gulf. Then, Iran held the British troops for 13 days in what the captives later described as cold stone cells, saying they were blindfolded, feared being executed and were coerced into falsely saying they had entered Iranian waters.

The Britons’ detention at the hands of the Revolutionary Guard came under hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A day after the naval team was seized, the U.N. Security Council imposed more sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment.

The Guard’s 200,000-strong force is different from the regular Iranian military and is charged with protecting the ruling system. Its naval forces are heavily dependent on armed speedboats that can be used in teams to swarm much larger vessels.

The incident came amid heightened tensions with Iran, and only hours before President Barack Obama gave his final State of the Union address to Congress and the public. It set off a dramatic series of calls and meetings as U.S. officials tried to determine the exact status of the crew and reach out to Iranian leaders.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told The Associated Press late Tuesday U.S. time that the sailors’ boats were moving between Kuwait and Bahrain when the U.S. lost contact with them.

The sailors were part of Riverine Squadron 1 based in San Diego and were deployed to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain. When the U.S. lost contact with the boats, ships attached to the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier strike group began searching the area, along with aircraft flying off the Truman.

The Riverine boats were not part of the carrier strike group, and were on a training mission, the officials said. The craft are not considered high-tech and don’t contain any sensitive equipment, so there were no concerns about the Iranians gaining access to them, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive incident publicly.

In an earlier incident, in late December, Iran launched a rocket test near U.S. warships and boats passing through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, the route for about a fifth of the world’s oil.

Last February, Iran sank a replica of a U.S. aircraft carrier near the strait and has said it is testing “suicide drones” that could conduct kamikaze missions on naval ships. It has also challenged foreign cargo ships operating in the Gulf, opening fire on at least two in April and May.

In one of those incidents, Iran temporarily seized a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship over what it said was a commercial dispute before releasing it with its crew more than a week later.

Meanwhile, Iran was expected to satisfy the terms of last summer’s nuclear deal in just days. Once the U.N. nuclear agency confirms Iran’s actions to roll back its program, the United States and other Western powers are obliged to suspend wide-ranging oil, trade and financial sanctions on Tehran. Kerry recently said the deal’s implementation was “days away.”

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Schreck reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee, Lolita C. Baldor, Bradley Klapper and Richard Lardner in Washington, Jon Gambrell in Dubai and Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report.

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Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at www.twitter.com/adamschreck .

SANDERS AD BURST COINCIDES WITH UPWARD MOVEMENT IN POLLS

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January 13, 2016

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BY JULIE BYKOWICZ

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders has been putting up major advertising cash to seize momentum heading into the Democratic presidential primaries – outspending his rival Hillary Clinton just as voters are beginning to pay attention to the race.

In the past three weeks, Sanders’ campaign has spent about $4.7 million on ads to Clinton’s $3.7 million, an investment that so far has meant 1,000 more Sanders commercials than Clinton ads on broadcast TV, according to advertising tracker Kantar Media’s CMAG.

The Sanders ad burst is coinciding with his rise in preference polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states where voters will weigh in on the 2016 election. The Democratic contest appears to be tightening.

Two recent surveys suggest Sanders has gained on Clinton in Iowa. In New Hampshire, one poll showed the Vermont senator ahead of the former first lady and secretary of state by double digits, while another pointed to a tighter race. Iowa votes Feb. 1; New Hampshire, Feb. 9.

Clinton began advertising in August, three months ahead of Sanders, and over the entire contest has outspent him by about $3 million, the CMAG data show. The ad buy data includes all broadcast, cable and satellite television, as well as some radio. It does not include digital ads.

The turnabout in ad spending – with Sanders topping Clinton in each of the past three weeks – prompted the Clinton campaign last week to send an email to supporters with the subject line “nervous.”

“I’m not trying to be dramatic about this (I swear! I’m really not!), but there’s a situation developing in Iowa and New Hampshire that could change the course of this election,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook wrote in the fundraising appeal. Later in the same email: “I just found out that he’s outspending us on TV advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

In reality, both candidates have ample financial resources; each campaign said it had raised upward of $30 million in the final three months of the year.

This month, Sanders has aired nine different commercials. Two stand out for their heavy rotation.

His top-played ad of these past few weeks, “Working Families,” has been on some 1,200 times on broadcast stations, according to CMAG data covering Dec. 30 to Tuesday.

