An 18-year old man sought by police over Wednesday's shooting attack at satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo handed himself voluntarily to police in northeastern France, an official at the Paris prosecutor's office said.

French police are staging a huge manhunt for attackers who escaped by car after shooting dead some of France's top cartoonists as well as two police officers. About 800 soldiers were brought in to shore up security across the capital.

Authorities are searching for three French nationals, including brothers Said Kouachi, born in 1980; Cherif Kouachi, born in 1982; and Hamyd Mourad born in 1996, after suspected Islamist gunmen killed 12 people.

The official, who declined to identify the man, said he had turned himself in at a police station in Charleville-Mézières, in northeastern France at around 2300 GMT.

BFM TV, citing unidentified sources, said the man had decided to go to the police after seeing his name in social media. It said other arrests had taken place in circles linked to the two brothers. 

The Associated Press reports that one of the brothers, Cherif Kouachi, "was convicted in 2008 of terrorism charges for helping funnel fighters to Iraq's insurgency, and sentenced to 18 months in prison. During his 2008 trial, he told the court he was motivated by his outrage at television images of torture of Iraqi inmates at the U.S. prison at Abu Ghraib."

Charlie Hebdo drew the ire of Islamic militant groups for regularly publishing cartoons and articles that lampooned jihadists including caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, which many Muslims find offensive. The magazine's offices were firebombed in 2011.

The hooded attackers stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a weekly known for lampooning Islam and other religions, in the most deadly militant attack on French soil in decades.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the assailants killed a man at the entrance of the building to force entry. They then headed to the second floor and opened fire on an editorial meeting attended by eight journalists, a policeman tasked with protecting the magazine's editorial director and a guest.

"What we saw was a massacre. Many of the victims had been executed, most of them with wounds to the head and chest," Patrick Hertgen, an emergencies services medic called out to treat the injured, told Reuters.

A Reuters reporter saw groups of armed policeman patrolling around department stores in the shopping district and there was an armed gendarme presence outside the Arc de Triomphe.

"There is a possibility of other attacks and other sites are being secured," police union official Rocco Contento said.

The Kouachi brothers are from the Paris region while 18-year-old Mourad is from the area of the northeastern city of Reims, the government source told Reuters.

A police source told Reuters that one of them had been identified by his identity card which had been left in the getaway car.

(Reuters reporting By John Irish and Tangi Salaun; Reuters editing by Bernard Orr)

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A policewoman has died and a civil employee is seriously hurt after a shooting in the south of Paris on Thursday morning, France24 reports. 

The two people were shot near a metro station in Montrogue by a man wearing a bulletproof vest, the AFP reports. He was carrying an automatic rifle. 

So far, no connection has been established between Thursday morning's shooting and Wednesday's terrorist attack at the Paris office of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which left 12 dead.

France's interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the suspect was on the run, according to the AFP. It was earlier reported that the gunman had been detained.

There are also reports of an explosion at a kebab shop near a mosque in Lyon, but a link hasn't been established to Wednesday's Paris assault there either.

Police are still searching for brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, whom police suspect of killing 12 people, including two police officers and four Charlie Hebdo cartoonists including the weekly's editor-in-chief, before escaping by car. 

A third suspect, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, voluntarily turned himself over to authorities Thursday morning. He is the stepbrother of the Kouachis. 

SEE ALSO: Follow Our Live Coverage Of The Paris Terror Attack

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Two gunmen wanted in connection with the Paris shooting have reportedly been spotted in northeastern France, according to AFP.

The gunmen have reportedly been seen driving along a road about 30 miles north of Paris and at a petrol station in Aisne, according to media reports.

A huge manhunt has been underway for the two attackers who escaped by car after shooting dead 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices in Paris, including some of France's top cartoonists as well as two police officers. About 800 soldiers were brought in to shore up security across the capital.

The two suspects — brothers Said Kouachi, 34, and Cherif Kouachi, 32 — are still on the loose are said to be armed and dangerous.

The brothers are reportedly linked to a Yemeni terrorist network, an anonymous police official told the Associated Press. A witness at the scene of the attack quoted the gunmen as saying: "You can tell the media that it's Al Qaeda in Yemen."

Charlie Hebdo has drawn the ire of Islamic militant groups for regularly publishing cartoons and articles that lampooned jihadists, including caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, which many Muslims find offensive. The magazine's offices were firebombed in 2011 after publishing controversial cartoons poking fun at Islam.

A third suspect in Wednesday's attack turned himself into police late Wednesday after he saw his name on social media. Hamyd Mourad was arrested and taken into custody after surrendering to police in Charleville-Mézières at about 2300 GMT, according to AFP.

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A massive manhunt is underway for brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, the main suspects in a terrorist shooting attack in Paris that killed 12 people on Wednesday.

The brothers have been well known to French authorities for at least a decade and reportedly had known connections to Islamic terrorists.

More is known about Cherif, 32, than Said, 34, but both appear to have jihadist backgrounds.

Both were French nationals of Algerian descent and come from secular backgrounds, according to The New York Times. A French newspaper report cited by The Times said Cherif was raised in foster care in western France and trained to be a fitness instructor before he moved to Paris, where he lived with his brother and a convert to Islam.

Cherif reportedly worked delivering pizzas and as a shop assistant and fishmonger while he lived in France.

He was influenced by the radical Paris mosque preacher Farid Benyettou, the Times report said. Benyettou was known as the spiritual leader of the terror cell "Filiere des Buttes Chaumont," a group that helped funnel fighters into Iraq during the American invasion, according to Bloomberg.

The terror cell's recruits were reportedly going to fight alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former Al Qaeda leader in Iraq who was killed in 2006.

While they were involved with Benyettou and the terror cell, they reportedly learned how to use automatic weapons like the ones used in Wednesday's attack of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which has published cartoons that some Muslims find offensive.

