Counter-terrorism authorities have, for years, characterized keeping up with terrorist organizations and their use of digital tools and social media apps as a game of Whac-a-Mole. Jihadist terrorist groups such as Islamic State and its predecessor al-Qaida, or even the neo-Nazi group the Base, have leveraged digital tools to recruit, covertly finance via crypto, download weapons for 3D printing and spread tradecraft to its followers, all while leaving law enforcement and intelligence agencies playing catch up. Over time, thwarting attacks and maintaining the technological advantage over these types of terror groups has evolved, as more and more open source resources become available. Now, with artificial intelligence – both on the horizon as a rapidly developing technology and in the here and now as free, accessible apps – agencies are scrambling. Sources familiar with the US government's counterterrorism efforts told the Guardian that multiple security agencies are very concerned about how AI is making hostile groups more efficient in their planning and operations.

Iran announced Thursday that it has identified the alleged mastermind behind dual suicide bombing attacks that left nearly 100 people dead at a recent memorial for late Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed years ago by a U.S. drone strike. The IRNA news agency carried a statement by the intelligence ministry saying the main suspect who planned the Jan. 3 attack in Kerman, a city southeast of the Iranian capital of Tehran, was a Tajik national known by his alias Abdollah Tajiki. Tajiki reportedly entered the country in mid-December by crossing Iran's southeast border, and left two days before the attack, after making the bombs. One bomber first detonated his explosives at the ceremony in Kerman, then another attacked 20 minutes later as emergency workers and other people tried to help the wounded from the first explosion, according to The Associated Press. The report identified one of the bombers by his family name of Bozrov, saying the man was 24 years old and had Tajik and Israeli nationality.

FOX News White House correspondent Peter Doocy has the latest on the Biden administration's response to the Middle East conflict on'Special Report.' As Israeli Defense Forces resumed military operations to eradicate the Hamas terrorist threat last Friday, the Biden administration is inserting itself into Israel's war planning process, teaching the Israelis – who've been fighting for their survival for decades – how to properly prosecute the conflict. Washington warfare "experts" – who arguably haven't secured a single clear military victory since 1945 – insist that Israeli military strategists alter their war plans to make their combat operations more targeted and their strikes more accurate, in order to minimize casualties, especially among civilians. The Biden administration's demands, while noble-sounding, are misguided and unreasonable. Implementing these requirements, at the expense of achieving the main mission of eliminating Hamas and its entire supporting infrastructure, will likely prolong the conflict, ultimately resulting in many more Israeli and Palestinian deaths.

Google has been accused of censoring Israel-Palestine responses after its AI refused to call Hamas a terrorist organization. But the tech giant's rival, OpenAI's ChatGPT, had no issue condemning the ruling part of Gaza, saying ''Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by several countries.' It comes as Israel has launched more than 700 airstrikes on Gaza this week in retaliation for Palestine carrying out an unprecedented attack on festival goers on October 7. The same queries were fed to OpenAI's ChatGPT, which returned with detailed information and answered that'Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by several countries.' A Google spokesperson told DailyMail.com:

Tokyo police have created a video with the aim of seeking information about seven Japanese Red Army members on the international wanted list for their suspected involvement in terrorist incidents that occurred around the world in the 1970s and 1980s. The video, featuring photos of the seven used in the wanted list and their portraits, will be shown on the Metropolitan Police Department's Twitter account and official YouTube channel, and large billboards from Monday. The move is intended to prevent the series of incidents from being forgotten. The video was made by the MPD's Public Security Bureau. The bureau has said that it obtained arrest warrants for two of the seven members of the terrorist group -- Norio Sasaki and Junzo Okudaira, both 73 -- for charges including forgery of private documents and passport law violations by, among other things, obtaining passports under the names of other people in 1998.

U.S. fighter jets dropped bombs on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. The strike was in response to Iranian-backed militias firing armed drones against U.S. troops in Iraq, which was a response to a U.S. attack in February, which was a response to a militia attack days earlier. A Pentagon spokesman justified the most recent U.S. airstrikes as "necessary, appropriate, and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation--but also to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message." This may be true, but similar statements have followed similar strikes for years, even decades; yet counter-attacks nonetheless follow (the "deterrent message" doesn't get through), and so it's possible that we are heightening the "risk of escalation," not limiting it. President Joe Biden finds himself in a jam.

