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On Jan. 19, the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released 49 documents recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound. To date, only a few hundred documents from bin Laden’s massive cache have been declassified. Still, the files that have been posted online reveal new details about al Qaeda’s complex international network. For instance, one  newly released missive  discusses Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s (AQIM) support for Boko Haram. The letter was written by Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, an AQIM commander who was subsequently killed in Mali in 2013. It was authored in Aug. 2009 and is addressed to AQIM’s emir, Abdelmalek Droukdel (also known as Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud). Boko Haram’s men sought AQIM’s assistance “Imam Abubakar Shekau, who assumed power of the Nigeria group after the death of Imam Muhammad Yusuf, sent three brothers to us,” Abou Zeid wrote at the beginning of his letter. Shekau (seen on the right) is the notorious leader of the organization commonly known as

Brazilian army troops begin patrolling the streets of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, January 22, 2017. (Photo by AFP) Brazil's Defense Ministry has dispatched troops into the streets of Rio de Janeiro to maintain security as the country's second largest city prepares for a mass carnival amid anti-austerity protests and low morale among police. "From this moment, the defense ministry is mobilizing troops," said the ministry in a statement issued late Monday as troops began deploying in the city. On Tuesday, President Michel Temer issued a decree, saying that the army deployment in Rio de Janeiro's metropolitan area would be allowed until February 22, one week before the city ends its carnival season, a period during which street parties take place every day. Rio de Janeiro's Governor Luiz Fernando Pezao had requested authorization for the army’s policing of the entire Rio state until March 5. Defense Minister Raul Jungmann was to give more details ab

A journalist stands at the remains of the Temple of Bel in the historic city of Palmyra, in Homs Governorate, Syria. Source: Reuters The Syrian army continues its offensive on Palmyra with the support of the Russian air task force, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Feb. 13. "The Syrian government troops are continuing their offensive towards Palmyra with the support of Russia’s aviation. A distance of less than 20 km remains to be covered. Over the past week, Russian warplanes have conducted over 90 sorties in the Palmyra direction," the Defense Ministry said in a statement obtained by  TASS . In the course of their offensive, the Syrian government troops have destroyed over 180 militants’ objectives, including more than 60 strongholds, 15 depots with armaments, munitions and military hardware, 43 armored fighting vehicles, and also jeeps armed with large-caliber machine guns, the statement said. "The terrorists’ losses in manpower have amounted to over 200 men,

NIKOLAI LITOVKIN ,   RBTH The missile defense forces guarding Moscow were put on high alert in a snap drill. RBTH reports on how the Russian capital’s skies are kept safe at all times. The Pantsir-S1 has an effective range of between six and nine miles. Source: Vitaly Nevar/TASS Russian air defense troops guarding Moscow  scrambled  in accordance with the presidential decree on a snap inspection of the Air Force. This also involves anti-missile defenses such as the S-300, S-400, and Pantsir-S surface-to-air (SAM) batteries stationed just outside Moscow. The drill called for troops deploying to their assigned railroad loading positions and defending against saboteurs. The units involved in the exercise are just a tiny part of the shield protecting Moscow against all sorts of attack from the sky. Radar far from Moscow The Moscow anti-air and anti-missile system starts well beyond the city limits, with radars for the ballistic missile early warning system, said Viktor Litovkin, a mi

A Yezidi fighter on Mount Sinjar. Matt Cetti-Roberts photo Victims include rival elites and ideological foes by PATRICK BURKE Rwanda, Srebrenica, Sinjar, Aleppo. There’s a whole generation of academics who have spent their careers attempting to explain these massacres. Their research has largely identified three types of armed groups that commit such atrocities. The first is a genocidal group trying to wipe out a population based on religious, ethnic or some other type of group identification. The Ottoman Turks’ genocide of Armenians during World War I is  one example . The second type is an armed group that selectively kills individuals who can potentially impede its military or political goals. This kind of group mainly kills suspected enemy collaborators or combatants it captures. For example, Yoweri Musevini’s National Resistance Army in Uganda  practiced selective killing  throughout the 1980s. The third is a group that kills at random owing to its inability to discipline

This file photo taken on January 22, 2017 shows Syrians visiting the Aleppo Citadel, a month after Syrian government forces retook the northern city from the Takfiri terrorists. (Photo by AFP) Syrian government troops and their allied forces have laid siege to the town of al-Bab, the largest stronghold of Daesh terrorists in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo, according to a pro-opposition monitoring group. The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Monday that Syrian forces had completely surrounded the town. The Britain-based group added that the advance followed the army’s capture of Awishyah hill, which is several hundred meters away from a road that links al-Bab to Raqqah and Dayr al-Zawr provinces. The capture of the hill came hours after Syrian troops took control of the village of Awishyah, it said. The latest advance means government forces have now encircled the terrorists in the towns of al-Bab, Bizaah, Qabasin and Tedif. In January, the monito

Myanmar's security forces have committed mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya Muslims and burned their villages since October in a campaign that probably amounts to crimes against humanity and possibly "ethnic cleansing", the U.N. human rights office said on Friday. Witnesses testified to "the killing of babies, toddlers, children, women and elderly; opening fire at people fleeing; burning of entire villages; massive detention; massive and systematic rape and sexual violence; deliberate destruction of food and sources of food", the report said. One woman told U.N. investigators how her eight-month baby boy had had his throat slit. Another was raped by soldiers and saw her five-year-old daughter killed as she tried to stop them. “The devastating cruelty to which these Rohingya children have been subjected is unbearable," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein said in a statement. Around 66,000 people have fled from the Musl