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The Iraqi government says it has halted a militant group's advance on Baghdad. As The Telegraph reports, the Iraqi army started engaging the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, after it made a rapid advance in which it captured the key city of Mosul. "'Our security forces have regained the initiative,' said Maj Gen al-Moussawi, adding that the Iraqi army had won 'remarkable victories with the help of volunteers'. 'We will not stop at liberating Mosul from ISIS terrorists, but all other parts,' he continued."

A three word text was released from inside the Embassy about six hours ago: “Too late Alamo.” That message is open to interpretation. Just minutes ago news came from within the United States Embassy in Baghdad that the Iraqis have shut down internet service for those barricaded inside. Limited text messages via private cell phones are still coming through. It is unknown how many of the more than 5,000 U.S. civilians in Baghdad are actually taking refuge inside the embassy compound. NBC war correspondent, Richard Engel reported last night that civilians in and around Baghdad have boarded up residences and...

The United States has evacuated most of its personnel from the Embassy in Baghdad and dramatically stepped up security for those who remain as thousands of Islamic fighters bear down on Iraq's capital city. Some 5,500 people work in the massive Embassy complex in the heavily-fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. Many will be airlifted to Amman, Jordan, and others will be sent to consulates in Basra, in the south, and Erbil, in the Kurdish north. Other workers will remain in Baghdad. Some 12,000 fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) are marching on Baghdad after quickly...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that she “could not have predicted” the effectiveness of the al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group that seized control this week of two major Iraqi cities. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which has pledged allegiance to al-Qaida since 2004, captured the western Iraqi cities of Tikrit and Mosul, expanding its influence across the entire Sunni-dominated western region of Iraq in addition to Syria — where it remains one of the strongest rebel factions fighting dictator Bashar al-Assad. The group, led by enigmatic terrorist Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, evolved out of al-Qaida’s Bush-era...

The explosion of bloodshed in Iraq has created the temptation for many to revisit their support for or opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and to ascribe blame for the recent surge in violence to their preferred boogieman. Not all have succumbed to the enticing lure of nostalgia. Not even consistent Iraq War and George W. Bush critic Fareed Zakaria allowed himself himself to take a swipe at the former commander-in-chief for looming over the present crisis. Appearing on CNN on Thursday, Zakaria blamed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for undoing what he said was the good accomplished...

US Ambassador Robert Ford resigned from his State Department post a month ago, after a long and difficult time as the envoy to Syria. Ford showed great personal courage in his service while Bashar al-Assad instigated attacks on Western embassies and eventually provoked a massive civil war which has turned into a regional threat, thanks to the collapse of his power in large regions of Syria. The collapse of American policy in Syria over the past year was presumed to have prompted Ford’s departure, which he confirms with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview today.This is interesting for more...

This weekend, White House national security adviser Susan Rice took a break from her busy schedule of scouring YouTube for blamable videos, and sat down with CNN’s Candy Crowley. You may remember Crowley as the “journalist” who likes helping floundering Democrat Presidents score points in political debates. Crowley wanted to know if, in fact, the United States had negotiated with terrorists in its effort to secure Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s release. The short answer is “yes,” but this is the Obama administration. ...So you never get the short answer. “Point blank,” Crowley asked. “Did the US negotiate with terrorists for his...

Partial results indicate that Egypt’s former army chief, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, is headed for a big victory. According to Reuters, Sisi’s campaign said Wednesday night that the popular candidate had captured 93.4 percent of the votes with 2,000 polling stations counted. Judicial sources said he had 89 percent with 3,000 polling stations counted. Sisi’s only rival, Hamdeen Sabahi, was on 2.9 percent according to the Sisi campaign, while the judicial sources put Sabahi on 5 percent. The rest of the ballots were deemed void. …

'I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being,' the president insisted Yet he used the words 'partner' and 'partnership' 16 times in his speech at West Point, outlining a contradictory foreign policyObama replaced the phrase 'collective action' – in his prepared remarks – with the words 'multilateral action' several timesWorking through NATO and the UN will dominate American foreign policy, Obama said: 'This is American leadership, American strength'

onday night Secretary of State John Kerry issued an almost apology for warning that if Israel did not make peace it would become an apartheid state. In the statement he issued (below) he never says he is sorry, simply that he has always loved Israel, the criticism he received for his statement was political, and if he could say it again he would change the words he used. For more than thirty years in the United States Senate, I didn’t just speak words in support of Israel, I walked the walk when it came time to vote and when it...

