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Israel bombed dozens of sites in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, striking at Hamas after finding the bodies of three missing teenagers whose abduction and killing it blames on the Palestinian Islamist group.

Representatives of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) stated that they will ruin the Kaaba after capturing Saudi Arabia. APA reports quoting Turkish media that ISIS wants to take control of Arar city of Saudi Arabia and start operations here. ISIS member Abu Turab Al Mugaddasi said that they would destroy the Kaaba in Mecca: “If Allah wills, we will kill those who worship stones in Mecca and destroy the Kaaba. People go to Mecca to touch the stones, not for Allah.”

Three bombings in five days have mounted fears that the sectarian tinderbox of Lebanon could erupt.On Friday, Al-Qaeda-inspired armed group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which yesterday began calling itself the Islamic State in an apparent signal of its wide-reaching aspirations in the region, claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on the chic Duroy Hotel in the heart of Beirut’s Raouche neighborhood, which is popular with tourists. The IS declared in a statement that the attack would be the first of many on Lebanese soil. Though the bomb was a near miss meant to detonate at a...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced support for Kurdish statehood on Sunday, taking a position that appeared to clash with the U.S. preference to keep sectarian war-torn Iraq united. SNIP----- "We should ... support the Kurdish aspiration for independence," Netanyahu told Tel Aviv University's INSS think-tank, after outlining what he described as the collapse of Iraq and other Middle East regions under strife between Arab Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. Kurds, Netanyahu said, "are a fighting people that has proved its political commitment, political moderation, and deserves political independence".

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in Damascus on Saturday that his country “will not remain passive” as jihadists push an offensive in Syria’s neighbor Iraq. “Russia will not remain passive to the attempts by some groups to spread terrorism in the region,” Ryabkov told journalists after meeting with President Bashar al-Assad. Sunni militants, led by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) which is active in both Syria and Iraq, have seized vast territory north and west of Baghdad since launching their offensive two weeks ago.

After weeks of retreats and collapses in the face of a smaller terrorist army, the Iraqi military has launched an offensive aimed at retaking two strategic positions previously lost to ISIS. Iraq now claims to have Tikrit back under its control, and they are attempting to push ISIS out of Mosul in a strategy aimed at stopping the advance on Baghdad: Iraqi security forces retook the city of Tikrit on Saturday, a local tribal leader and state media said, as they went on the offensive against the Sunni extremist militants who have seized swaths of northern and western Iraq.Sheikh...

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) publishes a weekly webzine, The Islamic State Report. The latest issue is headlined “Smashing the Borders of the Tawaghit.” (“Tawaghit” are non-Muslim creations.) ISIS, citing the Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916 between the British and French, boasts that it is destroying the “partitioning of Muslim lands by crusader powers.” That may seem like a quixotic task for a relatively small band of irregulars, but in trying to redraw the map of Iraq and Syria, ISIS has hit upon a weak link in the chain holding the nations of the Middle East together. It...

With tear-gas flying in the streets of Turkey, Ukraine's civil-war raging in the south and east, US drones based in Japan to oversee the South China Sea, and Europe's extremist parties gaining significant traction, today we get one more piece of considerably worrisome geopolitical news that global stock markets must ignore. The Sunday Times reports that Israel is to deploy three submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf that are meant to act as a deterrent, gather intelligence and potentially to land Mossad agents. Iran is not happy, warning that "anyone who wishes to do an evil...

Jordan may ask Israel and the United States to help it fight the al-Qaeda-linked jihadi group that threatens Syria and Iraq if it threatens Amman as well, senior Obama administration officials

The disheartening, though not entirely surprising, breakdown of talks between Israel and the Palestinians marked yet another failure by the two sides to come closer to an agreement that would usher the way for a Palestinian state. Yet, no sooner had the talks collapsed than blame was being assigned by both Secretary of State John Kerry and chief U.S. negotiator Martin Indyk—and naturally it was Israel that bore the brunt of their criticism. Echoing the sentiments of Palestinian leadership itself, Kerry and Indyk pointed to the dreaded settlements as the principal sticking point of the talks, with Indyk suggesting that...

Almost the entire Syrian side of the Golan Heights is now under the control of rebel forces, including radical Islamist groups, a senior Israeli military commander in the area said Friday. Only the Quneitra border area is still in the hands of forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, Lt.-Col. Anan Abbas, deputy commander of the Golan Brigade, told Israel’s Channel 10. About 95 percent of the Syrian side of the Golan is in the hands of anti-Assad rebels, including radical Islamic groups such as the Al-Nusra Front, affiliated with al-Qaeda, a rival of the burgeoning Islamic State of Iraq and...