Having relied heavily on machine learning, the Israeli military is calling Operation Guardian of the Walls the first artificial-intelligence war."For the first time, artificial intelligence was a key component and power multiplier in fighting the enemy," an IDF Intelligence Corps senior officer said. "This is a first-of-its-kind campaign for the IDF. We implemented new methods of operation and used technological developments that were a force multiplier for the entire IDF."In 11 days of fighting in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military carried out intensive strikes against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets. It targeted key infrastructure and personnel belonging to the two groups, the IDF said.While the military relied on what was already available on the civilian market and adapted it for military purposes – in the years prior to the fighting – the IDF established an advanced AI technological platform that centralized all data on terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip onto one system that enabled the analysis and extraction of the intelligence.Soldiers in Unit 8200, an Intelligence Corps elite unit, pioneered algorithms and code that led to several new programs called "Alchemist," "Gospel" and "Depth of Wisdom," which were developed and used during the fighting.Collecting data using signal intelligence (SIGINT), visual intelligence (VISINT), human intelligence (HUMINT), geographical intelligence (GEOINT) and more, the IDF has mountains of raw data that must be combed through to find the key pieces necessary to carry out a strike."Gospel" "none";}"For the first time, a multidisciplinary center was created that produces hundreds of targets relevant to developments in the fighting, allowing the military to continue to fight as long as it needs to with more and more new targets," the senior officer said.While the IDF had gathered thousands of targets in the densely populated coastal enclave over the past two years, hundreds were gathered in real time, including missile launchers that were aimed at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.The military believes using AI helped shorten the length of the fighting, having been effective and quick in gathering targets using super-cognition.The IDF carried out hundreds of strikes against Hamas and PIJ, including rocket launchers, rocket manufacturing, production and storage sites, military intelligence offices, drones, commanders' residences and Hamas's naval commando unit.

Social media has a terrorism problem. From Twitter's famous 2015 letter to Congress that it would never restrict the right of terrorists to use its platform, to its rapid about-face in the face of public and governmental outcry, Silicon Valley has had a change of heart in how it sees its role in curbing the use of its tools by those who wish to commit violence across the world. Today Facebook released a new transparency report that emphasizes its efforts to combat terroristic use of its platform and the role AI is playing in what it claims are significant successes. Yet, that narrative of AI success has been increasingly challenged, from academic studies suggesting that not only is content not being deleted, but that other Facebook tools may actually be assisting terrorists, to a Bloomberg piece last week that demonstrates just how readily terrorist content can still be found on Facebook. Can we really rely on AI to curb terroristic use of social media?

Military officials say no civilians appear to be injured in the strike. A U.S. drone strike killed a "high ranking" official in the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb terror cell in Libya on Saturday, the Pentagon disclosed Wednesday. Musa Abu Dawud was one of two AQIM terrorists killed in the airstrike in southwest Libya near the city of Ubari in the Sahara desert. "Dawud trained AQIM recruits in Libya for attack operations in the region. He provided critical logistics support, funding and weapons to AQIM, enabling the terrorist group to threaten and attack U.S. and Western interests in the region," U.S. military's Africa Command said in a statement.

Artificial intelligence technology that can detect Isis videos and prevent them from being uploaded is being released to stop the spread of the "poisonous" material. Developers funded by the Home Office are sharing their software for free with any website or app in the world in the hope it will make the terrorist group's propaganda harder to access and share. Tests suggest it can detect 94 per cent of Isis videos and makes so few mistakes that a single person could moderate borderline cases for the whole of YouTube. Dr Marc Warner, chief executive of ASI Data Science, told The Independent the technology's success depends on how many companies build it into their systems but "we hope that this can play its part in removing extremist content from the web". "Lone-wolf attacks are hard to spot with conventional surveillance – it is a difficult problem if someone is radicalised in their bedroom," he added.