Warning of More Libyan-based ISIS Attack Cells and Attacks in Spain
Warning of More Libyan-based ISIS Attack Cells and Attacks in Spain
As we enter the first full week of Ramadan on the terror front, the son of the Lockerbie bomber, Khaled al-Megrahi, has warned that Libyan-based ISIS terrorists are ready to strikes against British and other Western cities in the wake of the Manchester terror attack.
The British government has started to ban British jihadis from re-entering the country and cancelled their passports. The British security services have 500 different plots under investigation, some 23,000 terror suspects, including 3,000 that are more serious cases. In Manchester, there are now 16 men all of Libyan descent held in custody including the brother of suicide bomber Salman Abedi. His father and younger brother remain under arrest in Libya. The last terror suspect arrested was a trainee pilot. The British domestic intelligence service MI5 reportedly launched an urgent investigation into why it missed the danger posed by suicide bomber Salman Abedi. The FBI reportedly warned their British counter-parts in January that Abedi was planning an attack, what now appears to be a significant British intelligence failure. There are reports that British civilians may be targeted at Spanish resort beaches by ISIS.
In a separate incident, last week, a British man was detained at Stanstead Airport for terrorism related offences. The French police conducted a special operation in Paris where there reports of a suspicious package on a bus and “young men threatening to blow up” the vehicle. A teenaged German national has been detained for plotting terror attacks in Berlin.
Today, ISIS carried out a suicide bombing attack on a popular ice-cream parlor in Baghdad killing some 30 people, and injuring dozens, many of the victims are children.
More than 103 people are dead and thousands are displaced by fighting in and around Marawi as Philippine troops attempt to liberate the city from the ISIS-affiliated Maute terror group. Maute fighters are shooting civilians who cannot recite the Koran.
On the international security front, on Saturday, G7 leaders cautioned in their communique that they were concerned by the situation in the South China Sea and East China Sea and called for a demilitarization of "disputed features." China has disputed Japanese sovereignty in the East China Sea and challenged by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan over the South China Sea.
On Sunday night, North Korea test-fired another missile, its ninth missile test this year for a total of 12 launches. By all accounts this was a Scud Short-Range Ballistic Missile that traveled about 280 miles before landing in the Sea of Japan. On May 14th, the North test-fired a Hwasong-12 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile and on May 21st, Pukugksong-2 Medium Range Ballistic Missile. The Scud launch was reportedly of a precision-guided derivative that plants the warhead with seven meters of the target. This type of liquid fueled Scud has a shorter launch time than previous Scuds and is launched from a self-propelled caterpillar launch platform. The Scuds impact in the Sea of Japan was close to or within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Japan has promised joint action in the future with the US in response to North Korean provocations.