There’s nothing splashy or slickly produced about this 30-second commercial. The entire time, it’s footage of Sanders talking at a New Hampshire town hall meeting, delivering his typical remarks with his trademark exaggerated arm gestures.

“The bottom line of this economy is that it is rigged,” he says as people in the rapt audience nod their heads. “What this campaign is about is the demand that we create an economy that works for all of us rather than a handful of billionaires.”

Just behind that ad in frequency is one featuring a registered nurse in Vermont, Mari Cordes.

“Bernie Sanders understands how pharmaceutical companies and major medical companies are ripping us off,” Cordes says. “Bernie tells the truth, and he’s been consistent. He understands that the system is rigged, and he’s the only one that can bring real change.”

The ad includes an image of Sanders accepting the National Nurses United endorsement. That group has a super PAC that has been sending a “Bernie bus” around to early states to back him – despite his stated resistance to outside money.

One Clinton ad has aired as frequently in the past two weeks as either of those spots, CMAG shows.

Titled, “Wage Gap,” it posits that Republicans would “make it worse by lowering taxes for those at the top and letting corporations write their own rules.”

Clinton, the narrator says, would close the wage gap, push equal pay for women, a higher minimum wage and lower taxes for the middle class.

No Democratic candidate has called out a rival by name in TV ads. But with the race intensifying, the candidates are becoming more direct.

In an ad that began airing Tuesday night, Clinton says she supports the president’s call for universal gun background checks. “It’s time to pick a side,” she says, implying that she and Sanders are on different ones.

Sanders, in a CNN interview Tuesday night, said he agrees with the president. He said he, too, has an ad that implies he and Clinton differ – but on Social Security. In a forthcoming commercial, he said, he reminds voters he wants to raise Social Security benefits by lifting the cap on taxable income.

“We look forward to Secretary Clinton coming on board with that issue,” he said. Like Clinton, he does not mention his opponent in the ad, leaving it to voters to make the connection.

In total, Clinton has spent $16.6 million on ads and Sanders $13.4 million, according to CMAG. Sanders delayed starting his advertising to preserve funding for this critical period, his senior adviser Tad Devine said. “We intend to go toe-to-toe, or even exceed them, until the end,” Devine said of Sanders’ ad buys.

CMAG’s ad buy information shows Clinton with a larger spending plan over the next few weeks, although commercial space can be purchased with little lead time. She has reserved about $3.3 million in TV spots, and Sanders $1.7 million.

As the Republican side vividly illustrates, the size of an advertising buy doesn’t necessarily translate to voter support: Jeb Bush remains mired in preference polls despite having more money spent to promote his candidacy than anyone else in the 2016 field. The super PAC supporting him has plowed $52 million into ads.

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Follow Julie Bykowicz on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/bykowicz

Daily Quotes ♛January 13, 2016♛

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January 13, 2016

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‘Like coming back to life’ says child soldier who escaped ISIS

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January 12, 2016

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160111162334-child-soldiers-super-169 — Nouri, 11, rests with his grandparents after escaping from captivity while his 5-year old brother Saman sleeps.

Gweyr, Iraq (CNN)“Nasir” is one of the lucky ones. He managed to escape from the grasp of ISIS, which was training him to be a suicide bomber. He is just 12 years old.

The boy is now reunited with his mother at the Esyan refugee camp in Kurdistan, home to almost 15,000 Yazidis fleeing ISIS. He’s asked CNN not to broadcast his face or voice, or to disclose his real name.

“There were 60 of us,” Nasir says. “The scariest times for us all were when the airstrikes happened. They’d lead all of us underground into the tunnels to hide. They told us the Americans, the unbelievers, were trying to kill us but they, the fighters, they loved us. They would look after us better than our parents.

“When they were training us they would tell us our parents were unbelievers and that our first job was to go back to kill them.”

The use by ISIS of child soldiers has been well documented. Last week, for example, a new propaganda video was released featuring an English-speaking child. But the reality behind the headlines is even more horrifying.

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‘I’d cry quietly’

The indoctrination that Nasir received was similar to that which all captive children like him had to undergo. His ISIS handlers would tell him they were now his only family.

Nasir says the youngest of the boys was just 5 years old — and none of them was exempt from the grueling training carried out by the so-called “cubs of the caliphate.”

click the picture to see the video. ISIS videos show children training to kill.

