U.S. Drone Strike Kills ISIS Hacker in Syria
A U.S. drone strike launched from Turkey into Syria killed Junaid Hussain, a leading cyber hacker in ISIS, on Wednesday.
A British citizen and former resident of Birmingham, England, Hussain was believed to be the leader of the Cyber Caliphate, an ISIS-linked group that attempted to hack the Pentagon’s Twitter account earlier this year, Newsweek reports.
Hussain, 21, who moved to Syria sometime over the course of the last two years, was killed near Raqqa, an ISIS stronghold. Earlier this month, ISIS’s second-in-command was killed during U.S. airstrikes in Mosul, Iraq.
Germany Invites Syrian Refugees to Stay
The German government has announced that all Syrian asylum seekers are welcome to stay in the country. Suspending E.U. protocol, Germany will allow all Syrians to stay regardless of which E.U. country they entered first, reports the Independent.
Germany is expected to accept more than 800,000 refugees, many of whom are Syrian. “All current expulsion orders for Syrian asylum-seekers will be revoked, the government said,” adds the Independent. “New Syrian arrivals will no longer be forced to fill in questionnaires to determine which country they had first arrived in.”
Recent months have seen a dramatic rise in refugees arriving from the Middle East and Africa onto European shores. Many of them brave risky conditions on the sea with human smugglers. British groups, such as the Refugee Council, urged the U.K. to follow in Germany’s footsteps.
ISIS Takes Over Five Villages on Turkish Border
ISIS has taken control of five villages near the Turkish border in northern Syria, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Despite Turkey and the U.S. having been planning to open “a new front” against the militant group in northern Syria, the group is advancing as it battles with other rebel groups in northern Aleppo, the Daily Star reports.
The group recently killed at least 51 Syrian government soldiers during an offensive in the Aleppo province, the Observatory recently stated. ISIS controls more than half of all Syrian territory, according to some estimates.
Recommended Reads
- The Washington Post: An Archeological Jewel in Syria is Razed by Islamic Militants
- Foreign Policy: Meet the Americans Flocking to Iraq and Syria to Fight the Islamic State
- Middle East Eye: U.S. Officials May Have Skewed ISIS Analysis
- The Wall Street Journal: As War Closes In, Syria’s Assad Puts Emphasis On Living a Normal Life
- The Guardian: Assad’s Confidence in his Backers Seems Well Placed – But Only For Now
Photo: Kurdish forces fight ISIS in Kobani (Ayn al-Arab) on November 1, 2014. (Associated Press/Jake Simkin)