War

News reports indicate that the notorious ‘Slaughterer of Mosul’ has been killed during air-strikes on ISIS in Iraq. ABNA reports: Local sources in Nineveh Province report that international coalition jets pounded ISIS positions in western neighbourhoods of Mosul on Saturday, killing a notorious judge from the ISIS court. ISIS Judge Abdullah Saffah, known as Abu Hafsa, was killed during the intense aerial raid. He was responsible for implementing Law in Mosul and had sentenced scores of people to death and stoning. He was known as “The Slaughterer of Mosul” by locals.

The police in Vienna have warned that European cities face the very real possibility of a terrorist attack during the New Year celebrations.  As a result of credible intelligence, police forces across Europe are ramping up their security measures for the New Year. “Several possible names of potential attackers were mentioned, which were checked, and the investigation based on (these checks) has so far yielded no concrete results,” Vienna police said in a statement.

Amid ISIS' spread, with NATO troops pulling out, and local law enforcement agencies ill-equipped and underfunded, Afghanistan has once again become the frontline in the so-called "War On Drugs." As Al-Jazeera reports, Afghanistan's poppy fields, which feed the habits of drug addicts worldwide, are thriving, with cultivation of the crop hitting record highs last year.

“For sure it will cause a big delay and it may kill the whole process. Whoever committed this crime is pushing for a military solution, not a political process solution.” 

That’s a quote from Hadi al-Bahra, a Syrian opposition leader. The comments come a day after an apparent Russian airstrike killed Zahran Alloush. Alloush, the son of Saudi-based cleric Abdallah Alloush, is (or, more appropriately “was”) the leader of Jaysh al Islam, a powerful Syrian opposition group whose forces number some 10,000.