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Did you know that Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, was trained by Mossad and the CIA? Were you aware that his real name isn’t Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali Al Badri Al Samarrai but Simon Elliot? Or that he’s a Jewish actor who was recruited by the Israelis to play the part of the world’s most wanted terrorist? But millions of Muslims across the globe have a soft spot for such hoaxes. Conspiracy theories are rife in both Muslim-majority countries and Muslim communities here in the west. The events of 9/11 and the subsequent “war on terror” unleashed...

The Pentagon said Friday that it had confirmed the death of a key Somali militant leader allied with al-Qaeda who had been targeted in a U.S. airstrike earlier this week. Ahmed Abdi Godane, a co-founder of a network blamed for its brutal tactics in Somalia and for the attack on an upscale Kenyan shopping mall last year, was killed Monday in an attack carried out by U.S. drones and other aircraft, the Pentagon said.

The man believed to have 'decapitated' 82-year-old Palmira Silva in a suburban garden in North London has been informally identified by locals as a 25-year old recent 'Muslim convert', with one neighbor saying: "He was a black man young about 25 to 30 wearing all black, black t-shirt and jeans, about 5'10" and looked like he went to the gym". A police commander speaking at a press conference yesterday said: "based on what we know, we do not believe this was a terror related incident", however new details have emerged from locals who lived by, and knew, the victim and...

As the Isis (now known as Islamic State) terror group continues to consolidate its self-declared "caliphate" in territory seized in its march across north-eastern Syria and northern Iraq, a map has been released that details the "ten-state solution" it hopes to achieve over the next decade. Walid Shoebat, a former Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) terrorist turned Islamic scholar, has translated the Arabic map of the expansionist caliphate to show the Balkans, Spain and Portugal are long-term targets for the militants. The group, which stemmed from al-Qaeda and the Salafist ideology, rejects the notion of nationalism, aiming to remove secular governments...

(Vatican Radio) The atrocities committed by Islamic State (in Arabic: “Daesh”) militants in Iraq should be a wakeup call to the international community to take action. That’s according to Lebanese Patriarchal Vicar for the Maronite Church, Archbishop Paul Sayah who warns that if IS and other extremist Islamic groups are not stopped, they will threaten the security of other states within and without the Middle East. Tens of thousands of Christians, Yazidis and other minorities have fled to Northern Iraq to escape the death threats and brutality of the militants. “I think everybody should wake up, otherwise, I think this...

Remember that battle cry? Remember Andrew's last speech at CPAC 2012? If you don't, for the sake of our great country, you should revisit Andrew's last speech and really listen to his plea. In the last election, to the absolute detriment of our military and our country, some so called Conservatives forgot Andrew's dire warnings and plea to unite before the election. These folks claimed to know the danger to our country that Obama presented, yet, they decided to help elect him rather than vote for the Republican candidate. I remember at CPAC that year, one of the "purists" of...

“Duck Dynasty” patriarch and author of “unPHILtered: The Way I See It,” Phil Robertson, said that the only solution to deal with ISIS is to either “convert them or kill them” on Tuesday’s broadcast of “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel. “Convert them or kill them. One or the other ... It's not like a county with a standing army, and we line up and do battle with a certain amount of rules...we’re going to have to deal with this group way more harshly than we have up until this point,” Robertson stated. ... more (w/video)...

Baghdad (AsiaNews) - Islamic State fighters spills more Christian blood in Iraq as they continue to persecute unarmed civilians, including children. Sources within the Chaldean Patriarchate told AsiaNews that yesterday Sunni fundamentalists tortured and killed a Christian man in Bartala, a small predominantly Syriac town in the Niniveh Plains that has been occupied by Jihadists for the past few weeks. He was part of a small group who did not flee when the place was overrun. According to reports from a witness, the martyr - as the Patriarchate calls him - was a man of 43, Salem Matti Kourki. He...

The UN says it has received reports from Iraq that "reveal acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale". Deputy Human Rights Commissioner Flavia Pansieri said Islamic State (IS) was believed to have committed systematic and intentional attacks on civilians.