Experts, citing the video of the attack, believe the attackers were professionally trained.

A French magazine cited a police source saying the brothers were "smalltime delinquents who became radicalized,"according to The Telegraph.

Cherif, who has also taken the name Abu Issen, was linked to the cell in 2005 and has been arrested twice in connection with terrorists in France.

He was arrested in 2005 days before he was set to fly to Syria and then to Iraq, The Telegraph reports. In 2008, Cherif was convicted on terrorism charges related to the 2005 case and sentenced to three years in prison with an 18-month suspended sentence.

During his trial, Cherif said he was outraged by images of the torture of Iraqi inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison run by the US in Iraq. He also mentioned wanting to attack Jewish targets in France, according to The Times.

He said he "really believed in the idea" of jihad, according to the Associated Press.

Cherif's lawyer portrayed him as a normal young man who had gone astray and realized the error of his ways, noting that he liked to drink and smoke pot and "wasn't particularly religious,"according to a reporter who traveled to Europe to study the threat of Islam for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in 2005.

The lawyer said Cherif had been having second thoughts about jihad after his arrest.

But that appeared not to hold.

Cherif's next arrest came in 2010 in connection with the attempted prison escape of former Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) member Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, who had carried out terrorist attacks in France in the 1990s, according to The Telegraph. Said's name also appeared in the police report, and although Cherif was held for four months, neither brother ended up being convicted.

They reportedly traveled to Syria after this, returning last summer, Bloomberg reports.

Cherif is also thought to have ties to French jihadist Djamel Beghal, who spent 10 years in prison for planning terrorist attacks, The Telegraph reports. Cherif and Beghal were thought to have participated in militant training together.

The brothers most recently lived in Gennevilliers, a Paris suburb, according to Bloomberg.

SEE ALSO: 2 Gunmen In Paris Shooting Reportedly Spotted In Northern France; 7 Arrested In Investigation

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In the ninth year of America's longest war, NATO required all International Security Assistance Force troops to answer a questionnaire before, during, and after each mission.

Retired 3-star Army Lieutenant General Daniel Bolger, who led NATO training mission in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013, cited these questions as an example of bad leadership in his book, "Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars."

"With regard to the 14 questions, those represent excessive top-down micromanagement that grew as the war persisted, especially in Afghanistan after General Stan McChrystal took over in 2009. His successors continued this stifling practice," General Bolger wrote Business Insider via email.

Here are the 14 questions:

1. Did the mission include Afghan National Army or Afghan National Police?

2. Were any civilians killed or wounded?

3. Was the local civil leadership notified ahead of time?

4. Did they agree?

5. Were bombs dropped, attack helicopters used, artillery delivered, or mortars fired?

6. Did the enemy present an imminent threat? (Fussy military lawyers love that one.)

7. Were any houses entered without invitation?

8. Did the Afghan forces do the home entries?

9. Did any element enter a mosque?

10. Were any civilians searched?

11. Did the unit search the objective to locate enemy and civilian casualties and material damage?

12. Were there any unobserved fires?

13. Had any escalation-of-force incidents (warning shots to ward off curious or confused locals) occurred?

14. Were the Afghan or Western media informed?

"The thought was that by forcing troops to answer these 14 questions, every operation would better conform to the vision of the 4-star commander. In reality, this method reflects a lack of trust in subordinate commanders," Gen. Bolger wrote. 

Gen. Bolger pointed to a quote from General George Patton as a better approach to leadership: "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will amaze you with their ingenuity."

Questions excerpted from Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars by Daniel Bolger. Excerpted with permission by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Copyright © 2014 by Daniel Bolger. All rights reserved.

SEE ALSO: A 3-Star General Explains Why America Lost The Global War On Terror

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Samuel Visner is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cybersecurity at IFC International. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. This white paper is titled 'It's Not About Sony.'

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed that North Korea was behind the cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. Now is the time to shift our focus from the capabilities demonstrated by the attackers to their motivation.

The first important point, the fact Sony was attacked is irrelevant. North Korea apparently capitalized on the company’s reportedly weak cybersecurity to accomplish these goals:

• ƒ A live test of its cyber-attack capabilities,
• A demonstration to other countries that they are not beyond North Korea’s reach
• Understanding and calibration of the response of other countries.

In other words, Sony is no more than a target of opportunity, one chosen cleverly. In the end, how much retaliation might North Korea expect from an attack on the US media subsidiary of a Japanese company?

No critical infrastructure has been damaged. Sony does not represent any of the sectors covered by the President’s 2013 cybersecurity executive order nor the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s 2014 Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. For North Korea, attacking Sony was a low-risk endeavor.

This incident has important consequences. In attacking a company on US soil, North Korea has demonstrated its cyber capability to inflict damage without physical proximity.

And very importantly, this global reach has garnered widespread global attention.

The world has learned that the North Korean arsenal of weapons and state-craft can be potent at great distance and that countries engaged in confrontation or negotiation with North Korea must account for Pyongyang’s cyber capabilities.

But North Korea must demonstrate to itself that this capability is potent. This incident also must be seen as a live weapons test, not dissimilar to North Korea’s apparent sinking of a South Korean warship with a torpedo in 2010.

That incident verified to North Korea’s leaders that its torpedoes work and demonstrated to potential adversaries another North Korean capability they cannot afford to overlook.

With a live test of its cyberattack ability, North Korea proved to itself and an international audience that it can inflict damage in the real world. It gained assurance that in the future, a cyberattack could be a viable component of its integrated arsenal of weapons and other tools of state-craft.

As for Sony, this incident could have afflicted any other commercial enterprise, especially one that reportedly had chosen to deal with the fallout from a cyberattack rather than invest in the strategy and tools necessary to defend against it.

For US and other national security planners, at least one other lesson should be learned: Information sharing is a challenge that cannot be deferred any longer. Government and commercial entities are equally at risk in this world.

