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A top Iraqi diplomat told world leaders that ISIS is harvesting the organs of its victims to fund its murderous operations, the latest charge of barbarity in a list that already includes mass beheadings, burning people alive, crucifying children and throwing people off buildings. The shocking new claim was presented by the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations, who said bodies have turned up in mass graves bearing surgical incisions and missing organs such as kidneys. Ambassador Mohamed Alhakim leveled the charge as he asked the Security Council to investigate whether ISIS is harvesting and selling the organs of those...

Muslim Leader Who Called Israel a ‘Suspect’ After 9/11 Meets with Biden at White House Critics call Salam Al-Marayati anti-Israel and soft on terrorism BY: Adam Kredo February 18, 2015 5:00 am A controversial U.S. Muslim leader who has been highly critical of Israel and said that the Jewish state should be on the “suspect list” in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks participated on Tuesday in a White House summit on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) that featured Vice President Joe Biden. Salam Al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), tweeted out a photo of himself at...

A 28-year-old former US soldier has returned to Iraq as part of a militia defending one of the world's oldest Christian communities under threat from terror group ISIS. The man, known only as Brett, is one of the leading foreign fighters in the Dwekh Nawsha Christian militia. He had previously served in the US Army in Baghdad between 2006 and 2007. Now, he is based in Al-Qosh, home of a mostly Christian population, which had been forced to flee into Kurdistan when ISIS fighters threatened to approach.

Decked out in his US army-issued fatigues and a lip stud shining from his mouth, the young American fighter cuts an unusual figure in the northern Iraqi town of Al-Qosh. He served in the US army in Baghdad in 2006-2007 and has now returned to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group with Dwekh Nawsha, a Christian militia whose name is an Assyrian-language phrase conveying self-sacrifice, reports AFP. The 28-year-old, who goes by the pseudonym Brett, has become the figurehead of an emerging movement of foreigners coming to Iraq to support Christian groups. Bearing a tattoo of a machinegun on...

Islamic State militants reportedly have burned to death 45 people in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi on Tuesday, just five miles away from an air base staffed by hundreds of U.S. Marines. The identities of the victims are not clear, the local police chief told the BBC, but some are believed to be among the security forces that have been clashing with ISIS for control of the town. ISIS fighters reportedly captured most of the town last week.

The first caged humans weren't displayed in Kirkuk, they were tramped down Broadway. The Inhumanity Of Islam.

At about $50 a barrel, crude oil prices are down by more than half from their June 2014 peak of $107. They may fall more, perhaps even as low as $10 to $20. Here’s why.

New York Times reports that Operation Avarice netted at least 400 Borak rockets, one of the chemical weapons Saddam Hussein produced in 1980s.****************************************************************** The CIA worked with the U.S. military to purchase Iraqi rockets containing the deadly nerve agent sarin, as part of a secret effort to keep terrorists and militant groups from acquiring old chemical weapons in Iraq, The New York Times reported Sunday. The U.S. military considers the purchase plan – Operation Avarice, which took place in 2005 and 2006 – to be a nonproliferation success, the Times said. It netted at least 400 Borak rockets, one of...

SIS and Saudi Arabia: Living and dying by the sword. In a move reminiscent of “ancient history,” Saudi Arabia is building a 600-mile-long “Great Wall” – a combined fence and ditch – to separate itself from the Islamic State to the north in Iraq: Plans for the 600-mile wall and ditch Saudi Arabia will build with Iraq in an effort to insulate itself from the chaos engulfing its neighbors.Much of the area on the Iraqi side is now controlled by Isil [the Islamic State], which regards the ultimate capture of Saudi Arabia, home to the “Two Holy Mosques” of Mecca...

What is the Islamic State? Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as...

Jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS) have burned to death 45 people in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, the local police chief says. Ain al-Asad air base, where about 320 US Marines are training members of the Iraqi army's 7th Division, is only 8km (5 miles) away.

A captured Islamic State suicide bomber has told the BBC that the group actively recruits teenagers as young as 14 to carry out attacks in Iraq. The bomber was caught in Baghdad, where security is improving as Islamic State (IS) is pushed back from areas around the city. John Simpson reports from Iraq's capital city on its new found optimism.

Earlier this year, Mitt Romney had a Galadriel moment. He appeared to be briefly seized by a vision of himself as an all-powerful, world-striding President Romney, before turning away from temptation and settling for the plain old Mitt Romney he has always been. It was political theater at its most bizarre, a flack-driven frenzy that doubled as a flashback to the self-delusion that blinded the Romney 2012 campaign in its final days. With Romney now out of the way, Jeb Bush has consolidated the support of the GOP's moneyed class with surprising alacrity. As Politico noted last week, the contest...

"What is the Islamic State? Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as...

Unless you have been stranded on Mars lately, you’ve probably already heard about the lies being told by NBC news anchor, Brian Williams, who has been suspended by the network for six months, a period which they hope will be enough time for everyone to forget about the incident and Williams can be restored to his anchor position, allowing him to then begin telling lies about the GOP challengers in the 2016 U.S. presidential race. Williams told David Letterman that, while he was reporting from Iraq, his helicopter was shot at in 2003, a claim which he has repeated several...

Amid reports that the Obama administration is refusing to share information regarding Iran with Israel as “punishment” for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s upcoming speech before Congress, The Washington Post’s David Ignatius on Monday provided new details into the tensions between Jerusalem and Washington. According to Ignatius’s column, the mistrust between the Obama administration and Netanyahu has widened even further in recent days because of suspicion in the United States that the Israeli prime minister has authorized leaks of details about the U.S. nuclear talks with Iran. “The decision to reduce the exchange of sensitive information about the Iran talks was...

The 21 men beheaded on a Mediterranean beach in a video released by Islamist savages Sunday were killed because of their Coptic Christian faith, by men who proclaimed the reason for the murders before the whole world. And the White House won’t say the word. Christian beheading victims are marched to the beach in Libya to be murdered by Islamist militants on Sunday. (Daily Mail photo) “The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of 21 Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated terrorists,” a statement issued by the White House said.“ISIL’s barbarity knows no bounds.  It is unconstrained by...

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Monday that Israel would always be "haunted by the blood" of Imad Mughniyeh, the group's former military leader who was killed in a Damascus car-bombing widely attributed to Israel in 2008. Speaking at an event commemorating Hezbollah's "martyrs," Nasrallah also spoke of Imad Mughniyeh's son, Jihad, as a martyr. Jihad Mughniyeh was killed in an airstrike on a Hezbollah convoy in southern Syria last month that has also been attributed to Israel. "The blood of the martyr Jihad has revived the memory of the commander Hajj Imad Mughniyeh and returned this brilliant and historic leader...

Israeli-US public sparring over the Iranian issue continued Monday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that if the emerging agreement with Tehran is a good one, why hide the details. Netanyahu's comments at the annual meeting in Jerusalem of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations came the same day that the Washington Post's David Ignatius reported that the US had decided to “reduce the exchange of sensitive information about the Iran talks” because of a concern that Netanyahu's office had leaked “sensitive details” of the US position. Just as Iran knows what agreement it is being offered,...

Nearly all the 54 Republican U.S. senators will vote in favor of the Kirk-Menendez bill requiring sanctions on Iran if the P5+1 negotiations fail. President Obama has promised to veto it. Now, the senate is gearing up for a high-drama vote; will Democrats provide the 13 to 15 votes needed for a veto-proof majority? Lost in the shuffle is a little-noticed section of the bill that, if passed, guts it. The "Draft of Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015," posted on the website of Sen. Mark Kirk (Republican of Illinois) contains a "Waiver of Sanctions." Designed to win the...