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As America looks on in a state of paralyzed shock, Muslims are slaughtering Muslims in Iraq, with reports that the heads of those decapitated are literally piling up in the streets. A headline to an article in the Daily Mail reads, “‘They lined the streets with the decapitated heads of police and soldiers’: Iraqi refugee reveals the horrors of the jihadi takeover as Baghdad vows to fight back.” In response to this report, and with sarcastic guns ablaze, Robert Spencer quotes the Quran and then adds his comments, “‘So when you meet those who disbelieve, strike necks…’ (Qur’an 47:4) But...

Many residents of Mosul say they prefer life under ISIS to that under Iraqi army control Less than one week ago the jihadists seized control of Iraq’s second city, Mosul, where they have set to work imposing the hardline rules and summary justice of their “Islamic State”. In the Sunni dominated city, the removal of the Iraqi army by ISIS has been interpreted as a local victory; as a means of empowering Mosul residents against ...the Shia dominated national government who they feel has kept their people “oppressed”. But the crises in northern Iraq is now less one of a...

Every time I think Obama hits a new low, he seems to slink lower, even hours later. As Obama pursues “intense” diplomacy, which will probably includ at least 36 holes of golf this weekend, Iran is sending troops into Iraq to fight alongside our supposed Iraqi government allies. “In recent days,” reports CNN, “Iran has sent about 500 Revolutionary Guard troops to fight alongside Iraqi government security forces in Diyala province, a senior security official in Baghdad told CNN.” Contrast that with the administration’s actions: They evacuated three planeloads of contractors that were supposed to be supporting the Iraqi military....

Iraq's prime minister on Saturday threatened his nation’s troops with execution if they had abandoned their posts in the face of a blitz attack by Islamic militants who swept through northern provinces this week. Speaking to a group of army officers in a televised address from the central city of Samarra, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki promised accountability and punishment for any soldiers who had contributed Tuesday to the swift fall of Mosul, one of the nation’s largest cities, as well as other areas in the country.

s it possible to really win the war on terror? Are there really reasons for Jihad that can be understood and countered by the West? Is military or martial action the last-best chance for ending the threat posed by Islam? In his new and controversial book, Babylon’s Covert War, author J H White answers these and other complex questions related to the global fight against radical Jihad. Islam has a strategy that was incorporated by Muhammad in the 7th Century that has continued in various forms over a multitude of battlefields be they military, social, or political. During the emergence...

Tour operators in Egypt have this week held a conference to urge Italian tourists to return, after instability in the country prompted a crisis in the travel industry following the 2011 ousting of dictator Hosni Mubarak. Around 700 tour operators gathered this week at the ‘United for Egypt’ conference held at the Port Ghalib resort, La Stampa reported. Organizers from both countries hoped the meeting would give a much-needed boost to tourism to Egypt, which has seen a dramatic fall-off in recent years. “In 2008 in Egypt there were 1,073,159 Italian travellers. That number literally collapsed and in 2013 local...

(Reuters) - Finland's EU minister Alexander Stubb, who wants to cut taxes and take his neutral country into NATO, won the leadership of his ruling conservative party on Saturday, putting him on track to become prime minister later this month.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), issued a rare audio message back on January 21 in which he flatly stated his group’s intention to march on Baghdad and move into “direct confrontation” with the United States. “Our last message is to the Americans. Soon we will be in direct confrontation, and the sons of Islam have prepared for such a day,” When the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on February 5 on al Qaida’s resurgence in Iraq, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran and Iraq Brett McGurk presented written...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Friday he is weighing a range of options for countering the violent Islamic insurgency in Iraq, but he warned government leaders in Baghdad the U.S. will not take military action unless they move to address deep political troubles. "We're not going to allow ourselves to be dragged back into a situation in which, while we're there we're keeping a lid on things, and after enormous sacrifices by us, after we're not there, people start acting in ways that are not conducive to the long-term stability and prosperity of the country," Obama said from the...

Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, has long been hard for the central government to control because of its combustible mix of Arabs and Kurds. The first time I visited Mosul was in August 2003 when a tenuous calm was maintained by the 101st Airborne Division. Its commander, a then-obscure two-star general named David Petraeus, had on his own initiative opened the Syrian border to trade, struck deals with Syria and Turkey to provide badly needed electricity, restored telephone service, and held elections to elect local leaders. Along the way he also managed to kill Saddam Hussein’s poisonous offspring Uday and Qusay.

