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Islamic State's "terrorism capacity and global reach" have not been reduced, the director of the CIA said on Thursday, adding that the group has tens of thousands of fighters around the world, far more than al Qaeda had at its height. "Despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group's terrorism and global reach," Brennan testified. "We judge that ISIL is training and attempting to deploy operatives for further attacks," Brennan said, days after a gunman, who expressed allegiance to Islamic State, killed 49 people in Orlando, Florida.

i24news Published August 31st 2015 10:08pm Russian jets take to Syrian skies to combat IS Russia begins military intervention against IS in Syria; IS closes in on Damascus Russian fighter pilots, jets and helicopters will begin arriving in Syria in the coming days to join in the offensive against the Islamic State (IS) and rebel-aligned targets within the failing state Israeli news site Ynet News reported Monday. According to Western diplomats, Russian expeditionary forces have already arrived in Syria to set up camp in an Assad-controlled airbase near Damascus, and will operate as a Russian forward operating base. Thousands of...

On Monday, President Obama spoke about his new strategy to take on the terrorist entity Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In doing so, he explained that the battle against that terrorist group — a group he had once termed "JV" — would amount to a "generational struggle." Why would defeating a ragtag army of primitives take generations? Because, Obama explained, "This is not simply a military effort. Ideologies are not defeated by guns. They're defeated with better ideas." To cap off this airsickness bag of gobbledygook, Obama then concluded, "We will never be at war with Islam." So let's...

IS threat grows as 'caliphate' enters second year By Rita Daou Beirut June 29, 2015 A year of the Islamic State group's 'caliphate' Beirut (AFP) June 29, 2015 - Main dates in the history of the Islamic State jihadist group's "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria, which it declared in late June 2014. IS began as an Al-Qaeda offshoot, before disavowing the authority of that group's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2013. June 29, 2014: IS proclaims 'caliphate' Jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), declare an "Islamic caliphate" across territory they have seized in Iraq and Syria....

The United States is considering establishing additional military bases in Iraq to combat the Islamic State, the top American general said on Thursday, a move that would require at least hundreds more American military trainers to help Iraqi forces retake cities lost to the militant Sunni extremist group. President Obama’s decision this week to send 450 trainers to establish a new military base to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, could signal the beginning of similar efforts in other parts of the country, said Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint...

The White House is reportedly planning a shift in strategy in Iraq that would see hundreds of American military trainers deployed to help retake Ramadi and the delay of long-held plans to drive the Islamic State from Mosul. Six months after US forces began training Iraqi troops to take on the jihadist fighters, a string of defeats on the battlefield has prompted the Obama administration into a recalibration of its plans. The American military hopes to build up enough well-trained and well-equipped Iraqi forces to retake the city of Ramadi, which fell to Isil in mid-May. The plan would see...

In a major shift of strategy in Iraq, the Obama administration is planning to establish a new military base in Anbar Province and send 400 American military trainers to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi and repel the Islamic State. Although a final decision by the White House has yet to be announced, the plan follows months of behind-the-scenes debate about how prominently plans to retake another Iraqi city, Mosul, which fell to the Islamic State last year. Pending approval by the White House, plans are being made to use Al Taqqadum, an Iraqi base near the town...

Islamic State militants staged attacks near Baghdad and the Libyan city of Surt on Tuesday, underscoring the group’s persistent strength on both fronts despite a monthslong American-led air campaign against it in Syria and Iraq. In both countries, the United States and other Western powers are struggling to find effective partners to help engage the Islamic State, or even contain it. In Libya, the capture of the power plant means the Islamic State can threaten to cut off electricity to parts of the central and western regions of the country. In Iraq, the attack on the council building in Amariya...

President Obama denied that the United States and its allies were losing the fight against Islamic State forces in the Middle East, but he acknowledged in an interview posted online on Thursday that more should be done to help Iraqis recapture lost territory. He offered no regrets about his handling of the war and said in the end it would be up to the Iraqis to increase their efforts. The president and his team argued for months that they had reversed the momentum of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, but critics and independent experts said it...

BAGHDAD — Islamic State militants searched door-to-door for policemen and pro-government fighters and threw bodies in the Euphrates River in a bloody purge Monday after capturing the strategic city of Ramadi, their biggest victory since overrunning much of northern and western Iraq last year. U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said more than 6,500 families had fled in recent days, with the hospital in the nearby city of Khaldiya reporting many casualties. Ramadi's streets were deserted a day after the city's fall, with only a few people venturing out of their homes to search for food. They said IS militants were...