“We weren’t allowed to cry but I would think about my mother, think about her worrying about me and I’d try and cry quietly. When we escaped and I saw my mother again, it was like coming back to life.”

Nasir, who is now back at school, escaped after he was featured in a propaganda video made at the Al Farouq Institute in Raqqa, Syria, which ISIS claims is their main child soldier training facility.

In the film, spread out on either side of an ISIS trainer, blank-faced rows of children sit in a line.

One boy shakes visibly. Others are unable to raise their gaze. “To jihad to jihad,” they chant.

And “By god’s grace,” the instructor says, “in the coming days, they will be at the front lines of the fight against the non-believers.”

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‘Unbelievably hard decision’

Aziz Abdullah Hadur, a Peshmerga commander, says that those who reach the relative safety of the Gweyr frontline, in northern Iraq, are in a desperate state.

“When they arrive to us they’re so skinny, they barely look human,” he says. “They tell us they’ve been living in a hell.”

Hadur says he and his Kurdish fighters must sometimes open fire on children who have been sent by ISIS to attack the line, one of the most fiercely contested battlefields in northern Iraq. The jihadists’ positions lie meters away across a broken bridge over a river.

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“Many times when we are facing ISIS, we see the children at the front line and they’re wearing explosive vests. They are brainwashed,” Hadur tells CNN.

The Peshmergas have little time to think. “We don’t know when they approach our positions whether they’re really escaping or they’ve been sent to kill us.

“When they make it through our lines they kill our fighters. It’s an unbelievably hard decision. You don’t know what to do because if you don’t kill them they’ll kill you.

Hadur’s dilemma is a growing one for Kurdish fighters as ISIS sends more child soldiers into battle. U.S. military sources tell CNN this is partly because the jihadist group is coming under more military pressure — but ISIS also revels in portraying its brutal tactics to the outside world, and will be aware of the revulsion many feel about the use of children in war.

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Repeated beatings

Another who escaped from their clutches is 11-year-old Nouri, who was abducted with his family and taken to the ISIS camp in Tel Aafar, northern Iraq. When he refused to join the other boys for training, ISIS fighters broke his leg in three places.

He’s one of the lucky ones though: when his leg healed, he could only limp. ISIS deemed him “useless,” but rather then shoot him they allowed his grandmother to come and carry him home.

His 5-year-old brother Saman was also released. Repeated beatings at the hands of ISIS fighters have utterly traumatized him.

He wakes up screaming in the night and suffers from seizures. As CNN speaks to his grandparents he jumps and asks first one, then the other: “Are you going to beat me?”

Their parents and baby brother remain in captivity.

“They asked us to come with them for the training. At first we refused to go because we were afraid. They asked me to go to the mountain and I refused again, then they broke my leg. That saved me. The other children were taken by force.”

His grandmother Gowra Khalaf tells us that Nouri stays home. “He doesn’t really go anywhere. Just sits in the tent close to me.”

Nouri speaks in a low voice, stopping to take deep breaths between short sentences. He stares at the ground. This is difficult for all of them to remember.

The absence of their parents is another burden. Outside the rain loudly beats down on the roof of the tarpaulin tent. Even that’s too much for Saman, who crawls, terrified, on to his grandfather’s lap.

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Psychological help

Khalid Nermo Zedo, a Yazidi activist who helped found the Esyan refugee camp, says these children desperately need psychological help.

“They have suffered so much. Can you imagine a 12-year-old child or a 10-year-old or an 8-year-old dragged from their mother by force, taken to military training camps, forced to carry weapons, forced to convert to Islam, told everything they grew up believing is apostasy, that their parents are unclean ‘unbelievers?'”

One child in the camp refused to let anyone cut his hair even after fleeing ISIS because he had been told he couldn’t do that. “Some children are startled if they even hear the word ISIS. They have seizures just hearing that word. These are all catastrophes.”

There was now an urgent need for psychological support for the youngsters, Zedo said. “We just don’t have the capacity here,” he said. “These children have been forced to carry weapons, forced to kill innocents. What does that do to a child? What does that to do his family? To his community?

“We need the world to help us. We can’t do this alone.”

VIDEO: MEXICAN DRUG LORD’S MEN PUT UP FIERCE FIGHT

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January 12, 2016

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BY EDUARDO VERDUGO

LOS MOCHIS, Mexico (AP) — At 4:40 a.m. in a central neighborhood of the Pacific coast city of Los Mochis, 17 Mexican marines began their assault on a safe house, thinking there was a good chance Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was inside. The operation was dubbed “black swan.”

