In one of its cruelest acts to date, Islamic State reportedly blew up a baby to show members how to handle explosives. The incredible incident took place in Diyala Province on July 10, according to provincial Security Committee Chairman Sadiq el-Husseini. He detailed the event to the local Arabic-language A-Sumeriah News.
The baby’s father was apparently executed just weeks ago, after he allegedly took part in the killing of an Islamic State member.
Sadiq el-Husseini “The organization booby trapped the baby in front of dozens of armed ISIS men and then detonated it from afar,” Sadiq el-Husseini said. The rigging of the baby and its detonation was a training exercise of ISIS to teach its people booby-trapping techniques.
“The organization doesn’t care about the most basic human values. Their crimes are incalculable and the blowing up of the baby is the best proof to the threat of ISIS’ ideology to the state.”
On Monday, President Obama spoke about his new strategy to take on the terrorist entity Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In doing so, he explained that the battle against that terrorist group — a group he had once termed “JV” — would amount to a “generational struggle.” Why would defeating a ragtag army of primitives take generations? Because, Obama explained, “This is not simply a military effort. Ideologies are not defeated by guns. They’re defeated with better ideas.”To cap off this airsickness bag of gobbledygook, Obama then concluded, “We will never be at war with Islam.”
So let’s get this straight. A group Obama said he would degrade and destroy can only be degraded and destroyed with ideas. Its own ideologies — its animating force, according to Obama — have nothing to do with Islam. The cretinism here resembles a perfect Jenga tower of fatuity: Remove one phrase, and the whole structure tumbles
Americans should gawk at the sheer wonder of Obama’s applesauce here. Obama’s bad acid trip bumper sticker foreign policy — “Better Ideas Beat Bad Ideologies”over a Grateful Dead peace symbol — reeks of third grade oral presentations. It takes more than great ideas to beat ideologies — it takes heavy weaponry. The victims of the Holocaust didn’t sit around thinking to themselves, “Golly, if only we’d been able to come up with a better idea than Nazism, that Hitler sure would have stopped all this nonsense.”America didn’t end World War II by dropping informational leaflets. We dropped warning leaflets, then bombs. Large ones. Atomic ones. No armed ideologues in history have been defeated solely by better ideas — at least not before decades of murder, repression and evil.
So what did Obama actually mean? It simply lacks credibility to read the president’s comments at face value: No sentient human being could be this dull.He meant that ideologies aren’t defeated by American guns, because American guns are backed by American ideas. And American ideas are by nature bad, evil, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, centophobic, and, presumably, arachnophobic. Sure, American ideas backed with guns won World War II — but hey, pretty much any ideas backed with guns would have defeated Nazism, amirite? (Well, except for the ideas of the British, the French, the Czechs, the Polish…)
When it comes to fighting the ideology of ISIS, however, Obama finds Americanism insufficient, since Americanism creates ISIS ideology through Islamophobia. That’s why Americans with guns can’t defeat ISIS, says Obama: Americans with guns create ISIS. Only internationalism can win the day!
So far, that internationalism has been a massive failure. Of course, internationalism is always a massive failure, because it isn’t an idea, any more than “diplomacy” is an idea. Both are tools, to be used by those who actually have something to say, something to fight for. But President Obama despises traditional Americans who have something to say or fight for. They are the problem.He is the cure.And he would rather disarm those Americans and their rotten ideas than let them loose with guns against those who slaughter babies.
None of this should be surprising from President Obama. He’s been clear about his anti-Americanism since “Dreams From My Father”; in that masterwork of falsely nuanced detritus, Obama lambasted the “powerful” for their “dull complacency and … steady, unthinking application of force, of … more sophisticated military hardware.”
Give Obama this: He didn’t lie to us. 66 million Americans blinded themselves to his ideology, proving conclusively that bad ideologies are not always defeated by better ideas. Sadly, Obama’s own rotten-to-the-core ideology continues to win victories, and the world continues to lose because of it.
The terrorist group executes men, women and children it finds guilty of offenses against Islam. (Reuters)
The blood-soaked executioners of ISIS have spared neither women nor children since the jihadist army established its caliphate a year ago, putting an estimated 74 kids and even more women to death for such offenses as practicing “magic” and refusing to fast during Ramadan. A total of 3,027 people have been executed by ISIS since it declared itself a state under strict Islamic law in Syria and Iraq last June, according to a new report by the UK-based group, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“Many of the charges against those executed are recorded as blasphemy and spying, but others include sorcery, sodomy, practicing as a Shia Muslim.”
– New report on ISIS brutality
Just this week, two children whose ages were not known were crucifiedin the Mayadin, Deir Ezzor province in eastern Syria after ISIS accused them of not properly fasting during Ramadan. The children’s bodies, put on public display on crossbars, each bore a sign explaining their violation during the holy month for Muslims that runs June 17 to July 17. With each execution justified by ISIS’ medieval interpretation of the Koran, the group is attempting to portray itself as the true practitioners of Islam, say experts.
“Underlying all these executions is the apocalypse ideology of the final battle between the believers and the unbelievers,”said Jasmine Opperman, the director of Southern Africa Operations at the Terrorism, Research & Analysis Consortium. “ISIS is using executions to show its followers — and would-be followers — that the group is the only true representative of believers, not only in word, but action, which is why executions are featured so prominently.”
Other children died fighting for their lives.
“The violent Islamist group appears to demonstrate a particular interest in children, releasing videos of childrenfighting in cages and undertaking military training,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group said. “The report also details moves undertaken by the group to entice children to join, which include setting up offices called “cubs of the caliphate” that recruit children to fight for ISIS.”
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child released a report in February, documenting the many horrors ISIS has imposed on children who are Kurdish, Yazidi, Christian and even Muslim. Children – even those who are mentally challenged – are being tortured, crucified, buried alive, used as suicide bombers and sold as sex slaves,the report said.
“ISIS is hoping to spur current supporters around the world who are dormant, of which there are millions, into joining their caliphate by advertising acts like these, of which there are millions,”said Ryan Mauro, national security analyst for the Clarion Project, a nonprofit organization that educates the public about the threat of Islamic extremism. “They know that they can greatly increase their numbers by appealing to current radicals rather than the broader masses.”
Women are not spared the cruel brutality of ISIS, either.
The Syrian Observatory found that the terror group carried out more executions this week, murdering two married couples by beheading them publicly with a sword for “sorcery.” “The Islamic State group executed two women by beheading them in Deir Ezzor province, and this is the first time the Observatory has documented women being killed by the group in this manner,”Rami Abdel Rahman, of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the Daily Mail.
Other citizens suspected of practicing black magic or sorcery also have been killed, the organization reports, including a magician beheaded in recent weeks in the Iraqi province of Salahuddin. “The practicing of anything that is not approved by Islamic State under their very strict interpretation of Islam is ‘Haram’ or forbidden,”said Veryan Khan, editorial director for the Florida-based Terrorism, Research & Analysis Consortium. “If the Islamic State thinks that sorcery is real, then black magic would be a threat to them and seen as a danger.”
ISIS stepped up its killing spree this week as it celebrated both Ramadan and its one-year anniversary as a caliphate in Iraq and Syria with three straight days of ruthless public punishments and executions. On June 30, 11 workers from al-Miadin endured live crucifixion and were forced to wear signs saying “70 lashes and to be crucified for 1 day for breaking the fast in Ramadan.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the most recent killing spree is less than a week, after ISIS released a video of 15 men executed in three terrible ways: Drowned in cages, having their head blown off with explosives and burning them alive in a car hit with a rocket launcher.
Last Friday, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the death of 38 people in Tunisia who were gunned down, and another 27 people who died after a bomb rocked a Shia mosque in Kuwait.
“Islamic State executions are not merely retribution by the state for behavior seen as illegal,” said Khan, noting executions by the Islamic State include everything from burning alive victims, firing squads, beatings and beheadings, to drowning, explosions, and throwing people off of buildings. “The Islamic State uses executions to intimidate and dominate the local population, for diplomatic communiqués to world leaders, for recruitment purposes and to demonstrate the organization is in complete control.”
Late last week there were three terror attacks carried out in three different countries after ISIS called for attacks on western targets during the Islamic holiday of Rahmadan. After the attacks, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson released a statement encouraging Americans to stay vigilant as the Independence Day, or July 4th, weekend approaches.
“Today’s terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait are a reminder of the evolving global terrorist threats. We stand in support of the people of those countries and mourn the loss of those killed. Particularly with the upcoming July 4th holiday, here in the United States the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI continue to communicate with state and local law enforcement about what we know and see. We are encouraging all law enforcement to be vigilant and prepared. We will also adjust security measures, seen and unseen, as necessary to protect the American people,” Johnson said. “We continue to encourage all Americans to attend public events and celebrate this country during this summer season, but always remain vigilant. ‘If You See Something Say Something™’ is more than a slogan. In our great country, acts of mass violence will never divert, discourage or frighten us. Today President Obama eulogizes the Reverend Clementa Pickney in Charleston. The alleged killer sought to divide us. Instead, his actions appear to have had the opposite effect in South Carolina, where people of different races have come together to denounce the tragedy and mourn those killed.”