Germany’s president says his compatriots shouldn’t always reject deploying the military to help resolve conflicts as he underlines calls for the country to take more international responsibility. […] President Joachim Gauck told Deutschlandfunk radio in an interview broadcast Saturday that he understands Germans’ longstanding reluctance to take a leading international role, but the country is now a “solid and reliable democracy.” He said that in defending human rights and innocent lives “it is sometimes necessary to take up arms.” …

Responding to overwhelming vote from 5 Star Movement members to join UKIP in the Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group in the European Parliament, UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: “I am extremely pleased with this result. I look forward to working with 5 Star Movement very much to provide a genuine voice of opposition in the European Parliament. This gives a great confidence boost to those other delegation members who are coming to sign up to our common Group next week. This feeds into a process of solidifying what should be a big group. We will be the peoples’ voice....

Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty. ---Derek Zoolander. The campaign of Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is running as the Democrat candidate for Senate from Kentucky, was in a rush to differentiate her from President Obama's new EPA regulations on coal. Apparently they didn't have time to check out the background of the "coal miner" whose picture they used in their initial newspaper ad run. It turned out that he was a European male model, hardly the coal mining type. The crew of Morning Joe had a good laugh featuring the model in his...

The liberal fringe group J Street is facing renewed questions over its purported dishonesty to journalists and editors after one of its top campus officials penned an op-ed that was so thoroughly riddled with factual errors that a leading Israeli publication was forced to delete the piece and apologize. Jacob Plitman, the president of J Street U’s National Student Board, recently attacked several pro-Israel groups in an editorial published by the Times of Israel (TOI). However, TOI editors quickly removed the piece after at least four major factual errors were discovered, according to an explanation of the incident provided to...

The US has been secretly holding talks with Hamas for months Buzzfeed reported Thursday, despite its official stance that it would (not?) negotiate with the terrorist organization. “Our administration needed to hear from them that this unity government would move toward democratic elections, and toward a more peaceful resolution with the entire region,” a US official stated to the “social news” site, on condition of anonymity. “It was important to have that line of communication.” US officials have publicly denied the charges, however, leading to confusion over the report’s veracity. …

Announcement comes hours after government issued permits for 1,500 settlement units, in a move panned by the Palestinians he Israeli government on Thursday ordered officials to move forward with plans for another 1,800 settler homes, just hours after issuing tenders for 1,500 housing units, an official said. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign up! “The political echelon has ordered the Civil Administration to advance 1,800 new (housing) units,” the Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity, referring to a Defense Ministry unit responsible for all West Bank planning...

Attorney general says the term is ‘freighted with pejorative implications’ and ‘not useful’ he Australian government will not refer to East Jerusalem as “occupied, territory” the government said in a statement on Thursday, in what one legislator called a “massive shift” in foreign policy. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign up! Attorney General George Brandis explained Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s position that using the word “occupied” was judgmental and does not contribute to the dialogue about the contested area, the Australian Associated Press reported. “The description of East...

Synopsis A manifesto that exposes the flaws in the two-state policy of the United States toward Israel and the Palestinians and offers a direct and powerful call for Israeli sovereignty in the region. The reigning consensus in elite and academic circles is that the United States must seek to resolve the Palestinians' conflict with Israel by implementing the so-called two-state solution. Establishing a Palestinian state, so the thinking goes, would be a panacea for all the region’s ills. It would end the Arab world’s conflict with Israel, because the reason the Arab world is anti-Israel is that there is no...

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In the same vein, plainly-stated, simple facts speak louder than a thousand scholarly articles by top political “analysts.” So, here goes: in the view of the current United States administration, Hamas’ participation in the Palestinian Authority government is legitimate. Building permits for Jews in Judea and Samaria are criminal. In many ways, Washington’s stance on the current Israel-Palestinian diplomatic dustup illustrates the failure of President Obama’s foreign policy on a host of issues, particularly in the Middle East. Obama won election in 2008 calling for “changes” to America’s domestic and foreign...

When Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas chose to scuttle peace talks with Israel this spring by deciding to conclude a pact with Hamas rather than the Jewish state, he was taking a calculated risk. In embracing his Islamist rivals, Abbas sought to unify the two leading Palestinian factions not to make peace more possible but to make it impossible. Since Palestinian public opinion—indeed the entire political culture of his people—regards any pact that would recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state as a betrayal of their national identity, bringing Hamas back into the PA fold illustrated that he would not...