Is The U.S. Striking An Alliance With Iran?

Is The U.S. Striking Alliance With Iran?

Two new issues have emerged regarding the Obama administration’s policy towards ISIS, which was announced last week in President Obama’s speech to the nation. Both are connected to Iran: (a) the positions the administration will take regarding cooperation with it in fighting ISIS and (b) in negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

Should the United States accept Iran as a partner in its fight to “degrade and destroy” ISIS? Already, many self-proclaimed “realists” have argued for its necessity.

In today’s Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria states:

If President Obama truly wants to degrade and destroy the Islamic State, he must find a way to collaborate with Iran — the one great power in the Middle East with which the United States is still at odds. Engagement with Iran – while hard and complicated — would be a strategic game-changer, with benefits spreading from Iraq to Syria to Afghanistan.

To defeat ISIS, he argues, one must influence the Sunnis, something the Shia-dominated Iraq government has not been able to accomplish. Since that regime has been funded by Iran for many years, Iran alone has the power to force them to be more inclusive, and to commit to seriously forging a fighting force against ISIS. Iran’s help, he says, is “invaluable, perhaps vital.” Zakaria also thinks a power-sharing government be built in Syria, in which Assad will stay in power. Iran too, he notes, can help with this.

What he argues for is nothing less than the imperative of aligning with tyrants that have waged terrorism abroad as well as against their own people, all for the goal of defeating ISIS — which both Iran and the United States favor for different reasons. He ignores that Iran poses a very real threat to world stability, especially in the Middle East. As they have shown in the ongoing nuclear talks, Iran has shrewdly used such claims to stand firm in its goal of building a nuclear weapon, confident that its ability to play the United States will continue.

In today’s world, to ennoble one terrorist regime to help gain its goals in order to defeat a non-state terrorist group simply makes no sense whatsoever. The West might eventually have to use combat forces in some areas to make air strikes work. But to depend on Iran to do that, which it may very well be willing to do, will further destabilize the region and enhance its power throughout the Middle East.

The desire of many, including some in the Obama administration, to align with Iran leads one to suspect that a deal might be accepted that allows Iran to keep its centrifuges at a level close to completion. Would the U.S. sign such a deal and claim that it is a path to real disarmament? Many factors indicate that is the case.

The Times of Israel reports that the United States is considering “softening present demands that Iran gut its uranium enrichment program in favor of a new proposal that would allow Tehran to keep nearly half of the project intact while placing other constraints on its possible use as a path to nuclear weapons.” If true, it indicates that giving in to Iran is something the United States might do in exchange for Iran remaining cooperative in fighting ISIS.

Diplomats tell the paper that it envisages letting Iran keep 4500 centrifuges while reducing its stock of uranium gas so that it would take Iran only one year, not weeks or months, to create material to build a nuclear bomb. Negotiators believe Iran can claim they have not given in nor ended their enrichment capabilities, while the U.S. could argue it succeeded in forcing them to downgrade their original aims for a year.

Israel, according to its intelligence minister, “strongly opposes leaving thousands of centrifuges active in Iran,” an act which he said is “reminiscent of the failed deal reached in 2007 with North Korea, which now possesses ten nuclear warheads.”

That the United States might be considering such a step seems connected to the announcement that Joe Biden’s new national security advisor will be a man named Colin Kahl. Kahl is presently at the Middle East Security Program at the Center for New American Security, and is a professor at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. Part of Obama’s 2008 campaign, Kahl was deputy asst. secretary of defense for the Middle East between 2009 and 2011.

The relatively under-the-radar Kahl has been a consistent apologist for Iran and its push to go nuclear. He has worked with pro-Iranian regime groups, including the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), whose main agenda is promoting engagement and negotiations with the Iranian government. At a 2013 NIAC leadership conference, Kahl called the Iranian negotiating team “both talented … [and] also committed to try and find some way to reach an accommodation on the nuclear file.”