Federal authorities have warned local law enforcement officials across the country about a heightened concern involving possible terror attacks targeting the July 4th holiday, a U.S. law enforcement official said.
While there was no specific or credible threat of attack, the official said the intelligence bulletin prepared by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI alerted local colleagues to the ongoing threats posed by the Islamic State and other homegrown extremists. The official was not authorized to comment publicly.
The bulletins are frequently issued in advance of major U.S. holidays out of an abundance of caution and concern that operatives may exploit the timing to generate greater attention.
The warning comes as federal investigators have worked to disrupt a number of Islamic State-inspired plots, including a planned assault earlier this month on police officers in Boston. In that case, authorities fatally shot Usaamah Rahim as he allegedly planned to attack police with military-style knives.
“No credible threat”means nothing when it comes to lone-wolf attacks inspired by ISIS or other radical Islamic terror attacks. They can strike at anytime. There wasn’t a “credible” threat against the May 2015 Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas either when we saw two terrorists open fire on the event. Luckily, they were immediately killed by prepared police in the parking lot.
Two weeks ago House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes told CBS the United States faces its highest threat since after 9/11. Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Michael McCaul has echoed that sentiment.
Viktor E. and her friend Aleksey T left their home village of Kamchatka Krai
22-year-olds were fed up with being ‘persecuted’ by friends and neighbours
Pair are said to have watched ISIS recruitment videos before going to Syria
Viktor reportedly believed she would be accepted as a woman by ISIS
But the terror group regularly throws gay men to their deaths from the roofs of tall buildings or stones them in front of bloodthirsty crowds
Russian authorities have expressed fears for the lives of a transsexual man and his gay friend after they were reported to be heading to Syria captivated by Islamic State fundamentalist propaganda. Dubbed the ‘battle trannies’ by the Moscow media, the two suspects Alexei T. and Viktor E – who prefers to be known as Viktoria and dresses as a woman – are accused of maintaining contacts with armed extremist groups.
Another police source Alexander Vinogradov said: ‘We would always be interested in stopping people from joining a terrorist organisation but in this case there is a double motive, as our information is that this would not be accepted if they managed to get all the way to Syria, and it is unlikely that they would live very long once their sexual orientation was revealed.’
Accused: Dubbed the ‘battle trannies’ by Russian media, suspects Alexei T. and Viktor E (pictured left and right) – who prefers to be known as Viktoria and dresses as a woman – are accused of wanting to join ISIS
Wannabe jihadi: Former classmates said that Viktor (pictured) came to a school reunion dressed as a woman
He said that ISIS has been staging a non-stop campaign online to recruit new fighters from those who feel out of place but added it was unlikely they had transsexuals or homosexuals in mind when making the appeal. The pair claimed that they had suffered persecution and abuse from family and locals in the home in Kamchatka region in the extreme east of Russia. They hoped they would be welcomed if they went to Syria after watching an ISIS recruitment video online.
The case is the most bizarre of a number of recent examples of young Russians being coaxed into travelling to Syria, a trend of acute concern to the Moscow authorities. Reports said the 22 year olds had already left for Syria, while an unconfirmed police source was reported by local news source in Kamchatka as saying they were now in a mental health institute. The couple were put on a list of those wanted for terrorist or extremist activity after apparently being converted to radical Islam. ‘One of them was put there following a court decision because of his predisposition to suicide, and the other went there because he wanted to,’ said the report on kam.24.ru news agency.
Sick: ISIS are well known for their brutal treatment of those they accuse of ‘homosexual acts’, with numerous sickening propaganda videos released showing the jihadis throwing gay men from the roofs of tall buildings
Viktoria’s aunt said her nephew and his friend were not known as being the most intelligent people in the neighbourhood and she confirmed that Viktoria was taking hormone replacement therapy to start the transformation of becoming a woman. He ‘did not have enough money for the surgery and asked relatives but we all refused. ‘The next thing we knew was that they were wanted by the police after it was found they had gone to join ISIS. ‘Viktor had been walking around in women’s clothes and wearing makeup and was living with his mum before converting to radical Islam. ‘She told him that he would probably be killed if he went there dressed as a woman, but he said that if he could travel there as a woman, he believed they would accept him as a woman.’
Disturbing: In a photo taken in the city of Mosul, a gay man is dangled over the edge of a building by his ankles
An unnamed teacher said of Viktor: ‘He was a boy. He had girlfriends, had a very short haircut, clothes without any decoration. ‘He was a typical guy. And then later he came here to school to get a copy of his diploma with a different name on it, Viktoria instead of Viktor. At this point he was ‘wearing a short skirt, earrings and with long hair’. ‘He told me: ‘Change my diploma from Viiktor to Viktoria. If you don’t do so, I will complain. ‘ He claimed to have a Russian passport in the name of Viktoria.
The teacher added: ‘We have optional courses on Orthodox Christianity but not on any other religions. ‘Viktor was never interested in religion. I myself was teaching history, social studies and law. He wouldn’t say even a word about Islam.’
Russian police are understood to have confirmed that Viktor and Aleksey have been placed on a list for those wanted with regards to terrorist or extremist activity.
Gathered to watch: The horrific public murders of gay men draw some of the largest crowds in ISIS’ self-declared caliphate, with men photographed taking their young sons to watch the regular atrocities
ISIS has staged a relentless recruitment campaign online over the past year, often targeting those who feel persecuted or out of place in the West. It is highly unlikely the barbarians had transsexuals or homosexuals in mind while appealing for new members, however.
The terror group has been brutally clear in how it views gay men – releasing sickening videos of them being thrown from the roofs of high buildings in strongholds such as Raqqa and Mosul. Those who survive the fall are then set upon by bloodthirsty crowds who ‘finish them off’ by stoning the terribly injured victims to death.
The horrific public murders of gay men draw some of the largest crowds in ISIS’ self-declared caliphate, with men photographed taking their young sons to watch the regular atrocities. This is because under the terror group’s brutal interpretation of Islam, citizens are taught that being gay clashes with God’s ‘natural’ order, brings destruction to the family and marriages, and leads people to ignore religious guidance in other areas of life.
Shocking: Recently as group of executioners made a display of hugging a blindfolded gay couple and telling them they were forgiven of their ‘sins’, before pummeling them to death with hundreds of fist-sized rocks
Former classmates said that he came to a school reunion dressed as a woman.
Bashir Bashirov, head of the Union of Muslims of Kamchatka, said: ‘The first time they came to pray was about a year ago…They said they were man and wife. ‘The mosque is open to everyone, so how can we prohibit anyone coming? ‘We treated the newcomers as Muslims, we couldn’t even imagine there were not straight. And how can one tell? ‘She’ was wearing a hijab, had a female face, was sitting aside from the men,’he added.
Later they became influenced by radicals ‘and started blaming us for stepping aside from ‘pure Islam… I personally tried to change their minds but in vain. ‘The stopped attending prayers and started telling everyone that we ‘delude ourselves and practice Islam in a wrong way’.’
A former girlfriend of Viktor told how he beat her during their relationship, and kept her dresses after they split up, and started wearing them.
ISIS prisoner forced to dig his own grave (related)
Brutal: The shocking images were taken in ISIS-held territory in the province of Homs and show the two accused men being savagely executed by up to four jihadis
‘Viktor was very strange…He beat me black and blue. ‘But I didn’t complain to police because he threatened me with his older brother. He said that it would be bad for me,’ she said.
She tried to break up with him but he only hit her with greater force.
‘I came to school with a huge bruise under my eye. I was asked what happened, and I could not say, because one teacher was close to his mother. They hushed it up.’
She was deeply shocked when he told her he wanted to be a girl and go out with boys. When they split, his stepmother told him to return her dresses but ‘he wore them himself. ‘I saw him in one of my dresses.’
Islam is clear in its prohibition of homosexual acts based on the teachings of the Quran as it clashes with the ‘natural’ order in which God created human beings, brings destruction to the family and the institutions of marriage and leads people to ignore God’s guidance in other areas of life.
The Obama administration was accused Wednesday of giving terrorists an incentive to kidnap as it unveiled a hostage policy overhaul allowing families of U.S. hostages to pay ransom — and allowing the U.S. government to help families communicate with captors. “This doesn’t fix anything,”Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a leading critic of the administration’s hostage policy, told Fox News. “The money that we’re going to be paying ISIS is going to be used to buy arms and to buy equipment to fight Americans and to fight the Iraqis.”