Most Iraqi troops have abandoned their positions in Ramadi as Islamic State militants have advanced further into the city, officials have told the BBC. They said IS militants had taken control of a compound that was used as the provincial military command centre.

The Islamic State is continuing to wipe out the Yazidi religious minority in northern Iraq – by means of rape: Those women who survive are rejected by their families. Some commit suicide. The tragedy that has befallen the Yazidis is far from over. Last week, it was reported that the extremist Islamic organization had recently murdered 300 Yazidis and that thousands of women are still being held captive and are serving as bargaining chips. Recently, ISIS released several of these women, who then found shelter in refugee camps in the Kurdish-held enclave in Iraq. They described some of the tribulations...

Erbil, Kurdistan Region – The radical group of Islamic State has allocated several camps in the areas under its control in Mosul and Ramadi in northern Iraq and in the city of Raqqa in northeastern Syria, to train minors dubbed as “Ashbal al-Khilafa” (Cubs of the Caliphate) to carry out “jihadist” operations”, pro-IS media outlets reported. The so-called Caliphate’s Cubs are also trained to slaughter, assassinate, and physically and psychologically torture others. The youngsters are reportedly subject to training sessions of one month and a half, and are then dispersed among the suicide squads and bomb-making workshops.

For years, the U.S. military has worked closely with Yemen’s government to go after AQAP, together carrying out numerous attacks like the 2011 drone strike that killed prominent al Qaeda figure Anwar al-Awlaki. And U.S. President Barack Obama has hailed this cooperation as a pillar in his anti-terrorism campaign. “Yemen has never been a perfect democracy or a island of stability,” Obama said in January, promoting the policy of “partnering and intelligence-sharing with that local government” as the best approach in a bad situation. “The alternative would be for us to play whack-a-mole every time there is a terrorist actor...

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. Exactly who these people were and why they were killed is not clear, but Col Qasim al-Obeidi said he believed some were members of the security forces. IS fighters captured much of the town, near Ain al-Asad air base, last week. Col Obeidi said a compound that houses the families of security personnel and local officials was now under attack. He pleaded for help from the government and the international community. The fighting and poor communications...

We are at war! World War III has started and apparently our government is unwilling to acknowledge it. Prior to World War II, efforts were made throughout Britain and the United States to avoid war at all costs with disastrous consequences. We will face the same disaster if we do not face reality immediately. In the Britain of the 1930's, Chamberlain attempted to appease Hitler until it was too late for Poland and the world. His appeasement increased the death toll from that war substantially. In the year 2015, the parallels to 1939 are striking. We are in denial. Our...

(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama asked Congress on Wednesday to authorize military force against Islamic State that would bar any large-scale invasion by U.S. ground troops and limit operations to three years. Republicans, who control Congress, put up swift resistance to the proposal. They say Obama's foreign policy is too passive and want stronger measures against the militants, also known as ISIL. With Obama's fellow Democrats wary of another Middle East war, it could be difficult for the White House to win enough support to pass the bill, even though six months have passed since the military campaign began....

When his father disappeared Dec. 18, Alaa Dawood reported him missing to the police but had little faith that they would find the elderly man, who had suffered brain damage when he was kidnapped six years ago and tortured by militants. Shiite militias empowered by the government to fight Sunni militants have been asked to stand down by Prime Minister Haider Abadi, and police say they have assumed control of investigations and patrols. But many Baghdadis, including Shiites like Dawood, said they still fear the militias, which they said operate with impunity. Casualty figures in 2014 were the highest since...

Foreign ministers from 21 countries are meeting in London to discuss ways to co-ordinate their efforts to combat the jihadist group Islamic State (IS). IS controls large swathes of Syria and Iraq and the US-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes since August. But UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond insisted much more needed to be done. He told the BBC that the countries wanted to find ways to halt the flow of recruits to IS, cut off its funding and "tackle the underlying narrative". At the start of Thursday's conference at Lancaster House, which he is co-hosting with Mr...

BAGHDAD - - A year after ISIL fighters captured Fallujah in Iraq’s Anbar province, the country’s Shiite-led government remains incapable of mounting a major offensive to retake the city or any of the key areas still held by the group. In January last year, Fallujah, 70 kilometres west of Baghdad, became the first major city to fall to ISIL. This was followed by a summer campaign that seized the country’s second-largest city, Mosul, and Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, along with most of northern and western Iraq. Iraq’s slow-moving fight against ISIL has also highlighted the country’s sectarian tensions, given...