The private sector may be more likely to suffer attacks than the public sector. Thus, we must overcome the barriers that have held back the sharing of detailed threat information, and information relating to the tools and techniques needed to confront today’s threat landscape.

The real lessons here are:

• ƒAny organization, commercial or governmental, can find itself the target of a state sponsored weapons test.
• ƒ Cyberattack is clearly becoming a mainstream threat rather than a peripheral concern.
• The need to share information grows every day.

Samuel Visner is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cybersecurity at IFC International. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. This white paper is titled 'It's Not About Sony.'

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Russia's attractiveness to migrant workers is dwindling.

The flow of migrants into Russia has fallen by 70% over the first week of January when compared to the same period last year, reports The Moscow Times.

This isn't completely unexpected because migrant workers are facing two major problems: the ruble's plunge and increased costs associated with finding work.

With the ruble's fall against the US dollar, migrant workers' wages are now worth less than they used to in their own national currencies.

The head of the Tajik Migrants Workers, Karmot Sharipov, highlighted the currency issue back in December. He said that Tajik workers in Russia have high-interest rate loans in dollars back home, and now that the ruble was weaker, workers needed to find work elsewhere to pay off loans.

Additionally, it's getting more and more expensive for migrant workers to find jobs.

Starting on January 1, migrants workers have to take a mandatory exam about Russian culture, history, and language that costs 30,000 rubles. Additionally, work permits have more than tripled in price from 1,200 to 4,000 according to The Moscow Times. 

Until recently, Russia has seen troves of foreign workers moving into the country. In fact, the country saw the second-largest number of international migrants in 2013 (behind only the US.) Most come from Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine, according to data from Rosstat.

Many migrant workers have been moving to Russia in order to look for opportunities. Since the country has been experiencing a major brain drain in recent years, increasingly better opportunities have been opening up across the board.

Interestingly, on January 2 Vladimir Putin issued a decree enabling foreign nationals (if they speak Russian and have no criminal record) to serve in the Russian military.

Russia has large military bases in Tajikistan and Armenia, and a military presence in other parts of the former Soviet Union (including Moldova, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.)

"A young Tajik man speaking to RFE/RL in Dushanbe said paid service in the Russian Army was a preferable alternative to working in Russia as a labor migrant, as tens of thousands of Central Asians do each year," reported the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. However, others said they would only serve in their own national army.

Mohammad Amin Majumder, the head of Russia's Federation of Migrants, asked Putin to allow labor migrants to serve in the army back in April 2014, saying that some 100,000 migrants were ready "to defend Russia's interests anywhere in the world."

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Before the attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris on Wednesday, suspect Cherif Kouachi was familiar to French police— and to French media.

British broadcaster Channel 4 has republished and translated a 2005 video report from public television channel France 3.

The report shows footage of Cherif Kouachi in 2004, partaking in a video to promote his rapping aspirations.

At the time, the narrator states, "Cherif had the same sort of dreams as many in the area where he lived. He was a fan of rap music more inclined to hang out with pretty young girls than to attend the mosque. In a few months, though, he was to become a committed follower of Farid Benyettou."

Benyettou was a self-styled preacher and janitor jailed alongside Cherif Kouachi, who was convicted on terrorism charges in 2008. Kouachi had been intercepted and arrested in 2005, just days before he was set to fly to Syria and then to Iraq, The Telegraph reports. Benyettou is still incarcerated.

The French report quoted Kouachi speaking of his own radicalization. "Farid told me that the scriptures offered proof of the goodness of suicide attacks. It is written in the scriptures that it's good to die a martyr," he said.

French authorities are on the hunt for Kouachi and his brother, who are suspects in Wednesday's terrorist attack that left 12 people dead at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

SEE ALSO: French Special Forces Track Paris Suspects

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The past year has been a busy time for the US Army. 

US soldiers remained engaged in operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan and took the lead in multi-national training exercises throughout the world. Army veterans received high honors during a memorial to the 70th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, while one Afghanistan veteran received the Medal of Honor.  

The Army compiled a year in photos to show what they were doing 2014.

These are some of the most amazing photographs of the Army from the past year.

In March, members of the US Army Parachute Team conducted their annual certification test.

The past year saw the first instance of the Spartan Brigade, an airborne combat team, training north of the Arctic Circle. Here, paratroopers move to their assembly area after jumping into Deadhorse, Alaska.

Elsewhere, in Alaska's Denali National Park, the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, hiked across Summit Ridge on Mount McKinley to demonstrate their Arctic abilities.

French special forces are combing the fields and woodland around a small town northeast of Paris today in search of two suspects in Wednesday's methodical attack on the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that killed 12 people.

Overall, more than 88,000 personnel are committed throughout the country, according to the French Ministry of Internal Affairs. Those include 50,000 Police employees, 32,000 from the Gendarmerie, 5,000 policemen and gendarmes of the Forces mobiles, and 1,150 military.

The two brothers were reportedly seen in a light grey car carrying heavy weapons, including grenade launchers. On Thursday morning they held up a gas station in the town of Villers-Cotteret, stealing food and ordering staff to refuel their car, according to The Telegraph.

"As Puma helicopters flew overhead, the heavily armed officers mounted road blocks and scoured the countryside in a an area ten by twelves miles square around the small town of Crépy en Valois, 60 miles north east of Paris,"The Telegraph reports.

Locals around the town of Crépy-en-Valois were advised to stay indoors as police went door to door and stopped cars for information. One witness described the nearby forest into which they're thought to have entered "is very big and very wide."

The Aviationist reports that "600 military personnel are deployed in the region around France’s capital as part of Vigipirate, France’s national security alert system. The alert level of such forces was raised on Jan. 7, in the aftermath of the attack and additional reinforcements are set to be deployed in the next hours."

