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IS militants have controlled Mosul since June 10, the second day of a major offensive that saw jihadist fighters seize swathes of land in five Iraqi provinces. They have used the city, Iraq's second largest, as a de facto capital for the Iraqi half of the "caliphate" which their leadership proclaimed in June and also includes large parts of Syria. "After going after the ethnic and religious minorities, they are now hunting down Sunni members of civil society groups and anyone remotely connected with the government," Edwar said. She said IS was probably trying to sow maximum fear among the...

The families of two journalists beheaded by Islamic State jihadists were both warned by US government officials they could face prosecution if they raised a ransom for their release. The recent executions of James Foley and Steven Sotloff by Islamic State (IS) extremists triggered worldwide revulsion and Washington has since declared it is at war with the radicals. The United States has a policy of never paying ransoms, contending that doing so would endanger Americans all over the world. Late Friday, a spokesman for Sotloff's family said the murdered journalist's parents were told by a White House counterterrorism official last...

Concerned that dozens of low-wage workers who built the maze of tunnels from the Gaza strip into Israel might reveal the locations to enemy forces, the Hamas leadership ordered their execution. Hamas spokesman Khaled Mashal justified this seemingly ungrateful reward as "a necessary precaution. There are those who would say that the measures we took to prevent these diggers' knowledge of the tunnels' locations ought to be sufficient. Yes, the workers were blindfolded before being led to and from where they were told to dig making it exceedingly improbable that any of them could lead an Israeli to a tunnel...

History repeating itself, Russians ethnic cleansing in conquered lands, people of Crimea forced to be Russian by gun point and executions by Russian Special Forces.

Killing people is a brutal and messy business and if Americans can't deal with that, they shouldn't be condemning people to death, a top federal judge says. In a strongly worded dissent in an Arizona lethal-injection case, Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals, calls the current system "inherently flawed" and says states that want to execute inmates should return to more "primitive—and foolproof—methods" of execution, NBC reports. "The guillotine is probably best but seems inconsistent with our national ethos. And the electric chair, hanging and the gas chamber are each subject to occasional mishaps,"...

"Lawyers for two men on death row in Oklahoma say the state has informed them it has a new execution protocol that would allow it to choose from any of five lethal injections. The change comes days after the state revealed that it had been unable to obtain the chemicals for its existing protocol: pentobarbital and vecuronium — prompting a court to delay the executions of convicted murderers Charles Warner and Clayton Lockett for a month. In the revised protocol given to the men's defense team, prison officials outline five possible one-drug and three-drug injections it could use to kill...

• The executions of Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner were put off until April 22 and April 29. The state has had difficulty finding the ingredients of the cocktail used to execute prisoners. OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma court on Tuesday rescheduled a pair of executions set for this week and next so state prison officials will have more time to find a supply of drugs for the lethal injections. The decision came in a lawsuit in which two inmates had sought more information about the drugs that would be used to execute them later this month. The inmates had...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma court on Tuesday rescheduled a pair of executions set for this week and next so state prison officials will have more time to find a supply of drugs for the lethal injections. The decision came in a lawsuit in which two inmates had sought more information about the drugs that would be used to execute them later this month. The inmates had sought a stay of their executions, but the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals said that request was moot because the state Department of Corrections doesn't have enough drugs on hand to carry...

Gov. Jay Inslee is calling a moratorium on executions while he is governor. “Equal justice under the law is the state’s primary responsibility,” Inslee said during a news conference Tuesday morning. “And in death penalty cases, I’m not convinced equal justice is being served.” Inslee said there was “too much at stake” in death penalty cases in what he termed an “imperfect system.” “During my term we will not be executing people,” Inslee said. Inslee cited the high cost of trials and appeals, the apparent randomness that death penalties are pursued and concerns that executions do not deter crime as...

North Korea publicly executed around 80 people earlier this month, many for watching smuggled South Korean TV shows, a South Korean newspaper reported Monday. -excerpt- In the eastern port of Wonsan, the authorities gathered 10,000 people in a sports stadium to watch the execution of eight people by firing squad, the source quoted one eyewitness as saying.

