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A car bomb exploded on the perimeter of Baghdad's heavily guarded international airport complex on Sunday, wounding five people, security sources said. The blast occurred at a security checkpoint close to a parking lot where passengers are searched before boarding airport taxis, three sources said. The checkpoint is several kilometres from the terminal building.

No link now, they are just announcing it now.

The United States last declared war many wars ago, on June 5, 1942, when, to clarify legal ambiguities during a world conflagration, it declared war on Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Today’s issue is not whether to declare war but only whether the president should even seek congressional authorization for the protracted use of force against the Islamic State. Promising to “destroy” this group with the help of “a broad coalition” of “partners,” President Obama said last week, “I welcome congressional support for this effort.” He obviously thinks such support is optional, partly because this “effort,” conducted by U.S. combat aircraft,...

President Obama escalated the American response to the marauding Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Friday, recruiting at least nine allies to help crush the organization and offering the outlines of a coordinated military strategy that echoes the war on terror developed by his predecessor, George W. Bush, more than a decade ago. In his most expansive comments to date about how the United States and its friends could defeat ISIS, a once-obscure group of Sunni militants that has now upended the Middle East and overshadowed Al Qaeda, Mr. Obama said the effort would rely on American airstrikes against...

One of the notable things about the Obama administration isn’t simply that its key figures often make misleading claims, but that they do so in ways that can be so easily disproven. The latest effort is in the White House’s attempt to have us believe that the president, in his now infamous “jayvee” analogy, didn’t have ISIS in mind. Here’s an exchange between NBC’s Peter Alexander and White House press secretary Josh Earnest that took place on Monday: PETER ALEXANDER, NBC: Did the president underestimate ISIS when he referred to them in an interview only a couple months ago as...

The terrorist group, called ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq & Syria), now controls large swaths of Syria and Iraq, in what is being called an Islamic caliphate. It is by all expert accounts considered the most evil and dangerous terrorist group in modern times.

With the Obama White House left reeling from the "savage" slaughter of an American journalist held hostage by ISIS terrorists, military options are being considered against an adversary who officials say is growing in strength and is much more capable than the one faced when the group was called "al Qaeda-Iraq" during the U.S. war from 2003-2011. ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has been making a "tactical withdrawal" in recent days in the face of withering U.S. airstrikes. "These guys aren't just bugging out, they're tactically withdrawing. Very professional, well trained, motivated and equipped. They operate like...

In a Friday op-ed which appeared in the paper's international print edition on Saturday and which can reasonably be seen as giving voice to an editorial board which wouldn't dare put their name to it, La Salle University Political Science Professor Michael Boyle strenuously objected to recent characterizations of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). We can't call ISIS "evil." We also shouldn't call them a "cancer," or "savage," or "barbaric." Oh, and the fact that George W. Bush called Al Qaeda "evildoers" is why ISIS came to be, and why our problems with radical Islam are now...

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said that he would not recommend U.S. military airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria until he determines that they have become a direct threat to the U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, speaking to reporters on board a military plane traveling to Afghanistan, said Sunday that he believes the Sunni insurgent group formerly known as ISIS is more of a regional threat and is not currently plotting or planning attacks against the U.S. or Europe.

The recent military successes of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, and the ongoing disintegration of Iraq’s “central” government have created a strategic crisis for the United States. Barack Obama’s belated, narrow authorization to use military force against the Islamic State does not constitute a coherent response, let alone a comprehensive one. The president seems curiously inactive, even as American influence in the region collapses and, not coincidentally, his political-approval ratings suffer. From the outset of the Islamic State’s campaign, his policies have been haphazard and confused, especially the halting, timid decision to intervene militarily. And, based...

The Syrian regime says it's ready to accept support from the United States and others working under the U.N. umbrella to fight "terrorists." The comments, by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, were made Monday as ISIS fighters seized control of a strategically important air base in the country. The war-racked nation has been losing control of the northeastern region to ISIS militants. Moallem, however, warned against any unilateral action or strikes in Syrian territory without its permission. "Any effort to fight terrorism should be done in coordination with Syrian government," Moallem said.