Here's a graphic from the French Defense Ministry that shows the movement of assets to Paris.

SEE ALSO: Special Forces Are Tracking The Paris Suspects In Northern France

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In some of the worst violence to hit Nigeria since the extremist group, Boko Haram raided villages, kidnapped hundreds, and killed many more, the militant group has hit the town of Baga with a new round of assaults.

A local Nigerian senator says at least 2,000 are missing after Boko Haram militants raided more than 10 towns in Nigeria just this week. Ahmed Zanna, senator for Borno state, says between 10 and 20 other villages have also been overrun. Zanna tells NBC News"the whole area is covered in bodies." 

Senior government official Musa Alhaji Bukar told BBC News 2,000 people were killed in the rampages.

Soldiers had fled over the weekend when the Sunni jihadist group overran a nearby army base.

At least 100 people were killed when the militants first took over the town on the edge of Lake Chad, the district head Abba Hassan said on Thursday.

"I escaped with my family in the car after seeing how Boko Haram was killing people ... I saw bodies in the street. Children and women, some were crying for help," Mohamed Bukar told Reuters after fleeing to the Borno state capital Maiduguri.

The militants have been waging an insurgency to establish an Islamic state in the country's northeast for five years. The number and scale of attacks rose sharply last year, after the government imposed emergency rule on the three worst-hit states.

Reuters TV footage showed scores of civilians waiting on sandy streets on the outskirts of Baga to catch buses out of town. Many carried the few possessions they had salvaged, such as bags of clothes and rolled up mattresses.

Boko Haram has taken over or rendered ungovernable swathes of the northeast, especially Borno state.

(Reuters reporting by Ardo Abdullah and Isaac Abrak; Writing by Julia Payne; Editing by Tim Cocks and Andrew Roche)

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About 200 South Korean Special Forces are taking part in ten days of grueling winter weather combat training.

With a constant threat from North Korea, South Korea's Army Special Warfare Command (SWC) is responsible for special operations in the country. SWC soldiers frequently work closely with US Green Berets and their modus operandi include guerrilla warfare, assassinations, and counter-terrorism. 

Every year, members of the SWC must participate in winter warfare training in the mountains of Pyeongchang, east of Seoul. Conditions in Pyeongchang generally include temperatures as low as negative 22 degrees Fahrenheit and deep snow. 

During the training exercises, SWC soldiers participate in distance runs shirtless. 

Soldiers also participate in general exercises in the frozen temperatures. 

The idea is to acclimate soldiers to any intense conditions they may find themselves in. 

Seemingly bizarre, the training instills a sense of mental and physical toughness within the SWC ranks. 

Aside from becoming acclimated to adverse physical conditions, all members of the SWC must achieve a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. 

Likewise, members of the team must excel at marksmanship. Here, SWC soldiers train in tactical skiing with rifles. 

The SWC is composed of seven special forces brigades with an eighth special mission battalion. Here, SWC forces take position in a frozen river.

All SWC members must volunteer for entry into the group before being handpicked for entrance. 

SEE ALSO: This incredible special forces battalion is one of South Korea's top lines of defense

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The US is stepping up its assistance to the Iraq, with plans to send 175 M1 Abrams tanks and scores of armored vehicles to an army that's hasn't been a trustworthy recipient of American aid.

And now Bloomberg is reporting that Iranian-backed Shi'ite sectarian militias are receiving equipment intended for the Iraqi military's sole use, with the likely complicity of officials in Iraq's security apparatus.

According to Eli Lake and Josh Rogin, US weapons are "winding up in the possession of the country’s Shiite militias." American policymakers are aware of this but have decided that the moral hazard of supplying an Iraqi army that in turn supplies Shi'ite militias pales in comparison to the dangers of another ISIS blitz. 

"One senior administration official told us that the U.S. government is aware of this, but is caught in a dilemma," Bloomerg reports. "The flawed Iraqi security forces are unable to fight Islamic State without the aid of the militias, who are often trained and sometimes commanded by officers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. And yet, if the U.S. stopped sending arms to the Iraqi military, things would get even worse, with IS overrunning more of the country and committing human-rights horrors on a broader scale. The risk of not aiding them was greater than the risk of aiding them, the official said, adding that this didn't mean the administration was unconcerned about the risks involved." 

Iran has been closely advising Iraq's military during the anti-ISIS fight. Sunni tribes — a crucial but fledgling partner in the US strategy in Iraq — have accused the Iraqi government of handing over military power to Iranian advisors as IRGC and Hezbollah fighters enter the country.

“Since the outbreak of the conflict Iran has wanted to turn Iraq into its own backyard through its agents,” Anbar tribal chief Sheikh Abdul Qadir al-Nael told Rudaw. “Now the military presence of Iran in Iraq has become clear as it has exceeded the Iranian advisers to thousand of other soldiers.”

The Shia Militias

As Matt Bradley and Ghassan Adnan reported for the Wall Street Journal in December, Shi'ite militias are more motivated, better trained, and more tactically proficient than Iraq's national military. But these aren't exactly virtues, considering Iraq's ethnic and religious diversity, when those militias are burning Sunni villages to the ground.

The militias' high morale and competence has fueled and enabled a spate of sectarian human rights abuses, "including mass shootings of prisoners and Sunni civilians and the forced displacement of Sunni families on a scale approaching ethnic cleansing." 

So the administration's calculation may actually undersell the risks of indirectly supplying Iranian proxies. Although Lake and Rogin don't directly name the militias that are receiving US weapons, a few possibilities come to mind — and none of them are encouraging.

The most important Shi'ite militia might be the Badr Brigade, a pro-Iranian militia turned political party that was one of the most brutal combatants in Iraq's civil war last decade. And Iraq’s new interior minister, Mohammed al-Ghabban, served as a senior official in the Badr militia.

