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full title....Obama says he WOULD order U.S. troops into ISIS territory - if they get a nuclear weapon: President conjures nightmare scenario that justifies 'boots on the ground'But, speaking at a news conference in Australia today, the President insisted he would personally order the operation should the U.S. uncovering the terrifying intelligence. He said: 'There are always circumstances in which the United States might need to deploy U.S. ground troops. 'If we discover that ISIL had gotten possession of a nuclear weapon and we had to run an operation to get it out of their hands, then yes, you can...

Among the thousands of militia fighters who flocked to northern Iraq to battle militant group Islamic State over the summer was Qais al-Khazali. Like the fighters, Khazali wore green camouflage. But he also sported a shoulder-strapped pistol and sunglasses and was flanked by armed bodyguards. When he was not on the battlefield, the 40-year-old Iraqi donned the robes and white turban of a cleric. Khazali is the head of a militia called Asaib Ahl al-Haq that is backed by Iran. Thanks to his position, he is one of the most feared and respected militia leaders in Iraq, and one of...

Militant leaders from the Islamic State group and al-Qaida gathered at a farm house in northern Syria last week and agreed on a plan to stop fighting each other and work together against their opponents, a high-level Syrian opposition official and a rebel commander have told The Associated Press. Such an accord could present new difficulties for Washington's strategy against the IS group. While warplanes from a U.S.-led coalition strike militants from the air, the Obama administration has counted on arming "moderate" rebel factions to push them back on the ground. Those rebels, already considered relatively weak and disorganized, would...

The U.S. military is considering sending a limited number of American ground forces to fight alongside Iraqi troops as they launch complex missions to regain territory lost to Islamic State militants, the country’s top military officer said Thursday. Thus far, American military personnel have been limited to serving as rear guard advisers to the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga. But Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said that could change as the campaign against the Islamic State becomes more difficult. “As it evolves there are certain operations that could be more complex than the ones in...

With his misguided and naïve outreach, the president has spawned a new Iranian assertiveness, bolstered by an economic resurgence directly related to our unilateral concessions on sanctions. Less than a day after the Republican midterm election landslide, President Barack Obama lashed out against the Republican Party as if it were America’s primary adversary in the world. On the very next day, we learned the president was secretly negotiating with one of America’s most implacable enemies, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. After six years of trying to placate America’s enemies, you would think that Obama would have learned that, in the Middle East,...

The Islamic State movement’s “meteoric rise” in global popularity presents a direct challenge to what intelligence officials describe as the al Qaeda movement’s “original core” in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, according to a new report citing an “exceptional level of flux” recently among Pakistani militant groups. American intelligence officials have noted discord since last year between Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s leader in Syria and Iraq, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the purported head of al Qaeda’s original global terrorist network. Now, a report produced by the “Critical Threats” program at the American Enterprise Institute, maintains that al-Zawahiri’s frustration with al-Baghdadi’s...

ISIS wants to introduce its own currency and plans to bring back solid gold and silver dinar coins, it has emerged. The Middle East terror group apparently wants to introduce its own Islamic currency as part of its attempts to solidify its makeshift caliphate. The currency known as the dinar, which once consisted purely of gold and silver coins, is today used by a variety of countries, but the coins are created from different materials to the originals. However, the jihadi group is understood to be planning to return to the original gold and silver coins, which were first introduced...

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...

The armed convoy of 10 armed, Islamic State vehicles near the Iraqi city of Mosul has been destroyed. The convoy reportedly had Islamic State leaders, but it’s not known who or how many had been killed. U.S. air strikes destroyed a moving, 10-vehicle Islamic State convoy near the Iraqi city of Mosul but U.S. officials said on Saturday it was unclear whether the group's top commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was present at the time.

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...

Obama spoke with absolute certainty when he claimed that IS is not Islamic. In his speech on September 11 announcing that the US would commence limited operations against Islamic State, US President Barack Obama insisted, “ISIL, [i.e. Islamic State] is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.” To be sure, it is hard to see how any human faith can countenance IS’s actions. For the past several months, on a daily basis, new videos appear of IS fighters proudly, openly and wantonly committing crimes against humanity. This week...

