1. “European counterterrorism officials scramble to identify potential threats”

2. Amid the deadly attacks in Paris last week and the raids in Belgium on Thursday, European counterterrorism agencies are scrambling to identify and thwart potential threats. There could be as many as 20 sleeper cells already across western Europe plotting more attacks. European security services in recent weeks have received indications that the extremist group ISIS may have started directing European ISIS members currently in Syria and Iraq to launch attacks back in their home countries (in Europe). The official named France, the United Kingdom and Belgium as countries facing a particular threat and said counterterrorism agencies in Germany are also on high alert. Officials said security agencies in these countries are intensely investigating several groups of returnees from Syria and Iraq. The European official said that investigators were working around the clock to learn about the potential attack plans of the returned ISIS fighters. The European counterterrorism have reason to believe such threats are in response to former air strikes against Syria and Iraq.

3. In Other News
Charles Frederick Warner, who was convicted for the rape and murder of an 11-month-old girl, was executed Thursday. His was the first execution in Oklahoma since a controversial lethal injection, which was widely seen as botched, in April. Warner was convicted in 2003 for the first-degree rape and murder of his then-girlfriend's 11-month-old daughter in the summer of He was executed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Warner was pronounced dead at 7:28 p.m. CT.
For months, 20-year-old Christopher Lee Cornell had been on the FBI's radar. Authorities said he left alarming posts on social media, talking about violent jihad. On Wednesday, agents arrested the Cincinnati man before he could put his alleged plot into action. Authorities say Cornell, who ostensibly tweeted under the name Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah, hatched a simple scheme. It was similar to the Paris attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, but at a key location -- the U.S. Capitol, said a criminal complaint filed by an FBI agent. The plan: Set off pipe bombs to put lawmakers and employees in panicked flight and then gun them down with an assault rifle as they ran across his path and that of an accomplice, Special Agent T.A. Staderman wrote.
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