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The U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State targets in Syria hit suspected extremist sites near the country's border with Iraq Wednesday, local residents and a monitoring group said. At least 13 air raids were carried out by non-Syrian aircraft against sites on the outskirts of the town of Albukamal, near the Syrian-Iraqi frontier, the monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Purported Islamic State positions also were hit overnight near Menbej, in the northeastern province of Aleppo, the Observatory said. The airstrikes near Albukamal began at 10 a.m. local time and the buzz of reconnaissance aircraft flying overhead could...

No link now, they are just announcing it now.

Islamic State urged its followers on Monday to attack citizens of the United States, France and other countries which have joined a coalition to destroy the ultra-radical group. Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani also taunted U.S. President Barack Obama and other Western "crusaders" in a statement carried by the SITE monitoring website, saying their forces faced inevitable defeat at the insurgents' hands.

Pro-ISIS fighters in Algeria released a video today of a hostage who was kidnapped this weekend. The hostage delivered a message to President Francois Hollande: “I am in the hands of Jund al-Khilifa, an Algerian armed group. This armed group is asking me to ask you (President Francois Hollande) to not intervene in Iraq. They are holding me as a hostage and I ask you Mr President to do everything to get me out of this bad situation and I thank you.” The pro-ISIS group gave France twenty-four hours to stop “the aggression against ISIL” or they will behead their...

The United States has conducted an escalating campaign of deadly airstrikes against the extremists of the Islamic State for more than a month. But that appears to have done little to tamp down the conspiracy theories still circulating from the streets of Baghdad to the highest levels of Iraqi government that the C.I.A. is secretly behind the same extremists that it is now attacking.

JERUSALEM, Israel -- When ISIS leader Abu al-Bagdadi established a new caliphate this summer called the Islamic State, it sent shock waves through the Middle East. The so-called Islamic State became the first caliphate in nearly 100 years. When al-Bagdadi made his announcement, other Islamist groups, like al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, condemned it. Regardless of the internal competition, the caliphate would be a dream come true in the Islamic world. "This dream holds together some kind of feeling that under the caliphate there is going to be a wonderful Islamic world," professor Moshe Sharon, an expert on Islam,...

These individuals under surveillance, 'being tracked' by the FBI.Rep. Tim Bishop (D., N.Y.) warned during a recent speech that up to 40 radicalized U.S. citizens who have fought alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS) have already returned to the United States, where they could pose a terrorist threat. Bishop claims that of the 100 or so Americans who have traveled to the Middle East to join ISIL’s ranks, some 40 have returned and are currently being surveilled by the FBI, according to his remarks, which were filmed and uploaded to YouTube last week. “One of...

ROME, Italy – Security has been tightened in Saint Peter's Square after intelligence services intercepted a possible plan to attack the Vatican, Italian media reported on Saturday, September 20, increasing fears that Pope Francis could be in danger. A foreign security service alerted Italy this week after intercepting a conversation between two Arab speakers which referred to "a demonstrative act, Wednesday, at the Vatican," Il Messaggero daily reported. Wednesday is the day the pope holds his weekly general audience in the square in front of Saint Peter's Basilica. Checks by Italy's anti-terrorism unit revealed that one of the speakers passed...

It is becoming difficult to escape the impression that President Barack Obama heads an administration at war with itself over the appropriate strategy to combat the ISIS threat. Speaking at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on Wednesday, the president made a point of conspicuously noting again that American troops sent to Iraq “do not and will not have a combat mission.” The clarification was not unexpected; it came just one day after Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of the U.S. Senate in a public hearing that there were circumstances which would lead...

Obama's strategy on how to combat ISIS is confusing at best, but one thing is clear: the battle brewing between Obama and America's top generals about how to move forward against the terror army. Earlier this week during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dempsey said there is potential he will recommend ground troops should the coalition with Arab countries against ISIS fail. “My view at this point is that this coalition is the appropriate way forward. I believe that will prove true but if it fails to be true and if there are...

