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President Obama has responded to today’s terrorist attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem in which four Israeli Jews attending morning prayers condemning the attack, and stating that “the majority of Palestinians” want peace. In a statement delivered to the White House press pool, President Obama responded to the attack by declaring that “too many Palestinians have died,” as well as Israelis, in the struggle between the state of Israel and the terrorist group Hamas and its affiliates, including the internationally active Muslim Brotherhood. “At this difficult time,” the President told reports, “I think it’s important for both Palestinians and Israelis...

BRUSSELS - Europe’s new foreign relations chief has denied the EU is in talks on Israel sanctions, despite a leaked paper on the issue. Federica Mogherini, who chaired her first foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday (17 November), told press the leaked paper is a “technical working hypothesis” which “member states requested” when her predecessor was in office. She added: “It is not at the heart of today’s discussions on how to start a positive process with the Israelis and Palestinians. There’s currently no question of sanctioning anybody. The question is rather how to motivate people to … restart...

Peter Kassig Beheaded By Islamic State; 'Today We Grieve,' Obama Says By PATRICK J. MCDONNELL. U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig beheaded by Islamic State, White House confirms Peter Kassig is third U.S. citizen known to have been beheaded by Islamic State Islamic State militants have beheaded Peter Kassig, a U.S. aid worker and ex-Army Ranger who was captured last year in Syria while on a private humanitarian mission, the White House confirmed Sunday. U.S. officials authenticated a 16-minute video, released on various social networks by the militant group earlier in the day. The video also includes footage of the mass...

A leading Iranian cleric has threatened to “raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground” if Israel attacks the country over its nuclear program. Speaking in a televised public sermon in the capital Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Movahedi-Kermani boasted that “the Sejjil ballistic missile can hit and raise to the ground any place in Israel, as well as any America base in the region.” His comments were translated from Iranian Channel 1 by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Kermani, who serves as Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s official representative to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards, claimed that “none of...

Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, two former directors of the CIA and Defence Department, on Saturday criticised President Barack Obama's micromanagement of the military. “For the past 25 to 30 years, there has been a centralisation of power in the White House,” Panetta said during a panel discussion at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. “Because of that centralisation of authority at the White House, there are too few voices that are being heard.” Without naming the Obama administration, Panetta said that by the time you get to the White House, the staff has already decided what should be done. Panetta...

One week to ‘finish the job’ in Iran nuclear talks ‘Failure would be a dangerous scenario for the entire world’ AFP Published: 14:30 November 16, 2014 Gulf News Vienna: Iran and six world powers begin a final round of talks in Vienna on Tuesday aiming to overcome significant remaining differences and agree a historic nuclear deal by a November 24 deadline. “There’s still a big gap. We may not be able to get there,” US President Barack Obama warned last Sunday. After 12 years of rising tensions, threats of war and failed diplomacy this accord would silence for good fears...

Jihadi John, the Briton who beheaded two British and two American hostages held by Islamic State terrorists, has been injured in a US-led air strike, according to reports received by the Foreign Office. The masked ‘executioner’ with a London accent is believed to have narrowly escaped death when he attended a summit of the group’s leaders in an Iraqi town close to the Syrian border last Saturday. The meeting was targeted by American and Iraqi jets.

-snip- In the nearly 16-minute video uploaded to social networks on Sunday, a black-clad militant with his face concealed stands before a severed head that he claims is that of the U.S. aid worker.

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas recently toughened the PA law against selling property to Israeli Jews, but that was not enough for Sultan Abu Al-‘Einein, a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, which Abbas heads. The new legislation says that any Palestinian Arabs involved in renting, selling or facilitating real estate transactions with citizens of “hostile countries” in any way would receive life imprisonment and hard labor. In a recent interview which aired on Al-Alam TV and was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Al-‘Einein called for an even tougher law, saying that Palestinian Arabs...

Hamas is one of the two richest terrorist organizations in the world, second only to the Islamic State group, according to Forbes Israel. To finance their operations, terrorist groups sometimes use methods similar to those used by criminal organizations, such as drug trafficking, robberies and extortion, but also raise money through charities, donations and, in some cases, government agencies, according to the report. […] The richest terrorist organization today—and in history—is the Islamic State. According to Forbes, the Islamist group, also known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL, has an annual turnover of $2 billion. Hamas comes in second, with...

Russia is placing civilian flights at risk by dispatching jet fighters and bombers into European airspace without following safety procedures, according to Nato’s secretary general. Jens Stoltenberg told the Telegraph that Nato fighters had intercepted Russian military aircraft over 100 times so far this year, compared with 30 such incidents in 2013.

The “root cause” of terrorism is not poverty, marginalization or Western nations’ foreign policy, British Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday, but an “extremist narrative” that must be confronted. Addressing the Australian federal parliament in Canberra, Cameron announced new measures that are being put in place in Britain to prevent jihadists from returning to the country from Middle East conflict zones and to stop suspected foreign fighters from leaving in the first place. He contested the argument that issues like poverty and deprivation, or unhappiness with foreign policy, are fueling Islamist terrorism. …

Millions of YouTube viewers have been captivated by the 'Syrian hero boy' who manages to rescue a little girl while under gunfire. Now a group of Norwegian filmmakers have told BBC Trending they are behind it. They say it was filmed on location in Malta this summer with the intention of being presented as real. Lars Klevberg, a 34-year-old film director based in Oslo, wrote a script after watching news coverage of the conflict in Syria. He says he deliberately presented the film as reality in order to generate a discussion about children in conflict zones.

A Norwegian director filming in Malta says he created scenes of a young boy dodging bullets to rescue a girl to start a discussion about children in conflict zones.

MELBOURNE – Here I was feeling bad for the President over his drubbing at the hands of the Republicans and his humiliation before the electorate in last week’s midterm elections when I suddenly read, all the way in Australia, that last month Obama sent a secret letter to Ayatollah Ali Khameini of Iran. There went any hint of sympathy. The most important area in which President Obama has lost the American people is in foreign policy. Americans are not used to being weak. They’re certainly not used to being supplicants. They have watched for years as President Obama has degraded...

The United States Wednesday sharply condemned Israeli plans to build 200 new Jewish homes in Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood, according to AFP, warning such moves would only "exacerbate" spiraling tensions in the city. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki also denounced the alleged torching of a mosque blamed on suspected Jewish extremists calling it a "hateful and provocative" act and urging officials to investigate. "We are deeply concerned by this decision, particularly given the tense situation in Jerusalem, as well as the unequivocal and unanimous position of the United States and others in the international community opposing such construction in east Jerusalem,"...

The video appears on the website of Voices of Liberty, a group led by former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul. It lobbies against "unjustified wars, unconstitutional surveillance, [and] extrajudicial drone assassinations," according to its website.

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...

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. …

Terrorists foiled in plot to kill Queen Elizabeth By Sophia Rosenbaum Four Islamic terrorists planned to kill the Queen of England this weekend — but British police foiled the assassination plot, reports said. The anarchist assassins intended to stab Queen Elizabeth II Friday as the country celebrated 96 years since the end of World War I — an annual British jubilee — with numerous public appearances by her Royal Highness. British police discovered the murder plot by the four freedom fighters, ranging in age from 19 to 27, and conducted multiple raids in West London and Buckinghamshire to thwart their...