In a news analysis, Barbara Slavin writes:

“The Iranians have now sent two signals that they are serious,” Colin Kahl, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense dealing with Iran, told Al-Monitor. The first signal was the way in which the Iranians have re-engaged in talks with the P5+1 since the election of President Hassan Rouhani, Kahl said. The second is that “they are slowing down their nuclear program so as not to do anything overly provocative.”

Kahl seems to be the point man for regularly explaining Iran’s positions and for putting them in the most positive light possible. He also seems to favor a strategy of “containment” for Iran that would allow them to get a bomb. He was co-author of a paper on how a containment strategy would work should Iran actually have a bomb. In a tweet, Kahl wrote: “We certainly can’t use military force, even though it would be more effective than negotiations.”

The argument makes little sense. In an article, Kahl writes that a U.S. or Israeli attack on “Iran’s nuclear program would knock it back, at most, a few years.” Yet he favors an unsatisfactory deal that would in effect set Iran back only a few months. That is the nature of the containment he favors.

In scores of reports and articles, Colin Kahl has argued that the regime’s leaders are rational. He praised Ayatollah Khamenei for “heroic flexibility,” argued that Obamas is “great for Israel,” and has had a series of appearances with NIAC. And he has been one of those praising the leadership of Iran’s President Rouhani, who he said needs time to “convince regime hard-liners to give him a chance.”

Joe Biden could pick scores of individuals to be his chief advisor on national security issues. That he picked Colin Kahl suggests the possibility that the administration needs people with that perspective if they intend to sell the public on the necessity of kowtowing to Iran because of the need to destroy ISIS. It also suggests they wish to prepare Americans for the possibility that Iran will get a nuclear bomb, and to convince us that containment will work to keep it from flexing its muscles.

Abbas 'Woos' Home Crowd, Alienates Israel, 'Fires' U.S., Netanyahu Vows To Refute Lies

Abbas Woos Home Crowd, Alienates Israel And 'Fires' The U.S.

One narrative surrounding Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Friday address to the United Nations General Assembly could begin with his entry to an earlier session in the plenary hall.

Abbas, striding through the UN’s corridors Wednesday, reached the doors to the plenary together with his sizable security detail to attend the General Assembly’s opening speeches. The guards at the doors to the room told him that he could go in — but that those guys he came with needed to go around to the other door.

Abbas entered. Behind him, a brief scuffle broke out between his entourage and the UN guards. Safely inside the room, such minor unpleasantnesses literally behind him, Abbas was somehow above the fray, an elder statesman representing his people to a largely sympathetic audience.

This is the Abbas who makes speeches at New York universities, and is a trendy figure for student crowds interested in the Palestinian cause. He’s a statesman, one of the good guys. Those pushy, aggressive guys he comes with? They’re not really part of the picture at all….

But the more accurate narrative actually began two days earlier, with a long run-up of officials dropping hints that the Abbas who would take the podium at the annual meeting of world leaders would be Abbas the activist, and that he would “drop a bomb.” The Abbas of 2014, they made clear, was here to shake up the UN, to demand strident action to achieve what decades of terror, negotiations, and incrementalism have failed to achieve.

On Friday in New York, we got a little of Abbas the statesman, calling for an immediate resumption of diplomacy with Israel, but this was overwhelmed by Abbas the bruiser, dismissing diplomacy with Israel as unworkable. “It is impossible, and I repeat – it is impossible – to return to the cycle of negotiations that failed to deal with the substance of the matter and the fundamental question,” Abbas warned. “There is neither credibility nor seriousness in negotiations in which Israel predetermines the results via its settlement activities and the occupation’s brutality.”

And the preconditions that Abbas set in his speech for useful talks — ones in which the “agreed objective” is “ending the Israeli occupation and achieving the independence of the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital on the entire Palestinian Territory occupied in the 1967 war” — all but eliminate the possibility of getting Israel to sit down at the table at all.

