ISIS' Demand for Release of Sajida al-Rishawi Seen as Propaganda Ploy
The terror group ISIS' changing its ransom demands to the Japanese government from $200 million to the release of a failed female suicide bomber is a reminder of the terror group's ties to the Iraq war and al Qaeda in Iraq — but the demand itself may be nothing more than a propaganda ploy, an expert told NBC News.
Sajida al-Rishawi, a would-be suicide bomber whose explosives failed to detonate during a 2005 attack on an Amman hotel, is the sister of a top commander under the former leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. The current leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also served as a lieutenant under Zarqawi.
ISIS on Saturday released a video claiming it executed one of two Japanese hostages it had threatened, and, in the video, said it now wanted the release of al-Rishawi instead of cash or it will execute its second captive. Authorities in Japan were working to confirm whether it was authentic.
The secret world of Isis training camps – ruled by sacred texts and the sword
We reveal how the terror group recruits and retains its members through zealotry, rhetoric and obscure theology
Hamid Ghannam’s first day at an Islamic State (Isis) training camp was intense. Very early on the morning of 13 August, he picked up his packed clothes and walked quickly to the main street in his village to meet three of his cousins. As with many of Isis’s young members, he did so without informing his parents.
The cousins drove in a white minibus to an Isis camp at the Omar oilfield in the desert of Mayadeen, Deir Ezzor, eastern Syria. The recruiter, a distant relative who had enlisted around eight others from his village since he was put in charge of its security, accompanied the three to their new lodging, where they would spend the next few weeks.
At the oilfield the recruiter spoke to an Isis member for a few minutes before he excused himself. “Keep our heads high,” he told his relatives as he drove away. Another Isis member welcomed the three recruits and asked them to prepare themselves for sharia lessons. “It is not easy, you have to be patient,” Ghannam said. “They test you first. They speak with you for a while. They check your knowledge of religion. They discuss with you everything. They talk to you about the Nusayri [pejorative reference to Alawites] regime and then about the Free Syrian Army and all the misguided groups. It is exhausting at first.”
America: Land of the free, home of the political dynasty
Out of America: These days in the US things are pretty much stuck where they are, both in politics and society at large
ISIS' Japanese hostages receive mixed sympathy at home
Fighting back tears, Junko Ishido stood before dozens of television cameras, just hours before an apparent ISIS deadline to execute her son, Kenji Goto -- one of two Japanese hostages who appeared in a shocking propaganda video days before.
One of the first statements she made, before making a direct plea to ISIS to spare her son's life, was an apology to the Japanese people.
"Thank you for your great kindness and I apologize for the tremendous inconvenience and trouble that my son has caused," she said.
Experts agree, the tide is turning in fight against Ebola
While officials agree that conditions are much improved in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, it's unclear if this Ebola outbreak could have been responded to quicker, with less cost and suffering.
DAKAR, SENEGAL — A top U.N. official in the fight against Ebola greeted just three patients at one treatment center he visited this week in Sierra Leone. Families in Liberia are no longer required to cremate the remains of loved ones to halt the spread of the virulent disease.
And in the streets of Guinea's capital, it is rare to see the formerly ubiquitous plastic buckets of bleach and water for hand washing.
Ten months after it dawned on health officials that they were facing an unprecedented Ebola outbreak in West Africa, experts and officials agree the tide is turning, although previous lulls have proved short-lived.
25 January 2015 Last updated at 07:48
New Horizons probe eyes Pluto for historic encounter
A Nasa probe is to start photographing the icy world of Pluto, after travelling 5bn km (3bn miles) and nine years to get near the dwarf planet.
The mission to Pluto is being billed as the last great encounter in planetary exploration.
It is one of the first opportunities to study a dwarf planet up close.
The pictures are critical to enable the New Horizons probe to position itself for a closer fly-by later this year.
As the probe is still 200 million km away, Pluto will be hardly discernable in the images - just a speck of light against the stars.
But the mission team says this view is needed to help line up the spacecraft correctly for its fly-by on 14 July.
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