US must not become complacent to a growing terrorism threat, a Counterterrorism Center official says

US must not become complacent to a growing terrorism threat, a Counterterrorism Center official says
Acting Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Brett Holmgren speaks during an interview at the National Counterterrorism Center, Jan. 8, 2025 in McLean, Virginia (AP)
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Updated 15 January 2025
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US must not become complacent to a growing terrorism threat, a Counterterrorism Center official says

US must not become complacent to a growing terrorism threat, a Counterterrorism Center official says
  • “We are in a period where we are facing an elevated threat environment,” Holmgren said
  • He also points to mass migration from the Russia-Ukraine war that has sent central Asians to countries including Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and even the US

UNITED STATES: Brett Holmgren got woken up early on New Year’s Day by alerts that a driver had plowed into a crowd of revellers in New Orleans.
The rampage, which killed 14 people, was the deadliest attack on US soil in years and was inspired by the Daesh group.
The National Counterterrorism Center, which Holmgren leads, sprang into action to help the FBI run down information on the culprit from Texas and his plot.
It was a rare recent example of a mass attack motivated by religious extremism to hit the US homeland. But it didn’t occur in a vacuum, coming at a time when a terror threat that has waxed and waned in the two decades since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is decidedly on the rise around the world.
“We are in a period where we are facing an elevated threat environment,” Holmgren said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We faced that last year. We’re going to face it again in 2025.”
The NCTC emerged in the aftermath of 9/11 as a centralized US government hub to collect and analyze data and intelligence on the international terrorism threat, providing information to the White House and other agencies to shape policy decisions and protect against attacks.
A former counterterrorism analyst and assistant secretary of state, Holmgren was named its acting director last July and intends to step aside at the conclusion of the Biden administration.
At that point, new leadership under President-elect Donald Trump will grapple with managing some of the global hot spots like Syria that have vexed officials in recent months and that the NCTC has been tracking.
Holmgren cites multiple factors for why the threat is higher than before, including passions arising from the Israel-Hamas war — a conflict that he says has been a driving factor in some 45 attacks worldwide since October 2023. He also points to mass migration from the Russia-Ukraine war that has sent central Asians, some with ties to the Daesh group, to countries including Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and even the US
Around the world, officials are monitoring tensions in Africa, which Holmgren called potentially the greatest long-term threat to US security given that the Daesh group has a large footprint on the continent and is investing resources there.
He says the “most potent overseas threat facing the United States” right now is the group’s Afghanistan-based affiliate, known as Daesh-Khorasan, whose attacks include a March 2024 massacre at a Moscow theater and the August 2021 bombing that killed 13 US service members and about 170 Afghans in the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
One ongoing spot of concern is Syria, where an insurgent group named Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, led a lightning offensive last month that toppled the government of President Bashar Assad.
HTS is a Sunni Islamist group that formerly had ties with Al-Qaeda, although its leader has preached religious coexistence since taking over in Damascus. The group has not plotted against US interests in recent years and has been “the most effective counterterrorism partner on the ground,” Holmgren said.
HTS has been designated by the State Department as a foreign terror organization, a label that carries severe sanctions.
Asked whether that designation would remain, Holmgren said that was a policy decision, though he noted: “They want to be perceived as being on the right side of the international community at this time when it comes to (counterterrorism). But we will continue to evaluate not just their words but also the actions that they’re undertaking.”
In an indication of Syria’s continued instability, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told The Associated Press last week that the US needs to keep troops there to prevent the Daesh group from reconstituting, and intelligence officials in Syria’s new de facto government already have thwarted a plan by Daesh to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine in a Damascus suburb.
US officials, meanwhile, remain concerned about the possibility of Daesh gaining strength by taking over weapons left behind by Assad’s government or through a mass release of fighters who are now imprisoned.
“A large-scale prisoner release in Syria could provide a real boost in the arm for IS at a time where they have been under significant pressure,” Holmgren said.
The counterterrorism center’s focus is on international terrorism, which includes cases in the US like the New Orleans rampage in which the attacker was inspired by a group from abroad. The culprit, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, pledged his allegiance to Daesh in videos he recorded just before he drove his speeding pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street early on Jan. 1.
As of now, Holmgren said, there’s no evidence that Jabbar was communicating with any Daesh operatives overseas or guided by anyone, but given that he was a lone actor who was radicalized, “this symbolizes exactly the type of attack that we’ve warned about for some time.”
“And I think it illustrates that while we have been quite effective as a government and across administrations at disrupting plotting overseas and going after terrorist leaders, we have a lot more work to do when it comes to countering violent extremism at home, countering violent extremist propaganda abroad,” he added.
“That is ultimately what is going to be needed to prevent more attacks like the one in New Orleans,” Holmgren said.
By the same token, through vast intelligence collection, hardened defenses and overseas counterterrorism operations, the US has made the risk of another large-scale attack like Sept. 11 lower than it’s ever been.
“But if we get complacent as a country,” he warned, “it will come back to bite us.”