Then there's Kataib Hezbollah, a group that (in this case ironically) began life as "a small elite force of around 400 fighters to carry out operations against the United States and Coalition Forces in Iraq"according to Iraq analyst Joel Wing.

Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahi Muhandis received training in Iran and was implicated in terrorist attacks on American targets in Kuwait in 1983; he is also closely allied with former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, another notorious Shi'ite sectarian.

There's also Kataib Imam Ali, whose secretary general "was once a noted figure in Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army — and reportedly one of its more vicious sectarian leaders"according to Matthew Levitt and Philip Smyth of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The group Asai’b ahl al-Haq was actually kicked out of the Sadrist camp during the US campaign in Iraq because of its especially close ties to Iran and its anti-nationalist, pan-Shi'ite ideology. Wing characterizes the group, which fought against the US-led coalition during last decade's Iraq war, as a member of the "ad hoc-force" Maliki called upon to fight ISIS over the summer as Iraq's regular military disintegrated.

A Choice By The Administration

The militias' rise is one of the factors helping to erode Iraqi nationhood as a concrete reality. Much of what remains of Iraq's deeply sectarian national army doesn't fly the national flag anymore. And Iraq's Shi'ite militias have close ties to Shi'ite Iran, a country that hardly shares the US's vision of a federated, democratic, and fully-autonomous multi-ethnic state.

In indirectly supplying these groups, the Obama administration is essentially deciding that preventing ISIS from spreading beyond its current front-lines is a higher priority than preserving a unitary Iraq.

This isn't a position inconsistent with past US decisions in the country. The US's empowerment of Sunni tribal militias last decade, or its intervention over the summer to prevent ISIS from overrunning the capital of the Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, both represented pragmatic US attempts at leveraging armed forces outside of Baghdad in order to keep a baseline of order inside the country.

The trouble in this case is that it's the Shi'ite-dominated Baghdad government that's been funneling weapons to these brutal militias. Lake and Rogin's report is another example of how the administration has decided that defeating ISIS requires effectively picking sides in Iraq's sectarian struggle. It's a decision that could result in the containment or even the eventual defeat of the group — while empowering Iran and effacing all semblance of Iraqi nationhood in the process.

Update: Business Insider received the following statement from Commander Elissa Smith from the Pentagon's public affairs office, addressing the Iraqi military's alleged transfer of weapons to Shi'ite militias and the US's monitoring of the end-use of weapons sent to the Iraqi government:

We have no reason to believe that there is any effort by the Iraqi government to transfer US-supplied weapons to Shi’a militia. As we transfer items to Iraq under the Iraq Train and Equip Fund (ITEF) or Foreign Military Sales (FMS) in general, we comply with American law for end-use monitoring when it comes to tracking the use of weapons or other sensitive items transferred to the GoI. The GoI has committed to provide substantially the same degree of security protection that the USG would provide. Routine end use monitoring of US provided items is also conducted by the USG. All FMS transfers go through the GoI regardless of which tribal or other demographic or organizational component that winds up as the end user. As we execute portions of ITEF, we are required to report to Congress and elaborate on items that have been requested and transferred.

SEE ALSO: Iraqi Shi'ite militias fighting ISIS are kicking Sunnis out of their homes

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LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - More than one million people have been driven from their homes by the conflict in Ukraine, hampering aid efforts and leaving the country on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe, aid agencies said on Thursday.

The number of people uprooted within Ukraine, 610,000, and of refugees who have fled to neighboring countries, 594,000, has more than tripled since August, figures from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) show.

Ukraine's pro-Moscow separatists signed a ceasefire agreement with the Ukrainian government in early September of 2014, raising hopes that an end to the conflict could be negotiated during the anticipated halt in fighting. Instead, fighting continued, including major combat surrounding the airport in Donetsk and repeated signs of Russian assistance for the rebels in Ukraine. The self-declared prime minister of the breakaway, pro-Russian Donestk People's Republic declared the cease-fire "over" on Oct 20.

With the ceasefire failing to halt combat, Eastern Ukraine's humanitarian situation has become increasingly dire. The UN said an estimated 5.2 million people in Ukraine were living in conflict zones, of whom 1.4 million were highly vulnerable and in need of assistance as they face financial problems, a lack of services and aid, and harsh winter conditions.

The conflict between Ukraine and pro-Russia separatists, killed more than 4,700 people last year and provoked the worst crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

Denis Krivosheev, deputy director of Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty International, said residents in the separatist-controlled enclaves of Luhansk and Donetsk could barely afford food and medicines, especially vulnerable people such as pensioners.

"While it may be too early to call this a humanitarian catastrophe, it's clearly progressing in that direction," Krivosheev told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email.

The provision of humanitarian aid was being hampered by pro-Kiev volunteer battalions that were increasingly preventing food and medicine from reaching those in need in eastern Ukraine, he said.

"Attempting to create unbearable conditions of life is a whole new ballgame... using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is a war crime."

The battalions often act like "renegade gangs" and urgently need to be brought under control, Krivosheev added.

Social benefits, including pensions, have also become a major concern for those in eastern Ukraine following Kiev's decision to transfer the payments to government-controlled areas, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said.

UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said those unable to leave their homes, such as the elderly and the sick, and people living in institutions were not receiving the help they needed.

The problem was made worse by the fact that humanitarian organizations had limited access to the areas controlled by armed groups fighting the government, he added.

With 1 million people now displaced, the fighting in Ukraine has led to one of the biggest violence-related displacements in recent decades in Europe. In 1998, 863,000 ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo as the Serbian army invaded the autonomous region, while the still-unresolved Ngarno-Karabkh conflict involving Armenia and Azerbaijan has displaced over a half-million people. 