But the White House said the changes are being unveiled with the families and victims in mind. “We’re not going to abandon you. We’re going to stand by you,”Obama said of hostages’ families, speaking at the White House on Wednesday. The policy review was formally released shortly before noon, and includes a host of changes beyond the clarifications on ransom discussions — notably, the creation of a new bureaucratic structurefor handling hostage cases. The White House plans to establish a Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell responsible for coordinating the recovery of hostages; a Hostage Response Group responsible for coordinating hostage policies; and the position of “special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.” Obama said this is being done to sync up various efforts, citing past coordination problems.
This framework is also being met with mixed reviews, but much of the attention is on the newly clarified policies for communicating with terrorists. The White House sought the policy review last fall after the deaths of Americans held hostage by Islamic State militants. The families of some of those killed complained about their dealings with the administration, saying they were threatened with criminal prosecution if they pursued paying ransom in exchange for their loved ones’ release.
In response, the administration made clear Wednesday that officials will no longer threaten hostages’ families with prosecution for dealing with and paying ransoms to terrorist captors. The Justice Department said in a written statement: “The department does not intend to add to families’ pain in such cases by suggesting that they could face criminal prosecution.” There is not expected to be any formal change to the law. However, the administration made clear that the Justice Department has never prosecuted anyone for paying ransom and that will continue to be the case. The White House said in a statement that the government still takes a “no concessions” approach, and it continues to be U.S. policy to “deny hostage-takers the benefits of ransom.”But the same statement says this policy does not “preclude engaging in communications with hostage-takers.”
The White House made clear the U.S. government may, then, help facilitate communications with terrorists on behalf of the families. The directive said the U.S. “may assist private efforts” to communicate with hostage-takers, and may even “itself communicate with hostage-takers” to try to rescue hostages. White House counterterrorism adviser Lisa Monaco said the U.S. government, though, would not specifically facilitate ransom payments.
The announcements still amount to a shift in the U.S. approach to hostages. It was considered a major break from past practice last year when the Obama administration traded five Taliban leaders for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. The latest policy changes could open the door to more deals, even if they are only struck with families of hostages.
Critics worry they could also encourage more kidnappings, while effectively aiding the enemy.
“The concern that I have is that by lifting that long-held principle [of not paying ransoms], you could be endangering more Americans here and overseas,” House Speaker John Boehner said. “You’re going to have to have the government now facilitating payments from the families here to the terrorists there while at the same time we have troops on the ground … fighting the same people that we’re paying money to,” Hunter said Wednesday. “You’re worth more captured now than you would be otherwise.” Former House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers also voiced concern on a local talk radio station Tuesday evening that this would encourage more hostage-taking and ransom demands.
Obama, though, stressed Wednesday that the U.S. government itself would not be paying ransoms.
Four Americans have been killed by the Islamic State since last summer:journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller. After the release of gruesome videos showing the beheadings of some hostages, Obama approved an airstrike campaign against the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria.
The families’ anguish has been deepened by the fact that European governments routinely pay ransom for hostages and win their release. The U.S. says its prohibitions against the government and private individuals making any concessions to terrorist demands are aimed both at preventing more kidnappings and blocking more income for terror groups. However, the Obama administration did negotiate with the Taliban last year to win the release of Bergdahl. White House officials say those negotiations were permissible because Obama sees a special responsibility to leave no American service member behind on the battlefield.
Elaine Weinstein, whose husband Warren Weinstein was accidentally killed by a U.S. drone strike in April while being held hostage by Al Qaeda, argued Tuesday against the government making such distinctions between U.S. citizens. “The people who take American citizens working abroad as hostages do not discriminate based on their job or employer, and neither should our government,”Weinstein said in a statement.
The White House invited the families of 82 Americans held hostage since 2001 to participate in the review, and 24 agreed to do so. The National Counterterrorism Center, which oversaw the review, also consulted with hostage experts from the U.S. and other countries. As part of the review’s findings, the White House announced the creation of a hostage recovery “fusion cell” that will coordinate the multiple government agencies involved in such issues. The new office aims to address family frustrations about getting contradictory information from different agencies by creating a single point of contact.
The administration is not acquiescing to the requests of some families to house the fusion cell in the White House’s National Security Council. Instead, the office will be at the FBI, and the director will be affiliated with the FBI. The cell will include representatives from the State Department, Treasury Department, CIA and other key agencies.
Obama also announced the creation of a State Department special envoy post that will head the administration’s dealings with foreign governments on hostage matters.
Fox News’ James Rosen and Doug McKelway and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
After some of its quarter of a million Muslims headed to join ISIS, Quebec decided the answer was a $2 million anti-radicalization center headed by a specialist in cultural sensitivity. But if you’re about to be beheaded by a masked ISIS Jihadist, a specialist in isn’t going to help you much. Western governments nevertheless keep rolling out their culturally sensitive approaches to fighting ISIS.
The key element in Obama’s strategy for fighting ISIS isn’t the F-15E Strike Eagle, it’s a Twitter account run by a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer which claims to “Counter Violent Extremism” by presenting moderate Islamists like Al Qaeda as positive role models for the Islamic State’s social media supporters. So far 75% of planes flown on combat missions against ISIS return without engaging the enemy, but the culturally sensitive State Department Twitter account has racked up over 5,000 tweets and zero kills.
Cultural sensitivity hasn’t exactly set Iraq on fire in fighting ISIS and deradicalization programs here start from the false premise that there is a wide gap between a moderate and extremist Islam. Smiling news anchors daily recite new stories about a teenager from Kentucky, Boston or Manchester getting “radicalized” and joining ISIS to the bafflement of his parents, mosque and community. And who is to blame for all this mysterious radicalization? It’s not the parents. It certainly can’t be the moderate local mosque with its stock of Jihadist CDs and DVDs being dispensed from under the table.
The attorney for the family of Usaama Rahim, the Muslim terrorist who plotted to behead Pamela Geller, claims that his radicalization came as a “complete shock” to them. It must have come as a truly great shock to his brother Imam Ibrahim Rahim who claimed that his brother was shot in the back and that the Garland cartoon attack had been staged by the government.
It must have come as an even bigger shock to Imam Abdullah Faaruuq, the Imam linked to Usaama Rahim and his fellow terrorist conspirators, as well as the Tsarnaev brothers, who had urged Muslims to “grab onto the gun and the sword.” The culturally insensitive truth about Islamic ‘radicalization’ is that it is incremental.
There is no peaceful Islam. Instead of two sharply divided groups, peaceful Islam and extremist Islam, there is a spectrum of acceptable terrorism. Muslim institutions have different places on that spectrum depending on their allegiances and tactics, but the process of radicalization is rarely a sharp break from the past for any except converts to Islam. The latest tragic victim of radicalization is Munther Omar Saleh; a Muslim man living in New York City who allegedly plotted to use a Tsarnaev-style pressure cooker bomb in a major landmark such as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Saleh claimed to be following orders from ISIS.
Media coverage of the Saleh arrest drags out the old clichés about how unexpected this sudden radicalization was, but what appears to be his father’s social media account shows support for Hamas. Likewise one of Usaama Rahim’s fellow mosque attendees said that Rahim and another conspirator had initially followed the “teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood” but that he had been forced to cut ties with them when they moved past the Brotherhood and became “extreme”.
Despite the media’s insistence on describing the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderate organization, it has multiple terrorist arms, including Hamas, and its views on non-Muslims run the gamut from the violent to the genocidal. A year after Obama’s Cairo speech and his outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood, its Supreme Guide announced that the United States will soon be destroyed, urged violent terrorist attacks against the United States and “raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.” Despite this, Obama continued backing the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power across the region.
There are distinctions between the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda, but the latter is a splinter group of the former. Al Qaeda’s current leader came out of the Muslim Brotherhood. A move from one to the other is a minor transition between two groups that have far more in common than their differences. And since the Brotherhood controls much of the Islamic infrastructure in the United States, the idea that Munther Omar Saleh or Usaama Rahim became radicalized because they went from a Jihadist group that takes the long view in the struggle against the infidel, putting political structures into place to make a violent struggle tactically feasible, to a Jihadist group that focuses more on short term violence, is silly.
It’s the Pakistani kid down the block deciding that instead of joining the Muslim Students Association and then CAIR to build Islamist political structures in America, he should just cut to the chase and kill a few cops to begin taking over America now.
Radicalization is the moderate Imam who stops putting on an act for PBS and the local politicians and moves to Yemen where he openly recruits terrorists to attack America instead of doing it covertly at his mosque in Virginia.
Radicalization is the teenage Muslim girl who forgets about marrying her Egyptian third cousin and bringing him and his fifty relatives to America and goes to join ISIS as a Caliphate brood mare instead.
It’s not pacifism giving way to violence. Instead it’s an impatient shift from tactical actions meant to eventually make Islam supreme in America over many generations to immediate bloody gratification. ISIS is promising the apocalypse now. No more waiting. No more lying. You can have it tomorrow. Radicalization does not go from zero to sixty. It speeds up from sixty to seventy-five. It builds on elements that are already there in the mosque and the household. The term “extremism” implicitly admits that what we are talking about is not a complete transformation, but the logical extension of existing Islamic beliefs.
