From okay goes groundbreaking videos. To the web sir web series creaty star trek fans. We talk to the creators in friday arts. We begin tonight with concerns over a growing threat from the Islamic State group. The United Kingdom raised its terror alert level to severe today. That means they believe an attack there is highly likely. But the white house says there are no plans to raise the threat level in the u. S. Libby casey reports. John, the u. S. Puts the number of citizens who have traveled to syria since the time this issue began to 400. The British Government raised its level from substantial to severe. That means the that an attack is highly likely but not imminent. Prime minister David Cameron said, it would make it easier to take passports away from people traveling to syria. To stop those who do go from returning and to deal decisively from those who are already here. Ill be making a statement in the house of commons on monday. This would stop people from traveling and new legislation to make it easier to take peoples passports away. Reporter this comes a week after the release of a video of james foley by what appears to be a british citizen. We have been shocked by the voice of what increasingly seems to have been a british terrorist recorded on that video. It was clear evidence not that any more was needed that this is not some foreign conflict thousands of miles from home that we can hope to ignore. Reporter the u. S. Is not raising its security level. Secretary of Homeland Security, jay johnson put out a statement saying that at present the u. S. Department of Homeland Security and the fbi are unaware of any specific credible threat to the u. S. Home land from i. S. I. L. But he did warn that the Islamic State group also known as i. S. I. L. Remains a serious threat. Obama Administration Press secretary josh ernest says there are heightened challenges. One observes fro observations that part of the british concern is according to published reports there are a number of individuals who have gone to the region to fight i. S. I. L. The reports of american citizens is somewhat lower. Reporter the National Security council confirmed the death of dig lak mc Douglas Mcarthur mccain. While the u. S. Still says its weighing its options, air strikes continued in frawk, destroying four Islamic State vehicles near the mosul dam. That brings the number of air strikes in iraq this month to 110 and thats in addition to the humanitarian relief provided to the yazidi people. John. Libby casey. Trained u. S. Military personnel head of deployments in afghanistan and in pakistan and you are in washington tonight, welcome. Frohana can you hear me . Yes, i can. Terrific. Let me start by asking you this. Do you sense that the Islamic State needs in some way to strike the United States or the west soon . I dont think that i mean, as a white house officials have indicated, there certainly is no imminent threat to the United States this point. That doesnt mean there isnt grave concern. But i think that there has been a pattern of americans taking part in terrorist organizations dated as far back as is the sophie yesophiesoafyet. C. Air strikes alone wont defeat the enemy. A much fuller response is demanded from the word. Syrian opposition are facing i. S. I. S. On the front lines, we need to disrupt and degrade i. S. I. S. s capabilities and we must strengthen our own defenses in cooperation in protecting our people. The president also says we need to strengthen regional allies. Who is he talking about and what needs to be done . Well, i think theres been a great deal of discussion in the news media and also within the u. S. Government about allied forces and while a great deal of attention has been on supplieding Kurdish Forces and supplying weapons and advisory training to the iraqi army that is still a long term process. In fact there needs to be congressional budget and support for that which probably wont take place until 2015. What is a short Term Solution . There are other what i call outside actors which is part of this policy of engagement. By that i mean you have gulf countries. You have the larger middle east. If you look at the other fighters, as much as theres attention on the westerners, about 3,000 european nationals that are taking part within the Islamic State, you have to take a look at the majority of the fighters are actually coming from the arab countries, tunisia, lebanon, jordan, other south Africa States including egypt. These are the countries that have a stake in a stable iraq and syria. The United States has been caught flatfooted after 9 11, in some cases with intelligence, is it like starting over again with the Islamic State or not . Well, the Intelligence Community has its limitations and particularly in this instance. When you look at the chaotic situation like syria, cia assets can only come in and out of the country. There arent well established forces and of course in order to gain force to target and identify the terrorist threat you really need good intelligence on the ground and thats one of the greatest limitations in this war. Iraq is another story. I would like to go back and say that one of the things that is lack in the vacuum in iraq is also the partnership that was established when merrick spent more than a decade in iraq with the sunni tribes. The maliki government had isolated and marginalized them to the extent that now they became part of the terrorist network that is posing a great threat today. Frahana stand by, i want to carry on our conversation further. The biggest