(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert; Editing by Tim Pearce)

SEE ALSO: The Ukraine ceasefire is a cynical and deadly sham

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CORCY, France (Reuters) - Armed and masked anti-terrorism police swooped on woodland villages northeast of Paris on Thursday in a manhunt for two brothers suspected of being the Islamist gunmen who killed 12 people at a French satirical weekly.

A day after the Paris attack, officers carried out house-to-house searches in the village of Corcy, a few km (miles) from a service station where police sources said the brothers were sighted in ski masks. Helicopters flew overhead.

The fugitive suspects are French-born sons of Algerian-born parents, both in their early 30s, and already under police surveillance. One was jailed for 18 months for trying to travel to Iraq a decade ago to fight as part of an Islamist cell. Police said they were "armed and dangerous".

United States and European sources close to the investigation said on Thursday that one of the brothers, Said Kouachi, was in Yemen in 2011 for a number of months training with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the group's most active affiliates.

A Yemeni official familiar with the matter said the Yemen government was aware of the possibility of a connection between Said Kouachi and AQAP, and was looking into any possible links.

U.S. government sources said Said Kouachi and his brother Cherif Kouachi were listed in two U.S. security databases, a highly classified database containing information on 1.2 million possible counter-terrorism suspects, called TIDE, and the much smaller "no fly" list maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center, an interagency unit.

U.S. television network ABC reported that the brothers had been listed in the databases for "years."

Dave Joly, a spokesman for the Terrorist Screening Center, said he could neither confirm nor deny if the Kouachis were listed in counter-terrorism databases.

On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama made an unannounced visit to the French Embassy in Washington to pay his respects.

He wrote in a condolence book, "As allies across the centuries, we stand united with our French brothers to ensure that justice is done and our way of life is defended. We go forward together knowing that terror is no match for freedom and ideals we stand for - ideals that light the world."

In Paris, a policewoman was killed in a shootout with a gunman wearing a bulletproof vest on Thursday morning, setting a tense nation further on edge. Police sources were unable to say whether that incident was linked to the previous day's assault at the Charlie Hebdo weekly newspaper, but the authorities opened another terrorism investigation.

Bewildered and tearful French people held a national day of mourning. The bells of Notre Dame pealed for those killed in the attack on Charlie Hebdo, a left-leaning slayer of sacred cows whose cartoonists have been national figures since the Parisian counter-cultural heyday of the 1960s and 1970s.

The newspaper had been firebombed in the past for printing cartoons that poked fun at militant Islam and some that mocked the Prophet Muhammad himself. Two of those killed were police posted to protect the paper.

While world leaders described the attack as an assault on democracy, al Qaeda's North Africa branch praised the gunmen as "knight(s) of truth".

Many European newspapers either re-published Charlie Hebdo cartoons or lampooned the killers with images of their own.

Searches were taking place in Corcy and the nearby village of Longpont, set in thick forest and boggy marshland about 70 km north of Paris, but it was not clear whether the fugitives who had been spotted in the area were holed up or had moved on.

"We have not found them, there is no siege," an interior ministry official in Paris said.

Corcy residents looked bewildered as heavily armed policeman in ski masks and helmets combed the village meticulously from houses to garages and barns.

"We're hearing that the men could be in the forest, but there's no information so we're watching television to see," said Corcy villager Jacques.

In neighbouring Longpont, a resident said police had told villagers to stay indoors because the gunmen may have abandoned their car there. Anti-terrorism officers pulled back as darkness fell. The silence ‎was broken by the sound of a forest owl.

Thursday's shooting of the policewoman on the streets of Paris's southern Montrouge district -- whether related or not -- caused more fear. Montrouge Mayor Jean-Loup Metton said the policewoman and a colleague came under fire while responding to a reported traffic accident. Witnesses said the assailant fled in a Renault Clio. Police sources said he wore a bullet-proof vest and had a an assault rifle and a handgun.

A police officer at the scene told Reuters he did not appear to resemble the Charlie Hebdo shooter suspects.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls, asked on RTL radio whether he feared a further attack, said: "That's obviously our main concern and that is why thousands of police and investigators have been mobilised to catch these individuals."

SUSPECT JAILED

Police released photographs of the two suspects, Cherif and Said Kouachi, 32 and 34. The brothers were born in eastern Paris and grew up in an orphanage in the western city of Rennes after their parents died.

The younger brother's jail sentence for trying to fight in Iraq a decade ago, and more recent tangles with the authorities over suspected involvement in militant plots, raised questions over whether police could have done more to watch them.

Cherif Kouachi was arrested on Jan. 25, 2005 preparing to fly to Syria en route to Iraq. He served 18 months of a three-year sentence.

"He was part of a group of young people who were a little lost, confused, not really fanatics in the proper sense of the word," lawyer Vincent Ollivier, who represented Cherif in the case, told Liberation daily.

In 2010 he was suspected of being part of a group that tried to break from prison Smain Ali Belkacem, a militant jailed for the 1995 bombings of Paris train and metro stations that killed eight people and wounded 120. The case against Cherif Kouachi was dismissed for lack of evidence.

A third person wanted by police, an 18-year-old man, turned himself into police in Charleville-Mézières near the Belgian border late on Wednesday. A legal source said he was the brother-in-law of one of the brothers. French media quoted friends as saying he was in school at the time of the attack.

In the wake of the killings, authorities tightened security at transport hubs, religious sites, media offices and stores. Police also increased their presence at entry points to Paris.

At Porte d'Orleans, one of the capital's main gateways, more than a dozen white police vans lined up the main avenue. Officers stood guard with bulletproof jackets and rifles.

The defense ministry said it sent 200 extra soldiers from parachute regiments across the country to help guardParis.

Tens of thousands of people attended vigils across France on Wednesday, many wearing badges declaring "Je suis Charlie" in support of the newspaper and the principle of freedom of speech.

Newspapers in many countries republished Charlie Hebdo cartoons. Britain's Daily Telegraph depicted two masked gunmen outside the doors of Charlie Hebdo saying to each other: "Be careful, they might have pens."

