IS Claims Responsibility For Cairo Attack That Killed Nine
The IS militant group has claimed responsibility for a bomb attack that killed nine people in Cairo.
In a statement on social media, it said its fighters carried out the operation that killed six policemen and three others during a raid on a booby-trapped home on January 21 near the site of Egypt's pyramids.
British Mom Fled Syria On Foot Clutching Her Toddler Son
A British mother accused of taking her toddler to Syria to join the IS group has told a court how she fled the country on foot, holding her son.
Tareena Shakil said that she escaped to Turkey after catching a bus and bribing a taxi driver before running for the border.
Shakil denies joining IS and says she went to Syria to live under Sharia law.
Two British Men Who Handed Out Pro-IS Leaflets Found Guilty Of Terrorism Offenses
A London court has found two men guilty of terrorism offenses after they handed out leaflets in a busy shopping street in the center of the city to garner support for the IS militant group.
Ibrahim Anderson, 38, and Shah Jahan Khan, 62, set up a stall on London's Oxford Street in August 2014 to distribute pro-IS literature.
30 Civilians Killed In Air Strike In Eastern Syria: Monitor
At least 30 civilians have been killed in air strikes in Deir al-Zor province in eastern Syria, according to the Britain Based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
It is not clear whether the raids were carried out by government or Russian war planes.
The IS group controls most of Deir al-Zor province and has been making advances in Deir al-Zor city, where is has besieged areas under government control.
Russia Dismisses Rumors That Turkey Downed Another Of Its Warplanes
Russia's Defense Ministry spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, has said that reports on "foreign social media" that Turkey had downed a Russian war plane in Syria, were "nonsense."
"All our aircraft, which are carrying out missions to destroy terrorist infrastructure targets, in Syria, have returned safely to the air base," Konashenkov said, according to RIA Novosti.
Konashenkov appears to have been referring to the rumors, in English and Turkish, that appeared on Twitter this afternoon to say that a Russian fighter jet had been shot down in Aleppo. The rumors were later reported to be untrue.
Belgium Charges 11th Suspect In Connection With Paris Attacks
Belgian prosecutors have charged another person with terrorist offenses over the November 13 Paris attacks claimed by the IS group.
The Belgian national, named as Zakaria J., born in 1986, was detained earlier this week.
The number of people now held in custody in Belgium facing charges in connection with the attacks stands at 11.
An AP report:
Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi warns that Islamic State group militants in neighboring Libya could use the unrest that has spread to cities and towns around Tunisia to sneak into the country.
But he also sent citizens an upbeat message, vowing that "we will get out of this ordeal."
Essebsi spoke on national television Friday night for the first time since the unrest began nearly a week ago.
He said the government would put in place a program to try to ease the jobless rate, which has spurred the crisis, but didn't elaborate.
He told foreign partners that Tunisia will move forward with the democratic process it has engaged. But he told citizens that the Islamic State group "in Libya at our border finds that the moment is opportune to infiltrate into Tunisia."
Authorities earlier said that a Tunisian was killed in a border skirmish with soldiers, but the infiltrators were identified only as "smugglers."
AP report from Davos:
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledges preventing the Islamic State group from recruiting online is difficult, but so is stopping any group from spreading its messages via the Internet.
Lynch says Europe and the U.S. are working to counter IS' message and empower local communities where "troubled youth" who join the group come from, such as by flagging content to help "break that chain."
The top U.S. law enforcement official spoke Friday at a news conference on cybercrime at the World Economic Forum.
Joining her, Interpol Secretary-General Juergen Stock suggested that crime fighters can get snowed under with electronic data in investigations. He compared his early career as a policeman poring over paperwork, while today going over "a terabyte and even more of data as evidence ... is a challenge."
An AFP report on U.S. frustration with its anti-IS coalition partners:
Several members of the US-led coalition attacking the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria are doing "nothing at all" to help destroy the jihadists, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Friday.
His comments mark a departure from the Pentagon's typical depiction of the 65-member coalition, which carries the slogan "One mission, many nations," and is frequently touted to highlight global resolve in the predominantly US effort to defeat the IS group.
"Many of them are not doing enough, or are doing nothing at all," Carter said in an interview with CNBC on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "We can do a lot ourselves ... (but) we are looking for other people to play their part."
In a separate interview with Bloomberg TV, Carter called the anti-IS alliance a "so-called" coalition, highlighting frustrations the Pentagon has with partners -- particularly Arab and Gulf nations -- not doing enough.
"We need others to carry their weight, there should be no free riders," he said.
Carter has spent the past week in Europe, primarily in Paris, where he sought to persuade allies to step up their efforts against the IS group.
On Friday, he reiterated calls for one of these partners, Turkey, to bolster its fight against the jihadists.
Turkey is allowing the United States to use Incirlik, a geographically vital air base in the south, to strike IS targets in Iraq and Syria, but Carter said Ankara needs to do much more to secure its lengthy border with Syria.
"Turkey is a long-time friend of ours," he said during a question-and-answer session in Davos.
But "the reality is, it has a porous border for foreign fighters going in both directions. So I think the Turks could do more."
Some Arab and Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia are nominally part of the coalition, but are now more focused on fighting Iran-backed forces in Yemen.
Carter's exasperation perhaps reflects pressure from Washington, where hawkish critics say the Obama administration is moving too slowly to defeat the IS group.
The coalition has been bombing the jihadists since August 2014 but despite killing thousands of their fighters and reclaiming large areas they once held, the IS group is still launching attacks around the world, including in Jakarta, Afghanistan and Paris.
"Since no country is immune from an ISIL attack, no country can afford to ride free," Carter said in an opinion piece on Politico.com, using an alternative name for the IS group.
A Reuters report about the IS in Libya:
Decisive military action is needed to halt the spread of Islamic State in Libya, the top U.S. military officer said on Friday, warning the group wanted to use the country as a platform to coordinate activity across Africa.
General Joseph Dunford said he believed the U.S. military leadership owed President Barack Obama and the U.S. defense secretary ideas about the "way ahead" for dealing with the militant group's expansion in Libya.
He described it as an "immediate imperative".
"Unchecked, I am concerned about the spread of ISIL in Libya," Dunford, using an acronym for Islamic State, told a small group of reporters travelling with him in Paris.
"You want to take decisive military action to check ISIL's expansion and at the same time you want to do it in such a way that's supportive of a long-term political process."
Islamic State militants have exploited a prolonged power vacuum in Libya, nearly five years after the overthrow of veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi, and have managed to establish a foothold in the city of Sirte.
Islamic State militants set fire on Thursday to oil storage tanks in a fresh assault on Ras Lanuf terminal in northern Libya.
The United States says it killed Islamic State's senior leader in Libya, known as Abu Nabil, in a November air strike by F-15 aircraft.
It believes he was operating in Libya with the support of Islamic State's core leadership in Iraq and Syria, in a likely sign of the country's strategic importance to the group.
"So as I look at Libya, I look at Libya as an ISIL platform from which they can conduct malign activity across Africa," Dunford said.
The chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff declined to say what measures he was considering but stressed that it would need to be "more than we're seeing now".
"My perspective is we need to do more," Dunford said, saying he would examine a range of factors, including the ability to identify the right forces on the ground to support.
Western powers hope a new government announced on Tuesday will deliver stability to Libya, deeply fractured since Gaddafi's fall in 2011, and tackle the growing threat from Islamic State militants. Still, divisions over the U.N.-backed plan for a political transition remain.
"Anything we do has got to be supportive of a political end state," Dunford said.