Omar Saleh seemed cheerful enough about Hamas dropping Kassam rockets on Israeli towns and cities. Would he have supported his son setting off a bomb in the Statue of Liberty? Who knows, but his son was already starting from a family position that Muslim terrorism against non-Muslims was acceptable. Everything else is the fine print.
When Usaama Rahim followed the way of the Muslim Brotherhood, he was with a moderate group whose spiritual guide, the genocidal Qaradawi was the godfather of cartoon outrage and had endorsed the murderous Iranian fatwa against Salman Rushdie. The slope that leads from Qaradawi’s cartoon rage to trying to behead Pamela Geller isn’t a slippery one; it’s a vertical waterfall. And this is what radicalization really looks like. It doesn’t mean moderates turning extreme. It means extremists becoming more extreme. And there’s always room for extremists to become more extreme which turns old extremists into moderates while mainstreaming their beliefs.
In the UK, Baroness Warsi, Cameron’s biggest mistake, blamed Muslim radicalization on the government’s refusal to engage with… radicals. Or as she put it, “It is incredibly odd and incredibly worrying that over time more and more individuals, more and more organisations are considered by the government to be beyond the pale and therefore not to be engaged with.” The reason why the government is refusing to “engage” with these organizations is that they support terrorism in one form or another. Warsi is proposing that the UK fight radicalization by mainstreaming it.
Mainstreaming extremism is also Obama’s policy. It’s the logic behind nearly every Western diplomatic move in the Middle East from the Israel-PLO peace process to the Brotherhood’s Arab Spring. And these disasters only created more Islamic terrorism. The Muslim teenagers headed to join ISIS did not come out of a vacuum. They came from mosques and families that normalized some degree of Islamic Supremacism and viewed some Muslim terrorists as heroes and role models. It’s time for Western governments to admit that the ISIS Jihadist is more the product of his parents and his teachers than of social media Jihadis on YouTube and Twitter.
Radicalization doesn’t begin with a sheikh on social media. It begins at home. It begins in the mosque. It just ends with ISIS.
A recent report in Al Hayat, one of the largest and most-respected pan-Arab dailies, charges that Iran is supporting more than 100 Shiite extremist organizations and militias in Syria and Iraq. The newspaper, which is published in London and funded by Saudi Arabia, says the crimes of these groups are no less horrific than those of the Islamic State.
In Iraq, the Iranian-funded armed militias comprised of Persians have capabilities far beyond those of the Iraqi security forces. The paper quotes academics who commented that the purpose of these militias is to target the Arabs in Iraq, both Sunni and Shiite. In the Arab world, there is anger that the international media is ignoring the atrocities being committed by these militias. Hussein Al Muayid, an Iraqi religious scholar and advisor to the general secretary of the Muslim World League, pointedly questioned why the media as well as political figures focus only on the activities of the terror activities of Sunni organizations.
Muayid claims such selective reporting serves to makes an implicit statement that the Sunni world is responsible for all the terror in the world.
The original Arabic item in the highly-regarded Al Hayat newspaper.
In addition, while governments, experts and clerics issuing fatwas are refusing to give any aid to these Sunni terror organizations, Muayid says Shiite militias, which perpetrate the most horrific acts, enjoy the support of the Iranian ayatollahs, the highest religious authorities in Iran, and the financial and military support of the Islamic republic.
Western researchers and Arab analysts believe that Iran is supporting more than 50 militias in Iraq and another 50 in Syria whose atrocities are not less than those of the Islamic State.
By KAREN YOURISH, DEREK WATKINS and TOM GIRATIKANON JUNE 17, 2015
Major events:Attacks directed by/linked to ISISAttacks inspired by ISISArrests of suspected ISIS militants or supporters
Outlined countries are where ISIS is conducting regular military operations.
CANADA
France
United States
IRAQ
SYRIA
Morocco
Libya
Egypt
Yemen
Nigeria
Countries in yellow are where ISIS has declared provinces.
Australia
The arrest on Saturday of a Queens college student on charges of conspiring with the Islamic State is just the most recent example of the group’s global strategy, which began about one year ago and has resulted in attacks or arrests in more than a dozen countries.
Late last June, the group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, declared a caliphate, or Islamic state, on the territory it controlled — and started to focus on three parallel tracks:
inciting regional conflict with attacks in Iraq and Syria;
building relationships with jihadist groups that can carry out military operations across the Middle East and North Africa;
and inspiring, and sometimes helping, ISIS sympathizers to conduct attacks in the West.
“The goal,”said Harleen Gambhir, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, “is that through these regional affiliates and through efforts to create chaos in the wider world, the organization will be able to expand, and perhaps incite a global apocalyptic war.”
Beginning last fall, ISIS made repeated calls for attacks on the West, especially to followers in countries taking part in the American-led airstrike campaign in Iraq and Syria. So-called lone wolves have responded to these calls with relatively low-tech assaults — shootings, hostage takings, hit-and-runs — that tend to get a lot of attention.
The Queens man was arrested after a months long investigation found that he was planning to attack various New York City landmarks on behalf of the Islamic State, according to the authorities. “Al Qaeda always wanted to do spectacular attacks, but ISIS has reversed it,”said Patrick M. Skinner, a former C.I.A. operations officer now with the Soufan Group. “They don’t do spectacular attacks. They do attacks that generate spectacular reaction.”
ISIS Declares Provinces Across the Region
ISIS activity across the Middle East and North Africa has also surged. The group declared official provinces — or wilayat — in areas of Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen that had networks loyal to ISIS, many of which have adopted the organization’s signature brutality. It is an “open question” to what extent the core leadership of ISIS is communicating with its affiliates, Mr. Skinner said. While ISIS is providing support to some groups, there is no hard evidence that it is able to direct the activities of a regional wilayat as part of a cohesive campaign.
But Ms. Gambhir noted that a recent rocket attack on a multinational force in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt may be a sign that ISIS is seeing its abilities mature. The attack could be seen as part of a larger strategy to fracture the American-led airstrike coalition. “We haven’t assessed yet if that’s an intentional orchestration by ISIS,”Ms. Gambhir said. “We’re on heightened alert to look for things like that because it would indicate a new level of capability for the organization.”
Major ISIS Attacks and Arrests Since Last Summer
Attacks directed by/linked to ISISAttacks inspired by ISISArrests of suspected ISIS militants or supporters
Australia, Algeria, Canada, United States, West Bank, Saudi Arabia, France, Libya, Morocco, Belgium, Germany, Israel, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Spain, Egypt, Denmark, Tunisia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Malaysia,
Descriptions of the Major Attacks and Arrests
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Date
Location
Details
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June 17, 2015 Yemen
Yemen
An ISIS branch claimed responsibilty for a series of car bombings in Sana, the capital, that killed at least 30 people.More »
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June 13 New York
New York
A college student in Queens was charged with conspiring to support a foreign terrorist organization after an investigation found he was planning to attack various New York City landmarks on behalf of ISIS.More »
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June 11 Massachusetts
Massachusetts
Two men were charged in Boston with conspiring to help ISIS. A third man was fatally shot the previous week by law enforcement officials who said he had threatened them with a large knife.More »
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June 9 Egypt
Egypt
ISIS’s Sinai province claimed responsibility for firing rockets toward an air base used by an international peacekeeping force.
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June 3 Afghanistan
Afghanistan
ISIS is suspected of beheading 10 members of the Taliban.More »
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May 31 Libya
Libya
A suicide bomber from an ISIS affiliate killed at least four Libyan fighters at a checkpoint.More »
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May 29 Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
One week after a similar attack in the same region, a suicide bomber dressed in women’s clothing detonated an explosive belt near the entrance to a Shiite mosque, killing three people.More »
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May 22 Yemen
Yemen
ISIS claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a Shiite mosque that injured at least 13 worshipers.
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May 22 Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
In what appeared to be ISIS’s first official claim of an attack in Saudi Arabia, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive at a Shiite mosque during midday prayer, killing at least 21 and injuring 120.More »
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May 3 Texas
Texas
Two men who reportedly supported ISIS and were later acknowledged by ISIS as “soldiers of the caliphate” opened fire in a Dallas suburb outside a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest.More »
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April 30 Yemen
Yemen
One of ISIS’s Yemen affiliates released a video showing the killing of 15 Yemeni soldiers.
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April 28 Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
Saudi authorities announced they had arrested 65 people accused of forming a terrorist organization related to ISIS.
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April 26 Malaysia
Malaysia
Malaysian authorities arrested 12 men charged with plotting attacks in greater Kuala Lumpur.
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April 19 Libya
Libya
ISIS released a video of militants from two of its Libya affiliates killing dozens of Ethiopian Christians, some by beheading and others by shooting.
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April 19 Minnesota
Minnesota
Six young men from the Somali-American community in Minneapolis were arrested in connection with a plot to join ISIS.More »
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April 18 Australia
Australia
The Australian police arrested five men who they said were inspired by ISIS and planning terrorist attacks.
