Father of ISIS hostage denies his son is Mossad spy

© REUTERS/ AMMAR AWAD

Said Musallam, whose son, Muhammad, is being held by Islamic State in Syria as an alleged spy, holds his photograph in his East Jerusalem home.

On Thursday, the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group released an interview with one of their own captives through its online magazine, . "Interview with a Spy Working for the Israeli Mossad," the title reads, next to a photo of the alleged spy.

The boy's father recognized this photo as his son.

"My son is innocent, IS accused him of working for Mossad because he tried to run away," Said Musallam told the AFP.

Said Musallam, whose son, Muhammad, is being held by Islamic State in Syria as an alleged spy, holds his photograph in his East Jerusalem home.

While Said insists that his son, Mohammed Said Ismail Musallam, was never working for Mossad, he does confirm other elements of the story. He says Musallam did, in fact, leave Israel for Turkey, and from there crossed over into Syria.

A spokesman for Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet told AFP a similar report, that Musallam left Israel on October 24 "on his own initiative," and not under any kind of secret directive.

While the father confirms that his son traveled to Syria, he says that the intention was not to spy on the Islamic State, but to join them. He tells the AFP that his son left his job in the fire department to join the jihadist group in Syria.

The last time they spoke was by phone while Musallam was in Raqa, self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State.

"The next day I tried to call him and the telephone was turned off," Said told the newspaper . "I thought that maybe he was busy. After a week we got an email that he wanted to be a martyr and he was giving up everything in his life and his family. My children told me that he was in Syria and I believed it."

Said also says that at one point his son got in contact with him and asked his father to send money. Said mailed $200 to an address in Egypt provided by his son.

The interview claims that Musallam was recruited into Israeli intelligence by a neighbor in Neve Yaakov, a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. The magazine claims that Musallam's cover was blown after he began behaving strangely and refusing to accept orders from an Islamic State officer.

Said says his son left home to join the terrorist group three months ago, while the alleged story in Dabiq recount a life in intelligence which must have stretched back considerably further than that.

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History repeating? EU leaders debate new 'anti-terror' legislation

© Reuters / Francois Lenoir

Galvanized by the recent terror attacks in France, European Union leaders on Thursday debated a range of ambitious steps to better protect their 28 nations, including exchanging airliner passenger manifests, tightening controls at the border and combating extremism on the Internet.

EU President Donald Tusk, the summit meeting's host, said he would seek agreement on a "work plan to step up the fight against terrorism.'' The bloc's top official for counter-terrorism warned member governments last month that ''Europe is facing an unprecedented, diverse and serious threat.''

Counter-terrorism policy shot to the top of the EU agenda following the Jan. 7-9 terror attacks in Paris against a satirical weekly, a policewoman and a kosher grocery store that claimed a total of 17 victims. The three gunmen, who proclaimed allegiance to Al-Qaida in Yemen and the Islamic State group, were also shot dead by French police.

The attacks mobilized France and other EU countries to seek more effective ways to deal with armed Islamic militancy, especially the problem of radicalized European-born Muslims who go to fight in Syria or Iraq and then return home.

The attacks in the French capital "were a game-changer'' for EU counter-terrorism policy, said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, senior trans-Atlantic fellow and director of the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund think tank. To prepare for Thursday's summit in Brussels, EU foreign, finance and interior and justice ministers drew up recommendations on what to do.

But as the leaders met, some officials urged caution. Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said it was imperative to strike "a careful balance between civil liberties and security.'' European Parliament President Martin Schulz, who addressed the summit, told a news conference afterward that rashly limiting individual rights in the name of boosting public safety would play right into the terrorists' hands by discrediting Western-style democracy.

"We need to be a state of law and democracy,'' Schulz said. "We need to protect our values.''

Some of the steps the leaders were expected to consider:

An EU-wide passenger registry to share information on air travelers

"It sounds crazy, but we don't have that system within the EU, though we have it with the U.S., Canada and Australia,'' said de Hoop Scheffer. An earlier attempt to launch an EU-wide exchange of air traveler data for prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offenses and other serious crimes died in the European Parliament in 2013 when a committee rejected it on civil liberties grounds.

On Wednesday, European Parliament members, by a 532-136 vote, pledged to work toward getting a passenger name record program enacted by the end of 2015, but insisted the EU simultaneously rewrite its rules on data collection and sharing to ensure legally-binding protections.