Abbas was strident in his rhetoric, accusing Israel of having “chosen to make it a year of a new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people.” And with similar calculation, he referred later to Israel, in terms harking back to pre-Oslo Accords terminology, as “the occupying Power,” “the colonial occupying Power,” and “the racist occupying State.”

So who was the intended recipient of Abbas’s speech? Was it a message to President Barack Obama that Abbas would no longer follow Washington’s expectations, reinforcing his refusal in March to endorse Secretary Kerry’s framework for a permanent accord, presaging the collapse of the negotiations just weeks later? The dismissal of the utility of previous negotiations — together with Abbas’s implied message that Washington had failed to secure Israeli good behavior, notably on settlements, during the talks — certainly sounded like a “you’re fired” order to the US negotiators.

And the angry US response, issued by State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki, demonstrated that the message had reached its desired recipient.

But Abbas’s barbs were aimed further afield than Washington, too. His Iran-style turning of Israel from a legitimate state into the entity-that-must-not-be-named — as well as the references to Palestinian revolution and, of course, fedayeen — was focused on two other audiences.

The genocide, war crimes, resource theft and colonialism accusations against Israel were red meat for Palestinian domestic consumption. Abbas was plainly intent on not coming off as too moderate and thus helping Hamas — with its summer war victory claims — into a stronger position on the Palestinian street.

However, that slanderous content also spoke loudly to Israelis and to attuned pro-Israel audiences. The American Jewish Committee issued a rare statement on Rosh Hashanah to complain that “it made a speech with tough content come off as even more pugnacious, a rejection of some forms of negotiation sound like a rejection of all, and touched upon sensitive ears as reflecting a particular kind of anti-Israel rhetoric that moderates hoped had been relegated to the pre-Oslo past.”

Netanyahu Heading To UN To 'Refute Lies' About Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday before leaving Israel for the United Nations in New York that he would refute "all of the lies directed at us" with regard to Israel's recently concluded war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly on Monday. His comments come after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in his own UN address Friday charged that Israel had conducted "a war of genocide" in Gaza.
With memories of the Nazi holocaust still fresh in Israel, use of the word "genocide" is regarded as particularly provocative.

The 50-day war between Israel and Hamas-led Islamic militants ended Aug. 26. It killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 72 on the Israeli side, almost all soldiers.

Netanyahu said Saturday that his speech at the General Assembly would focus on responding to Iranian President Hassan Rohani and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, accusing both of them of deception and incitement.

"After a deceptive speech by the Iranian president and an inciting speech by Abu-Mazen (Abbas) I will tell the truth of the Israeli citizens to the whole world," Netanyahu said in a statement issued on Saturday.

"In my speech in front of the UNGA and in all of my meetings, I will represent Israel's citizens, and repel, in their name, the lies and slander thrown at our country," he said.

Netanyahu Vows To Refute Lies

“In my address to the UN General Assembly, I will refute all the lies being directed against us, and I will tell the truth about our country and the heroic soldiers of the IDF, the most moral army in the world,” he told reporters on the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport shortly before boarding a plane to New York.

The prime minister is set to address the General Assembly on Monday, and to meet with US President Barack Obama on Wednesday.

While in New York, Netanyahu will meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the first tete-a-tete in a decade between Indian and Israeli heads of state.

He’ll also meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday.

Netanyahu’s remarks came two days after Abbas, speaking at the UN General Assembly, demanded an end to the occupation, accused Israel of waging a “war of genocide” in Gaza, and asserted that Palestinians faced a future in a “most abhorrent form of apartheid” under Israeli rule.

Abbas called 2014 “a year of a new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people,” and said that Israel was not interested in living in peace with its Palestinian neighbors.

On Saturday night, Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians hit back at Abbas and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani over their addresses.

“After the deceitful speech of the Iranian president and Abbas’s inciting words, I will tell the truth of the citizens of Israel to the whole world,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

Israel On Abbas: Peace Partners Don't Say Such Things

If Abbas was to make good on his threats to launch a “surprising” new initiative for the region, he needed to shock the audience in paying attention.