One marine was wounded by gunfire almost immediately and remained outside the front door while his comrades slowly advanced inside behind lobbed grenades and heavy fire, according to video from the marines’ helmet cameras released by Mexico’s government on Monday.

A marine involved in the assault who gave a tour of the house to a reporter from the Mexican network Televisa said there were more people inside than expected and they were more heavily armed, including with rocket-propelled grenades and .50 caliber sniper rifles.

Attorney General Arely Gomez told local radio that people in the house had ordered food for 13 people the night before the raid.

An Associated Press journalist who visited the house Monday saw bullet holes pocking its white concrete walls. Clothing and food – a wheel of cheese, lots of cans – were scattered throughout. Beds were tossed. Blood was smeared on the walls.

The marines had secured the downstairs rooms first.

One gunman was killed just inside a front door riddled with bullet holes.

As the troops prepared to go upstairs, one marine saw a man at the top of the stairs preparing to fire a rocket-propelled grenade. The marine hit the weapon with a couple of shots causing the gunman to toss it, the marine guide told Televisa.

The wall above the stairs was particularly damaged by gunfire as defenders tried to keep the marines from advancing.

Upstairs the marines found two women in a bathroom and two men in a room with a large television.

The home had four bedrooms and five bathrooms. On one upstairs bed were four DVDs from the series La Reina del Sur, starring Kate del Castillo, the Mexican actress who put Guzman in contact with the American actor Sean Penn.

It took about 15 minutes to secure the house. Then the marines followed the attackers across rooftops. Four more gunmen were killed in this pursuit.

There had been no sighting of Guzman.

But knowing his predilection for tunnels, the marines began looking for an opening. Beside a ground floor bedroom littered with clothing, marines entered a walk-in closet and found an unusual panel behind a mirror. Guides showed the AP how a lever hidden behind a ceiling light operated a mechanism that opened a door behind the mirror.

It led to a set of descending stairs.

A 6-foot (nearly 2-meter) tall tunnel complete with lighting, wood-paneled walls and a concrete floor led to more stairs and then a metal hatch opened into the city’s storm sewer. Guzman and his security chief traveled several blocks through the 3-foot (meter) tall storm sewer before popping out in the middle of an intersection. They stole a car, drove a bit, then stole another.

Mexico Drug Lord Scene — Bullet holes riddle the walls of the second floor of the home that marines raided in their search for Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in Los Mochis, Mexico, Monday, Jan. 11, 2016. On Friday, Guzman and his security chief traveled several blocks through the city’s storm sewer system, accessed under the home, before popping out in the middle of an intersection. Federal police eventually found them on a highway outside of town, ending Guzman’s flight six months after his escape from the same maximum security prison where he now sits. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Federal police eventually found them on a highway outside of town and Guzman’s flight ended six months after his stunning escape from the same maximum security prison where he now sits.

SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 10, WOUNDS 15 IN ISTANBUL TOURIST AREA

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Birmingham Times

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January 12, 2016

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BY LEFTERIS PITARAKIS AND SUZAN FRASER

Turkey Explosion — A police helicopter patrols over the historic Sultanahmet district after an explosion in Istanbul, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016. An explosion killed at least 10 people and injured 15 others Tuesday morning in a historic district of Istanbul popular with tourists, the Istanbul governor’s office said. At least six Germans were among the wounded, a news agency reported. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

ISTANBUL (AP) — A suicide bomber affiliated with the Islamic State group detonated a bomb in a historic district of Istanbul popular with tourists Tuesday morning, killing at least 10 people – nine of them German tourists – and wounding 15 others, Turkish officials said.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the bomber who carried out the attack in Istanbul’s Sultanahmet district was a member of IS and pledged to battle the militant group until it no longer “remains a threat” to Turkey or the world.

Davutoglu described the attacker as a “foreign national.” Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus had previously said the perpetrator was born in 1988 and was a Syrian national, but the private Dogan news agency claimed the bomber was Saudi-born.

“Turkey won’t backtrack in its struggle against Daesh by even one step,” Davutoglu said, referring to IS by its Arabic acronym. “This terror organization, the assailants and all of their connections will be found and they will receive the punishments they deserve.”