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April 13 Morocco
Morocco
Moroccan authorities arrested five members of an ISIS-linked cell who were allegedly planning an attack in the Netherlands.
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April 12 Libya
Libya
ISIS’s Tripoli affiliate claimed credit for a bomb that exploded outside the Moroccan Embassy.
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April 12 Egypt
Egypt
ISIS militants killed at least 12 people in three separate attacks on Egyptian security forces.More »
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April 12 Libya
Libya
ISIS’s Tripoli affiliate claimed responsibility for an attack on the South Korean Embassy that killed two local police officers. More »
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April 8 Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
Gunmen opened fire on a police patrol, killing two officers.
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April 5 Malaysia
Malaysia
Malaysian authorities arrested 17 alleged ISIS supporters suspected of planning attacks in Kuala Lumpur.
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April 5 Libya
Libya
ISIS killed at least four people in an attack on a security checkpoint.
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April 4 Afghanistan
Afghanistan
The Afghan vice president accused ISIS of kidnapping 31 civilians in February.
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April 2 Egypt
Egypt
Sinai’s ISIS affiliate killed 13 people with simultaneous car bombs at military checkpoints.More »
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March 26 Illinois
Illinois
Federal authorities arrested an Army National Guardsman who they say tried to travel to Libya to fight on behalf of ISIS and was helping his cousin plot an attack on an American military base.More »
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March 22 Morocco
Morocco
Moroccan authorities arrested 13 people in nine cities linked to ISIS.
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March 20 Yemen
Yemen
An ISIS affiliate claimed responsibility for coordinated suicide strikes on Zaydi Shiite mosques that killed more than 130 people during Friday Prayer.More »
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March 20 Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisian authorities intercepted an ISIS cell that planned to set off car bombs in multiple cities across the country.
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March 18 Tunisia
Tunisia
ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on a museum that killed 22 people, almost all European tourists.More »
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March 17 New Jersey
New Jersey
An Air Force veteran recently fired from his job as an airplane mechanic was charged with trying to support ISIS by seeking to join the group.More »
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March 13 Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
Saudi authorities detained two people allegedly planning an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh.
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Feb. 25 New York
New York
Two men living in Brooklyn were charged with plotting to fight for ISIS. A third was charged with helping organize and fund their activities.More »
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Feb. 20 Libya
Libya
ISIS’s Derna affiliate claimed responsibility for three car bombs that killed at least 40 people.More »
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Feb. 15 Libya
Libya
ISIS released a video that appeared to show its militants in Libya beheading a group of Egyptian Christians who had been kidnapped in January.More »
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Feb. 15 Denmark
Denmark
A Danish-born gunman who was inspired by ISIS went on a violent rampage in Copenhagen, killing two strangers and wounding five police officers.More »
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Feb. 3 France
France
French counterterrorism officers arrested eight people in the northern suburbs of Paris and in the area of the city of Lyon suspected of being part of a network recruiting people to fight in Syria.More »
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Feb. 3 Libya
Libya
ISIS militants were suspected of killing 12 people, including four foreigners, in an attack on an oil field.More »
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Jan. 29 Egypt
Egypt
ISIS’s Sinai affiliate claimed responsibility for coordinated bombings that killed 24 soldiers, six police officers and 14 civilians.More »
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Jan. 27 Libya
Libya
ISIS’s Tripoli affiliate claimed credit for an armed assault on a luxury hotel that killed at least eight people. It was the deadliest attack on Western interests in Libya since the assault on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi.More »
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Jan. 24 Spain
Spain
The police arrested four men in Ceuta, a Spanish territory bordering Morocco, who were suspected of belonging to an ISIS cell and may have been planning an attack in Spain.More »
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Jan. 23 Lebanon
Lebanon
ISIS attacked an outpost of the Lebanese Armed Forces.
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Jan. 20 France
France
The counterterrorism police raided the southern town of Lunel and arrested five people suspected of being part of a group that had been recruiting people to join militants fighting in Syria.More »
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Jan. 19 Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladeshi authorities arrested four people who said they were with ISIS and wanted to form a caliphate and attack the government.
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Jan. 18 Israel
Israel
Court documents revealed that eight Arab citizens of Israel were charged with supporting and trying to join ISIS.More »
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Jan. 16 Germany
Germany
Police officers in Berlin raided 12 locations to detain five Turks — three of whom were later released — on suspicion of recruiting, financing and helping Turkish and Chechen fighters get to Syria.More »
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Jan. 15 Belgium
Belgium
The Belgian police conducted a dozen raids across the country to prevent “imminent” attacks. Officers killed two men they said were part of an ISIS cell after coming under fire during a raid in Verviers.More »
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Jan. 14 Ohio
Ohio
A Cincinnati man was charged with a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol. In May, the Justice Department charged him with the additional crime of trying to provide material support to ISIS.More »
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Jan. 13 Morocco
Morocco
Moroccan authorities arrested dozens of individuals for supporting ISIS or operating ISIS recruitment cells.
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Jan. 12 Libya
Libya
ISIS’s Tripoli affiliate said they were holding 21 Egyptian Christians captive.More »
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Jan. 11 France
France
A video surfaced of Amedy Coulibaly, one of three gunmen who attacked the newspaper Charlie Hebdo, declaring allegiance to ISIS.More »
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Dec 15, 2014 Australia
Australia
A gunman who said he was acting on ISIS’s behalf seized 17 hostages in a Sydney cafe.More »
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Nov. 22 Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
A Danish executive was shot in his car. A group of ISIS supporters later claimed responsibility.
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November West Bank
West Bank
Israeli security services broke up a Palestinian cell identified with the Islamic State in the West Bank city of Hebron.More »
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Oct 23 New York
New York
A hatchet-wielding man charged at four police officers in Queens. ISIS said the attack was the “direct result” of its September call to action.More »
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Oct 22 Canada
Canada
An Islamic convert shot and killed a soldier who was guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa, stormed Canada’s parliament and fired multiple times before being shot and killed.More »
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Oct 20 Canada
Canada
A 25-year-old man who had recently adopted radical Islam ran over two soldiers near Montreal, killing one.More »
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Sept. 24 Algeria
Algeria
Militants kidnapped and beheaded a French tourist shortly after the Islamic State called on supporters around the world to harm Europeans in retaliation for airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.More »
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Sept. 23 Australia
Australia
An 18-year-old ISIS sympathizer was shot dead after stabbing two counterterrorism officers outside a Melbourne police station.More »
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Sept. 18 Australia
Australia
A man arrested during a series of counterterrorism raids was charged with conspiring with an ISIS group leader in Syria to behead a random person in Sydney.More »
“Nahum is not our prophet, but he is a prophet, so we must respect that. He’s a prophet, it is simple.”
Long before Christ walked the earth, Nahum the Prophet warned the world about the end of the Assyrian empire and the destruction of its capital, Nineveh. Now, more than 2,600 years later, his tomb, in the ancient Iraqi city of Al Qosh, may face the same fate, courtesy of ISIS.
“Smooth domes topped with crucifixes rise above the beige stone houses in Al Qosh, a modern town built on the ancient Nineveh plain. The town is rich of history from the Assyrian empire and the beginnings of Christianity. Less well known is the town’s Hebrew heritage, and the once-dominant teachings of the Prophet Nahum.”
The tomb underwent basic repairs in 1796. Then, when all Jews were compelled to flee Alqosh in 1948, the iron keys to the tomb were handed to an Assyrian man by the name of Sami Jajouhana. Few Jews visit the historic site, yet Jajouhana and his family continue to keep the promise he made to his Jewish friends to looks after the tomb.
Nahum was a prophet whose words are recorded in the Bible. His book comes in chronological order between Micah and Habakkuk in the Old Testament.
Asir Salaam Shajaa, an Assyrian Christian born and raised in Al Qosh, dusts off the green cloth that lies over the ancient tomb in the center of the run-down synagogue. He is adamant that resting under the heavy stones are really the remains of Prophet Nahum.
Like his father and his grandfather before him, Shajaa takes care of the site dutifully, fulfilling a promise made more than 60 years ago to the fleeing Jewish residents of the town. A family of Assyrian Christianshas been guarding the tomb of Nahum the Elkoshi for generations. A tradition that may be ending soon.
Al Qosh’s Jewish population fled in the early 1950s when the Iraqi government began their sometimes violent effort to rid the country of Jews, to punish the faith for the declaration of an independent Jewish state. Between 1949 and 1953, about 3/4 of Iraq’s Jewish population fled, including the last Jews of Al Qosh.
“When the last Jewish people in Al Qosh left, they asked my grandfather to watch over the tomb, to keep it safe. I don’t know much more than that,” Shajaa explains, straightening the tomb’s cover.
Nahum is frequently referred to as “The Elkoshite,” adding some credence to the postulation that the tomb indeed belongs to the prophet.
