• 15 Jihadi Group Waiting to Take over After ISIS Is Defeated

    A total of 15 jihadi groups are waiting in the wings to replace ISIS in Syria a think tank backed by former prime minister Tony Blair will report tomorrow. The jihadi groups have a total of 65,000 fighters in Syria that are poised to fill the vacuum should ISIS be defeated, according to The Sunday Times. In the report, which has been seen by MailOnline, the author’s find that some of the groups have designs on attacking the west, with the number one group named as Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. – Daily Mail

  • Chinese National Sells Supplies to Iran to Help Construct Nuclear Weapons

    BOSTON—A Chinese national pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Boston in connection with supplying Iran with pressure transducers which could be used to make nuclear weapons-grade uranium. Sihai Cheng, a/k/a Chun Hai Cheng, a/k/a Alex Cheng, 35, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiring to commit export violations and smuggle goods from the United States to Iran and four counts of illegally exporting U.S. manufactured pressure transducers to Iran. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Patti B. Saris scheduled sentencing for Jan. 27, 2016. – FBI

  • Could Shipwrecks Lead the World to War?

    London — ARCHAEOLOGY has long been exploited as a political tool. Hitler used artifacts and symbols to manufacture a narrative of Aryan racial superiority. The Islamic State proves its zealotry by destroying evidence of ancient history. Underwater archaeology — the world of shipwrecks and sunken cities — has mostly avoided these kinds of machinations, though. Since no one lives beneath the sea, leaders haven’t found many opportunities for political gains from archaeological sites there. In the past few years, politicians in Canada, Russia and China have realized that they can use shipwrecks on the sea floor to project their sovereignty into new maritime territories. And this politicized abuse of science is putting the world on a path toward conflict. – The New York Times

  • Muslims Shield Christians from Terrorist Attack

    A group of Kenyan Muslims travelling on a bus ambushed by Islamist gunmen protected Christian passengers by refusing to be split into groups, according to eyewitnesses. They told the militants “to kill them together or leave them alone”, a local governor told Kenyan media. At least two people were killed in the attack, near the north-eastern village of El Wak on the Somali border. The Somali based al-Shabab group says it carried out the attack. The group often carries out attacks in Kenya’s north-east. The bus was travelling from the capital Nairobi to the town of Mandera. – BBC

  • People’s Liberation Army Announces Military Overhaul

    The People’s Liberation Army is close to announcing how it will be organised into five new “strategic zones” and the army’s four headquarters regrouped, according to sources, as part of a huge overhaul to modernise and improve the efficiency and combat readiness of the military. General Liu Yuan, political commissar of the PLA’s General Logistics Department, one of the army’s four headquarters, wrote a farewell letter to staff on Wednesday saying he would be “the last political commissar of Logistics” and that he would “absolutely obey the reforms”, introduced by President Xi Jinping. – South China Morning Post