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So they say… kind of. According to state-run TASS, Sergei Lavrov met with new Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi during the UN General Assembly currently taking place in New York, and pledged to support them against ISIS: Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed Russia is ready to support Iraq in its efforts to fight the terrorist threat, first of all the one from the Islamic State (IS). Lavrov had meeting with Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday. …“During the meeting, Lavrov confirmed Russia’s support for Iraq’s independence, territory integrity and sovereignty,” the ministry said....

A French tourist captured in North Africa by a group aligned with the Islamic State is seen beheaded in a video circulated on Wednesday, according to SITE Intelligence, which tracks jihadist groups. The Frenchman — Hervé Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountaineering guide from Nice — was abducted in Algeria on Sunday by the terrorist group, known as Jund al-Khilafah. Mr. Gourdel had arrived only a day before on a trip to go hiking in Algeria’s northern mountains.

ISLAMIC STATE has made the beheading of victims a key element in its campaign of terror and conquest. Most conspicuous in recent weeks have been the murders of Westerners James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and David Haines, whose severed heads and decapitated bodies have been shown in threatening videos produced by the jihadists. In the years since 9/11, other Islamist terrorist groups have circulated equally ghastly beheading videos. Among the earlier victims were journalist Daniel Pearl, businessman Nicholas Berg, and construction contractors Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong — all Americans beheaded by Al Qaeda.Last week, meanwhile, Australian police arrested 15 suspects...

In one of the great epics of Western literature, the hero, confronted by numerous and powerful enemies, temporarily gives in to weakness and self-pity. “I wish,” he sighs, “none of this had happened.” The hero’s wise adviser responds, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.” The old man continues, “There are other forces at work in this world … besides the will of evil.” Some events, he adds, are “meant” to be, “And that is an encouraging thought.” Indeed it is. Perhaps, today, we are meant to live in these...

Most baby boomers will remember the summer of 1967 as the Summer of Love, with huge gatherings in cities across the United States and Canada. Years later, Time magazine said that the overriding theme of the Summer of Love was “trust your feelings.”Ten years later, the message was blasted into our collective consciousness with the release of George Lucas’s movie, Star Wars. In the film, the wise mentor Obi Wan Kenobi instructs young Luke Skywalker to “trust your feelings.”Baby boomers then taught that “trust your feelings” message to their children and grandchildren. So now, young people are even more divorced from...

Erik Prince says his old private army could have dealt with the Islamic State militants on their own—and that Republicans need to start fighting ‘like we pay them to.’ Erik Prince has a message for ISIS: You’re lucky Blackwater is gone. On Friday night, the controversial founder of the private military company had plenty to say about what the organization he once ran could be doing in the fight against the so-called Islamic State—and also why Republicans need to stop being such losers. “It’s a shame the [Obama] administration crushed my old business, because as a private organization, we could’ve...

Australian police are conducting what they called the largest counter-terrorism operation in the nation's history, with more than 800 police officers participating. Officials announced early Thursday that 15 people had been detained and one person charged "with serious terrorism-related offenses" allegedly related to plans for at least one beheading. The action comes less than a week after the Australian government raised its National Terrorism Public Alert level to "high" from "medium." Officials did not immediately offer details about what prompted Thursday's mass operation in the northwest suburbs of Sydney and in Brisbane. The suspects were planning to grab a random...

SECURITY is being ramped up at Parliament House, homes will be searched closely and ASIO has seized passports of Melbourne men, amid Australia’s largest counterterrorism raids in history. This morning the The Daily Telegraph revealed Australian Federal Police (AFP) will ramp up security at Parliament House after intelligence agencies picked up “chatter” about a potential random attack on Canberra. There are fears among national security and intelligence agencies the Prime Minister and other senior government officials are prime targets. Senior intelligence sources confirmed the building had been “scoped out” for a “Mumbai” style attack involving automatic weapons. It’s also believed...

the leader of the Nigerian terror group Boko Haram has established the world's second Islamic "caliphate" this summer and is seeking to cement his bloody rule on a territory that is now roughly the size of west Virginia. While much of the world has been focused on the brutal reign of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the forces of Boko haram have been racking up victories in northern Nigeria and have been violently imposing an equally harsh version of Islamic law on approximately 3 million civilians - including beheadings, forced marriages and the forced induction of children into its military...

Four American noncombatants have been beheaded by Islamic fanatics, and the videos of their murders brazenly circulated over the internet for the world to witness. Another Westerner – David Cawthorne Haines, a security expert hired by international aid organizations – faces the same gruesome fate. Why do they behead us? The question goes to the method, not the motive, of the madness. Murderers’ motives don’t matter much in the Middle East. In local eyes, there are so many causes to kill for, and so many victims deserving death. But assuming one is inclined to butcher, why do so by the...