Even that wasn't sufficient for Europe's Greens, who opposed the resolution, saying it gave "carte blanche for EU governments to scale back personal freedoms.'' The Greens said it would be more effective to conduct targeted surveillance on individual suspects already known to authorities.

Tighter border checks on travelers

Twenty-six European countries, among them 22 EU nations, have abolished passport and customs controls among one another in what's commonly known as the "Schengen area.'' According to EU officials, current identity checks on European travelers leaving or re-entering the area are often cursory.

Gilles De Kerchove, the EU's counter-terrorism chief, has called for the swift implementation of a new screening system to detect suspicious travel movements, and suggested it is also time to change some of the rules governing the Schengen area.

Fighting the use of the Internet to spread radical ideas

A draft statement prepared for Thursday's summit calls for measures to "detect and remove Internet content promoting terrorism and extremism,'' including reinforced cooperation between public and private sectors and a coordinating role for Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency.

"Preventing radicalization is a key element of the fight against terrorism,'' the draft statement says. It also calls for development of communication strategies to promote tolerance, non-discrimination, fundamental freedoms and solidarity throughout the EU, and use of education, vocational training and rehabilitation to limit the lure of radicalization, including for people in prison.

If all three of the major proposals are adopted, "the EU would be better equipped'' to deal with the terrorism challenge, said de Hoop Scheffer.

The EU leaders were expected to consider other measures as well, including better coordination among existing institutions like Europol, Eurojust - the EU-wide agency of prosecutors, police and investigating magistrates - and the bloc's counter-terrorism coordinator.

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Wild elephant kills farmer near Magadi, India

Elephant kills farmer

A 45-year-old farmer was killed by a wild elephant in the family's agricultural field at Attingere in the taluk on Sunday night.

The victim was identified as Panchalingaiah, son of Sanjeevaiah.

On Monday night, Roopa, Panchalingaiah's daughter, went to the field to give him tea. She was shocked to find her father's body lying 200 feet away. She then returned to the village to inform her family about the incident.

It is said Panchalingaiah was sleeping in the ragi field, when the elephant came there in search of food and started eating the ragi crop.

The shocked farmer cried out for help. This scared the elephant and it pulled him for some distance and threw him down. The farmer died on the spot. Panchalingaiah is survived by his wife and three daughters.

The village residents, along with members of the Raitha Sangha, staged a roadblock on the Ramanagar-Magadi Road and demanded that the authorities concerned take steps to curb the elephant menace. They also set fire to tyres. This disrupted traffic for sometime. They said elephants had killed five farmers in recent times and had destroyed crops grown on several acres of land.

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Bosnia changes mind, says 'nyet' to Ukraine weapons deal

© Reuters / Danilo Krstanovic

Bosnian Serbs led the oppositional voice against weapon exports to Ukraine, where fighting between government forces and rebels in the East threatens to fracture the country.

After Bosnian arms producer Unis Group recently won a 5 million euro ($5.66 million) tender to provide Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, Russia called on the Bosnian government to nix the deal.

Bosnian Serbs, who have strong bonds with fellow Orthodox Christian Russia, said that permitting arms exports to Kiev would damage their relations with Moscow.

The presidency said arms exports to Ukraine would not promote regional security.

"[Arms exports] do not contribute to regional security, stability and ongoing international diplomatic efforts to broker a peaceful solution to the crisis in Ukraine," said the presidency, which represents the three main ethnic groups, as quoted by Reuters.

"The crisis in Ukraine can be resolved only through a peaceful, democratic means, political dialogue and negotiations, with full respect of the international law."

Meanwhile, in December, the US Congress unanimously passed legislation authorizing President Barack Obama to send up to $350 million in military aid to the Ukrainian military, a move Moscow warned would have disastrous implications in the region. Other western countries, such as France and Germany, said they would not support any military assistance to Kiev.

Since 1995, following a peace treaty ending the Bosnian War, the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina rotates among three ethnic lines, Bosniak, Serb and Croat. Bosnian Serbs are more unreceptive than Bosniaks and Croats to EU and NATO membership, opting to cultivate relations with Russia.

Last month former Trade Minister Boris Tucic, a Bosnian Serb, resigned from his position after rejecting the Unis deal.

Leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France wrapped up marathon talks in Minsk on Thursday in which they agreed to a ceasefire, beginning February 15.

"I believe we agreed on a big deal. We agreed to a ceasefire starting at 00:00 on February 15," Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalists following the talks.

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Elephant kills 2 people in West Bengal, India

© Satish Hanumantha Rao

Charging elephant.