concerned how this group having a convention will affect. Bisi onileere has more. Reporter many people have been talking out against the Islamic State and what it stands for. Theres a shared feeling the Islamic State does not represent the majority of muslims. A lot of people here saying this group is unjust and inhumane. This group is attracting thousands of muslims from across the country here to detroit and a lot of them have strong opinions about i. S. I. S. The u. S. Recently identified nearly dozen americans who have joined rebel forces in syria. I have the opportunity to speak to oan organizer to an organizer here about a troubling report and efforts to combat recruiting. I home that they dont target the lone wolf disenfranchised muslims that are not with the main muslim community, who feel they need meaning in life for going overseas and joining this group. Reporter organizers say that is far from the truth they are about peace and unity. This is a four day event. It features workshops as well as a number of speakers including former president jimmy carter and michigan governor rick schneider. Bisi onileere al jazeera, detroit. Lets bring back frahana kazi. How can muslims across the world fight the Islamic State . The Islamic State has a very Important Message and that message is centered around the message of charity. We need help from you, come help our brothers fight the Assad Government which is corrupt and evil. That message is considered very legitimate to many muslims. That message i wouldnt say that americans would necessarily sympathize with it but they would understand that message. The counternarrative would be that that war and that fight is unislamic. In other words that terrorist organization, the Islamic State is use unislamic means and is not representing islam itself. Therefore it is an illetting jihad. I think most americans have a hard time understanding the recruits, the people who left america to go fight. What dont we know about this group and these recruits . I think a lot of attention has been paid on the Islamic State, slick online recruitment campaign, their use of twitter and other websites such as justpasted, where theyre able to post their videos, to particularly new muslim converts. I would say this is not a new tactic, not innovative, we have seen this before when we think of al qaeda or John Walker Lind who joined the taliban. I would say that this was able to find individuals who just came to islam. They this is an identity struggling. These individuals struggle on the one hand with am i loyal to the west or should i be loyal to islam . If im loyal to islam, particularly if you are a recruit and a convert to the faith, should i not go and fight in favor of islam . Not only those predisposed to violence but new muslim converts who feel that they have now that theyve suddenly come to this faith or a sense of greater belonging and purpose, they have to go to the middle east and they have to explore islam. This is a carbon pattern among many particularly american male muslim converts. Its hard for many of us to understand. Frahana its great to have you on the program. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have much more on the Islamic State coming up, at the half hour, 11 30 issue, 8 30 passage. Now to the growing issue of the ukraine, no doubt russia has sent weapons into the territory. Simon mcgregor wood has more. Natos met in executive session. The language was strong. Despite moscows hollow denials, it seems true that russian equipment has crossed over into eastern and southeastern ukraine. This is not an isolated action but part of a dangerous pattern. Reporter on thursday, nato produced these Satellite Photos which proved that Russian Troops and equipment are now operating on ukrainian soil. One day a move to join nato would infuriate russia. Reintroducing eastern ukraines cause to becoming a part of nato. It was ukraines desire to strengthen their ties to europe that has begun this issue. Significantly he hypotheticalled any decision ukraine took would be respected. Each and every nation has an inherent right to decide itself on Security Policies and its alliance affiliations. Reporter in moscow, the russians are still denying everything. It was Sergey Lavrovs turn, he poured accusations on this. Not once have facts been presented to us. There have been reports of photographs from space showing Russian Troops but as it turned out it was a computer game and the images were taken from there. Reporter europes Foreign Ministers are meeting in milan. Tightening and widening sanctions on russia is a real possibility. Eu officials on saturday in brussels will express their support by hosting ukraines petro poroshenko. Simon mcgregor wood, al jazeera. Paul brennan takes us to a small strategic city on the black sea. Reporter novoazovsk is a small city on the black sea. The fighters who now occupy it refuse to be filmed. The residents were almost as reticent. But a few were prepared to express their fears. Translator im worried. I want everything to be fine. I want to have everything in order, and peaceful sky above us. Reporter ukraine uh and its western and its western allies, combined force of separatist fighters and regular russian soldiers. Effectively a russian invasion. For at least three days now the separatist militia of the donetsk peoples republic have been in charge of novoazovsk. People who are concerned should get in touch with local militia commandant. The checkpoint which is much closer to mariupul. What is unclear is what the ultimate