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The two most brutal terror groups in Syria reportedly have struck an alliance, in a deal that poses serious problems for the Obama administration’s efforts to prop up “moderate” rebel factions in the country. The Associated Press reported Thursday that militant leaders from the Islamic State and Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, the Nusra Front, agreed during a meeting in northern Syria last week to stop fighting each other. Such an accord could present new difficulties for Washington's strategy against the Islamic State. While warplanes from a U.S.-led coalition strike militants from the air, the Obama administration has counted on arming...

There are twenty-two Arab states throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The world demands, in a chorus of barely disguised animosity towards Israel, that yet another Arab state be created within the mere fifty miles separating the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan. Israel, a territory no larger than the tiny principality of Wales and one that would comfortably fit into Lake Michigan with plenty of room left over, would be forced to share this sliver of land with a hostile Arab entity to be called Palestine. The Arabs do not need another state. Their combined landmass exceeds 5,500,000...

Excerpts from Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America about Iran. Brief video at link!

French lawmakers will vote on November 28 on a proposal by the Socialist Party urging the government to recognise Palestine as a state, a parliamentary source said Wednesday. The non-binding but highly symbolic vote would follow a similar vote in the British parliament and after Sweden announced it formally recognised the state of Palestine. A draft of the proposal states that the lower house National Assembly "invites the French government to use the recognition of the state of Palestine as an instrument to gain a definitive resolution of the conflict". France will "obviously at a certain moment recognise the Palestinian...

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...

. It appears the rumors are true. Islamic State is set to become the only 'state' to back its currency with gold (silver and copper) as it unveils the new coins that will be used in an attempt to solidify its makeshift caliphate. ISIS says the new currency will take the group out of "the oppressors' money system." As Zaid Benjamin notes, ISIS releases details of its new currancy with golden 1 & 5 dinar, silver 1, 5, 10 dirham and copper 10 & 20 fils It seems Alan Greenspan may have been on to something after all... "Remember what...

President Rand Paul will keep you safer than the president who brought America into Iraq and Afghanistan, the same man who in 2000 argued against nation building and foreign military entanglements. He'll keep you safer than the president who just doubled America's military presence in Iraq, yet in 2011 promised, "The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year." Rand Paul will also keep you safer than Hillary Clinton, a centrist with a neoconservative advisor named Robert Kagan who is quoted in The New York Times as saying, "I feel comfortable with her...

An explosion following an air strike is seen in central Kobani, November 10, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Osman Orsal *******************************************************(Reuters) - U.S.-led forces conducted 16 air strikes in Syria, most of them around Kobani near the Turkish border, and seven in the oil-producing northern region of Iraq since Monday, the U.S. Central Command said. Ten air strikes conducted by the United States and its allies near Kobani hit eight small Islamic State units, damaged three fighting positions and destroyed a logistics facility, Centcom said Wednesday in a statement.

A young boy is being hailed a Syrian superhero after he was caught on film appearing to dodge a swarm of bullets in order to save a little girl pinned down by a sniper. Harrowing video footage posted to YouTube on Monday by the activist Shaam News Network channel shows the boy, no older than 10, making a mad dash for the girl, who is cowering behind an old, burned-out truck in the middle of a street. The rescue appears to take a turn for the worse as the youngster drops to the ground when it looks like he’s been...

Kurds battling the Islamic State jihadist group in Kobane reportedly made advances Tuesday in the south of the flashpoint Syrian town on the border with Turkey. Top Kurdish officials told AFP their fighters were advancing "street by street", voicing confidence that the IS would soon be ejected. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights backed up the report. "The (Kurdish) People's Protection Units (YPG) recaptured streets and buildings in the south of Kobane, after a fierce battle against the IS that began yesterday (Monday) evening," said the Britain-based Observatory.

On Twitter, Ayatollah Khamenei says ‘barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime’ must be destroyed, West Bank Palestinians armed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the destruction of Israel over the weekend, stating that the “barbaric” Jewish state “has no cure but to be annihilated.” In a tirade posted on Twitter Saturday night, using the hashtag #handsoffalaqsa, in reference to the recent tensions on the Temple Mount, the Iranian religious leader also reiterated his appeal to arm the Palestinians in the West Bank. “This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of #Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to...

