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Last night, Barack Obama promised America that he would take the fight to ISIS/ISIL, using a four-pronged strategy that he laid out in his much-anticipated war speech. In each phase of this strategy, Obama insisted, we would be “joined by a broad coalition of partners,” emphases mine: First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists. Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense. Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt...

President Obama just announced that he is bringing a counter-terrorism strategy to an insurgency fight. He was at pains to repeat the phrase “counter-terror” four times in a short speech. Noting that ISIL is not a state (partly because the international community thankfully does not recognize it), he declared, “ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.” Neither of those sentences, unfortunately, is true. ISIL is an insurgent group that controls enormous territory in Iraq and Syria that it governs. It maneuvers conventional light...

IS Militants banning cigarette in Mosul News / World IS Punishes Cigarette Traders in Mosul 11.09.2014 Mahnaz RamazanBasNews, Erbil  Islamic State militants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul have vowed to punish anyone who sells cigarettes.   The Sunni militant group had already set out a number of laws in their wathiqat al-madina (charter of the city) that they presented to the people of Mosul back in early June.   Those who steal are punished by having their hands chopped off. The five daily prayers of Islam are mandatory for everyone. Drugs, alcohol and cigarettes are forbidden, as...

The prospect of the first American attacks on Syrian soil during three years of brutal civil war electrified Syrians on Thursday, prompting intense debate over whether airstrikes on the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria would help or harm President Bashar al-Assad, his armed Syrian opponents and war-weary civilians. But even among fervent opponents of ISIS there was ambivalence over President Obama’s declaration that he would “not hesitate” to strike ISIS in Syria. Now, framing the attack on ISIS as driven by American national security concerns, Mr. Obama faces mistrust from both sides. Many insurgents consider his action too...

Comment on Presidents address of the Nation...

President Barack Obama told Americans on Wednesday he had authorized U.S. airstrikes for the first time in Syria and more attacks in Iraq in a broad escalation of a campaign against the Islamic State militant group. Obama's decision to launch attacks inside Syria, which is embroiled in a three-year civil war, marked a turnabout for the president, who shied away a year ago from airstrikes to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons against his own people.

ANKARA: Turkey will refuse to allow a US-led coalition to attack jihadists in neighbouring Iraq and Syria from its air bases, nor will it take part in combat operations against militants, a government official told AFP Thursday. " Turkey will not be involved in any armed operation but will entirely concentrate on humanitarian operations," the official said on condition of anonymity. The decision echoes the country's refusal to allow the US to station 60,000 troops in Turkey in 2003 to invade Iraq from the north, which triggered a crisis between the two allies. Ankara then also refused Washington permission to...

British female jihadis are running brothels full of women kidnapped and forced into sex slavery by Islamic State militants. It is understood they are members of an ultra-religious IS ‘police’ force tasked with looking after girls captured from the Yazidi tribe in Iraq. As many as 3,000 Iraqi women have been taken captive in the last two weeks by the terror group. Sources suggest that members of the all-women al-Khanssaa Brigade in Raqqa, Syria, are running brothels to satisfy the fighters’ desires.

Last night, Sept 10, 2014, Obama said the US will train and arm moderate Syrian rebels.[1] For the past several years we've been hearing various justifications for arming Syrian rebels. This time the justification is to combat ISIS, in the past is was alleged Assad used chemical weapons. In June 2013 Obama said Assad used chemical weapons, the he had crossed the "red line", and that therefore the US was justified in training and arming moderate Syrian rebels.[2] Yet in early 2012 the CIA had been working with Turkey to arm these groups[3] and in September 2012 Petraeus was visiting...

(September 4, 2013) A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a high profile article from one Elizabeth O’Bagy arguing that the majority of the Syrian rebels were actually moderates. Senator McCain mentioned Elizabeth O’Bagy’s op-ed during the Senate hearings, when he wasn’t playing poker, and tweeted it. That should come as no surprise, considering that O’Bagy is credited with arranging McCain’s infamous photo op with the Syrian rebel leadership. The Wall Street Journal lists O’Bagy’s role as the Institute for the Study of War. It leaves out the fact that she is the political director for the Syrian...

