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"Every day for the last six years, I ask my staff early in the morning to contact the Department of Defense to get a detailed report of the number of troops deployed, the number wounded, and the number killed.

They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. -- Jeremiah 6:14Gentlemen may cry peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! --...

Iraqi soldiers battling the Islamic State group recaptured most of the town of Beiji, home to the country’s largest oil refinery, state television and a provincial governor said Tuesday. The strategic town, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, will likely be a base for a future push to take back Saddam Hussein’s hometown just to the south, one of the main prizes overrun by the extremists last summer. But troops backed by Shiite militias faced pockets of stiff resistance around Beiji, hindering their advance. There was no word on the fate of the refinery, which lies on Beiji’s northern...

Saint Michael the Archangel: "Defend us in battle" and "be our protection" against wickedness It’s Veterans Day in America, yet there are progressively fewer to venerate. Most of the World War II generation is gone and even the older Vietnam vets are reaching average life expectancy. Relatively few Americans have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and most of them never saw battle. Yet even as explaining combat to a civilian is like describing the sky to somebody blind from birth, we “brave few,” as Shakespeare famously put it in Henry V, feel compelled to try anyway. Ask a veteran what...

BAGHDAD — Over the past three decades, Hadi al-Amiri has gone from being a guerrilla fighting on behalf of Iran against his home country, Iraq; to notorious militia leader accused of running "death squads"; to parliament member in Baghdad, where he has emerged as a key player in the fight against the Islamic State (IS). “The Iraqi people, they love bravery,” Amiri said, by way of explaining his newfound influence. -excerpt- Amiri is the leader of the Badr Organization, a Shiite militia infamous during Iraq's civil war for its brutal tactics, which has now transformed into a political party that...

Coming after almost a week of speculation following a US airstrike in western Iraq, it now appears that ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has died. In a claim circulated through an ISIS website the leader has died. The news come from Al-I’tisaam Media, affiliated through the group, who posted on Twitter: “We will soon publish details about the killing of the Caliphate Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the nomination of a new Caliphate for the Islamic State.” Last week there was an airstrike on a convoy of cars near Al Qaim, Iraq. It appears that Baghdadi was injured in the strike....

-excerpt- On September 15, roughly one month before Obama’s October letter, Khamenei openly dismissed the U.S.-led coalition’s efforts to fight the Islamic State as “empty” and “biased.” Khamenei explained, “I said we do not work with the Americans as they have evil intentions and stained hands. How is it possible to cooperate with Americans under such circumstances?" Iran’s supreme leader said America’s claims about fighting the Islamic State “are lies” and any successes against the group are owed due to the efforts of “the Iraqi people and Army,” not the U.S. or its foreign partners. -excerpt- Obama and his surrogates...

On Twitter, Ayatollah Khamenei says ‘barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime’ must be destroyed, West Bank Palestinians armed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the destruction of Israel over the weekend, stating that the “barbaric” Jewish state “has no cure but to be annihilated.” In a tirade posted on Twitter Saturday night, using the hashtag #handsoffalaqsa, in reference to the recent tensions on the Temple Mount, the Iranian religious leader also reiterated his appeal to arm the Palestinians in the West Bank. “This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of #Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to...

While US authorities noted the airstrikes on a 10-vehicle convoy near Mosul, they could not confirm the identity of those killed. *U.S. SAYS COALITION AIRCRAFT STRIKE IS LEADERS NEAR MOSUL: AFP *U.S. OFFICIAL CONFIRMS AIRSTRIKES TARGETED IS LEADERS:REUTERS *U.S. SAYS IT DESTROYED CONVOY OF 10 ISIS ARMED TRUCKS *CONVOY ATTACK WAS LAST NIGHT IN IRAQ NEAR MOSUL *U.S. SAYS ATTACK WAS AT SITE OF GATHERING OF ISIS LEADERS *U.S. CAN'T CONFIRM IF ISIS LEADER ABU BAKR AL-BAGHDADI THERE *U.S. SAYS IT HAS NO MORE INFORMATION RIGHT NOW ON AIRSTRIKES

THE leadership of the Islamic State death cult has been decimated after a series of targeted US-led air strikes, which reportedly left leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with “critical” injuries. The 43-year-old “caliph” — last week named on the Forbes most powerful list — was “critically wounded”, according to the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news ­agency. US officials confirmed a convoy of 10 armed trucks had been struck near Mosul and other IS units had been targeted but could not verify whether al-Baghdadi had been injured during the Friday night strikes. The US State Department’s $10 million reward for information on al-Baghdadi, also...

Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam veteran and two-time Purple Heart recipient, did support the war, and even advocated sending in more troops. But now he is calling for the administration to develop -- and publish -- an exit strategy. "We should start figuring out how we get out of there," Mr. Hagel said. "But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East." Sen. Hagel, who is occasionally mentioned as a GOP presidential candidate in 2008, says our soldiers are getting bogged down in Iraq the way they did in Southeast Asia a...

Is the Middle East becoming less Arab? Hisham Melhem Saturday, 8 November 2014 President Obama’s letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he laid out the foundation of a new relationship emanating from a nuclear compromise, and stressed shared U.S.-Iranian interests in combatting the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is emblematic of a gradual and subtle shift in Washington’s attitudes towards the region in general and its Arab actors in particular. In this rapidly changing Middle East, the U.S. sees a diminishing Arab influence brought about by the erosion of the state system, lack...

Turkish leaders have said protecting Islamic sites in the Holy Land is a sacred mission for them, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan bluntly warning any attack against the 8th-century al-Aqsa Mosque is no different than an attack on the Kaaba in the holy city of Mecca. “The Israeli administration has to stop this despicableness, this barbarity; what would it say if this kind of attack had been launched against synagogues? The Masjid al-Aqsa is not only a shrine for Palestinians, but is the shrine of all Muslims,” Erdogan was quoted as saying on Nov. 7 during an official visit to...

The US military has drawn up plans to significantly increase the number of American forces in Iraq, which now total around 1,400, as Washington seeks to bolster Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State, US officials told Reuters on Friday. The US aims to help advise and train Iraqi and Kurdish forces battling Islamic State fighters who swept into much of northern Iraq.

COLOGNE, Germany — With its wood-paneled piano bar and luxurious spa, the four-star Bonotel assures visitors paying up to $300 per night that it meets the "international standard of a first-class hotel." But starting next year, the hotel's marble-and-mirrored lobby and "quiet, peaceful ambience" will play host not to indulgent travelers but desperate asylum seekers. Germany's fourth-largest city spent almost $7 million to buy the Bonotel this summer. Its doors will soon be shut and its 93 opulent rooms filled with asylum seekers, a move underscoring how Europe's economic powerhouse has been overwhelmed by an influx of people seeking a...

A bombshell New York Times investigation revealed in mid-October that hundreds of American soldiers were exposed to chemical weapons while serving in Iraq. Worse than that, the experiences of these soldiers was covered up by Defense officials during the Bush and Obama eras. Today, the Pentagon is finally acknowledging that American servicemen and women did suffer exposure to chemical agents while serving in Iraq. “American troops were exposed to chemical weapons multiple times in the years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while the Pentagon kept their discoveries of the expired or degraded weapons secret from investigators, fellow soldiers,...

<p>BEIRUT (AP) — For a force that has built its reputation on an aura of momentum and invincibility, the Islamic State group is now dealing with a series of military setbacks in Iraq and a prolonged stalemate in the small Syrian border town of Kobani.</p>

More than 600 American service members since 2003 have reported to military medical staff members that they believe they were exposed to chemical warfare agents in Iraq, but the Pentagon failed to recognize the scope of the reported cases or offer adequate tracking and treatment to those who may have been injured, defense officials say. The Pentagon’s disclosure abruptly changed the scale and potential costs of the United States’ encounters with abandoned chemical weapons during the occupation of Iraq, episodes the military had for more than a decade kept from view. This previously untold chapter of the occupation became public...

BAGHDAD — The extremists of the Islamic State appeared unstoppable after their sudden blitz through Iraq this summer, with its battle-hardened fighters continually raising their black flag over newly conquered areas. Today, roughly a third of Iraq is dotted by active battle fronts, with intense fighting and occasional Islamic State victories. But analysts also say the days of easy and rapid gains for the jihadists may be coming to a close in Iraq, as the group’s momentum appears to be stalling. The international airstrike campaign against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has clearly played a role...

After a string of victories by Iraqi and Kurdish forces against ISIS over the past two weeks, the rumors started popping up online: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, had been replaced by his Syrian deputy, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani. The rumors were untrue, but they were the first clear evidence that the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS has actually started to work. The past two weeks have seen Iraqi military victories near Baghdad, and in the Diyala, Salahuddin, and Ninevah provinces to the east and north of the city. Coalition airstrikes have significantly increased and improved over the past two...