Flames of War

ISIS is calling for radicalized "lone wolves" in the United States to go to the homes of U.S. soldiers and "slaughter" military personnel.This is part of what is expected to be "a continued call" for American military personnel to be targeted within the United States.According to Fox News, one British jihadist "encouraged radicals still living in the West to use Facebook and Linkedln to find and target soldiers." The jihadist tweeted: "You could literally search for soldiers, find their town, photos of them, look for addresses in Yellowbook or something. Then show up and slaughter them." Militants in Syria have...

Congressman Jason Chaffetz broke this shocking news Wednesday that four known terrorists were apprehended at the US border in Texas on September 10 – the day before the 13th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. Chaffetz questioned Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on whether he is “aware of any apprehensions of suspected or known terrorists.” Johnson dodged the question.

Terrorists at the BorderPosted By Matthew Vadum On September 19, 2014 @ 12:48 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 1 Comment A Democratic congressman tried to use the might of the federal government to crush an investigation into reports that an Islamic terrorist group is using the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez as a base for launching an attack on the U.S. using car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs).The Islamofascist group in question is the extraordinarily brutal Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) that has been conquering swathes of the Middle East with the...

The influential Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani on Friday urged vigilance against Western political interference in Iraqi affairs but stopped short of opposing the American-led military campaign against the Islamic State extremists. “All political leaders of the country must be aware and awake to prevent the external assistance against the Islamic State from becoming an entrance to breach Iraq’s independence,” Ayatollah Sistani said. “Cooperation with the international effort shall not be taken as a pretext to impose foreign decisions on events in Iraq, especially military events.”

What was the Islamic State thinking? We know it is sophisticated in its use of modern media. But what was the logic of propagating to the world videos of its beheadings of two Americans (and subsequently a Briton) — sure to inflame public opinion? There are two possible explanations. One is that these terrorists are more depraved and less savvy than we think. They so glory in blood that they could not resist making an international spectacle of their savagery and did not quite fathom how such a brazen, contemptuous slaughter of Americans would radically alter public opinion and risk...

Yesterday, the Senate approved a bill  to arm and train Syrian rebels, who fight against Bashar Assad, so they can eliminate ISIS, which possesses hundreds of millions of dollars, and no shortage of fighters willing to die for them.  I fail to see the wisdom in this action, or what good can come of this.  It appears cowardly, and even immoral to pay others to fight for you. The New York Times penned almost 1,800 words describing and analyzing this vote, and even got the tally wrong in the original version. Correction: September 18, 2014 An earlier version of this article...

TheBlaze TV The 100-Year-Old Agreement You Need to Know About to Understand What’s Driving the Islamic State Sep. 18, 2014 8:45pm Erica Ritz Glenn Beck broke down the history of the Middle East on his television program Thursday, focusing on a nearly 100-year-old agreement that he says is integral to understanding the motivations of the Islamic State: the Sykes-Picot Agreement. If you do not understand the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Beck said, you cannot fully understand the Islamic State, or why the Israelis and the Palestinians will never reach a two-state solution. Though many go back to 1948 and the creation of...

DIKMETAS Turkey (Reuters) – Several thousand Syrian Kurds began crossing into Turkey on Friday fleeing Islamic State fighters who advanced into their villages, prompting warnings of massacres from Kurdish leaders. Islamic State (IS) fighters have seized villages in northern Syria over the past two days and are besieging the mainly Kurdish town of Ayn al-Arab, known as Kobani in Kurdish, on the Turkish border. Their advance comes as the United States draws up plans for military action in Syria against the Sunni Muslim extremist group which has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq and seeks to set up...

AFP file photo of an entryway to Mosul. ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Major military preparations are underway by Islamic State (IS) militants in their stronghold of Mosul in northern Iraq in anticipation of a major assault by US and Kurdish forces, according to sources inside. The militants are in full military gear and seen digging trenches and building barriers, said a source in Mosul, capital of Nineveh province. They are also reinforcing defenses on major roads connecting Iraq’s second-largest city to Kurdish-held areas.  Fighters – particularly foreign jihadis – are believed to have been deployed around the city, said...