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The administrative authority of the European Parliament has expressed security concerns after the discovery of CDs containing Islamic State (IS) propaganda in the possession of two chauffeurs with its external driving service. Several sources with knowledge of the situation told Spiegel that one of the discoveries had been made in Strasbourg, where the parliament holds its plenary sessions, and the other in Brussels, where most of its work is conducted. Both employees of the private chauffeur service were fired and police are investigating. After obtaining information that other chauffeurs in the service had criminal records, the European Parliament Presidium made...

The Central Council of Muslims responded in unequivocal terms to a hard anti-Islam stance announced by the populist Alternative for Germany party over the weekend. “For the first time since Hitler’s Germany there is a party that once again is discrediting a whole religious community and threatening its existence,” Central Council of Muslims chairman Aiman Mazyek told public broadcaster NDR on Monday morning. He was responding to interviews with the AfD leadership published on Sunday that commit the party to a tough anti-Islam line. […] The party’s deputy chairman, Alexander Gauland, went further in comments to the FAS (Frankfurter Allgemeine...

The United States does not consider the Golan Heights to be a part of Israel, State Department spokesperson John Kirby stressed on Monday, a day after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu vowed the Golan Heights "will forever remain under Israeli sovereignty." "The U.S. position on the issue is unchanged," Kirby told reporters during a daily briefing at the State Department in Washington, according to Haaretz. "This position was maintained by both Democratic and Republican administrations. Those territories are not part of Israel and the status of those territories should be determined through negotiations. The current situation in Syria does not allow...

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday his country will never withdraw from the Golan Heights and the strategic plateau bordering Syria will forever stay in Israeli hands. In a ceremonial Cabinet meeting in the Golan marking the one-year anniversary of his current government's formation, Netanyahu said he doubts Syria will ever return to what it was before the devastating civil war that has gripped it for more than five years. He said he would not oppose diplomatic efforts to stabilize Syria as long as they didn't come at the expense of Israel's security. Netanyahu added that, regardless,...

Susan Rice, who serves as National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama, told the Air Force Academy on Thursday that the United States is in a “battle for hearts and minds” against ISIL and that to “defeat ISIL’s ideology for good,” the United States must “offer a more compelling vision.”“Around the world, countries and communities—including the United States—must continue working to offer a better, more compelling vision,” Rice said.  “We must demonstrate, as President Obama has said, that the future belongs to those who build, not those who destroy.  That includes promoting sustainable development and economic opportunities.” Here is an...

It didn't take Syria long to respond to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's Cabinet meeting on the Golan Heights Sunday, in which he declared Israel will never surrender the region that was liberated in the 1967 Six Day War. Shortly after the meeting on Sunday, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Al-Mekdad told Lebanon's al-Mayadeen that his regime will "retake the Golan Heights by any means necessary, including using military force." "The Arab Syrian Golan is an occupied territory," claimed Al-Mekdad, referencing UN Security Council resolutions calling the area Syrian. According to the Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister, Netanyahu's Cabinet meeting was a...

In a first reaction to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration that "Israel will never leave the Golan Heights," Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad said Sunday that Syria is prepared to use every possible means to recapture the area, including military means. "The Syrian Golan is an occupied Arab land according to the UN Security Council's resolutions, and the presence of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Forces proves this," Miqad said in an interview with the Lebanon-based TV channel al-Mayadeen. "We have never renounced the resistance and we are ready to recapture the Golan in all possible ways, including military ways....

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has recently had a spate of anti-Israel comments, and on Sunday he continued the streak as he said US President Barack Obama has not been far enough on the Palestinians' side. Video In an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC, Sanders was asked about his debate with frontrunner Hillary Clinton last Thursday, in which he attacked Israel for taking "disproportionate" measures in defending itself from Hamas terrorists in 2014 Operation Protective Edge. Stephanopoulos showed a clip from the debate in which Sanders called for the US to take an "evenhanded" approach vis-a-vis Israel...

Pope Francis greets a group of Syrian refugees upon landing at Rome's Ciampino airport April 16, 2016. The Vatican City population of about 800 grew by 12 as Pope Francis put three families of Syrian refugees aboard the papal plane before leaving Greece.The Vatican said in a statement that the pope "desired to make a gesture of welcome regarding refugees" by taking in the families, which include six children. "These are all people who were already in camps in Lesbos before the agreement between the European Union and Turkey.""The Pope's initiative was brought to fruition through negotiations carried out by...

Three Syrian refugee families flew to the Vatican with Pope Francis on Saturday following the pontiff's brief but provocative visit to a Greek island at the center of the European migrant crisis. "The Pope has desired to make a gesture of welcome regarding refugees, accompanying on his plane to Rome three families of refugees from Syria, 12 people in all, including six children," the Vatican said in a statement after the pope's plane took off from Lesbos, Greece. His trip to Lesbos was aimed at thanking the Greek people for welcoming refugees and to meet with migrants as the European...