It has been 13 years since 9/11 and the West is still reluctant to link the non-ending parade of jihad groups with Islam. The West is also in denial about the similarities all radical Islamic groups share. It is important for the West to realize that there is a natural division of labor between the different terror groups. Some groups specialize in terror against non-Muslims and Western governments while others specialize in terrorizing Arab governments that refused to follow Sharia. But the truly sophisticated groups are those who reside in the West, calling themselves ‘moderate’ while at the same time...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama faced criticism over his foreign policy from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Sunday as he wrestled with crises in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Ukraine. Republican lawmakers seized on Obama's comment on Thursday when he said, "We don't have a strategy yet" for confronting the Islamic State militant group, saying it suggested indecisiveness. On Sunday, influential Democrats chimed in with their own critiques of Obama's foreign policy, chiding him for being "too cautious" on Syria, and urging him to do more to help Ukraine resist Russian advances.

Under cover of darkness, 40 Filipino peacekeepers made a daring escape after being surrounded and under fire for seven hours by Syrian rebels in the Golan Heights, Philippine officials said Sunday, leaving 44 Fijian troops still in the hands of the al-Qaida-linked insurgents. "We may call it the greatest escape," Philippine military chief Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang said. The peacekeepers became trapped after Syrian rebels entered the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone between Syria and Israel this week, seizing 44 Fijian soldiers and demanding that their Filipino colleagues surrender with their weapons. The Filipinos in two U.N. encampments refused and clashed with...

It's been nearly five years since a U.S. soldier opened fire on his own comrades. Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009, killing 13 people and injuring 30 others. One army sergeant, who was injured in that shooting and fought for his life to survive and recover, spoke Saturday at the Minnesota State Fair at the Mayo Clinic booth. "They called me number 14 for a while, because I shouldn't have lived, survived my wounds," said Sergeant Patrick Zeigler. As Zeigler takes a load off at the Minnesota State Fair, a fellow military man...

Syrian Emergency Task Force... Voice of Mouaz Moustafa, Executive Director, Syrian Emergency Task Force

Britain faces the “greatest and deepest” terror threat in the country’s history, David Cameron warned as he pledged emergency measures to tackle extremists. The UK threat level was raised to “severe” — its second highest — meaning that a terrorist attack is “highly likely” in light of the growing danger from British jihadists returning from Iraq and Syria. The Prime Minister said that the risk posed by Isil (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) will last for “decades” and raised the prospect of an expanding terrorist nation “on the shores of the Mediterranean”. He disclosed that Isil had...

The extremist group that kills Muslims and non-Muslims alike is also driving countless of the faithful from our religion. By Omar Shahid. Screengrab from VICE News documentary “The Islamic State” by reporter Medyan Dairieh. (Image: VICE/YouTube) One of the signs of the end times, according to Islam, is the inversion of reality – in other words, things being upside-down. For Muslims, there is nothing that more obviously illustrates this than Islam being made to appear bad to the world. For the first time in the history of our faith, an extremist fringe has hijacked the religion and is dominating...

<p>President Obama said Thursday he doesn’t have a strategy yet for defeating Islamist militants in Syria.</p> <p>“I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” Mr. Obama said in a news conference at the White House. “We don’t have a strategy yet. As our strategy develops, we will consult with Congress.”</p>

Maricopa Co., AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio said that he believes ISIS knows the southern border is not secure and that it is “common sense” that they will exploit the lack of border security on Wednesday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Hannity.” When asked, “Do you believe ISIS terrorists can cross that border and already have crossed that border?” He responded, “of course, anybody can cross the border. ...more (w/video)...

Obama became president on January 20, 2009, the war in Iraq was essentially won. The al Qaeda-backed insurgency was reduced to smoldering embers. George W. Bush’s surge had succeeded. Safely behind bars at the time was Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, an al Qaeda-linked point man who was imprisoned at Camp Bucca in Iraq, after being captured by U.S. forces in 2005. However, the Obama administration decided to shut down the Bucca prison camp and hand over its prisoners to the Iraqi government, including Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, in 2009. The Iraqi government later released him. Al Baghadi boasted to the...

Another American from the Twin Cities area was killed fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, CBS News reports. This man, who’s not yet been named, is the second American from the Minneapolis area to die fighting for ISIS. CBS News spoke with his friends and family. The first man to die was 33-year-old Douglas McCain. He was killed over the weekend fighting in Syria, the State Department said. McCain grew up in New Hope, Minn., and attended Robbinsdale Cooper High School. His former friends described McCain as a class clown. He moved to San Diego before going...