Syrian-Kurdish group sends congratulatory letter to Israeli president-elect, says ‘We do not have any problem’ with Israel. Pro-Western Syrian opposition figures told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that they seek friendly relations with Israel and aim to secure US support so that rebel extremists do not take over. The Kurdish Left Party in Syria, headed by Mahsum Faisal Baker Simo, sent a letter to President-elect Reuven Rivlin, stating that Israel “isn’t our enemy,” but that Syrian President Bashar Assad and his aides were. “We in the Kurdish Left Party ask the government and people of Israel to stand by the...

In a step that cements the impression of a de facto independent Kurdistan, a million barrels of Kurdish oil were delivered to a client in Israel today, despite threats by Baghdad to sue anyone buying it. The US government, fearing another blow to embattled Baghdad, had also worked to prevent anyone from buying the oil. 1 Reuters broke the story in a scoop, followed a few hours later by a statement on the Kurdish government website. “We are proud of this milestone achievement, which was accomplished despite almost three weeks of intimidation and baseless interferences from Baghdad against the tanker-ship...

...Ankara may deny helping ISIS, but the evidence for this is overwhelming. “As we have the longest border with Syria,” writes Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a Turkish newspaper columnist, “Turkey’s support was vital for the jihadists in getting in and out of the country.” Indeed, the ISIS strongholds not coincidentally cluster close to Turkey’s frontiers. Kurds, academic experts and the Syrian opposition agree that Syrians, Turks (estimated to number 3,000), and foreign fighters (especially Saudis, but also a fair number of Westerners) have crossed the Turkish-Syrian border at will, often to join ISIS. What Turkish journalist Kadri Gursel calls a “two-way...

There is a great deal of confusion and ignorance about the jihadist organization ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) which has been waging a terror campaign in those two nations for some time now, culminating most recently in the seizure of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul. ... ISIS has a specific goal in mind and that is the formation of an Islamic state ruled by Shariah. This is very important to understand because this is a common goal of all the major jihadist organizations across the world. It is shared by al Qaeda, Hamas, Lashkar e Taiba, Abu Sayyef,...

It’s not some shadowy anonymous source from the peshmerga’s middle management who’s claiming this, do note. It’s Nechirvan Barzani, the Kurds’ prime minister. That’s the second time in four days that a major foreign official has accused Obama’s America of being a fickle, disengaged ally. Thoughtfully considering the Kurds’ offer and declining so as not to get sucked back into Iraq would be one thing, but that’s not what happened according to Barzani. Apparently, we simply didn’t respond. The Kurds became especially alarmed at signs that ISIS had already formed a shadow government in Mosul, weeks before initiating the carefully...

Syrian rebels and Al-Qaida launched a counter-offensive Saturday to expel the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) from Albu Kamal town on the Iraq border, a monitor said. The operation came just days after some fighters from Al-Qaida's Syria franchise, Al-Nusra Front, pledged loyalty to ISIL in Albu Kamal, after it led an offensive in Iraq and seized chunks of territory But not all Al-Nusra fighters defected and those who refused to submit to the jihadist group joined forces with other Syrian rebel groups to launch the counter-offensive. "Fighting has raged since late last night in Albu Kamal...

An apparent suicide bomber blew up a section of a Beirut hotel on Wednesday, killing one and severely injuring several Lebanese security officers involved in a raid on the hotel in search of terrorists believed tied to Islamic State of Syrian and al-Sham (ISIS), officials said.

The al Qaeda-linked army now conquering territory in Syria and Iraq ultimately wants its emerging Islamic state to be a launching pad for attacking the U.S. homeland, says a new congressional report. Four analysts at the Congressional Research Service made that assessment, citing intelligence reports and the words of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The CRS report, delivered to members of Congress, makes the point that ISIL is a well-organized, well-funded terrorist group with definite goals to take territory and kill people it considers nonbelievers. “Several leading representatives of the...

Islamist rebel groups in Syria are recruiting children as young as 14 years, under the guise of offering them education, in their battle against the forces of the government of President Bashar Al Assad, a Human Rights Watch report said Monday. The rights group released its 31-page report "'Maybe We Live and Maybe We Die': Recruitment and Use of Children by Armed Groups in Syria", documenting the experience of 25 children and former child soldiers in Syria's armed conflict. "The groups have used children as young as 14 in support roles. Extremist Islamist groups including the Islamic State of Iraq...