The beige hand-laid walls of the old synagogue are crumbling, but many still stand. Some are adorned with legible Hebrew script carved into large stone plaques that remain firmly embedded.
With ISIS just ten miles away from Al Qosh, plans for refurbishing the crumbling walls of Nahum’s tomb are on hold. Shajaa, like many other Iraqi Christians wants to leave battle-scarred Iraq, yet he worries about the future of the synagogue and the tomb, a place that his family has taken care of for decades with little outside help.
“I’m not sure how long my family will continue to stay in Iraq, we want to leave, most of the Christians want to leave.”
According to Haaretz, Shajaa says:
“My brother says he will stay though, if my family gets to leave Iraq my brother and his children will look after the tomb. It will stay in the family, God willing.”
VIDEO: 2,700-year old tomb of Hebrew prophet in danger from ISIS
Pens and pencils were the weapons of choice for artists taking part in an anti-Islamic State cartoon and caricature competition held in Iran. More than 1,000 images were submitted to Iran’s House of Cartoon competition and 270 were put on display at an exhibition on Sunday. Artists from more than 40 countries, including the UK and Australia, entered the Daesh (ISIS) International Cartoon and Caricature Contest.
Evocative: This is one of more than 1,000 entries to the Iranian anti-ISIS competition launched in February
The submitted artwork depicts the terrorists’ most horrific crimes, including ISIS’ attacks on homosexuals
An Islamic State commander removes people’s brains and replaces them with explosives in this cartoon
Heartless: Men leave behind their hearts and their brains when they become terrorists, according to this artist
Death: Sculls and the word Daesh – the Persian name for Islamic State – are portrayed in this piece of art.
The images, some of them extremely emotive and shocking, have gone on display at cultural centres in Tehran, Iran’s capital.
Graphic artist Massoud Shojaei Tabatabali, head of the House of Cartoon, told Press TV they now have plans to hold the exhibition in other countries like Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. ‘In order to reveal the true nature of ISIL we decided to hold this contest and have people submit their cartoons or caricatures,’ he said. ‘ISIL tries to associate itself with Islam, but in essence has no idea about Islam.’
The contest, launched in February, focuses on the terror group’s horrific crimes, including beheadings, attacks on homosexuals, suicide bombings and the destruction of ancient artefacts. The artwork will be judged by a team of experts and the winners will be announced on May 31.
Fears: The terrorists might not be afraid of spiders and scorpions but they are scared of the power of writing, this artist claims
The images have gone on display at cultural centres in Tehran and could soon be shown in Iraq and Syria
Artists from more than 40 countries, including the UK and Australia, entered the anti-ISIS competition in Iran
This image refers to the terror group’s destruction of ancient artefacts – among a long list of ISIS’ crimes
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) claims it has access to nuclear weapons through the nation of Pakistan, according to an article by longtime ISIS captive John Cantlie in the latest issue of their official magazine, Dabiq. In “The Perfect Storm,” allegedly penned by the British Cantlie, the group asserts that they possess billions, enough to buy a nuclear bomb “’from weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials’ in Pakistan.” If they cannot buy the weapon, Cantlie writes, the group would be satisfied with buying a “few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosive.”
“Let me throw a hypothetical operation onto the table,”Cantlie allegedly writes. “The Islamic State has billions of dollars in the bank, so they call on their wilāyah in Pakistan to purchase a nuclear device through weapons dealers with links to corrupt officials in the region. It’s the sum of all fears for Western intelligence agencies and it’s infinitely more possible today than it was just one year ago.’
“And if not a nuke, what about a few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosive? That’s easy enough to make.”
Analysts believe the black-market sales of artifacts and antiques have generated billions for the Islamic State. The militants have destroyed dozens of ancient shrines, churches, and museums, claiming that they promote idolatry. But people within cities tell media outlets these same militants ransack the places of their priceless items to sell on the black market. The terrorist group also forces people within their caliphate to pay enormous fines and taxes. When they captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, they told the Christians to leave, convert to Islam, or pay a protection tax (jizya).
“They’ll [Isis] be looking to do something big, something that would make any past operation look like a squirrel shoot, and the more groups that pledge allegiance the more possible it becomes to pull off something truly epic,”continued the article. “Remember, all of this has happened in less than a year. How more dangerous will be the lines of communication and supply a year on from today?”
There is no way to confirm that Cantlie wrote the text of the article. ISIS kidnapped the British photojournalist two years ago. He has appeared in many propaganda videos, mainly those intended to show Muslims in the West that life in the Islamic State is normal, if not better, than life for Muslims in the West. The latest video was about Aleppo, Syria, to portray the city “as functional and productive.” However, Cantlie said this video was the last in his series. The militant group did not comment on the video or release any information as to whether Cantlie is still alive.
Palmyra is home to a UNESCO World Heritage site that includes colonnaded streets, temples, and a theatre that have stood for nearly 2,000 years.
More than half of Syria fell under the control of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) after the jihadist group captured the ancient city of Palmyra, a monitor group said. The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) told Reuters that ISIS seized Palmyra’s military air base and prison after advancing into the city and routing armed forces loyal to Syrian Dictator Bashar al-Assad and their allies on Wednesday. A statement posted by ISIS followers on Twitter said the jihadist group was in full control of the city, including its military bases, adding that the fleeing pro-Assad troops left behind many of their dead.
Heavy clashes between the two sides resulted in the death of at least 100 Assad regime fighters, said the Observatory, which monitors the Syrian war through a network of sources on the ground.
In a rare public appearance on May 6, Assad admitted for the first time that his regime had suffered a spate of military defeats at the hands of Syrian rebels including ISIS.
U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged on May 7 that Syrian rebel factions had made recent gains against Assad and suggested that the dictator should consider negotiating peace. “The capture of Palmyra is the first time ISIS has taken control of a city directly from the Syrian army and allied forces, which have already lost ground in the northwest and south to other insurgent groups in recent weeks,”notes Al Arabiya News.
Gen. Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of Staff for the Army, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the U.S. was losing the war against ISIS, prompting criticism towards President Obama’s anti-ISIS strategy. Keane himself said Obama’s efforts to fight ISIS are “fundamentally flawed.”
Palmyra is home to a UNESCO World Heritage site that includes colonnaded streets, temples, and a theatre that have stood for nearly 2,000 years. The ancient sites are at risk of being looted and destroyed if they have not been already.
On Thursday, the White House press secretary described ISIS’s seizure of Palmyra as a “setback” for the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS. He added that President Obama disagrees with Republicans urging the deployment of U.S. ground troops to combat ISIS.
The global community must respond to ISIS, said French President Francois Hollande on Thursday. “We have to act because there is a threat against these monuments which are part of humankind’s inheritance and at the same time we must act against Daesh,”declared Hollande, referring to ISIS by its Arabic name.
The Iraqi city of Ramadi, the capital of the country’s largest province Anbar, has also fallen to ISIS.
Islamic State fighters moments before they beheaded Christian Copts in Libya.
Close to 100,000 Christians are being killed every year because of their faith, according to statistics from a Pew Research Survey and the International Society for Human Rights, a non-religious organization. These figures, which represent an “unprecedented,” number of death per year amount to 273 Christian killed daily, or 11 every hour,said Bishop John McAreavey, chairman of the Council for Justice and Peace. McAreavey, speaking to the Irish parliamenton behalf of the Irish Catholic Bishop’s Conference, said, “Eighty percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians.”
The bishop added that an ever great number of Christians are “being tortured, imprisoned, exiled, threatened, excluded, attacked and discriminated against on a widespread scale.”
McAreavey quoted the former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Lord Jonathan Sacks, who said that the persecution of Christians is “one of the crimes against humanity of our time.” Sacks compared the reality of today’s suffering Christians to the Jews were terrorized by the pogroms in Europe. Sacks said he was “appalled at the lack of protest it has evoked.”
As to reasons why Western governments have not helped these populations, McAreavey suggested, “Perhaps because of a fear of being seen as less than aggressively secular in their own country, many governments of majority Christian countries in the West seem reluctant to give direct aid to churches and religious minorities.”
A Catholic nun who escaped from Iraq after being driven out of her home by the Islamic State in August, 2014, recently testified before Congress. “This is cultural and human genocide,”said Sister Diana Momeka. “Christians have for centuries been the bridge that connects Eastern and Western cultures. Destroying this bridge will leave an isolated, inculturated conflict zone emptied of cultural and religious diversity.”
In case you missed it over the weekend, the Islamic State took over another Iraqi city. This time it was Ramadi, a city in which Americans died to capture in the first place years ago and comes after the fall of Mosul. The next major city on the conquer list for ISIS is Baghdad, not to mention the fact Christians have been essentially eliminated from the country.Despite these developments, the White House is calling its strategy against “jayvee” ISIS an overall “success” and touting minimal airstrikes in the region.