But his aggressive and overly-accusatory rhetoric likely set the peace process even further back in the eyes of Western power brokers that today see less common ground than ever between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships.

That was the assessment of leading Israeli politicians.

“This is not how a peace partner talks,” insisted Communications Minister Gilad Erdan. “Now it is clear why he (Abbas) insists on partnering with the Hamas terrorist organization, with whom he shares the ‘struggle against Israel.’”

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon added that “though his speech at the UN, Mahmoud Abbas proves for the umpteenth time he is not a leader who wants peace…and is not really interested in an agreement with Israel based on recognition of the Jewish national homeland.”

Even Abbas’ supporters in the Knesset were taken aback by his fiery UN speech.

“While Israel has acted harshly in Gaza and made ​​things difficult [for the Palestinians], you cannot call it ‘genocide,’” said far-left Meretz Party leader Zahava Gal-On.

Leading Labor Party MK Eitan Cabal said Abbas’ speech was full of “false and outrageous statements,” adding that “these words are worthy of condemnation from all who truly love peace.”

Opposition and Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog agreed that Abbas’ address was riddled with lies and falsehoods, but nevertheless insisted that Israel “prefers Abbas to Hamas.” Speaking to Israel’s Ynet news portal, Herzog spent as much time lambasting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he did criticizing Abbas’ inflammatory speech.

U.S.-Led Strikes Target Islamic State Refineries In Syria

US-led warplanes kept up strikes on oil sites funding the Islamic State group on Sunday, as Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate threatened reprisals after a key operative was reported killed.

The coalition raids destroyed three makeshift oil refineries in jihadist-controlled territory in Syria, intensifying efforts to deny IS funding after a wave of strikes on its oil infrastructure on Thursday night.

IS controls a swath of territory straddling northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, that includes most of Syria’s main oil fields and which the jihadists have sought to exploit through improvised refining and smuggling.

The coalition strikes hit close by the Turkish frontier, near the town of Tal Abyad just across the border from the Turkish town of Akcakale, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“At least three makeshift refineries under IS control in the Tal Abyad region were destroyed,” the Observatory said.

“IS had been refining crude and selling it to Turkish buyers,” said the Britain-based watchdog, which has a broad network of sources inside Syria.

Before the launch of US-led airstrikes on IS in Syria last Tuesday, analysts say, the jihadists were earning as much as $3 million a day from oil revenues.

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Japan Declares Level 3 Emergency, At Least One Dead After Volcano Erupts

When one thinks of Japan and natural disaster, the things that usually come to mind are earthquakes, tsunamis, radioactive lizards, the occasional massive nuclear power plant explosion. Not volcanoes - those are usually delegated to the sole country that dared to give bankers the middle finger, Iceland. And yet, overnight Japan declared a level 3 alert (on a scale of 1 to 5) when a volcano in central Japan erupted, sending ash clouds down the mountain’s slope for more than 3 kilometers. According to RT, at least one person has died and 70 were injured, while aircraft have been forced to divert to avoid the dangerous area. Medics confirmed the death of at least one person, while 70 more were reported to be injured, NHK reported. Thirty of the injured have been sent to hospital in critical condition, health officials added. One can only hope there were no nuclear power plants in the immediate vicinity of the volcano.

According to Japan's NHK, the Ontake volcano on the border of Nagano and Gifu prefectures, 200 kilometers west of Tokyo, started erupting at about 11:53 local time (02:53 GMT). The Japanese TV outlet released the following video showing the volcano spewing thick, gray smoke into the air.

The Meteorological Agency said the volcano 125 miles west of Tokyo erupted just before midday and sent ash pouring down the mountain's south slope for more than two miles. The eruption forced aircraft to divert their routes, but officials at Tokyo's Haneda airport and Japan Airlines said there were no disruptions to flights in and out of Tokyo. NHK quoted a Nagano prefectural official as telling a government meeting that seven people were unconscious and eight people were seriously wounded.