In a “gesture of welcome,” Pope Francis took three families of Syrian refugees with him in the papal plane on his return to Rome from the Greek island of Lesbos Saturday. The Vatican said it will assume responsibility for the upkeep of the three families, and has enlisted the community of Sant’Egidio to provide the initial hospitality. Two of the families come from Damascus, and the other from Deir Azzor, in the area occupied by the Islamic State, and all three families had their homes bombed during the Syrian civil war. All the members of the three families are Muslims,...

Pope Francis has taken 12 Syrian migrants back with him to the Vatican after visiting a camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. The three families boarded the papal jet as the pontiff departed following his trip......

First Turkey-backed operation against IS becomes a fiasco Turkey recently proposed that the United States abandon Syrian Kurdistan's People's Protection Units (YPG) and "let us wipe out the Islamic State [IS] jointly with the moderate opposition." Turkey then made its first such move last week at al-Rai, Syria, with a composite force of Turkmens, Free Syrian Army factions and Salafists. That force took the town with Turkey’s support, winning much acclaim, but was trounced four days later when IS retook the city April 11. As the Syrian army was preparing for a major move at Aleppo with the support of...

'Relax, they are our friends': One quote shows why Turkey's ISIS problem is only going to get worse Natasha Bertrand Apr. 14, 2016, 4:02 PM In a recent interview with The Guardian, a former ISIS fighter described how easy it was for him to cross Turkey's notoriously porous border into Syria to join the Islamic State. Abu Ali, who said he entered ISIS territory in mid-January 2015 from the Akçakale border crossing in Turkey, told the publication's Robert Worth that for 75 Turkish lira, he was pointed in the direction of a hole in a fence separating Turkey from Syria....

Washington has jumped at the opportunity to provide massive amounts of weapons to Syria's so-called moderate rebels amid the ongoing ceasefire; it seems that the White House is not bothered by the fact that half of its arms have found their way into the hands of al-Qaeda, Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams note. Rebel fighters from the First Battalion under the Free Syrian Army take part in a military training on June 10, 2015, in the rebel-held countryside of the northern city of Aleppo The Syrian ceasefire is hanging in the balance, former Republican congressman Ron Paul and political analyst...

Turkish court jails militia fighter Alparslan Celik wanted by Russia for killing pilot Alparslan Celik has been accused by Russia of killing Russian pilot Oleg Peshkov in cold blood as he parachuted to the ground after his plane was shot down by Turkish air forces on the Syrian border on November 24 By Press Trust of India on April 4, 2016 at 4:28 AM Istanbul, Apr 4: A Turkish court has detained, on firearms charges, a Turkish militia fighter accused by Moscow of killing a Russian pilot who ejected over Syria after being shot down by one of Ankara’s war...

MYSTERY MAN 04.15.16 1:13 AM ET Everything We Knew About This ISIS Mastermind Was Wrong He was one man, not two. He had at least seven names, and was mistakenly pronounced dead four times. But the fog surrounding ISIS’s No. 2 is finally beginning to part. ...snip... That the No. 2 man in the world’s most dangerous terror organization may be dead matters almost as much as we’ve only been able to learn about him in death. Al-Qaduli’s biography has been cloaked in rumor, myth, and misinformation—or disinformation, given that much of what had been produced on his history came...

The CSU aims to ban foreign funding of German mosques to stave off extremism. The proposal has Muslim supporters, but opponents say the regulation violates a key constitutional right. […] “German must become the language of the mosques,” (CSU General Secretary Andreas) Scheuer said in the conversation that covered integration issues, among other topics. […] Scheuer has two main measures in mind for a potential new law. First, mosques, Islamic cultural centers and other Muslim institutions, like kindergartens, should not be allowed to take money from abroad anymore. The CSU hopes that this ban on foreign funding would stop the...

An American-made Iraqi army tank that locals have fondly nicknamed “The Beast” is playing a major role driving the ISIS from a town on the frontlines, a Pentagon official said Wednesday. Baghdad-based spokesman Colonel Steve Warren recounted the exploits of the M-1 Abrams tank in Heet in response to a question about whether the Iraqi military is taking too long to expel ISIS and lacks the will to fight. On Monday, Iraqi security forces (ISF) raised the Iraqi flag over government buildings in Heet, in Anbar province.

Germany’s Social Democratic-left justice minister is using the migrant crisis as a pretext to ban the display of the human form in public, blaming sexual images in advertising for the Cologne New Year’s Eve rape attacks. Federal Justice Minister Heiko Maas has unveiled an amendment to the national competition laws — which also govern advertising — for force a “modern gender image” on the nation.