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[Editor’s Note: Below is Thomas Joscelyn’s testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee’s Task Force on Denying Terrorists Entry into the United States. The hearing is titled, “The Terrorist Diaspora: After the Fall of the Caliphate.” A version with footnotes will also be posted.] Chairman Gallagher, Ranking Member Watson Coleman, and other distinguished Committee Members, thank you for inviting me to testify today concerning foreign fighters and the threat some of them pose to the U.S. and Europe. The fall of Mosul and the likely fall of Raqqa won’t be the end of the Islamic State. The group has already...

U.S. troops based in Syria's southeastern desert have expanded their footprint, rebels there say, increasing the risk of direct ground confrontation between the Americans and Iran-backed pro-government forces. U.S. special forces have been based since last year at Tanf, a strategic Syrian highway border crossing with Iraq, where the Americans have assisted rebels trying to recapture territory from fleeing Islamic State fighters. The U.S.-backed Syrian rebels in the area are in competition with pro-government forces who are also trying to recapture territory from Islamic State. On several occasions in recent weeks, warplanes of the U.S.-led coalition have struck pro-government forces...

Turkish military preparations in northwest Syria are legitimate measures against a threat from Kurdish forces in the Afrin region, and Turkey will retaliate against any hostile move, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told Reuters on Wednesday. Kurtulmus was responding to the head of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, who told Reuters that Turkish military deployments near Kurdish-held areas of northwestern Syria were a declaration of war which could trigger clashes within days.

A Republican congressman said this week that a recent ISIS attack in Iran could be a “good thing” and even suggested that the U.S. government support ISIS for attacking other terrorist groups. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said during a House hearing on Hezbollah “isn’t a good thing for us to have the United States finally backing up Sunnis who will attack Hezbollah and the Shiite threat to us?” “Isn’t that a good thing?” he said. “And if so, maybe this is a Trump — maybe it’s a Trump strategy of actually supporting one groups against another, considering that you have...

With numerous distractions unfolding on the newly released reality TV show that is “Keeping Up with the Trump Administration,” it may surprise readers to learn that the U.S. is using the terror group ISIS as a pawn in its depraved foreign policy. Video footage obtained by Al-Masdar appears to show convoys of ISIS fighters fleeing the Syrian city of Raqqa untouched by the U.S. military, which is currently bombing that exact location. As Al-Masdar notes, despite having Kurdish and American drones hovering around the city of Raqqa, U.S. bombs are nowhere to be seen as hundreds of fighters pass safely....

Tulsi Gabbard has continued to impress ever since she came on the national scene last year with her courageous and very public support for Bernie Sanders in the rigged Democratic primary. Most recently, she continued to demonstrate her knowledge of geopolitics and willingness to stand up to America’s unelected government, aka the Deep State, in a recent interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Islamic State fighters kept up on Wednesday their fierce defense of the southern approaches to Mosul, which has held up Iraqi troops there and forced an elite army unit east of the city to put a more rapid advance on hold. Ten days into what is expected to be the biggest ground offensive in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, army and federal police units aim to dislodge the militants from villages in the region of Shora, 30 km (20 miles) south of Mosul. The frontlines in other areas have moved much closer to the edges of the city,...

The scale of the operation - the largest of several by Islamic State to divert an advance on their stronghold in Mosul - shows how tough the battle for Mosul may become and points to a continued ability of the militant group to undermine security across the country even if its northern bastion falls. Accounts gathered by Reuters from residents, police, security and intelligence officials suggest it was carried out by forces that were highly trained, well-prepared and - alarmingly for the government - supported from inside Kirkuk. “What was surprising is it was done so easily,” said Ranj Talabani,...

The fall of Mosul will set in motion yet another training cycle for the Iraqi Security Forces and a return to the counter-insurgency strategy that will keep U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely, according to U.S. military officials. The battle for Mosul "will not be the last stand" in Iraq for Daesh, an Arabic acronym for the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria, a U.S. military official who spoke on grounds of anonymity said last Friday. "Clearing Mosul of Daesh will not be the end of Daesh and will not mark their military defeat," the official said. The U.S. defense establishment...

6:45pm “It was a very good meeting, seeing everybody here in Erbil, very encouraged by the progress of your Peshmerga and Iraqi forces, so I’m feeling very good about it,” said Brett McGurk, Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. 5:33pm Turkish artillery and tanks in Bashiqa have fired on ISIS positions, Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Sunday, Turkish media has reported. 5:25pm The airbase at Qayyara is now operational, with planes landing, says US Central Command. 4:50pm Peshmerga forces have “achieved their primary objective” for today, the General Command of the Peshmerga Forces announced...

Podcast 9:37 Preparations are already well underway. The U.S. military is arming and training SDF units and recruiting Arab rebels willing to participate. The administration is considering direct arming of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia for the operation, over Turkey’s objections. Officials know there are limits to what Kurdish troops should be allowed to do. “We’re not going to have the YPG go in and hold Raqqa. We are actively recruiting an Arab force, and we’ll have as many Arabs as possible,” the senior administration official said. “If you want to build another force to do it, Daesh...

Podcast 18:59 If the Islamic State digs in and defends Mosul, the fight is expected to be bloody. More than 6,000 Islamic State fighters are thought to be in the city. It has deployed thousands of mines and has dug an elaborate network of tunnels and trenches across Mosul in preparation for a protracted urban fight. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped in the city as the Islamic State has prevented them from leaving. However, during recent battles in major Iraqi cities such as Ramadi and Fallujah, the Islamic State withdrew the bulk of its troops and left...

On August 8, a coalition of rebel groups announced that they had successfully broken the long-standing Syrian government siege of rebel-controlled east Aleppo. Among the groups taking part in the offensive was Jabhat Fath al-Sham, formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda’s local affiliate in the country. Video footage released by the group showed its contributions in key battles against regime positions around the city. Days before the offensive to break the siege began, Jabhat al-Nusra leader Abu Muhammad al-Jolani appeared in an unprecedented video message announcing that his group had cut formal ties with al Qaeda and would henceforth operate under...

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is erecting a fence on its border with Greece in a bid to block refugees and migrants heading to Central Europe, Kathimerini understands. FYROM has threatened in recent days to put up a fence along the Greek border if countries further along the Balkan refugee trail reduce the number of refugees they are taking in. FYROM’s security council has also taken a decision foreseeing such a move. According to Christos Gountenoudis, the mayor of Paionia, close to the FYROM border, construction is already under way. “Machines have started work behind the border,” he told...

In the wake of the murderous attacks in Paris, we can expect western heads of state to do what they always do in such circumstances: declare total and unremitting war on those who brought it about. They don’t actually mean it. They’ve had the means to uproot and destroy Islamic State within their hands for over a year now. They’ve simply refused to make use of it. In fact, as the world watched leaders making statements of implacable resolve at the G20 summit in Antalaya, these same leaders are hobnobbing with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a man whose tacit...