Secretary of State John Kerry has said he chose the wrong word in describing Israel´s potential future after being criticised for saying the Jewish state could become an ´apartheid state´ if it does not reach a peace deal with the Palestinians. In a statement released yesterday by the State Department, Kerry lashed out against ´partisan political´ attacks against him, but acknowledged his comments last week to a closed international forum could have been misinterpreted. He pointedly did not apologize for the remarks, but stressed he was, and is, a strong supporter of Israel, which he called a ´vibrant democracy.´

WASHINGTON — The United States is said to have disclosed that Saudi King Abdullah was dying. (Snip) The sources said the photograph was taken by White House personnel during Obama’s meeting with the Saudi king outside Riyad on March 28.“The Saudis specifically did not want any photograph that showed Abdullah with the tube,” a source said. “But there was a White House photographer that took the picture for what he said was history.” The photograph was said to have been relayed to members of the White House press corps. Within a day, an image of the Saudi king with the...

On Tuesday morning, a plane owned in trust by the Bank of Utah showed up in a very visible area of the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. What was it doing there exactly? Nobody knows, reports The New York Times. Under President Barack Obama, the United States has eased some of the long-standing punitive economic sanctions against Iran. Still, very little American — or European — economic activity is allowed inside the religious theocracy. The Bank of Utah is certainly no Wells Fargo. The Ogden-based community bank has all of 13 branches including...

Over 150,000 people have lost their lives since the March 2011 outbreak of the devastating civil war in Syria, according to new figures. The London based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which closely monitors the conflict using a network of activists and medical staff in Syria, has documented the deaths of 150,344 people. More than a third of those killed in Syria – by shellfire, air strikes and bullets – are civilians, the rights group said. Now in its third year, the war, which continues, unabated, has ravaged entire cities, leaving whole civilian neighbourhoods flattened by shell fire and...

As US president Barack Obama looks to mend ties with Saudi Arabia in Riyadh today, the Saudis hope to shore up regional support. Their $1.5 billion gift has raised suspicions among Pakistanis. Pakistan announced last week that it received a $1.5 billion grant from Saudi Arabia, which it termed a “friendly gift” and an “unconditional grant.” Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have long had warm ties, but the no-strings-attached gift sparked immediate concern from Pakistani journalists, security experts, and opposition politicians, who question whether the grant is part of a behind-the-scenes deal for Pakistan to provide weapons for Syrian rebels. “There...

London (AFP) - A former wife of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah appealed to US President Barack Obama on Thursday for help in the case of four daughters she says are being held in a royal palace. Alanoud AlFayez, 57, a Jordanian national who has lived in London since her divorce from the Saudi monarch in 2003, said her children needed to be "saved". "Since 13 years, my daughters Sahar, Maha, Hala and Jawaher are being held captive," AlFayez told AFP. "They need to be saved and released immediately." She added: "Mr Obama should take this opportunity to address these grave...

150 Christian citizens of Israel demonstrated on Sunday (Mar. 23) outside the European Union’s delegation in Tel Aviv against the EU’s silence in relation to what they termed “the ethnic cleansing of Christians throughout the Middle East.” The protesters demanded that the EU act on their own cry for human rights and fight for the Christians throughout the Middle East, who are quickly becoming extinct everywhere but Israel. Father Gabriel Nadaf, a Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth and strong proponent of Christian enlistment in the IDF, demanded that the attacks on Christians be stopped and thanked Israel for being a...

In advance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent visit to the United States, President Obama gave an interview in which he viciously attacked Israel, suggesting that Israel was the cause of the peace process failure, that the United States could no longer protect Israel if the peace process failed and that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was a man of peace. This past week, Abbas came to visit Obama at the White House. In advance of his trip, Obama made no statements expressing displeasure with the Palestinian Authority’s intransigence and its continued demonization of Israel. Just before the meeting...

Hillary Clinton is trying to impress voters that she’s a true friend of Israel, which is odd given that relations with the Jewish state reached a low point while she was secretary of State. The Post reports: “Hillary Rodham Clinton cast doubt on the interim nuclear agreement with Iran, saying in a muscular policy speech [in New York] Wednesday night that she is ‘personally skeptical’ that Iran’s leaders will follow through on a comprehensive agreement to end their march toward nuclear weapons. Still, the former secretary of state and potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate told a pro-Israel audience in New...

Veteran officer Jonathan Bank is placed on leave amid a rebellion against his management style, current and former officials say. WASHINGTON — The CIA's chief of Iran operations was placed on paid administrative leave and sent home from agency headquarters after an internal investigation found he had created an abusive and hostile work environment that put a crucial division in disarray, according to current and former officials. Officers and analysts in the Iran operations division, which coordinates spying on Iran and its nuclear program, were informed at a meeting last week at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., of the decision...