Wednesday in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, former Vice President Dick Cheney said our Israeli and Arabs allies in the Middle East no longer trust the United States and "deeply believe" the "Untied States has been supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood" because of the way "the United States has conducted itself over the last few years."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Struggling Syrian rebels that President Barack Obama once derided as "former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth" now form a key pillar of the U.S. leader's strategy to beat back the militant insurgency known as Islamic State. For over three years, Obama has kept the so-called moderate rebels at arm's length. While giving verbal and limited material support, he and his spokesmen often said publicly that adding more weaponry to the civil war would only make things worse. Now Obama is taking a different tack as he sets out his strategy to defeat the Syrian-based Islamic State,...

Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists... [] American officials have been trying to understand why hard-line Islamists have received the lion’s share of the arms shipped to the Syrian opposition... Those problems were central concerns for the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, David H. Petraeus, when he traveled secretly to Turkey last month, officials said. [] One Middle Eastern diplomat who has dealt extensively with the C.I.A. on the issue said that Mr. Petraeus’s goal...

President Barack Obama tried Tuesday to sell a military intervention he never wanted to an American public that opposes it, telling the nation that he needed authorization to attack Syria as leverage in a newly emerged diplomatic opening from Russia. Calling the United States "the anchor of global security," Obama offered moral, political and strategic arguments for being ready to launch limited military strikes while trying to negotiate a diplomatic solution to what he called Syria's violation of a global ban on chemical weapons. "Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security, are at stake in Syria, along...

IF Australia is to raise the terror threat level from medium to high, it should do it quickly. Waiting for further evidence that jihadists might strike on Australian soil may be to invite disaster. Not only law-abiding Australians would be concerned at the implications of an increased level of alertness, so too any extremists plotting a domestic attack. The Herald Sun has reported on the participation of Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf in beheadings and executions in the Middle East. Sharrouf fled to Syria on his brother’s passport after being jailed for terrorist activities in Australia. He was part of a...

Fox News is reporting that President Obama, according to a White House aide, intends to arm the, eh, “moderate” Syrian rebels so as to use them as ground troops should the U.S. conduct airstrikes within Syria: One year to the day since addressing the American people about possible strikes against the Assad regime in Syria over its chemical weapons attack, President Obama is coming back to the American people with a drastically different — and strategically complex — plan to combat a drastically different enemy. The president, when he speaks from the White House Wednesday night, is expected to...

The senior leadership of one of the most influential Syrian rebel organisations has been wiped out in a devastating blast that is likely to greatly diminish the group as a fighting force. The blast killed at least 12 senior leaders of Ahrar al-Sham, including its leader, Hassan Abboud, when it hit a meeting where the group had gathered in Syria's northern Idlib province, near the Turkish border. The cause of the explosion remained unexplained almost a day later, with some Ahrar al-Sham members insisting a rival group had been responsible, while others claimed an explosion had mistakenly taken place in...

It appears that, in a rush to get his strategy out the door, President Obama overlooked his key "do nothing stupid" foreign policy plan. OBAMA SAID TO SEEK CONGRESS AUTHORITY TO ARM SYRIAN REBELS So - to be clear - the strategy to defeat ISIS is to arm more of the same "rebels" that ultimately split off and became, well, ISIS? Perhaps it's better if Obama sticks to his original "no strategy" plan after all... if only for the people, not so much the military-industrial complex of course.*  *  *Remember Those ‘Moderate’ Syrian Rebels That The U.S. Armed? ISIS...

Australian Federal Police confirmed they've carried out a raid at an Islamic centre south of Brisbane. Two Queensland men have been arrested and will face terrorism charges relating to preparing to send fighters to join the conflict in Syria. One has been identified as 31-year-old Omar Succarieh, the brother of Australia's first suicide bomber to die in Syria, Ahmed Succarieh. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Queensland Police conducted a series of raids in Logan and the southern suburbs of Brisbane this morning, with 180 officers involved. The raids follow a year-long counter-terrorism investigation. Police said they seized two cross-bows,...

IDF forces played a crucial role in helping Irish soldiers rescue UN troops from the clutches of Syrian jihadists in a fierce clash on the border with Israel last week. Senior military sources said that Irish soldiers would have been killed or taken captive if it weren’t for action taken by the IDF on August 30 during a mission to evacuate dozens of Filipino soldiers who were surrounded by a larger force of militants, the Irish Independent reported on Sunday.