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“Those recommendations are being made and the president will have an opportunity to make some decisions here in the coming weeks,” Dunford said about plans to send in more American troops to help recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State. “I brought it to the Secretary. The Secretary will engage with the President,” Dunford said, referring to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. The number of troops deployed in Iraq is already much higher than the American people were led to expect, as the public learned after ISIS fired on a Marine artillery position near Mosul two weeks ago,...

In the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the U.S. military is notably short on soldiers, but apparently not on generals. There are at least 12 U.S. generals in Iraq, a stunningly high number for a war that, if you believe the White House talking points, doesn’t involve American troops in combat. And that number is, if anything, a conservative estimate, not taking into account the flag officers running the U.S. air war, the admirals helping wage the war from the sea, or their superiors back at the Pentagon.

There are only 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq—about what a colonel usually commands. But for this ISIS war, as many as 21 generals have been deployed. Why? In the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the U.S. military is notably short on soldiers, but apparently not on generals. There are at least 12 U.S. generals in Iraq, a stunningly high number for a war that, if you believe the White House talking points, doesn’t involve American troops in combat. And that number is, if anything, a conservative estimate, not taking into account the flag officers running the U.S. air war,...

Army Gen. Lloyd Austin relinquished command in Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday of the U.S. forces fighting the Islamic State –– as a bit of a sour note hung in the air back in Washington. President Obama has been consistently criticized for a 2014 comment to the New Yorker magazine that the Islamic State, as it invaded Iraq from Syria, was merely the “jayvee.” In other words, it was not to be taken seriously. Months later, the terror army controlled large swaths of Iraq and Syria, forcing Mr. Obama to ordered a new war. Then, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed Mr....

RUSSELS, Belgium -- Belgian police are continuing their efforts to find all the accomplices of the terror attacks on March 22. But many say the roots of the danger to Belgium began a long time ago. When Islamic terror struck the heart of Brussels, the timing fooled authorities. But for others, it wasn't a total surprise. "Everybody knew that the next attack was only a question of not if but when," Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the AJC Transatlantic Institute, told CBN News. He says the roots of Belgium's problem go far beyond March 22. "The roots are really a violent...

The four nuns running a nursing home in Aden, Yemen, killed by the Islamic State earlier this month, belonged to the Missionaries of Charity, established by Blessed Mother Teresa.

Davutoglu: Turkey's security zone extends to Mosul and Sulaimani By Zhelwan Z. Wali 4 hours ago ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says that his country is "in the middle of a ring of fire" as it fights various groups, including the Islamic State and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He said that Turkey’s “security zone” begins in Syria and ends in the Kurdish city of Sulaimani in northern Iraq. “Turkey’s security zone starts from Latakia and through Aleppo, Mosul and Sulaimani,” Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News quoted Davutoglu as saying in a meeting with local journalists during his...

The justice system in Germany faces serious difficulties building cases against those suspected of having fought for ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the country’s top prosecutor said on Monday. “We often have the impression that these people were not just in Syria as sentries or to be trained in the use of weapons, but that they took part in maimings, killings and bomb attacks,” German Attorney General Peter Frank told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “We assume that these perpetrators have blood on their hands, but we often can’t prove it,” Frank added. It’s extremely difficult to obtain evidence from the conflict...

Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan admitted during his speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that George Bush had decimated ISIS and that the terrorist group had grown by as much as 4,400 percent under Barack Obama. CSIS hosted John Brennan on March 25, 2016. The American Enterprise Institute reported: In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies yesterday, CIA director John Brennan made a startling admission: The Islamic State was “decimated” under George W. Bush and had just “700-or-so adherents left” following the surge in Iraq. Said Brennan: [ISIS] was, you know, pretty much...

The earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean on December 26, triggering a series of huge waves called tsunami, "was possibly" caused by an Indian nuclear experiment in which "Israeli and American nuclear experts participated," an Egyptian weekly magazine reported Thursday. According to Al-Osboa', India, in its heated nuclear race with Pakistan, has lately received sophisticated nuclear know-how from the United States and Israel, both of which "showed readiness to cooperate with India in experiments to exterminate humankind." Since 1992, the magazine argued, leading geological centers in Britain, Turkey and other countries, warned of the need "not to hold nuclear experiments...

