JERUSALEM — Israeli police say a security guard shot and killed a 13-year-old Palestinian girl who tried to stab him at the entrance to a West Bank settlement.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri says an initial investigation suggests the girl fought with her family before leaving her home with a knife ahead of Saturday’s altercation.

The last four months have seen near-daily Palestinian stabbing attacks that have killed 25 Israelis and an American student. At least 147 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, 102 of them identified by Israel as attackers. The rest have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops.

Israel says the violence is the result of a Palestinian campaign of incitement. The Palestinians say it is rooted in frustration over Israel’s nearly 50-year occupation.
by : PTI

Beijing, Jan 23 (PTI) Warning of rising risks of terrorist attacks, China has decided to promote use of contactless detection devices for explosives and dynamic face recognition system to curb terrorist activities.
Although serious violent crime dropped by 12.5 per cent nationwide last year, risks of terrorist attacks must be guarded against, according to a statement released at the ongoing central conference on political and legal work.
“We must firmly curb terrorist activities in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, prevent these activities from spreading inland, and prevent violent terrorist attacks in large and medium-sized cities,” it said.
To better counter terrorism, police will promote use of contactless detection devices for explosives, dynamic face recognition as well as voice and voiceprint recognition, the statement was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
There were 106 cases of gun crime, a 43 per cent decrease year on year, and 84 cases of explosives-related crime, a 9.9 per cent drop, the statement said. PTI UZM NSA UZM

Panaji, Jan 23 (PTI) Goa Police has requested Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar to accept Z security cover during his stay in his home state following a letter purportedly signed by terror outfit ISIS threating to harm him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We have briefed Parrikar and requested him to take Z security cover, which he is entitled to as Defence Minister,” Superintendent of Police (Special Branch) Bosco George told PTI today.
The former Chief Minister has been visiting in and around the coastal area without any security cover even after becoming a Union minister.
Goa Secretariat received postcard letter on January 13, purportedly signed by ISIS, in which it threatened to harm PM Narendra Modi and Parrikar.
George said police has advised Parrikar to take Z security cover ever since the threat has emerged. Authenticity of the letter, however, is yet to be established.
Goa Anti Terrorist Squad is investigating the matter.
As a precautionary measure, police have also changed their traditional wireless call signages.
“We have changed the signages now. They were reviewed as a part of security measures,” George said.
This is for the first time since liberation (in 1961), Goa Police have changed their wireless call signages which are given for VVIPs, including Governor and chief minister.
The changed signages would be implemented from February 1 onwards, the SP said.
ATS sleuths are likely to question two government officials who went through the letter first. by : PTI

BEIRUT: The Islamic State group confirmed Tuesday the death of British extremist “Jihadi John”, saying he was killed in a drone strike in their Syrian stronghold of Raqa in November.

Born Mohammed Emwazi, he was known as the executioner of the jihadist group appearing masked in a string of videos showing the beheadings of Western hostages.

In its online magazine Dabiq, the group said Emwazi was killed on November 12 “as the car he was in was targeted in a strike by an unmanned drone in the city of Raqa, destroying the car and killing him instantly”.

‘Jihadi John’: quiet football fan who became the symbol of IS

The US military had said at the time that it was “reasonably certain” he had been killed in the strike.

IS described Emwazi as a “martyr” and prayed to “Allah… to envelop him with His mercy and enter him into the highest levels of al-Firdaws (paradise)”.

Dabiq devoted an article to Emwazi, describing him as an “honourable brother” known for his “mercy and generosity” who once gave away a concubine as a gift “to an unmarried injured brother”.

The world knew him as a ruthless executioner who spoke English with a British accent and he was dubbed “Jihadi John” after hostages nicknamed a group of IS guards The Beatles.

He first appeared in a video in August 2014 showing the beheading of James Foley, a 40-year-old American freelance journalist captured in Syria in 2012.

Foley is seen kneeling on the ground, dressed in an orange outfit resembling those worn by prisoners held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Emwazi is dressed entirely in black.

US air strike targets ‘Jihadi John’ in Syria: Pentagon

The Pentagon has said Emwazi participated in videos showing the murders of Foley and fellow US journalist Steven Sotloff, US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and a number of other hostages.

Emwazi was last seen in the video showing Goto’s execution in January.

On November 13, the US military said it was “reasonably certain” Emwazi, 27, was killed in a drone attack in Syria while he was being driven in a car.

He was targeted in a combined British-US operation the previous day in Raqa, de facto capital of IS in war-torn Syria.

Intelligence sources had been tracking Emwazi “for some time,” Baghdad-based military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said at the time.

Islamic State’s Jihadi John reveals his face for the first time

“This guy was a human animal, and killing him probably makes the world a little bit better place,” he added.

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron had said if confirmed, Emwazi’s death would be “a strike at the heart” of the IS group.

A London computer programmer, Emwazi was born in Kuwait to a stateless family of Iraqi origin. His parents moved to Britain in 1993 after their hopes of obtaining Kuwaiti citizenship were quashed.

Emwazi was six years old when his family moved to London. He grew up in North Kensington, a leafy middle-class area where a network of Islamist extremists was uncovered in recent years.