Charlie Hebdo's lawyer Richard Malka said the newspaper would be published next Wednesday with one million copies compared to its usual print run of 60,000.

Muslim leaders condemned the shooting, but some have expressed fears of a rise in anti-Islamic feeling in a country with a large Muslim population. The window of a kebab shop next to a mosque in the town of Villefrance-sur-Saone was blown out by an overnight explosion. Local media said no one was hurt.

(Additional reporting by Valerie Parent, Sophie Louet, Alexandria Sage, Emmanuel Jarry, Nicolas Bertin, Hannah Murphy, Ingrid Melander; Writing and editing by Peter Graff, Mark John, Ralph Boulton, Peter Millership, Crispian Balmer, Toni Reinhold)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — More than six weeks after hackers attacked Sony Pictures Entertainment, its computer network is still down but the studio has not lost a single day of production on any of its films or television shows, CEO Michael Lynton told The Associated Press on Thursday.

In a wide-ranging interview Lynton talked about the company's isolation and the uncertainty that was created by the pre-Thanksgiving attack, which the U.S. government has attributed to North Korea. Sony's experience as the target of such an unprecedented corporate cyberattack is undoubtedly being closely watched in boardrooms around the world.

"We are the canary in the coal mine, that's for sure," Lynton said. "There's no playbook for this, so you are in essence trying to look at the situation as it unfolds and make decisions without being able to refer to a lot of experiences you've had in the past or other peoples' experiences. You're on completely new ground."

Among the details Lynton discussed:

— Sony Pictures' computer network was so crippled employees dug through a basement for mechanical paycheck cutters and old BlackBerry devices so that senior managers could communicate securely. Employees are still being paid by paper check. The network will be down for another two to three weeks while it is being rebuilt, Lynton said.— While most of Sony's 7,000 employees already were on the Everbridge emergency notification system, Lynton said workers recruited the rest by word-of mouth to sign up. If he had to do it again, Lynton said he would have made it mandatory to do so. Senior managers created text and phone trees to communicate and held twice-daily meetings. The technology team created a temporary email system for all employees that was up and running one week after the Nov. 24 hack.

—The Federal Bureau of Investigation and investigative firm Mandiant were brought in within the first week. The FBI set up shop in a special set of rooms in the center of Sony's lot and conducted multiple hour-long "clinics" on a sound stage for 400 to 500 Sony employees at a time. The meetings covered identity theft — personal information on tens of thousands of current and former Sony employees was stolen and made public — and also some computer security tips.

— Most forensic on-site work is complete and remaining techs are trying to get the system back online.

— As news leaked, managers worked to dispel rumors, making themselves visible at Sony's commissary during meal times to answer questions, and sending out communications two to three times a week. About half of the company's 7,000 employees are on site. Managers also held town hall meetings and went from building to building speaking with groups of 80 to 90 employees at a time.

— Sony always planned to release "The Interview," but did not initially know how in the wake of theater chains cancelling screenings, and then was surprised by the FBI announcement pointing to North Korea. Cable, satellite and digital companies told Sony they were wary of running the film during the holidays, a traditionally high-selling period, out of fear of becoming targets for hacker attacks too.

— Sony purposely priced the online version of "The Interview" at $5.99 rather than a typical $9.99 or higher to avoid accusations of price gouging and to ensure more people could see it after the free-speech criticisms it had weathered. The studio still views the release of a film on on-demand video and in independent theaters as experimental. Lynton said the theatrical experience is important, especially for comedy "because people love to laugh with each other."

— Losses are still being calculated but Lynton said estimates thus far have been inaccurate. "What I'm hearing so far is that they're very manageable," he said. "They're not disruptive to the economic wellbeing of the company."

__

Tami Abdollah can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/latams .

This article was written by Tami Abdollah from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.

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In San Pedro Sula, Honduras last year, 187 were murdered for every 100,000 people. That tragic statistic makes the city the most violent in the world.

The statistic is even more startling when you compare it to Detroit, Michigan, the most dangerous city in the US, which had roughly 48 homicides per 100,000 people last year. 

Gangs, drugs, and poverty plague every day in the Central American city of San Pedro Sula. These images show how brutal life there can be.

Drugs have wreaked havoc on Honduras, especially San Pedro Sula. Below, members of Honduras' military police arrange almost 900 pounds of cocaine seized in a container carrying soft drinks coming from Costa Rica in July 2014.

Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Roughly 15% of US-bound cocaine lands in Honduras at some point.

Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

More than half of all cocaine seizures in Central America occur in El Salvador and Honduras, and Honduras' numbers more than tripled between 2010 and 2011. In 2011, San Pedro Sula police discovered the first Mexican-run cocaine lab, shown below, ever found in Central America.

Source: PolicyMic, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

The US combat mission in Afghanistan officially concluded last week, putting an end to the longest war in American history. 

The 13-year war, known as Operation Enduring Freedom, saw the deaths of 2,356 American soldiers, along with thousands of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters — as well as Afghan civilians. 

Roughly 13,000 troops, including 10,000 Americans, will remain in Afghanistan for two years to train and advise Afghan security forces. 

On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died.

None of the hijackers were Afghan nationals. However, President George W. Bush declared a "war on terror" that targeted al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, which received shelter and assistance from the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Source: White House Archives

Operation Enduring Freedom launched on Oct. 7, 2001 with a bombing campaign against Taliban forces.

Source: Air Force Historical Support Division

A massive manhunt is underway for brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, the main suspects in a shooting attack in Paris that killed 12 people on Wednesday.

The brothers have been well known to French authorities for at least a decade and reportedly had known connections to Islamic terrorists.

More is known about Cherif, 32, than Said, 34, but both appear to have jihadist backgrounds.