Meanwhile, President Obama is focused on the national security threat of…global warming. What’s worse? He’ll be warning about global warming during a speech for the Coast Guard Academy’s commencement ceremony today.
President Barack Obama is framing the challenges of climate change as a matter of national security that threatens to aggravate poverty and political instability around the globe and jeopardize the readiness of U.S. forces.
“Make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country,” the president says in excerpts of a commencement address prepared for delivery Wednesday at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. “And so we need to act and we need to act now.”
His speech to the cadets, by contrast, is focused on what the Obama administration says are immediate risks to national security, including contributing to more natural disasters that result in humanitarian crises and potential new flows of refugees. Further, the president sees climate change aggravating poverty and social tensions that can fuel instability and foster terrorist activity and other violence.
Fear of a possible Islamic State bloodbath sent tens of thousands of Iraqis fleeing Ramadi on Monday after government forces abandoned the city — just 80 miles from Baghdad — in what one U.S. military official conceded was a fight “pretty much over.” Some 25,000 people have fled the embattled streets of Ramadi as thousands of ISIS fighters seized the key Iraqi city, killing some 500, and reportedly going door-to-door looking for Iraqi government troops and police to run out of town.
“There have been executions in the streets of Ramadi,” Muhannad Haimour, a spokesman for the Anbar provincial government,told NBC NewsMonday. ISIS extremists used vehicles, bulldozers rigged with explosives and suicide bombers to overrun the city after weeks of battles in the street. “The situation in the city is absolutely terrible,”Haimour said. “The city is in very bad shape.”
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called ISIS’ gains “a serious setback” for both the city’s inhabitants and the Iraqi Security Forces. “Much effort will now be required to reclaim the city,”Dempsey said.
The fight for Ramadi is “pretty much over for now,”a U.S. military official told Fox News, after ISIS overran the beleaguered Iraqi Army to take control of the city Sunday.
Iraqi security forces abandoned their Anbar Operations Center in Ramadi overnight, leaving the city almost completely in ISIS control, according to the U.S. official, who has seen the latest intelligence reports from Ramadi. Although there were a large number of Iraqi security forces occupying Ramadi, most troops fled after ISIS fighters began their assault on the city center Sunday, leaving behind Humvees and armored vehicles supplied by the U.S. military, a separate senior U.S. military official told Fox News.
“The Iraqi security forces were pushed out by a much smaller [ISIS] force,” the official said.
The takeover followed a three-day siege that began with a wave of ISIS car bombs and which dealt a devastating blow to the Baghdad government and the U.S. forces providing logistical support. On Monday, Shia militias converged on the city, some 70 miles west of the capital, in a bid to retake it. Ramadi’s streets were deserted Monday, with few people venturing out of their homes to look for food, according to two residents reached by telephone. The militants, meanwhile, were storming the homes of policemen and pro-government tribesmen, particularly those from the large Al Bu Alwan tribe, of whom they detained about 30, the residents said. The militants went door-to-door with lists of alleged pro-government collaborators. Homes and stores owned by a pro-government Sunni militia known as the Sahwa were looted or torched.
The residents spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals by the militants.
Youssef al-Kilabi, a spokesman for the Shiite militias fighting alongside government forces, told the AP on Monday that the Iranian-backed paramilitary forces have drawn up plans for a Ramadi counter-offensive in cooperation with government forces. We will “eliminate this barbaric enemy,”al-Kilabi vowed. He did not elaborate on the plans or the timing of a counter-offensive.
Iran’s Defense Minister Gen. Hossein Dehghan flew to Baghdad on a surprise visit for urgent talks with Iraqi leaders.
The fall of Ramadi was a stunning defeat for Iraq’s security forces and military, which fled as the ISIS rebels overwhelmed the last hold-out positions of pro-government forces, despite the support of U.S.-led airstrikes targeting the extremists. The retreat by Iraqi forces was reminiscent of the nation’s earliest battles against ISIS, including the fall of Mosul, when poorly trained Iraqi soldiers shrank from the black-clad Islamist army, leaving guns and other gear behind for the terrorists to capture.
In Ramadi Sunday, bodies littered the streets as local officials reported the militants carried out mass killings of Iraqi security forces and civilians. Online video showed Humvees, trucks and other equipment speeding out of Ramadi, with soldiers gripping onto their sides. “Ramadi has fallen,”Haimour, a spokesman for the provincial governor of Anbar, told AP Sunday. “The city was completely taken. … The military is fleeing.” Since Friday, when the battle for the city entered its final stages, “We estimate that 500 people have been killed, both civilians and military,” Haimour said.
The figures could not be independently confirmed, but Islamic State militants have in the past killed hundreds of civilians and soldiers in the aftermath of their major victories.
The Pentagon is aware of reports that Iran-backed Shia militias have been asked by Iraq’s Prime Minister to lead the fight to take back Ramadi. Iran’s defense minister arrived in Baghdad today for talks with his counterpart, in what the media is calling an “emergency meeting.” When asked if the U.S. military planned to increase its involvement in the campaign to defeat ISIS, the senior U.S. military official said, “The Iraqis have to want it more than we want it.”
A Sunni tribal leader, Naeem al-Gauoud, said many tribal fighters died trying to defend the city and their bodies were strewn in the streets, while others had been thrown in the Euphrates River. Ramadi Mayor Dalaf al-Kubaisi said that more than 250 civilians and security forces were killed over the past two days, including dozens of police and other government supporters shot dead in the streets or their homes, along with their wives, children and other family members.
Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking in South Korea, called Ramadi a “target of opportunity” for extremists, but said he was confident that ISIS’ gains could be reversed in the coming days. Kerry also said that he has long said the fight against the militant group would be a long one, and that it would be tough in the Anbar province of western Iraq where Iraqi security forces are not built up.
The U.S.-led coalition said Sunday it had conducted seven airstrikes in Ramadi in the last 24 hours. “It is a fluid and contested battlefield,” said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. “We are supporting (the Iraqis) with air power.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered security forces not to abandon their posts across Anbar province, apparently fearing the extremists could capture the entirety of the vast Sunni province that saw intense fighting after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of the country to topple dictator Saddam Hussein. Sunday’s retreat recalled the collapse of Iraqi security forces last summer in the face of the Islamic State group’s blitz into Iraq that saw it capture a third of the country, where it has declared a caliphate, or Islamic State. It also calls into question the Obama administration’s hopes of relying solely on airstrikes to support the Iraqi forces in expelling the extremists.
The final push by the extremists began early Sunday with four nearly simultaneous bombings that targeted police officers defending the Malaab district in southern Ramadi, a pocket of the city still under Iraqi government control, killing at least 10 police and wounding 15, authorities said. Among the dead was Col. Muthana al-Jabri, the chief of the Malaab police station, they said. Later, three suicide bombers drove their explosive-laden cars into the gate of the Anbar Operation Command, the military headquarters for the province, killing at least five soldiers and wounding 12, authorities said.
On a militant website frequented by ISIS members, a message from the group claimed its fighters held the 8th Brigade army base, as well as tanks and missile launchers left behind by fleeing soldiers. The message could not be independently verified by the AP, but it was similar to others released by the group and was spread online by known supporters of the extremists.
Backed by the U.S.-led airstrikes, Iraqi forces and Kurdish fighters have made gains against ISIS, including capturing the northern city of Tikrit. But progress has been slow in Anbar, a Sunni province where anger at the Shiite-led government runs deep and where U.S. forces struggled for years to beat back a potent insurgency. American soldiers fought some of their bloodiest battles since Vietnam on the streets of Ramadi and Fallujah.
SEE THE FOX NEWS CHANNEL’S BROADCAST BELOW:
Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report
WASHINGTON — American Special Operations forces mounted a rare raid into eastern Syria early Saturday, killing a leader of the Islamic State and about a dozen militant fighters, as well as capturing his wife and freeing an 18-year old Yazidi woman whom Pentagon officials said had been held as a slave.
In the first successful raid by American ground troops since the military campaign against the Islamic State began last year, two dozen Delta Force commandos entered Syria aboard Black Hawk helicopters and V-22 Ospreys and killed the leader, a man known as Abu Sayyaf. One American military official described him as the Islamic State’s “emir of oil and gas.”
Even so, Abu Sayyaf is a midlevel leader in the organization — one terrorism analyst compared him to Al Capone’s accountant — and likely is replaceable in fairly short order. And the operation, while successful, comes as the Islamic State has been advancing in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, demonstrating that the fight against the Sunni militant group in both Iraq and Syria remains very fluid.
Yet the Pentagon’s description of a nighttime raid that found its intended target deep inside Syria without any American troops being wounded or killed illustrates not only the effectiveness of the Delta Force, but of improving American intelligence on shadowy Islamic State leaders.
A Defense Department official said Islamic State fighters who defended their building and Abu Sayyaf tried to use women and children as shields, but that the Delta Force commandos “used very precise fire” and “separated the women and children.” The official said the operation involved close “hand-to-hand fighting.” (The accounts of the raid came from military and government officials and could not be immediately verified through independent sources.)