Turkey’s state-run news agency said Davutoglu held a telephone conversation with German chancellor Angela Merkel to express his condolences. A senior government official confirmed that most of the victims were German. Merkel had earlier said they were part of a German travel group.

“I strongly condemn the terror incident that occurred in Istanbul, at the Sultanahmet Square, and which has been assessed as being an attack by a Syria-rooted suicide bomber,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Davutoglu said the death toll of 10 did not include the suicide bomber.

Merkel, speaking at a news conference in Berlin, decried the attack.

“Today Istanbul was hit; Paris has been hit, Tunisia has been hit, Ankara has been hit before,” she said. “International terrorism is once again showing its cruel and inhuman face today.”

The explosion, which could be heard from several neighborhoods, was at a park that is home to a landmark obelisk, some 25 meters (yards) from the historic Blue Mosque.

Turkey’s Dogan news agency reported that one Norwegian and one Peruvian were also among the wounded, and Seoul’s Foreign Ministry told reporters via text message that a South Korean had a finger injury. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry told news agency NTB that the Norwegian tourist was slightly hurt and was being treated in a local hospital.

Kurtulmus, the deputy premier, said two of the wounded were in serious condition.

Germany and Denmark have warned their citizens to avoid crowds outside tourist attractions in Istanbul.

Last year, Turkey agreed to take a more active role in the U.S.-led battle against the IS group. Turkey opened its bases to U.S. aircraft to launch air raids on the extremist group in Syria and has carried out a limited number of strikes on the group itself.

It has also moved to tighten security along its 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Syria in a bid to stem the flow of militants.

The attack comes at a time of heightened violence between Turkey’s security forces and militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in the country’s mostly-Kurdish southeast.

The country is also dealing with more than 2 million Syrian refugees and a wave of migrants from Syria and other countries pouring across Turkey to Europe.

Police sealed the area, barring people from approaching in case of a second explosion, and a police helicopter hovered overhead.

The Sultanahmet neighborhood is Istanbul’s main sightseeing area and includes the Topkapi Palace and the former Byzantine church of Haghia Sophia, now a museum.

Erdem Koroglu, who was working at a nearby office, told NTV television he saw several people on the ground following the blast.

“It was difficult to say who was alive or dead,” Koroglu said. “Buildings rattled from the force of the explosion.”

Halil Ibrahim Peltek, a shopkeeper near the area of the blast told The Associated Press it had “an earthquake effect.”

“There was panic because the explosion was violent,” he said.

Davutoglu immediately convened a security meeting with the country’s interior minister and other officials.

As with previous attacks, authorities imposed a news blackout, barring media from showing images of the dead or injured or reporting any details of the investigation.

Turkey suffered two major bombing attacks last year, both blamed on the Islamic State group.

More than 30 people were killed in a suicide attack in the town of Suruc, near Turkey’s border with Syria, in July.

Two suicide bombs exploded in October outside Ankara’s main train station as people gathered for a peace rally, killing more than 100 in Turkey’s deadliest-ever attack. The prosecutor’s office said that attack was carried out by a local IS cell.

Last month, Turkish authorities arrested two suspected IS militants they said were planning suicide bombings during New Year’s celebrations in the capital Ankara.

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Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Mehmet Guzel in Istanbul, Kirsten Grieshaber and Geir Moulson in Berlin and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark contributed.

Daily Quote ♛January 9,2016♛

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January 9, 2016

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Inspirational Message

Daily Quote ♛January 8, 2016♛

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January 8, 2016

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Inspirational Message

ISIS fighter executes own mother in Syria for ‘apostasy,’ rights groups say

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January 8, 2016

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(CNN)An ISIS fighter has executed his own mother before a public audience, an expat Syrian rights group said.

The 20-year-old killed his mother in the Syrian city of Raqqa, ISIS’ de facto capital, as hundreds looked on near the post office where she worked, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

ISIS had accused her of apostasy after her son turned her in, the activists said. She allegedly had been “inciting her son to leave the Islamic State.” She wanted to escape with him and told him “that the coalition will kill all members of the organization.”

The observatory reported that the victim was in her 40s. The activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently reported that she was 35.

CNN has not been able to independently confirm the reports of the rights groups.

ISIS has fostered a reputation of extremism by carrying out staged killings such as beheadings, mass shootings and burnings on camera and posting video of them to social media.

originally seen on CNN.