A wild elephant killed a man and injured two others on Friday morning in Barhulia of Dhupguri's Gadong gram panchayat. Locals said the elephant had entered the village to feed on the paddy fields. They said Bipin Roy died on the spot while the two injured have been admitted at the Dhupguri hospital, says a HS report.

A PTI report, however, put the death toll at two. Quoting Divisional Forest Officer Sunita Ghatak, it said one of the injured persons died on the way to hospital. "Bipin Roy (55) died on the spot at Barothalia when the elephant coming from Khuttimari forest lifted him and threw him on the ground. Two others who came to his rescue were also attacked by the elephant," she said. The elephant also killed five goats when being chased into the jungle by the locals, officials said.

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Crowds attack Ebola facility, health workers in Guinea

© REUTERS/Michelle Nichols

A billboard with a message about Ebola is seen on a street in Conakry, Guinea October 26, 2014.

Crowds destroyed an Ebola facility and attacked health workers in central Guinea on rumours that the Red Cross was planning to disinfect a school, a government spokesman said on Saturday.

Red Cross teams in Guinea have been attacked on average 10 times a month over the past year, the organisation said this week, warning that the violence was hampering efforts to contain the disease.

During the incident on Friday in the town of Faranah, around 400 km (250 miles) east of the capital Conakry, angry residents attacked an Ebola transit centre and set ablaze a vehicle belonging to medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.

A Red Cross burial team was also targeted and forced to flee, said Fodé Tass Sylla, spokesman for the government campaign against the disease.

"All this agitation aims to discourage our partners and to give the virus the upper hand. We won't accept that," he said. "Everyone must understand that the fight we are leading requires the engagement of all citizens."

The number of new cases in Guinea nearly doubled last week to 64, according to World Health Organization data, jeopardising a government plan to get to zero new cases by early March.

Over 2,000 people have died out of a total of around 3,000 cases of Ebola in Guinea, which along with Sierra Leone and Liberia is one of the three countries hardest hit by the worst epidemic of the disease on record.

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Woman's best friend: Schnauzer escapes, walks 15 blocks to find owner in the hospital

Sissy the miniature schnauzer managed to get out of her yard and walked 20 blocks to the hospital where her owner was recovering from cancer treatment.

There's no denying the bond that develops between people and their pets.

A miniature schnauzer in Cedar Rapids proved that nothing, even distance, can break that bond.

Nancy Franck and her two miniature schnauzers, Sissy and Barney, live in southeast Cedar Rapids. Franck, however, has been staying 15 to 20 blocks away at Mercy Medical Center following a surgery.

She's been in the hospital for about two weeks.

Last Saturday Nancy's husband, Dale, was devastated when Sissy unexpectedly ran away from home

"We looked up and there was this dog that was just running across the lobby," said Mercy Security Officer Samantha Conrad.

It's a surprise visitor no one expected: a dog in a hospital. Security cameras caught it all. Just like anybody would, Sissy wandered through two automatic doors and strolls right into Mercy Medical Center.

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"We started looking at the tags and it had the address and we saw how far away this dog had lived, as far as going at least fifteen blocks to get here. So, it was quite an amazing journey that this dog made," Conrad said.

Sissy enters the hospital where her owner is receiving cancer treatment.

The security guard used the dog's tags to call one of the owners at home, Dale Franck.

"I thought she just wanted to go someplace, but I didn't know where and she had never run away before," Nancy's Husband Dale Franck said.

That's when the security guard realized Dale's wife was getting treatment at Mercy. So far from home, Sissy found what she was looking for.

"She wanted to go see her mom. She was on a mission but she couldn't find the right elevator to take," Dale Franck said.

"I don't know how she found the right door or did any of that herself," Nancy Franck said.

"She missed mom. That's all I can say. She missed mom and she knew to come and see mom," said Nancy's Daughter, Sarah Wood.

That's why the family believes Sissy ran away from home, to find the person who is home.

"I said did you sneak this dog in here? She said 'no, she snuck herself in here, mom'," said Nancy Franck.

The family still can't figure out how Sissy knew where to go.

"That was great just being able to see her. That was perfect. I'm glad she thought of it," Nancy Franck said.

The family said they have never taken Sissy to the hospital. The only thing they can think of is that Nancy works next door at the Hall Perrine Cancer Center. In the past the dog has been in the car when the family dropped off Nancy at work.

After a long couple weeks in the hospital, the surprise visitor brought a much-needed smile to Nancy's face.

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