Shavua tov, a good week to everyone. CIA Director John Brennan has admitted that ISIS was decimated under George W. Bush, but has grown by 4,400% under Obama. In a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies yesterday, CIA director John Brennan made a startling admission: The Islamic State was “decimated” under George W. Bush and had just “700-or-so adherents left” following the surge in Iraq. Said Brennan: [ISIS] was, you know, pretty much decimated when US forces were there in Iraq. It had maybe 700-or-so adherents left. And then it grew quite a bit in the...

An Israeli minister on Tuesday suggested Europeans had ignored the danger of “Islamic terror cells” and focused on criticizing Israel instead, in a statement in response to the Brussels attacks. While offering condolences over the deadly bombings, Science, Technology and Space Minister Ofir Akunis also hit out at Europe over its labeling of products from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. “I will repeat: many in Europe have preferred to occupy themselves with the folly of condemning Israel, labeling products, and boycotts,” Akunis, an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on his Facebook page. …

snip "The secretary and I both believe that there will be an increase in U.S. forces in Iraq in coming weeks, but that decision hasn't been made," Dunford said. He did not say how big that increase might be. He and Carter said accelerating the campaign against the Islamic State will include more assistance like the artillery fire and targeting help that U.S. Marines provided earlier this week to Iraqi forces advancing on Mosul. But they said American forces remain well behind the front lines.

In the latest terror attack linked to the Islamic State, at least 29 people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a football stadium south of Baghdad Friday, Iraqi security officials told The Associated Press. Nearly 60 other people were reported hurt. Fox News has learned ISIS immediately claimed responsibility for the blast. The terror group also said it was behind the bombings in Belgium Tuesday, which killed 31 people and wounded 270 others.

...the militants are being squeezed, stretched and pushed back. Nowhere are they on the attack. They have not embarked on a successful offensive in nearly nine months. Their leaders are dying in U.S. strikes at the rate of one every three days, inhibiting their ability to launch attacks, according to U.S. military officials. Front-line commanders no longer speak of a scarily formidable foe but of Islamic State defenses that crumble within days and fighters who flee at the first sign they are under attack. “They don’t fight. They just send car bombs and then run away.

AsiaNews spoke to Josephine, one of hundreds of Christians from Al-Hasakah, who spent a year in the hands of the Islamic State group. She talked about psychological suffering, conversion attempts, and separation from her male relatives. She survived thanks to her faith. Her mother Caroline, a Caritas official, is the only one in her family to have been spared the ordeal. She also negotiated their release with IS, and gave a Jihadi copies of the Bible. Now she hopes “to meet the pope” with her entire family. Damascus (AsiaNews) – Josephine Martin Tamras is a young Assyrian woman. For a...

The Guantanamo Bay detainee who U.S. authorities say is responsible for killing Americans was released during President George W. Bush’s time in office, according to a senior Obama administration official. “Less than five percent of detainees released since January 2009 are confirmed of re-engaging in terrorism and, of those, none are assessed to have killed Americans,” the official told the Washington Examiner. […] Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said the “clear admission” by the Obama administration of the killings shows that the president’s efforts to close the facility are “detrimental to our security.” …

“Groups like ISIL can’t destroy us, they can’t defeat us,” President Obama told reporters in Argentina on Wednesday. “They’re not an existential threat to us,” he said. A few sentences later, he described climate change as a “major” problem. […] “And so it’s important for the U.S. president and the U.S. government to be able to work with people who are building and who are creating things and creating jobs and trying to solve major problems like climate change…” At the same news conference, Obama thanked the Argentine president for supporting the Paris climate change agreement. It is worth remembering...

ISIS may face its most serious military challenge — a squeeze on two fronts in the coming weeks from the east and the west. After almost two years of controlling the city of Mosul in Nineveh province, ISIS faces a grim prospect of encirclement and destruction if the combined Iraq-US offensive launched today succeeds in its initial missions. So far, as the Associated Press reports, the liberators have the momentum: The Iraqi military backed by U.S.-led coalition aircraft on Thursday launched a long-awaited operation to recapture the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State militants, a military spokesman said.In...

BEIRUT — Iraqi forces backed by American airstrikes opened an operation Thursday seeking to drive the Islamic State out of a string of northern villages where U.S. troops twice came under attack over the past week and a U.S. Marine was killed. Iraqi officials said it was the prelude to an offensive aimed at recapturing Mosul, the biggest city under Islamic State control and a longstanding priority for the Pentagon. But Kurdish and U.S. military officials described a far more limited operation to clear the Islamic State from villages near Makhmour, about 40 miles southeast of Mosul and around 30...