A federal judge has declined to order the U.S. government to turn over documents detailing its legal rationale for the targeted killings of people thought to be terrorists, including American citizens, without trial. Southern District Judge Colleen McMahon called her ruling, which comes in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, "paradoxical" and likened it to "Alice in Wonderland." McMahon found yesterday in New York Times v. U.S. Department of Justice, 11 Civ. 9336, that the government is protected from turning over legal opinions pertaining to so-called targeted killing by various exceptions to the FOIA. The underlying FOIA requests came...

4000+ gays executed by current regime... Yeah, this is the fate that awaits any found 'guilty' of being homosexual in Iran: you know libs, the same Iran that's funneling all those weapons and missiles into Gaza to support equally barbaric proxy Hamas... More at Reaganite Republican (warning- gruesome/graphic) On the other hand, all are allowed to live in peace (unless hit by a Iranian-Palestinian missile) and democracy in Israel- yet which nation does the left hate the more than any other in the world...? (don't answer libs, it's rhetorical). Hey guys- looks like you missed one BBC   FoxNews   VermontSecession   Sarbaz.org  ...

BAMAKO - Tuareg rebels and Islamist militants have joined forces in northern Mali and say they will create an independent Islamist state. The groups took advantage of a military coup in Bamako to seize control of the territory in early April. Resistance is growing in the north to the efforts to introduce Islamic law. In the northern Malian town of Gao, court is in session. Commissioner Abdoulaye Maiga begins by reading from the Quran in the roadside courtyard outside the former police station. Once an area businessman, Maiga is a member of the militant Islamist sect Ansar Dine that residents...

Brutality and Injustice Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum, defends the freedoms and liberties of Western society against "stealth jihad," a campaign by Islamists to slowly and methodically implement a Sharia-compliant theocracy in the West. Sharia is Islamic law, based on the Koran and the teachings and personal actions of Mohammad (known as The Sunnah, noted and reported in Hadiths). Below, very personal examples of life under Sharia in Islamist societies. The intolerance, the brutality, the inhumanity. The extreme lack of religious pluralism, women's rights, free speech and equality under the law. 1. Sudanese Woman Lashed (Video)...

The European Union criticized Iran on Wednesday for an "alarming" increase in the use of the death penalty this year, calling on Tehran to introduce a moratorium on executions. "According to the latest data, compiled from a number of sources, the rate of executions in Iran during the first 5 months of 2012 confirmed the country as one of the world's leading users of the death penalty," a spokesman for the EU's foreign policy chief said. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is "deeply concerned by the alarming increase", the spokesman said. Ashton is leading negotiations between six global powers...

When it comes to parting words, a huge number of executed inmates in Texas are resorting to the belief that all you need is ‘love’. In an analysis using data from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the website Good.is developed an infographic detailing the more commonly used words. The data was compiled from the last statements of every inmate put to death in the state from 2000 to the present, which are published on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s website.

TRIPOLI, Libya—Fresh evidence has emerged that fighters battling for control of Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte were responsible for numerous extrajudicial killings and other possible atrocities, raising new questions about the final moments in Libya's revolution and adding to the challenges of national reconciliation. Residents of Sirte and medical workers say that they have identified dozens of corpses of both Gadhafi loyalists and antiregime fighters, who appear to have died by shots to the back of the head while their hands were bound. They say these bodies are among hundreds of unidentified corpses littering the streets of Sirte and filling...

Whole headline.... The Supreme Court has granted a stay of execution for Cleve Foster, who was to die tonight in Texas for a 2002 murder. banner only

US Supreme Court halts Texas execution MICHAEL GRACZYK September 15, 2011 HUNTSVILLE, Texas — The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution Thursday of a black man convicted of a double murder in Texas 16 years ago after his lawyers contended his sentence was unfair because of a question asked about race during his trial.

I said here last night that the California GOP audience cheering the announcement that Texas has executed 234 condemned murderers under Rick Perry was a vile, repulsive thing. Even when I was for capital punishment, I believed this. Justice may require execution, but we should never rejoice in taking the life of another human being. At best, capital punishment is a necessary evil. I quit believing in capital punishment when I became convinced that the state is not trustworthy to use this power responsibly. It happened about 10 years ago, when it emerged that a forensic scientist in Oklahoma whose...