But while Tokyo may be safe for now, the immediate vicinity is in a air transit lockdown: "Airplanes are diverting their flying routes to avoid the ash cloud,"Makoto Hasegawa of the Nagano prefecture fire department told Reuters.

RT adds that a local eyewitness told NHK that small rocks were being hurled into the air along with the ash. "It was like thunder," she said. "I heard boom, boom – then everything went dark." Japan’s Meteorological Agency declared a level 3 volcano alert on a 1 to 5 scale, which means people are advised to stay away from the mountain. The agency warned that the debris from the volcano could fall as far as 4 kilometers away.

Stratovolcano Ontake (Ontake-san) is the second highest volcano in Japan at 3,067 meters. It is also a popular destination for religious pilgrimages.

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Russia Threatens EU States With Gas Cut-Offs

Russian energy minister Alexander Novak has warned that EU states which re-export gas to Ukraine will face cut-offs, with Hungary already stopping its reverse flow.

Novak spoke in German daily Handelsblatt on Friday (26 September) morning ahead of talks in Berlin later the same day between the European Commission and Russian and Ukrainian energy officials.

"The contracts signed [between Russia and EU clients] do not have any provisions for re-exports … We hope that our European partners respect the past agreements. That is the only way to guarantee uninterrupted supplies”, he said.

Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia earlier this year began shipping Russian gas to Ukraine in order to help it cope in winter after Russia stopped supplying Ukraine in a price dispute which is bogged down in legal arbitration.

Earlier this month, Russian gas flows to Poland temporarily dropped by 45 percent and to Slovakia by 10 percent in what was blamed on technical reasons.

For its part, Hungarian gas distributor FGSZ on Thursday said it will no longer supply Ukraine “until further notice” also due to “technical reasons” linked to increased demand at home.

But Ukraine transit firm Naftogaz said in a statement the decision is political and comes after the CEO of Russian gas firm Gazprom, Alexei Miller, met with Hungarian leader Viktor Orban on Monday.

“Neither EU countries nor Ukraine should be put under political pressure through energy blackmail”, it said in a note to press. “Naftogaz is committed to being a reliable partner and vital transit hub for Russian gas to the EU. In return, Naftogaz expects its European partners and neighbours to respect their contractual obligations”.

Ukrainian PM Arseny Yatseniuk told Reuters: “They want us to freeze. This is the aim and this is another trump card in Russian hands".

Vladimir Putin has said in a letter to the EU commission, seen by Reuters, that he will impose trade sanctions on Ukraine if it starts to make any pro-EU economic reforms in the next 15 months.

He added that the substance of the trade treaty must be modified to meet Russian demands.

“We still believe that only systemic adjustments of the association agreement, which take into account the full range of risks to Russian-Ukrainian economic ties and to the whole Russian economy arising from implementation of the agreement, will allow [us] to retain existing trade and economic considerations between the Russian Federation and Ukraine”, he said.

Canadian Jihadi Resurfaces With Threats Of NY Terror

Six weeks after he was declared dead, a Canadian in the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham resurfaced on video Thursday, vowing the terrorist group was preparing to bomb New York and fly its flag over the White House.

Interviewed from Iraq by the U.S. website Vice.com, Farah Mohamed Shirdon, a former Calgary movie theatre employee, appeared erratic and became increasingly enraged as he dished out threats and claimed God was on his side.

“God willing, we will make some attacks in New York soon, a lot of brothers are mobilizing there right now in the West, thanks to Allah,” he said. Smiling, he added they were “mobilizing for a brilliant attack, my friend.”

ISIS was conducting beheadings because “you attack one of us, we will attack one of you,” he said, adding, “We will stop when we behead the kuffar [disbelievers] and when we turn his children into our slaves.”