ambitions are. Still 10 kilometers from novoazovsk, the crossing is open and the fighter calling himself the frenchman showed evidence of recent fighting. The fighters deny they are from russia. Translator there are no russians here. Theres no russian equipment coming through here. Were fighting with the machinery the Ukrainian Army abandoned. Reporter in their path lies the important city of mariupul, helping the Ukrainian Army dig defensive trenches at the city limits. But having presented what it says is comelings evidence compelling evidence, still reluctant to respond with direct involvement of their own. Paul brennan, al jazeera, novoazovsk. News this evening, that ebola has spread to a fifth west african country. At a hospital in dakkar senegals capitol receiving treatment. But the virus is mutating. Tarek bazil reports. One of two other labs in the country equipped to test for ebola was closed this week after a member of staff caught the virus. The new facility has only been open a few days but already its in high demand. In the past you would like to test ebola you would have to send specimens overseas. The test results would be issued only after a few days or sometimes even after a week if not even longer pfer. Here wafter we receive the specs we can issue the results within three to five hours. Reporter in guinea u. N. Agency unicef has donated motor bikes to the workers to deal with outbreaks. It has already changed the lives of thousands of children. You can imagine that there are thousands of children who are made vulnerable by the ep dem it. Reporter if its epidemic. Reporter Clinical Trials in the u. S. Are likely to start in the u. S. Next week. In u. K. Next month. Vaccine testing is up to ten years. Glaxo smith kline says it hopes to finish the first test vaccine. The chimpanzee virus and two human test virus have shown to be safe. The ebola virus is mutating fast and this could blunt the effectiveness of diagnosic test. Youve got to be careful when you first put it into humans to make sure above all that its safe, that there are no unexpected adverse reactions. And thats the reason you go in very slowly with very few people and you follow them carefully. Reporter with a number of new cases in guinea, sierra leone and liberia so far, the w. H. O. Warns it could take months to years to bring this under control. Californias new plan to safely and humanely keep inmates behind bars. What could be one of the 3 million syrian refugees. Call. The United Nations is calling on cs concluded minorities especially African Americans are unfairly targeted. The u. N. Panel says the shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white policeman in ferguson, missouri is not isolated. The death of 18yearold Michael Brown sparked several weeks of protest and violence. Also today this Police Officer who was suspended for pointing a semi automatic rifle at ferguson residents has resigned. Ray al bers wabers was put on indefinitely leave when the cell phone video went viral. Heufneds police chief has houstons police chief has asked for funding to put knowledge helmet cameras on his officers. Cruel and unusual punishme punishment. Jennifer london reports. Reporter in the California State Prison system they call this a forcible extraction. Inmate a as this mentally ill prisoner is called has refused this is inmate i. Guards say he too refused orders to take medication so force was needed to remove him from his cell. They were trained to do just what they did but that is what is horrific to me. No one was disciplined for that. They acted according to the rules. Reporter michael bean served as lead counsel representing the 35,000 mentally ill inmates in the collaboration lawsuit in Class Action Lawsuit in the California Department of corrections. Video has aired what has now been determined a violation of inmates rights of cruel and unusual punishment. How people are treated people with disabilities and Mental Illness in our system. And i think people are revolted by what they saw. Reporter the videos and photos like this one showing inmates in changes were all part of beens case but its not just use of force in the prisons that were challenged in court. Here at the California Medical Facility outside scroavment, mentally sacramento, inmates are held in isolation. Without group therapy, the use of day rooms or access to prison yards. Prison Officials Say this kind of treatment is sometimes necessary. Sometimes things dont go the way we want them to go and a mentally ill inmate may turn violent. In situations like that, staff are are allowed to escalate and use pepper sprays. Videotapes are very, very troubling but there are a lot of other issues going on too. About not getting adequate care, not having proper Suicide Prevention protocols and so on. There needs to be an attitude change and there needs to be a real commitment by the state to really fix these problems. Reporter last december, staff said they were making steps to improve. But to ensure all inmates especially the mentally ill are treated fairly. Jennifer london, al jazeera, sacramento, california. Coming up a show of force from the mexican government. A new military development is on the streets of towns, why they may not feel safer. And the trend to go small when it comes to apartments. This is al Jazeera America. Im John Siegenthaler in new york. Coming up, the u. K. On high alert over the Islamic State. The potential threats to the u. S. Plus fighting back against drug cartels. The new heavily armed troops on the streets on small town me