Both were French nationals of Algerian descent and come from secular backgrounds, according to The New York Times. A French newspaper report cited by The Times said Cherif was raised in foster care in western France and trained to be a fitness instructor before he moved to Paris, where he lived with his brother and third person, a convert to Islam.

Cherif reportedly worked delivering pizzas and as a shop assistant and fishmonger while he lived in France.

His introduction to radical Islam came from a janitor at a Paris mosque named Farid Benyettou, The Washington Post reports. Benyettou was charismatic and shared the same working-class background as Cherif. Benyettou's influence led to the janitor becoming a challenge to the leadership of Paris's Addawa Mosque, where the imam was seen as disconnected from the issues affecting North Africans in the city.

Bemyettou was known as the spiritual leader of a terror cell "Filiere [brothers] des Buttes Chaumont," a group that helped funnel fighters into Iraq during the American invasion, according to Bloomberg.

The terror cell's recruits reportedly traveled to fight alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former Al Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in 2006.  Cherif, who has also taken the name Abu Issen, was linked to the cell in 2005 and has been arrested twice in connection with terrorists in France.

While the brothers were involved with Benyettou and the terror cell they reportedly learned how to operate automatic weapons like the ones used in Wednesday's attack on the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which has published cartoons that some Muslims find offensive.

Experts, citing the video of the attack, believe the attackers were professionally trained.

A French magazine cited a police source saying the brothers were "small time delinquents who became radicalized,"according to The Telegraph.

Cherif was arrested in 2005 days before he was set to fly to Syria and then to Iraq, The Telegraph reports. In 2008, he was convicted on terrorism charges related to the 2005 case and sentenced to three years in prison with an 18-month suspended sentence.

During his trial, Cherif said he was outraged by images of the torture of Iraqi inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison run by the US in Iraq. He also mentioned wanting to attack Jewish targets in France, according to The Times.

He said he "really believed in the idea" of jihad, according to the Associated Press.

Cherif's lawyer portrayed him as a normal young man who had gone astray and realized the error of his ways, noting that he liked to drink and smoke pot and "wasn't particularly religious,"according to a reporter who traveled to Europe to study the threat of Islam for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in 2005.

The lawyer said Cherif had been having second thoughts about jihad after his arrest.

Cherif's next arrest came in 2010 in connection with the attempted prison escape of former Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) member Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, who had carried out terrorist attacks in France in the 1990s, according to The Telegraph. Said's name also appeared in the police report and although Cherif was held for four months, neither brother ended up being convicted.

They reportedly traveled to Syria after this, returning last summer, Bloomberg reports.

Cherif is also thought to have ties to French jihadist Djamel Beghal, who spent 10 years in prison for planning terrorist attacks, The Telegraph reports. Cherif and Beghal were thought to have participated in militant training together.

Cherif's older brother is believed to have had more direct ties to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Said is suspected of having traveled to Yemen and participated in an AQAP training camp, according to The Long War Journal. 

The New York Times, citing an unnamed senior US official, reported that Said trained for a few months on small arms. According to two unnamed Yemeni officials that spoke to the Associated Press, Said is suspected of having fought alongside AQAP during the Arab Spring when the organization overran large segments of the south of the country. 

Said is thought to have been in Yemen until 2012. 

The two brothers were both on the US "no fly" list that would have prevented either one from boarding a commercial flight to the United States. The brothers were also on a US master list of suspected individuals with ties to terrorism, an unnamed US official told Bloomberg. 

The brothers most recently lived in Gennevilliers, a Paris suburb, according to Bloomberg. 

According to Tunisian neighbors of the brothers in Gennevilliers, the two brothers would loudly recite the Koran at all hours in the apartment. The neighbors, speaking to The Globe and Mail, said that the brothers had a "cache of arms" in the apartment. 

The neighbors, a husband and wife, discovered the cache after the husband and a plumber broke into the apartment. However, the brothers attacked the husband after the break-in and intimidated everyone involved into silence. 

MORE: French police are dealing with two linked hostage situations

SEE ALSO: 2 Gunmen In Paris Shooting Reportedly Spotted In Northern France; 7 Arrested In Investigation

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Two separate hostage situations happening in France simultaneously have ended. Three of the four suspects involved have been killed.

One suspect is now on the loose.

Although separate, both events are linked to the massacre at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday. One hostage situation involved the Charlie Hebdo suspects at a printing company in a small northern town of Dammartin-en-Goeleand; the other involved a member of the same Paris jihadist cell taking hostages at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris.

French police released these images of the four suspects related to the attacks (left to right): Cherif Kouachi (32); his brother, Said Kouachi (34); Amedy Coulibaly (32); and a female accomplice, Hayat Boumeddiene (26).

The Kouachi brothers, who police say carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack and went on the run, were killed in a standoff with French special forces after taking at least one hostage at the printing company.

Coulibaly, who is allegedly responsible for the second hostage situation, was killed by French police. Investigators are now searching for Boumeddiene, who is still at large and is reportedly connected to Thursday's killing of a police officer in Montrouge, a town south of Paris.

Sources have linked Cherif and Coulibaly through French jihadist Djamel Beghal, according to French newspaper Le Monde. Beghal spent 10 years in prison for planning terrorist attacks, and Cherif is thought to have undergone militant training with him. Coulibaly is said to have visited Beghal at some point in recent years.

Coulibaly and Cherif are also both connected to another known terrorist, former Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) member Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, who carried out terrorist attacks in France in the 1990s.

Cherif was arrested in 2010 in connection with Belkacem's attempted prison escape. Said's name also appeared in the police report, and although Cherif was held for four months, neither brother ended up being convicted. 

Coulibaly was convicted in the case, the Paris Public Prosecutor's office told ABC News, but police reportedly didn't have enough evidence to prosecute Cherif or Said.

SEE ALSO: The Charlie Hebdo Terror Suspects Are Dead

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