German president: accept that US won’t heed international rules

German president: accept that US won’t heed international rules
Updated 3 sec ago
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German president: accept that US won’t heed international rules

German president: accept that US won’t heed international rules
“We have to accept that and we can deal with it,” Steinmeier said at the Munich Security Conference

FRANKFURT: Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the international community will have to deal with a disregard by the new US administration for established diplomatic rules.
“The new American administration has a very different world view to ours, one that has no regard for established rules, partnership and grown trust,” said the German head of state, whose office is largely ceremonial.
“We have to accept that and we can deal with it. But I am convinced that it is not in the interests of the international community for this world view to become the dominant paradigm,” he added, speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.

Afghan national confesses to Munich car ramming that injured 36, prosecutor says

Afghan national confesses to Munich car ramming that injured 36, prosecutor says
Updated 14 February 2025
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Afghan national confesses to Munich car ramming that injured 36, prosecutor says

Afghan national confesses to Munich car ramming that injured 36, prosecutor says
  • At least 36 people including a child were hurt on Thursday

MUNICH: An Afghan national has admitted to purposefully driving into a crowd in the German city of Munich and authorities have determined an Islamist motive for the crime, a prosecutor said on Friday.
At least 36 people including a child were hurt on Thursday when the 24-year-old man plowed into demonstrators gathered in the city center, putting security back in focus before next week’s federal election.
“He has admitted that he deliberately drove into the participants of the demonstration,” prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann told a press conference.
“I’m very cautious about making hasty judgments, but based on everything we know at the moment, I would venture to speak of an Islamist motivation for the crime,” she added.
The suspected attack came hours before international leaders including US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the southern German city for the Munich Security Conference.
Tilmann said there was no evidence to suggest the suspect, identified as Farhad Noori, was affiliated with any Islamist or terrorist organizations.
She added that there was no indication of any accomplices, but that investigators were evaluating his communications and items obtained during searches to ascertain whether anyone had prior knowledge of the crime or was involved.
German authorities say the Afghan national arrived in Germany as an unaccompanied minor in 2016, and that he was in Germany legally with a work permit and was therefore not due to be deported. He does not have any prior convictions.
Immigration and security issues have dominated campaigning ahead of the February 23 election, especially after other violent incidents in recent weeks, with polls showing the center-right conservatives leading followed by the far right.


At India’s flagship industry event, entrepreneurs present solutions to fuel energy transition

At India’s flagship industry event, entrepreneurs present solutions to fuel energy transition
Updated 14 February 2025
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At India’s flagship industry event, entrepreneurs present solutions to fuel energy transition

At India’s flagship industry event, entrepreneurs present solutions to fuel energy transition
  • Local and international exhibitors display their new technology at India Energy Week 2025 in New Delhi
  • Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister highlights adoption of biofuels, renewables and hydrogen

NEW DELHI: Hundreds of Indian entrepreneurs and innovators have presented their inventions and new solutions at India Energy Week 2025 in New Delhi, displaying their efforts to contribute to the country’s energy transition programs.

Tens of thousands of visitors, officials and delegates took part in the Indian government’s flagship annual energy event, which ran at the Yashobhoomi convention from Tuesday through Friday, featuring exhibitions by 700 local and international industry players.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who opened India Energy Week, highlighted the country’s vision of transformation and decarbonization, as the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases seeks to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070

“What we are seeing today is a recalibration of strategy — prioritizing near-term profitability while keeping long-term transition efforts in play ... the primary focus remains on increasing the adoption of biofuels, renewables and hydrogen,” he told the event’s participants.

“The transition isn’t about eliminating hydrocarbons overnight but leveraging them strategically while scaling renewables to mitigate emissions ... Even when renewables become the dominant energy sources, oil and gas will continue to play a pivotal role — not just in power generation but in stabilizing grids, industrial hydrogen and energy storage innovations.”