Who could have predicted this would happen? Oh everyone. I’m not even going to bother with an “I Told You So”. Everyone outside the D.C. bubble was predicting this. Two of the main rebel groups receiving weapons from the United States to fight both the regime and jihadist groups in Syria have surrendered to al-Qaeda. The US and its allies were relying on Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front to become part of a ground force that would attack the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). For the last six months the Hazm movement, and the SRF...

Reuters article. Please see link.

President Barack Obama said Wednesday he would work with Congress on new war powers to fight Islamic State militants and expressed cautious optimism about whether the international face-off over Iran's nuclear program will be resolved — two issues that could prove harder for the White House to maneuver with Republicans in charge on Capitol Hill. Obama spoke at a news conference the day after his party was thrashed by Republicans in midterm elections, leaving the GOP soon to be in charge of both the House and the Senate. When he approved U.S. airstrikes in late September against extremists who have...

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama secretly wrote Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the middle of last month and described a shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, according to people briefed on the correspondence. Mr. Obama stressed to Mr. Khamenei that any cooperation on Islamic State was largely contingent on Iran reaching a comprehensive agreement with global powers on the future of Tehran’s nuclear program by a Nov. 24 diplomatic deadline, the same people say. The October letter marked at least the fourth time Mr. Obama has written Iran’s most powerful political and religious leader since...

Exposed: Obama Helped Decade-Old Plan to Create ISPosted By Raymond Ibrahim On November 7, 2014 @ 12:40 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments Although the birth of the Islamic State and the herald of the caliphate are often regarded as some of 2014’s “big shockers,” they were foretold in striking detail and with an accurate timeline by an al-Qaeda insider nearly one decade ago.On August 12, 2005, Spiegel Online International published an article titled “The Future of Terrorism: What al-Qaeda Really Wants.”  Written by Yassin Musharbash, the article was essentially a review of a book written by Fouad Hussein, a...

By/Major Garrett/CBS News/November 6, 2014, 9:23 PM Obama writes private letter to Iranian leader WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials confirm President Obama sent a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in mid-October, as first reported in the Wall Street Journal. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest would neither confirm nor deny the letter's existence. "I'm not in a position to discuss private correspondence between the president and any world leader," Earnest said Thursday. When asked about secret negotiations with Khamenei, Iran's top political and religious leader, Earnest said the White House "also" conducts private briefings with key members of Congress...

U.S. officials report that more than 1,000 foreign fighters are streaming into Syria each month as a United Nations report says that the terrorist influx has reached an "unprecedented scale." According to the new U.N. report, a lot more terrorist boots are on the ground these days as an "unbelievably small" — to use Secretary of State John Kerry's phrase — air campaign, which has taken months to do what should have been done in a day, has failed to achieve the administration's proclaimed goal: to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State. More than 15,000 foreign fighters from as many...

BEIRUT — The Obama administration’s Syria strategy suffered a major setback Sunday after fighters linked to al-Qaeda routed U.S.-backed rebels from their main northern strongholds, capturing significant quantities of weaponry, triggering widespread defections and ending hopes that Washington will readily find Syrian partners in its war against the Islamic State. Moderate rebels who had been armed and trained by the United States either surrendered or defected to the extremists as the Jabhat al-Nusra group, affiliated with al-Qaeda, swept through the towns and villages the moderates controlled in the northern province of Idlib, in what appeared to be a concerted push...

The Obama administration's plan to raise a 15,000-strong rebel army in Syria has run into steep political and military obstacles, raising doubts about a key element of the White House strategy for defeating Islamic State militants in the midst of a civil war.. Pentagon concerns have grown so sharp that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sent a two-page memo to the White House last week warning that the overall plan could collapse because U.S. intentions toward Syrian President Bashar Assad are unclear, according to a senior defense official who read the memo but was not authorized to speak publicly. At a...