Short presentational grey line
The frenzied journalism that followed the 2014 abduction by militant Islamist group Boko Haram of more than 200 girls from their school in Chibok, north-east Nigeria, may have been well-meaning but it led to some unfortunate outcomes.
Prior to the Chibok incident, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau was just a fringe figure that Nigerians saw on TV once in a while.
When he stabbed at the camera with his fingers and guffawed wildly while threatening everyone from Nigeria’s then-President Goodluck Jonathan to the US president at the time, Barack Obama, with death and destruction, many of us wondered: Who did this unkempt man really think he was?
West Point biochemist warns about threat of bioweapons
Updated on: January 20, 2021 / 9:11 AM / CBS News
In this episode of
Intelligence Matters, host Michael Morell speaks with Dr. Ken Wickiser, a biochemist and associate dean of research at U.S. Military Academy West Point, about his piece Engineered Pathogens and Unnatural Biological Weapons: The Future Threat of Synthetic Biology. Wickiser describes the growing influence of synthetic biology and what can happen if it gets in the wrong hands. Listen to
Highlights
What is synthetic biology? Synthetic biology is the process of engineering natural genetic systems. In terms of engineering: taking what nature has provided us and optimizing it, co-opting it, repurposing it, making it more efficient, and making it more cost effective. In large part for good purposes, to make new and novel biomaterials, to make new and novel pharmaceuticals. To make existing pharmaceuticals cheaper, more abundant, more available
ISIS weapons depot located by the Iraqi army north of Baghdad.
Rockets found in the weapons depot (Facebook page of Iraqi Army Spokesman Yahya Rasoul, December 20, 2020)
Three ISIS operatives detained by the Iraqi Counterterrorism Apparatus (Facebook page of the Iraqi Counterterrorism Unit, December 19, 2020)
Main events of the past week
Routine attacks continued in ISIS’s various provinces in Syria, Iraq and throughout Africa and Asia. Noteworthy examples:
Syria: routine activity continued in the area of Deir al-Zor and Al-Mayadeen and in the desert region west of the Euphrates Valley. Prominent modus operandi of ISIS’s attacks included targeted killings and the activation of IEDs against vehicles and soldiers of the SDF and the Syrian army.