Israel National News: ISIS-Affiliated Group: More Rocket Attacks on Israel Coming

By Yaakov Levi, Jun. 4, 2015, Israel National News

The Islamist group that fired rockets at southern Israel Wednesday night said Thursday that it would continue its “way of Jihad” and “attack the Jews” - whether or not Hamas approved. And the next attack, it said, would come within hours.

In a statement, the “Sheikh Amar Hadid Brigades” said that the rockets were fired in revenge for “the death of an Islamic State member in Gaza by Hamas members."

"We have repeated that we will continue in the way of Jihad against the Jews, the enemies of Allah. No one will stop us from fulfilling our obligation and attacking the Jews.”

Several days ago, the same jihadist group took responsibility for the firing of aGrad rocket at Ashdod last week.

The group has since presented Hamas with an ultimatum demanding that it be allowed to attack Israel from Gaza and on Thursdaysaid it would conduct another attack on the Jewish state within 12 hours.

More: www.israelnationalnews.com

Israel National News: US Pressing Israel to Lose Its Nukes

By Israel National News, May 21, 2015

Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman visited Israel, spoke to diplomats about making Middle East nuke-free.

Assistant US Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, Thomas Countryman, recently visited Israel and held talks with senior Foreign Ministry officials, about the possibility of making the Middle East nuclear-free.

Washington seeks to advance the idea after reaching agreement with Russia about the matter.

The State Department confirmed Countryman's visit and sources in the US Administration said that Israeli agreement to the idea would be a catalyst for bringing additional countries into discussions on the matter.

The Americans have been attempting to convene an international conference on the subject for some time, without success. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke about the idea with pessimism, and said it was "a very tough challenge."

The Foreign Ministry did not want to respond to the report about Countryman's visit and told Arutz Sheva that "the subject is a sensitive one, we will not talk about it."

Source:  www.israelnationalnews.com

Israel National News: Experts Warn ISIS is Defeating America Online

By Arutz Sheva Staff, May 8, 2015

Experts tell Senate the US is losing against the online recruitment war, as senator calls paltry US efforts 'laughable.'

The US government is struggling to counter the Islamic State (ISIS) group's fast-paced online propaganda, which played a role in inspiring a failed attack in Texas this week on an exhibit of caricatures of Mohammed, the founder of Islam.

One of the two gunmen had been in frequent contact via Twitter with an American terrorist from the ISIS group who was well known to federal authorities, according to groups that monitor extremists online as reported byAFP.

The failed attempt to storm the cartoon exhibition in a Dallas suburb could be a "harbinger" of things to come, as the jihadist online blitz seeks to encourage violence from a distance, said author Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation non-profit group.

The lightning tempo and vast scale of the ISIS group's social media campaign poses a daunting challenge, particularly for a government bureaucracy ill-equipped to respond quickly or to experiment, experts said Thursday.

ISIS can rely on "a very large number of people" to promote their message online and "it can afford to have 2,000 people who tweet 150 times a day," said J.M. Berger, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

"It can afford to have a ratio of two or three recruiters to every one potential recruit who might carry out a lone wolf attack," Berger, who has researched extremists' use of social media, told the Senate Homeland Security committee.

The United States or others opposed to ISIS are losing the war in social media and will need to deploy similar numbers to have an effect, said Berger, author of "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam."

Although the ISIS jihadists tried to take credit for Sunday's attack, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said the group had not ordered the assault but had nevertheless "inspired" the men to carry it out.

He said it was "concerning that there are individuals like this who draw their inspiration" from the group.

More:  www.israelnationalnews.com