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U.S. Special Operations forces killed a senior ISIS commander during a raid intended to capture him in eastern Syria overnight Friday to Saturday, sources familiar with what happened on the ground in Syria told CNN. The ISIS commander, Abu Sayyaf, who was in charge of ISIS' oil and gas operations and directly and increasingly involved in ISIS command and control, fought capture and was killed in the raid, the sources said.

Military spouses could be able to purchase a handgun in any state without first becoming a resident if recently proposed legislation is passed into law. Under current federal law, active duty service members can purchase handguns in any state without proving they are state residents. But that law does not extend to their spouses, who must first establish state residency before making a firearm purchase. The legislation, offered by Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Va., would change that. His proposed rules would put active duty service members and their spouses on equal footing when purchasing a firearm. Rigell drafted the legislation in...

The 2016 presidential election is attracting an unusually large number of hopefuls. The Republicans will probably field more than a dozen candidates and the Democrats, as many as five. Presently, very few of these supposed contenders have a real chance of becoming president. Republicans Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz are long shots. On the Democratic side, that term applies to everyone but Hillary Rodham Clinton.. ~snip~ If you tell them in private, "You do not have a chance to be president," they will point to underdogs who won, such as Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan, or front-runners who...

Boys, move the goalposts. If you’re having trouble keeping track of all the promises, threats, and “red lines” that Obama has applied to Syria and Assad, you’re not alone. There have been so many that things tend to get confusing. However, one constant through it all has been a warning that, if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons, it would trigger a US military response. Now we have widespread reports of the Assad regime deploying weaponized chlorine gas. So, if you’re a President who’s absolutely terrified of backing up his own proclamations with actual action, what are you to do?...

)—Five Iranian boats fired shots across the bow of a Singapore flagged cargo vessel in the Persian Gulf on Thursday in an attempt to potentially stop the ship, a U.S. official told CNN. For the first time, the incident brought another Persian Gulf nation into the recent rising maritime tensions in the region. It is not yet clear if any of the rounds hit the Alpine Eternity. There were no U.S. citizens or cargo on board. The Pentagon is still gathering information about the incident.

DOHA (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirate's coastguard said it went to the aid of a Singapore-flagged ship on Thursday after the vessel came under Iranian naval fire, the Gulf state's news agency reported. The coastguard said the cargo ship, flying a Singapore flag,

The Palestinian parliament is continuing to reject any Jewish right to the “land of Palestine”, meaning the entire land of Israel, including the sovereign territory of the State of Israel. At a special meeting in Gaza on Thursday held on the occasion of Nakba Day, the Palestinian parliament stated that the entire “land of Palestine” is an Islamic endowment, and the Jews have no right to even a single inch of it. Nakba Day is the day on which Arabs mourn what they view as the “disaster” of the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. It is marked...

CAMP DAVID -- Sixty-seven years to the day since Israel declared independence, and 37 years since it signed a peace accord with Egypt here at the American presidential retreat in Maryland, US President Barack Obama cast doubt on the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinian people on Thursday after meeting with Arab leaders. A final Israeli-Palestinian accord "seems distant now," Obama said from Camp David, reiterating the US position that an agreement recognizing two states for two peoples is "absolutely vital" for greater Middle East peace. "Since we're up here at Camp David, I think it's important to...

Widespread reports of chlorine gas attacks in Syria have not been prevented - or acted upon - because chlorine is not "historically" considered a chemical weapon, US President Barack Obama stated Thursday. Obama was forced to answer the chlorine question during a press conference from a summit at Camp David with leaders of the Gulf states. Syria and Iran were key issues at the conference.

In 1948, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel, establishing the first Jewish state in 2,000 years.

Terror-related arrests in England, Wales and Scotland reached record levels last year, when 338 people were held, Scotland Yard has said. More than half of those arrests were related to Syria, Met Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley added. Police said more than 700 potential terror suspects are now thought to have travelled to Syria. About half of those people - said to be of "significant concern" - are believed to have returned to the UK.

Spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Alon Ben-David, said Sunday that the military intelligence service are working on the preparation of a list of targets that are likely to be struck inside Syria, after a possible fall of the Assad regime. Israel is concerned about the opposition party that may replace Assad regime in case of the latter's downfall. In remarks published by the Israeli newspaper of Maariv, in its Sunday's edition, Ben-David said that the leadership of the Israeli Air Force, in cooperation with the Military Intelligence Service, is working on setting a list of targets to be...