But as if to undermine his boasts, he said he was under attack “day and night” and would have to go, apparently because of yet another assault. Calling himself Abu Usamah, Mr. Shirdon was eulogized online by fellow terrorists in August but later returned to Twitter to say he had been injured but was alive.

Rouhani: Iran Will Never Agree To Stop Uranium Enrichment

 Iran’s president on Friday urged faster progress at nuclear talks between his country and six world powers, joining other top international officials who say the current round has failed to make substantial headway toward sealing a deal by the November 24 deadline.

Without mentioning the US by name, Hassan Rouhani suggested agreement could end the more than three-decade deep-freeze in relations between Washington and Tehran and mark “the beginning of a path toward collaboration and cooperation.

Rouhani also said Iran would never accept any agreement that requires it to stop enriching uranium, and that sanctions by the US, the European Union and the United Nation must “be melted away.”

The talks remain stuck over uranium enrichment. Iran says it needs a robust enrichment program to make reactor fuel and for other peaceful purposes, but the US and its allies fear the program’s other application — making the fissile core of a nuclear weapon.

While eager to reach an agreement in return for an end to crippling nuclear-related sanctions, Iranian officials insist they will never agree to gutting their enrichment capabilities.

No Breakthrough In Iran Nuclear Talks

Iran and six world powers made little progress in overcoming significant disagreements in the most recent round of nuclear talks, including on uranium enrichment, Iranian and Western diplomats close to the negotiations said on Friday.

Officials from Iran and the six countries had cautioned ahead of the talks in New York that a breakthrough was unlikely to end sanctions on Tehran, although they had hoped substantial progress could be made in narrowing disagreements.

A senior State Department official said gaps "are still serious" with just eight weeks to go before a Nov. 24 deadline.

"We do not have an understanding on all major issues, we have some understandings that are helpful to move this process forward and we have an enormous number of details still to work through," the official told reporters.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to use military force against Iranian atomic sites if diplomacy fails to defuse what it sees as the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Iran rejects allegations from Western powers and their allies that it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability but has refused to halt uranium enrichment, inviting multiple rounds of U.S., European Union and U.N. Security Council sanctions. Enrichment is a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel for power plants or, if enriched to a very high purity, for bombs.

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Major Terror Attack In EU Almost Inevitable, Officials Say

A major terror attack on European soil is practically inevitable as Western powers ramp up their assault on Jihadist fighters in Iraq and Syria, the Guardian reported Friday, citing an unnamed senior EU official.

The official said Europe was scrambling to deal with the threat of hundreds and possibly thousands of Islamist fighters returning to the European Union from combat in Iraq and Syria with plans to carry out large-scale attacks in the union.

“It is pre-programmed,” the official told the newspaper. “We have clear signals that this is what the foreign fighters are doing. This is the main threat we are facing.”

He added that EU leaders were “very aware and very frightened of this” and currently did not have an effective strategy in place to deal with the threat. “They all fear this could be totally out of control. It may already be too late.”

In addition to the threat posed by Islamic State itself, De Kerchove  said the group’s burgeoning popularity among Muslim radicals could encourage other terror groups such as al-Qaeda to carry out attacks in order to prove their worth.

“The rise of (Islamic State) may prompt al-Qaeda to do something to show that it is still relevant,” he said.

Signs of rising terror threats against the US and its allies have been gathering in recent days.

Iraq’s prime minister said Thursday that his country’s intelligence operation had uncovered a plot by American and French Islamists fighting for IS to attack the subway systems in the United States and Paris. He said several people had been arrested in connection with the plan, but that the case was still developing. US and French officials have yet to confirm any such plot.

Jihadi From Calgary Resurfaces With Threats Of NY Terror Attack

Six weeks after he was declared dead, a Canadian in the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham resurfaced on video Thursday, vowing the terrorist group was preparing to bomb New York and fly its flag over the White House.