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday issued a sharp warning to the Islamic State group, saying after the United States is done grieving the death of two American journalists, their killers will have to answer for their actions. "They should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice," he forcefully told an audience at an event on the New Hampshire-Maine border, according to CNN. "Because hell is where they will reside. Hell is where they will reside." Biden opened his remarks in memory of Steven Sotloff, the journalist who was beheaded...

The radical Islamist group Isis (now known as Islamic State) has released a new video threatening Russian President Vladimir Putin that it plans to come to Russia and "free Chechnya".The video footage, believed to be filmed in the Taqba airbase captured from Syrian government forces in Raqqa, shows an IS fighter in a military jet. "This message is for you, Vladimir Putin! These are the aircraft you sent to Bashar [Assad], and we're going to send them to you. Remember that!" he said."This is Russian technology," said a militant with a Russian voice, according to The Moscow Times."We will with...

The UN Security Council on Wednesday demanded the release of 45 Fijian peacekeepers held in the Golan Heights by Syrian Al-Nusra Front terrorists, according to AFP. The 15 members of the council unanimously approved a declaration condemning "in the strongest terms" the detention of the Fijians. They were captured almost a week ago, when the rebels stormed a Golan Heights crossing. The council "reiterated their call for the peacekeepers' immediate and unconditional release," adding in its statement that "there can never be any justification for attacks on or the detention of UN peacekeepers." The government of Fiji also has called...

ISIS has now beheaded a second American hostage. According to the SITE Intelligence Group, the terror group posted a video showing the killing of Steven Sotloff, a journalist who has been held for months but whose captivity was made public only two weeks ago, when he was shown at the end of the video depicting James Foley’s killing. Though I have not seen the video, a still image circulating online shows a similar setup to that of the Foley killing, with Sotloff kneeling in an orange jumpsuit in a desert landscape next to a fighter in a black mask holding...

When Obama called ISIS a JV team, they had taken Fallujah. US intel knew their capabilities, even though Obama Inc. has insisted on blaming bad intel for his dismissive comments.But the intel wasn’t bad. The intel is rarely that bad. It’s the leadership that’s bad. A former Pentagon official confirms to Fox News that detailed and specific intelligence about the rise of ISIS was included in the PDB, or the President’s Daily Brief, for at least a year before the group took large swaths of territory beginning in June.The official, who asked not to be identified because the PDB is...

Members of the Islamic State, a violent group of extremists presently terrorizing Iraq and Syria, have released a video threatening President Vladimir Putin and vowing to wage war in Russia's restive North Caucasus. A Message to Putin A video released by Al Arabiya and reportedly filmed in a seized airport in the Syrian province of Raqqa features an Islamic State fighter seated in a military jet, saying: "This message is for you, Vladimir Putin! These are the aircraft you sent to Bashar [Assad], and we're going to send them to you. Remember that!"

<p>As if the fearmongery and vitriol of UK, Europe and the US were not enough, the Middle-East's 'allied' leaders are now opining on the threat of ISIS. As FOX News reports, The king of Saudi Arabia has warned that jihadists could target the United States and Europe if leaders across the globe do not react to growing terrorist threats as Islamic State militants make advances across Iraq and Syria. "If neglected, I am certain that after a month they will reach Europe and, after another month, America," blasted King Abdullah, adding Cameron-esquely, "they know no humanity." Of course, this is quote ironic given the Saudi's funding of various terror groups throughout the region.</p>

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S acknowledgment that “we don’t have a strategy yet” in Syria understandably attracted the most attention after his perplexing meeting with reporters Thursday. But his restatement of the obvious was not the most dismaying aspect of his remarks. The president’s goal, to the extent he had one, seemed to be to tamp down all the assessments of gathering dangers that his own team had been issuing over the previous days. This argument with his own administration is alarming on three levels. The first has to do with simple competence.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will visit Turkey as the U.S. government tries to build a “coalition of the willing” take on Islamic militants in Syria, the Pentagon announced Friday. “Turkey is a key NATO ally. And given its border with Syria and Iraq, they share our deep concerns with … the regional threat posed by ISIL,” Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters. ISIL is one of the acronyms used to refer to the militant group the Islamic State, which has taken over large swathes of Syria and Iraq in recent months. The U.S. military has been...

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz warned on Friday that the threat of terrorism will reach Europe and America if the world does not unite to confront it, Al Arabiya News Channel reported. The king made the statement during a reception of foreign ambassadors to the kingdom in the coastal city of Jeddah. Britain on Friday raised the terror threat level to severe, the second-highest level. The decision was related to developments in Iraq and Syria, but there was no information to suggest an attack was imminent. “What we are facing in Iraq now with ISIL is a greater threat...