India aims to generate 500 GW of electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030, under its nationally determined contributions to the Paris Agreement.

The solar power sector is the dominant contributor to the country’s renewable energy growth, accounting for 47 percent of the total installed renewable energy capacity. It has observed a 3,450 percent increase in capacity over the past decade, rising from 2.82 GW in 2014 to 100 GW in January 2025, according to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

The country is also heavily investing in green hydrogen — and emerging future alternatives to fossil fuels. Developing technologies to produce it is part of India’s flagship initiatives.

Also known as renewable hydrogen, green hydrogen can be used as fuel and is produced from the electrolysis of water. The process does not generate polluting carbon emissions but is currently very expensive.

India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission launched in 2023 aims to reduce production costs and increase the scale of the industry by 2030, as it targets the production of 5 million tons of green hydrogen generating 125 GW of power a year.

Renewable energy growth is fueled by local production and inventions, with India’s private sector being a top contributor to the transition process.

“There is a green hydrogen mission from the government of India to produce 5 million metric tons of green hydrogen by 2030 ... there are incentive programs run by the government,” said Rohish Kalvit, vice president of Pune-based h2e Power Systems, one of India Energy Week’s exhibitors, told Arab News.

His company is manufacturing electrolyzer stacks and fuel cell stacks, which are critical components in the production and use of hydrogen energy,

“We are helping in the national green hydrogen mission in terms of manufacturing that particular molecule ... as well as doing a lot of R&D (research and development) activities on the material part and the technology part (to) produce cheap and affordable hydrogen in the near future,” Kalvit said.

“India Energy Week is a platform which is being set up by the government of India to bring all the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), vendors, suppliers as well as offtakers to come and understand at what level each company is working in the hydrogen sector ... people are coming with open minds in order to join hands together at multiple levels to grow in this particular business.”

Raj Process Equipments and Systems, one of the leading process equipment manufacturers in India, was presenting its biogas-based solutions.

“The future is completely about biogas, compressed natural gas. We will be replacing petrol and diesel with this CBG — compressed Biogas ... it is the same as CNG (compressed natural gas), but in case of compressed biogas we get the gas from waste. From municipal waste we make biogas, we upgrade it we make it equivalent to CNG and this we use for vehicles,” said Binu Panickar, the company’s vice president.

“Biogas will be the future. It will completely replace the oil, petrol, diesel. People will completely rely on this technology.”

For him, India Energy Week was like “Maha Kumbh Mela” of the country’s energy sector — a reference to the country’s biggest religious pilgrimage, which draws millions of worshippers.

“Various technology providers are taking participating in it and we have seen a good platform to show the people what we can provide. We can see good number of visitors coming. They are getting knowledge from this event.”


Pope Francis being hospitalized for medical tests and to treat bronchitis, Vatican says

Pope Francis being hospitalized for medical tests and to treat bronchitis, Vatican says
Updated 14 February 2025
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Pope Francis being hospitalized for medical tests and to treat bronchitis, Vatican says

Pope Francis being hospitalized for medical tests and to treat bronchitis, Vatican says
  • Francis was diagnosed with bronchitis last Thursday
  • Ever since his diagnosis, Francis has appeared bloated

ROME: Pope Francis is being hospitalized to treat his bronchitis and undergo some necessary diagnostic tests, the Vatican said Friday in confirming the latest threat to the 88-year-old’s pontiff’s health.
Francis was diagnosed with bronchitis last Thursday, but he has continued to hold daily audiences in his Vatican hotel suite and preside over general audiences and even presided at an outdoor Mass last Sunday. He has however handed off his speeches for an aide to read aloud, saying he was having trouble breathing.
Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has long battled health problems, especially long bouts of acute bronchitis in winter. He uses a wheelchair, walker or cane when moving around his apartment and recently fell twice, hurting his arm and chin.
Ever since his diagnosis, Francis has appeared bloated, an indication the medication he was taking to treat the lung infection was making him retain water.
Francis was being hospitalized at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he was last hospitalized in June 2023 to have surgery to remove intestinal scar tissue and repair a hernia in the abdominal wall. A few months before that, he spent three days in the hospital to receive intravenous antibiotics for a respiratory infection.
A Vatican statement said Francis would be admitted at the end of his Friday audiences. In addition to regular Vatican officials, the pope met Friday morning with the Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico and the head of CNN, Mark Thompson.
“This morning, at the end of the audiences, Pope Francis will be admitted to the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic for some necessary diagnostic tests and to continue in a hospital setting treatment for bronchitis that is still ongoing,” the statement said.


