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. McCain urges 'boots on the ground' to combat IS by Staff Writers Jerusalem Jan 19, 2015 US Senator John McCain on Monday urged the deployment of international ground forces to combat jihadists in Syria and Iraq, as he toured the Middle East with a Senate delegation. "For months we've been bombing (Syrian border town) Kobane and we still haven't driven ISIS out," the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman told reporters in Jerusalem, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. "Since the air campaign started... ISIS has increased their size and areas of control. "The reality is, we need...

It was only a matter of time before Western soldiers serving as advisors to Iraqi troops began to take on a role more closely resembling conventional ground forces. Any soldier or journalist who has served as a combat advisor or alongside one knows that, when the gunfire starts, the distinctions between advisor and combatant quickly blurs. That blurring has begun. On Monday, a Canadian brigadier general confirmed to reporters that Canadian troops were recently engaged by forces loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and they returned fire. Via The Lebanon Daily Star: Canadian special forces exchanged gunfire with...

The White House was dragged kicking and screaming into the war against ISIS. Politically and materially, the Obama administration saw few upsides to engaging in the fight against the brutish Islamist militants despite their rapid advance across Syria and Iraq in the spring and early summer of last year. The administrationÂ’s hand was forced when it appeared as though ISIS was poised to drive the Yazidi minority into extinction. Even then, the White House only cautiously engaged in Iraq and utterly refused to take on the Islamic State in their Northern Syrian stronghold. Since then, the Islamic State has...

The U.S. military is planning to deploy more than 400 troops to help train Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State, along with hundreds of U.S. support personnel, a Pentagon spokesman told Reuters on Thursday.

Saturday on C-SPAN’s Book TV, CIA Benghazi annex security team members Kris Paronto and Mark Geist answered questions about a report released Friday by the House Intelligence Committee on the 9/11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in 2012. The two former CIA contractors pushed back forcefully against parts of the the committee’s conclusions about the night that Ambassador Chris Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed in Benghazi. The report by the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), chaired by Republican Rep....

full title....Obama says he WOULD order U.S. troops into ISIS territory - if they get a nuclear weapon: President conjures nightmare scenario that justifies 'boots on the ground'But, speaking at a news conference in Australia today, the President insisted he would personally order the operation should the U.S. uncovering the terrifying intelligence. He said: 'There are always circumstances in which the United States might need to deploy U.S. ground troops. 'If we discover that ISIL had gotten possession of a nuclear weapon and we had to run an operation to get it out of their hands, then yes, you can...

The U.S. military is considering sending a limited number of American ground forces to fight alongside Iraqi troops as they launch complex missions to regain territory lost to Islamic State militants, the country’s top military officer said Thursday. Thus far, American military personnel have been limited to serving as rear guard advisers to the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga. But Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said that could change as the campaign against the Islamic State becomes more difficult. “As it evolves there are certain operations that could be more complex than the ones in...

When the Islamic State took over large parts of northern Iraq this summer, including the areas where the minority Yazidi community lives, the U.S. carried out air strikes and halted the advance of the extremists. Still, thousands of Yazidi women and girls have gone missing over the past few months and there are now reports they are being sold by the Islamic State as sex slaves. Nuri Khalaf, a representative of the Yazidi tribes in Iraq's northern province of Sinjar, has been making the rounds in Washington, pleading with U.S. officials for help. He also stopped by NPR's offices. When...

For months, the White House resisted calls by concerned observers to intervene in the conflict in Iraq and Syria where the Islamic State was capturing territory and massacring locals. Only after it appeared likely that the ancient Yazidi minority would be exterminated by ISIS fighters did the United States consent to intervene in Iraq. Similarly, America and its coalition allies attacked ISIS in Syria only when it seemed likely that the al-Qaeda affiliated Khorasan Group was plotting imminent attacks. This week, however, we learn that the Pentagon has effectively failed to achieve either the objective of preventing massacres in...

Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement - Have We Lost All Sense Of Respect Of Those Who Risk Their Life For Us? Kurdish Fighters Say They're Outgunned As ISIS Gains Ground In Kobani

Obama helped overthrow Khadaffy in Libya. And there were several other countries where the Muslime Brotherhood took over with Obama's help during "The Arab Spring" Egypt overthrew Hosni Mrubarek. The MB took over there, but the Egyptian people tossed them out as soon as they realized what was up. Remember that Odumbass wanted to help "the rebels" overthrow Assad in Syria last year? Imagine the position ISIS would be in if Syria and Egypt were still owned by the MB? The 'caliphate' would have been created complete before 6 years of Oshitheads 'presidency', and would probably be attacking the rest...

Abu Gharib is a mere 8 miles from the runway perimeter, while the distance from BGW to the US Embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone is roughly 9.5 miles. The Washington Times reported earlier this summer that ISIS captured upwards of 52 American made M198mm howitzer heavy artillery pieces, capable of hitting targets 14-20 miles away. The captured M198's reportedly cost $500,000 per piece. To add insult to injury, the Islamists have also seized 1,500 up-armored Humvees which cost the American taxpayer $220,000 each.

Pentagon orders crisis unit to Kuwait - video on site -

Obama’s mettle as a leader of the airstrikes in the non-war against Caliphate-seeking radical Islam When it comes to the non-war against ISIS, Obama’s boots are unlaced In order to maintain their ill-gotten control over the masses, Marxists like Obama work to keep people in the dark, in a world of make-believe and surrealism. In this make-believe world jihadists become jayvees. Obscene acts of terrorism like a beheading in an Oklahoma food plant and mass murders at Ford Hood get to be identified as “workplace violence”; war is not war if there are no boots on the ground. But when...

The infiltration of Syrian militants into Lebanon threatens Hezbollah’s presence in the strategic Golan Heights. First, Jabhat al-Nusra has taken control of the Syrian side of the border facing the Lebanese area of Shebaa, which is occupied by Israel, isolating Hezbollah from the Syrian extension in the Golan Heights. Hezbollah considers the area a strategic position in its conflict with Israel... Jabhat al-Nusra’s control of the Syrian-Lebanese-Israeli triangle has put an end to this and prevented it from being used as a multidisciplinary card in the hands of Hezbollah. Second... It isolates Hezbollah and its supporting forces in Lebanon and...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s attempt to blame western states for the rise of radical Islam in his speech to the UN General Assembly nearly backfired awkwardly when he used a racist Farsi expression—but was saved by a quick-thinking translator. During the speech on Friday, Rouhani claimed that “certain Intelligence agencies have put the blade in the hand of the drunken Zangi”—a phrase referring to irresponsible and dangerous jihadi groups, which was translated simply as “madmen” by the translator. But according to Iranian opposition blog azarmehr, the word “Zangi” is actually a derogatory term for black slaves from Zanzibar in Farsi....

US-led airstrikes against the Islamic State terrorist group (IS or ISIS) in Syria continue Saturday night, but are failing to slow the jihadis’ advance on the Kurdish border town of Kobane. […] But though US airstrikes—which President Barack Obama pledged would “degrade and destroy” ISIS—have extended from Iraq to Syria to aid the defense of Kobane, local sources say the strikes have been largely ineffective. “They struck empty buildings,” YPG’s chief of defense for Kobane, Ismat Sheikh Hassan, told The Independent. “ISIS fighters used to be there, but they left; so they haven’t helped us. If anything, they are now...

The number of Europeans joining Islamist fighters in Syria and Iraq has surged to about 3,000 from 2,000 only months ago, the EU counter-terrorism chief said Tuesday. (snip) The European fighters, he said, come mainly from France, Britain, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark but a few come from Spain, Italy, Ireland and now Austria.

The U.S. military and two Arab allies on Wednesday bombarded a dozen small-scale oil refineries in eastern Syria as part of an expanding campaign to cut off key sources of financing and fuel for the Islamic State, according to the Pentagon. ... The Islamic State is estimated to produce between 25,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil a day, earning as much as $1 million a day, according to industry experts. The attacks on the refineries came on a day when U.S. military forces reported hitting an Islamic State convoy in Syria near the Iraqi border and Syrian opposition groups reported...

US-led air strikes on Islamic State (IS) militants have destroyed four tanks and damaged another during a fourth night of bombardments in Syria. ... The Danish government says it is sending seven F-16 fighter jets to join anti-IS operations - but only in Iraq.