Interviewed from Iraq by the U.S. website Vice.com, Farah Mohamed Shirdon, a former Calgary movie theatre employee, appeared erratic and became increasingly enraged as he dished out threats and claimed God was on his side.

“God willing, we will make some attacks in New York soon, a lot of brothers are mobilizing there right now in the West, thanks to Allah,” he said. Smiling, he added they were “mobilizing for a brilliant attack, my friend.”

ISIS was conducting beheadings because “you attack one of us, we will attack one of you,” he said, adding, “We will stop when we behead the kuffar

He is one of several Somali-Canadians thought to have joined ISIS, prompting the Canadian Somali Congress’s Western branch to appeal for government help. A Hamilton, Ont. man presumed dead in ISIS was also a Somali-Canadian.

Iraqi PM Says Islamic State Plans Subway Attacks In U.S. And Paris

Iraq has received "credible" intelligence that Islamic State militants plan to attack subway systems in Paris and the United States, Iraq's prime minister said on Thursday, but senior U.S. officials said they had no evidence to back up the claim.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he had received the information Thursday morning from militants captured in Iraq and concluded it was credible after asking for further details. The attacks, he said, were plotted from inside Iraq by "networks" of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

"They plan to have attacks in the metros of Paris and the US," Abadi told a small group of US reporters while in New York for the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly. "I asked for more credible information. I asked for names. I asked for details, for cities, you know, dates. And from the details I have received, yes, it looks credible."

National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the White House had not confirmed any plan to attack the US and French subway systems. "We have not confirmed such a plot, and would have to review any information from our Iraqi partners before making further determinations," she said.

The New York City Police Department said it was aware of the prime minister's warning and in close contact with the FBI and other agencies to assess the threat.

U.S. Military Concerned By Russian Cold War-Style Bomber Flights

The U.S. military is concerned by flights by long-range Russian bombers near U.S. airspace, a top U.S. commander said on Thursday, saying the Cold War-style activity was raising questions for Pentagon planners.

The remarks by Admiral Samuel Locklear, head of the U.S. military's Pacific Command, came after Russian Bear long-range bombers approached U.S. and Canadian airspace last week -- prompting both countries to scramble fighter jets to intercept them.

The United States and Russia are increasingly at odds over Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting for control of parts of the former Soviet state. The conflict has dragged relations with the West to their lowest levels since the Cold war.

Locklear said the Russian incursions into the United States' air defense identification zone (ADIZ), an area beyond sovereign U.S. airspace, was "basically kind of Cold War activity with long-range bombers."

"These are things that we have to be concerned about as military people. We have to think about them and what that would mean to the security of the region and the security of our own homeland."

U.S. Considers New, Softened Nuclear Offer To Iran

The US is considering softening present demands that Iran gut its uranium enrichment program in favor of a new proposal that would allow Tehran to keep nearly half of the project intact while placing other constraints on its possible use as a path to nuclear weapons, diplomats told The Associated Press.

The initiative, revealed late Thursday, comes after months of nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers that have failed to substantially narrow differences over the future size and capacity of Tehran’s uranium enrichment program. Iran insists it does not want atomic arms but the West is only willing to lift nuclear-related sanctions if Tehran agrees to substantially shrink enrichment and other activities that Iran could turn toward making such weapons.

The tentative new US offer attempts to meet the Iranians close to half way on numbers, said two diplomats who demanded anonymity because their information is confidential. They said it envisages letting Iran keep up to 4,500 centrifuges but would reduce the stock of uranium gas fed into the machines to the point where it would take more than a year of enriching to create enough material for a nuclear warhead.

The fates of a reactor under construction near the city of Arak and of an underground enrichment facility at Fordo are also contentious issues. The US and its Western allies want the reactor converted to reduce to a minimum its production of plutonium, an alternate pathway to nuclear arms. And they insist that the Fordo plant be shuttered or used for something else than enrichment because it is fortified and thought to be impervious to air attacks.

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