Revolutionaries posing as cooks infiltrated an ISIS camp and poisoned meals in a bid to kill as many fighters as they could. Sources in the Syrian Free Army said a dozen Islamic State militants perished after eating a contaminated lunch at the Fath El-Sahel camp, where 1,200 are based. The rebels who hatched the plot were a group of defected Syrian soldiers who are fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. The Times of Iraq reported that witnesses said around a dozen were killed and 15 transferred to nearby field hospitals. The 'cooks' immediately fled, along with their families, with the...

Brig. Gen. Mohammad Ali Mughdeed sits in a pickup truck equipped with an anti-aircraft weapon as he and his men wind through steep roads to their base in the rocky Zartik Mountains. Mughdeed's Iraqi Kurdish forces are members of the Peshmerga, a key U.S. ally in the fight against the so-called Islamic State. Also known as ISIS, the Sunni extremists have taken control of about a third of Iraq. In October, Mughdeed's men retook this area east of Mosul from ISIS occupation. The mountain road winds through villages that now look like a post-apocalyptic tableau, with homes reduced to knee-high...

A Northern Ireland man who says he fought against the Islamic State group in Syria appeared in court Saturday charged with terrorism offenses. Eamon Bradley of Londonderry is charged with possessing a grenade and receiving training in arms and explosives. A police officer told the court that the 25-year-old convert to Islam traveled to Syria earlier this year and joined the Army of Islam, a group fighting both the Syrian government and IS. He says he took part in two battles against the regime and one against the Islamic State group. …

President Obama spent his first term pushing from power long-standing Arab allies in Egypt and Tunisia; seeking to engage the now blood-soaked Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad; pulling his punches against Iran’s nuclear program; and putting “daylight” between his administration and Israel. Now for his second term, he has nominated for the highest posts bearing on the Middle East three figures who give the strongest indication we can expect much more of the same – John Kerry for State, Chuck Hagel for Defense and John Brennan for the CIA. Kerry opposed Congress’ 2009 hold on appointing an ambassador to a regime...

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...

Turkish leaders have said protecting Islamic sites in the Holy Land is a sacred mission for them, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan bluntly warning any attack against the 8th-century al-Aqsa Mosque is no different than an attack on the Kaaba in the holy city of Mecca. “The Israeli administration has to stop this despicableness, this barbarity; what would it say if this kind of attack had been launched against synagogues? The Masjid al-Aqsa is not only a shrine for Palestinians, but is the shrine of all Muslims,” Erdogan was quoted as saying on Nov. 7 during an official visit to...

COLOGNE, Germany — With its wood-paneled piano bar and luxurious spa, the four-star Bonotel assures visitors paying up to $300 per night that it meets the "international standard of a first-class hotel." But starting next year, the hotel's marble-and-mirrored lobby and "quiet, peaceful ambience" will play host not to indulgent travelers but desperate asylum seekers. Germany's fourth-largest city spent almost $7 million to buy the Bonotel this summer. Its doors will soon be shut and its 93 opulent rooms filled with asylum seekers, a move underscoring how Europe's economic powerhouse has been overwhelmed by an influx of people seeking a...

<p>BEIRUT (AP) — For a force that has built its reputation on an aura of momentum and invincibility, the Islamic State group is now dealing with a series of military setbacks in Iraq and a prolonged stalemate in the small Syrian border town of Kobani.</p>

National Security Advisor Susan Rice disputed Republican critiques of President Obama's foreign policy by arguing that "political polarization" accounts for the "one weakness" of American strength in international affairs. "The one weakness that our friends and partners point to and the one thing that undermines our strength around the world is our political polarization," Rice said during an event hosted by the Women's Foreign Policy Group. Rice didn't mention Republicans specifically, but cited policy fights that they have provoked, such as over budget issues. "When countries look at us, they wonder and they worry if we will have our collective...