In a video uploaded to YouTube on Saturday purportedly by the terrorist group ISIS, various scenes of jihadist propaganda flash across the screen: militants reading verses from the Quran and examining a map of northern Syria, clips of violent clashes and explosions. But this video had something else in it that previous videos released by ISIS have not: Surveillance footage apparently shot by a drone.

World Mon Aug 25, 2014 6:38 Iraqi Air Force, Kurds Advance on ISIL Terrorists TEHRAN (FNA)- Kurdish forces backed by Iraqi fighter jets retook three villages from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists Northeast of Baghdad on Monday and also held off two assaults elsewhere, officials said. ISIL terrorists overran large chunks of Iraq in a lightning June offensive that swept security forces aside, Al-Alam reported.But Iraqi federal forces and the autonomous Kurdish region's Peshmerga fighters are now fighting to regain ground from the terrorists on multiple fronts.On Monday, Kurdish forces backed by Iraqi army's air...

Syria's foreign minister said on Monday his country welcomed any potential military strikes by by the U.S. in Syria targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's terrorist bases, but warned that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad should be warned first. The Assad regime is mired in a three-year-old civil war, and has been losing ground to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants. "Syria is ready to cooperate and coordinate with regional and international efforts to combat terror in accordance with U.N. resolutions and respect of Syrian sovereignty," Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told a press conference...

To get an idea of why this White House has placed America in what Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma calls "the most dangerous position we've ever been in as a nation," we turn to one of Obama's biggest mainstream media devotees. In "The Promise," the fawning book about Obama's first year in office by ex-Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, we read of a May 2009 meeting with the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan on how to "Disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida." Alter writes, "Nothing much concrete was accomplished ... . The session was kicked off not...

ALONG with a billion Muslims across the globe, I turn to Mecca in Saudi Arabia every day to say my prayers. But when I visit the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, the resting place of the Prophet Muhammad, I am forced to leave overwhelmed with anguish at the power of extremism running amok in Islam’s birthplace. Let’s be clear: Al Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Boko Haram, the Shabab and others are all violent Sunni Salafi groupings. For five decades, Saudi Arabia has been the official sponsor of Sunni Salafism across the globe. What is religious...

Title shortened to fit. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin Friday urging all local officials to be on the lookout for possible ISIS threats and homegrown terror. The bulletin said there are currently no "specific, credible threats against the Homeland," but still warned law enforcement officials to be on high alert, especially after the terrorist group beheaded kidnapped American journalist James Foley earlier this week, ABC News reported.

The militant group called the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria seemed to surprise many American and Iraqi officials with the recent gains it made in its violent campaign to create a new religious state. But the victories achieved in the past few weeks were built on months of maneuvering along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, which define a region known as the cradle of civilization.

Sunni politicians in Iraq have suspended talks to form a new government, in protest of a mass killing inside a mosque in the northeastern province of Diyala. In a statement on Saturday, Salim al-Jabouri, speaker of the Iraqi parliament, denounced as "terrorists" the Shia armed group suspected of killing at least 73 people inside a Sunni mosque.... Jabouri and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak are demanding that outgoing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the main Shia parliamentary bloc hand over the perpetrators within 48 hours and compensate the families of victims, the AP news agency reported. [....] The attack on...

The United Nations special representative for Iraq has called on the international community to take immediate action to avoid a massacre of civilians in town besieged by Islamic State (Isis) forces. Nickolay Mladenov said he was "seriously alarmed" by reports that the people living in the northern Iraqi town of Amerli had no food or water as the two-month siege continues. He said: "The situation of the people in Amerli is desperate and demands immediate action to prevent the possible massacre of its citizens. The town is besieged by [Isis] and reports confirm that people are surviving in desperate conditions."...