India, US agree to resolve trade and tariff rows after Trump-Modi talks

India, US agree to resolve trade and tariff rows after Trump-Modi talks
Updated 14 February 2025
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India, US agree to resolve trade and tariff rows after Trump-Modi talks

India, US agree to resolve trade and tariff rows after Trump-Modi talks
  • Initial segments of trade deal to be negotiated by fall 2025
  • India to raise US energy purchases to $25 billion from $15 billion

WASHINGTON: India and the US agreed on Thursday to start talks to clinch an early trade deal and resolve their standoff over tariffs as New Delhi promised to buy more US oil, gas and military equipment and fight illegal immigration.
The series of agreements emerged after talks between US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House, just hours after Trump railed against the climate for US businesses in India and unveiled a roadmap for reciprocal tariffs on countries that put duties on US imports.
“Prime Minister Modi recently announced the reductions to India’s unfair, very strong tariffs that limit us access to the Indian market, very strongly,” Trump said. “And really it’s a big problem I must say.”
The deal to resolve trade concerns could be done within the next seven months, said India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri.
A joint statement after the meeting said Washington welcomed New Delhi’s recent steps to lower tariffs on select US products and increase market access to US farm products, while seeking to negotiate the initial segments of a trade deal by the fall of 2025.
While both leaders “had their perspectives” on tariffs, “what is more remarkable...is the fact that we have a way forward on this issue,” Misri said.
Some of the leaders’ agreements are aspirational: India wants to increase by “billions of dollars” its purchases of US defense equipment and may make Washington the “number one supplier” of oil and gas, Trump said at a joint press conference with Modi.
And Delhi wants to double trade with Washington by 2030, Modi said. Long-planned cooperation on nuclear energy, also discussed by the leaders, faces ongoing legal challenges.
“We’re also paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters,” said Trump.
Misri, the Indian official, later said the F-35 deal was a proposal at this point, with no formal process underway. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on any deal.

WHAT TRUMP WANTS

Although Trump had a warm relationship with Modi in his first term, he again said on Thursday that India’s tariffs were “very high” and promised to match them, even after his earlier levies on steel and aluminum hit metal-producing India particularly hard.
“We are being reciprocal with India,” Trump said during the press conference. “Whatever India charges, we charge them.”
Modi vowed to protect India’s interests.
“One thing that I deeply appreciate, and I learn from President Trump, is that he keeps the national interest supreme,” Modi said. “Like him, I also keep the national interest of India at the top of everything else.”
The two leaders praised each other and agreed to deepen security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, a thinly veiled reference to competition with China, as well as to start joint production on technologies like artificial intelligence.
Asked before the meeting about the steps India was taking, one source described it as a “gift” for Trump designed to lower trade tensions. A Trump aide said that the president sees defense and energy sales to India lowering the US trade deficit.
India’s energy purchases from the US could go up to $25 billion in the near future from $15 billion last year, India’s Misri said, adding that this could contribute to reducing the trade deficit.
Tariffs will continue to dominate the two countries’ relationship, said Richard Rossow, head of the India program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.
“It’s going to be a boxing match,” he said. “India is willing to take a few hits, but there’s a limit.”
The US has a $45.6 billion trade deficit with India. Overall, the US trade-weighted average tariff rate has been about 2.2 percent, according to World Trade Organization data, compared with India’s 12 percent.

FIGHT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Trump wants more help from India on unauthorized immigration. India is a major source of immigrants to the United States, including a large number in the tech industry on work visas and others in the US illegally.
The joint statement said the two countries agreed to aggressively address illegal immigration and human trafficking by strengthening law enforcement cooperation.
India may prove critical to Trump’s strategy to thwart China, which many in his administration see as the top US rival. India is wary of neighboring China’s military buildup and competes for many of the same markets.
Modi also worries that Trump could cut a deal with China that excludes India, according to Mukesh Aghi, president of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum lobbying group.
India has continued its ties with Russia as it carries out its war with Ukraine. India has remained a major consumer of Russian energy, for instance, while the West has worked to cut its own consumption since the war started.
“The world had this thinking that India somehow is a neutral country in this whole process,” said Modi. “But this is not true. India has a side, and that side is of peace.”