PM meets with Germany defense minister visiting Israel to mark 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Netanyahu: Iran leading campaign of 'conquest and subversion' around Israel's borders Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday asserted that the threat emanating from the "imperial and theological ambitions" of Iran's "ayatollah regime" poses the greatest threat to the region. Speaking in Jerusalem with German Defense Minister Ursula Von Der Leyen, the prime minister said that Israel views Iran's quest to create an "empire" coupled with its nuclear ambitions as the greatest security challenge to the Middle East. "They are leading a...

The Assad regime has placed its intelligence chief under house arrest after suspecting he was plotting a coup, in a sign that battlefield losses are setting off increasing paranoia in Damascus. Ali Mamlouk, the head of the country's National Security Bureau, and one of the few officials still to have access to President Bashar al-Assad, was accused of holding secret talks with countries backing rebel groups and exiled members of the Syrian regime. Mr Assad is struggling to keep together the regime’s "inner circle", who are increasingly turning on each other, sources inside the presidential palace have told The Telegraph....

British actor Michael Enright has shared the screen with some of the biggest celebrities of our generation, from Johnny Depp in “Pirates Of The Caribbean” to Tom Cruise in “Knight And Day.” But now, he’s decided to share the bunker with some of the world’s greatest heroes. The 51-year-old actor has joined the fight against ISIS. Enright made the perilous journey into the Sinjar mountains to join Kurdish rebels in the YPG, or People’s Protection Units, after seeing one too many acts of violence against civilian Westerners. For Enright, it was the video footage of ISIS beheading American journalist James Foley that was the final...

The Obama administration is involving itself again in the case of an American teen beaten by an Israeli Border Policeman last summer, in a move that CNN describes as connected to Israel-US tensions. The American cable network reported that White House National Security Council staffers recently took the unusual step of meeting in the West Wing with Tariq Abu Khder, 16, who was beaten by the policeman last summer during riots in eastern Jerusalem on July 3, 2014. The riots took place during the tension that followed the abduction and murder of three Jewish teens, and a revenge attack in...

Hamas is actively recruiting Palestinians studying in Malaysia to join the terrorist organization, according to an indictment of Hamas operative Waseem Qawasmeh, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) reports. In a separate instance, a captured Hamas terrorist told interrogators he was sent to Malaysia, along with nine others, in order to train using hang gliders for conducting a terrorist attack against Israel. Qawasmeh was charged in March with working with a banned organization and receiving money from it. In his indictment, prosecutors allege that Hamas directs Palestinian students and lecturers to engage in significant cultural and social...

King Salman of Saudi Arabia has withdrawn from a carefully orchestrated summit with the US that President Barack Obama hoped would assuage Gulf anxieties about the conclusion of a nuclear agreement with Iran. Until Sunday the monarch had been expected to join other heads of state from the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries at an unprecedented meeting at the White House and a day of talks at the presidential retreat at Camp David. Now the only leaders attending will be the emirs of Qatar and Kuwait. The summit, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, follows months of tension and intensive...

Kuwait City, 5 Feb. (AKI) - The US air raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Abu Layth al-Libi in Pakistan is reported to have also killed three other leaders from the terrorist network. According to the Kuwaiti daily, al-Watan, two Kuwaitis and a Libyan also died in the missile attack conducted by a Predator aircraft on January 25 in Mir Ali, in North Waziristan on the border of Afghanistan. The daily said the attack was aimed at what was believed to have been an al-Qaeda summit meeting. Abu Obeida Tawari al-Obeidi and Abu Adel al-Kuwaiti were reportedly there with al-Libi.Abu Adel...

urkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has rejected claims that Ankara is preparing to intervene militarily in neighboring Syria, local media reported on Saturday. "No, there is no situation right now that requires Turkey's involvement," Davutoglu was quoted as saying by the Hurriyet newspaper. Some opposition CHP party politicians claimed this week that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) might resort to military operations in Syria to boost its popularity ahead of a June 7 parliamentary election. "Turkey will launch a military operation into Syria tonight or Friday," the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) secretary-general Gursel Tekin said on Thursday,...