The American forces eventually entered the building where they found Abu Sayyaf and his wife, known as Umm Sayyaf, in a room together. His spouse was captured and later moved to a military facility in Iraq, officials said.
The raid came after weeks of surveillance of Abu Sayyaf, using information gleaned from a small but growing network of informants whom the C.I.A. and the Pentagon have painstakingly developed in Syria, as well as satellite imagery, drone reconnaissance and electronic eavesdropping, American officials said. The White House rejected initial reports from the region that attributed the raid to the forces of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
“The U.S. government did not coordinate with the Syrian regime, nor did we advise them in advance of this operation,”said Bernadette Meehan, the National Security Council spokeswoman. “We have warned the Assad regime not to interfere with our ongoing efforts against ISIL inside of Syria,” she added, using another name for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS.
In a statement early Saturday, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said the killing of Abu Sayyaf dealt a “significant blow” to the group. The militant leader was said to be involved in the Islamic State’s military operations and helped direct its “illicit oil, gas and financial operations” that raised the funds necessary for the organization to operate. Officials said the raid was approved by President Obama.
Defense Department officials said the Delta Force soldiers carrying out the raid came under fire soon after they landed near a building used by Abu Sayyaf as his residence, in Amr, about 20 miles southeast of Deir al-Zour, near the oil facilities that he oversaw for the Islamic State.
The commandos had left Iraq aboard the aircraft, and were soon on the ground in Amr, a Defense Department official said. They came under fire, the official said, and fired back, killing around a dozen Islamic State fighters. “The objective was the building, a multistory building,” the official said. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Abu Sayyaf “tried to engage” the commandos, the Defense Department official said, and was shot and killed. The commandos took his wife and the Yazidi woman back to the waiting American aircraft, which, by then, had sustained a number of bullet holes from the firefight with the Islamic State fighters. Defense Department officials said only Islamic State fighters had been killed in the mission, and that they had received no reports of civilian casualties. But officials acknowledged that they were still gathering information on the raid.
The commandos were back in Iraq with the two women around dawn local time, officials said. They said the American forces were able to seize communications equipment and other materials from the site, which may prove useful in intelligence assessments.
The Yazidi woman, Mr. Carter said, will be reunited with her family as soon as possible. It was unclear on Saturday what would be done with Umm Sayyaf, who, according to Mr. Carter’s statement, is suspected of playing an important role in the group’s activities and “may have been complicit in what appears to have been the enslavement” of the Yazidi woman.
The Yazidis are a religious minority persecuted by the Islamic State.
David Thomson, an analyst and author of the book “The French Jihadists,” said by email that he had confirmed with sources inside the Islamic State that Abu Sayyaf was a Tunisian emir, who had traveled to Iraq as far back as 2003. As a member of the first wave of jihadists who arrived in Iraq over a decade ago, he and his Tunisian colleagues were called “Al Iraqi,” creating confusion over his nationality.
The operation came just months after three unsuccessful raids by American commandos in Syria and Yemen to free American hostages.
In the first one, in Syria last summer, two dozen Delta Force commandos raided an oil refinery in the northern part of the country as part of the effort to free James Foley, an American journalist, but found after a firefight that there were no hostages to be saved.
Mr. Foley was later beheaded by the Islamic State.
In the second, on Nov. 25, American Special Operations forces entered a cave near Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia in an effort to free Luke Somers, an American photojournalist. But he was not there; the forces freed eight other hostages and killed seven militants.
A few days later, in December, American forces mounted another attempt to free Mr. Somers, storming a village in southern Yemen, but that raid ended in tragedy with the kidnappers killing Mr. Somers and a South African held with him.
Saturday’s raid into Syria represents an important threshold for the administration in showing that it will continue to send American ground troops into conflicts outside major war zones — as it has in Yemen, Somalia and Libya — to capture or kill suspected terrorists.
Although Abu Sayyaf himself was not a well-known figure, he was important as much for who and what he knew about the Islamic State’s hierarchy and operations, as for his actual job.
“He managed the oil infrastructure and financial generation details for ISIL,” the senior United States official said. “Given that job, he was pretty well-connected.”
Bruce O. Riedel, a former C.I.A. analyst now at the Brookings Institution, said the operation looked like “a collection mission, the goal to capture someone or two someones who can explain how ISIS works.” With Abu Sayyaf now dead, he said, “perhaps the wife can do that.”
But, he added: “To me, it demonstrates we still have large gaps in our understanding of the enemy and how it is organized.”
A Turkish dry cargo ship has been attacked near the Libyan port city of Tobruk, the Foreign Ministry in Ankara says. A ship officer was killed and several crew members injured. The incident took place Sunday night. The ship was first shelled from the shore as it was approaching the area, the Turkish ministry said Monday. It was then attacked twice from the air as it was trying to leave the area.
The MV Tuna 1, sailing under the flag of Cook Islands, was carrying a cargo to the Libyan port from Spain and came under attack when it was in international waters, the ministry said. The man killed in the incident was the ship’s third officer.
The ministry condemned the assault, but did not specify who was behind it.
“We condemn strongly this contemptible attack which targeted a civilian ship in international waters and curse those who carried it out,” it said.
A Libyan military spokesman responded to condemnations from Ankara, saying the vessel came under attack after ignoring a warning not to approach the city of Derna, some 145 km west of Tobruk.
“A ship was shelled about 10 miles from Derna coast. We have warned before about approaching Derna port,” Mohamed Hejazi, a spokesman for forces with Libya’s internationally recognized government, told Reuters. He confirmed one member of the crew was killed, but said that only one other sustained injuries.
A military source also told Reuters the vessel caught on fire and was towed to Tobruk terminal.
Libya remains in turmoil after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in the popular uprising of 2011 and NATO bombing campaign. At the moment, two separate governments both claiming to be legitimate exist.
The country has been riven by factional fighting and impoverished by the economic decline that followed the hostilities. It has also become a hotbed of international terrorism, with Iraq and Syria-based group Islamic State sending its fighters to Libya.
Back in January, a Libyan warplane attacked a Greek-operated oil tanker anchored off the coast. The attack by forces loyal with the internationally-recognized government of Libya was motivated by factions fighting for control over Libya’s oil export. Two crewmembers of the ship were killed.
While Turkey objected to the attack on its vessel, other countries are unlikely to be vocal about the incident, said Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based news website Rai Al-Youm. “The international community is mostly supporting the government in Tobruk and they are not happy with Turkish and Qatari involvement in the Libyan conflict. I believe they will be silent,” he told RT. “They recognize the problem in Libya and they know they are part of that problem. They sent their warplanes and aircraft carriers to bomb Libya and changed the situation there and created a vacuum that was filled by the armed militia and the Islamists,”he said.
CAIRO (TheBlaze/AP) — A video released by the Islamic State group appears to show the killing of two different groups of captured Ethiopian Christians in Libya.
The 29-minute video released online Sunday purportedly shows two groups of captives. It says one group is held by an IS affiliate in eastern Libya and the other by an affiliate in the south.
A masked fighter delivers a long statement before the video switches between footage that purportedly shows the captives in the south being shot dead and the captives in the east being beheaded on a beach.
See images below via the Bahraini Al-Wasat newspaper, the SITE Intelligence Group and Algerian blogger Baki 7our Mansour.
It was not immediately clear who the captives in the video were. The video bore the official logo of the IS media arm Al-Furqan and resembled previous videos released by the extremist group.
TEL AVIV – While U.S. government agencies have strongly denied a Judicial Watch report claiming there are ISIS camps near the U.S. border with Mexico, lawmakers have expressed fears the global jihadist organization is linking up with deadly Mexican drug cartels. Such a partnership would not only help to facilitate the smuggling of jihadists into the U.S. but could ultimately translate into a devastating terrorist attack on American soil, such as an Electro Magnetic Pulse, or EMP, catastrophe.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Northern Command and the Texas Department of Public Safety all have denied the April 14 Judicial Watch report citing unnamed “sources that include a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector.” The sources claimed ISIS “has established its base around eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as ‘Anapra’ situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.” Judicial Watch further reported on an ISIS camp west of Juarez, which the organization said was planning to attack towns in New Mexico.
Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, said he contacted the Mexican government, DHS and the U.S. Northern Command, all of whom told him they have no intelligence indicating ISIS is operating on the U.S.-Mexico border. O’Rourke represents the border city of El Paso and the surrounding area. “Stories like these are good at scaring people and getting attention for those who spread them,”wrote O’Rourke on his Facebook page. “But they are terrible for the country’s image of the border, for El Paso’s ability to recruit talent, and for our region’s opportunity to capitalize on the benefits of being the largest bi-national community in the world.”
Department of Public Safety Deputy Director Robert J. Bodisch also denied the Judicial Watch claims.
“The Department of Public Safety and its intelligence community partners have no such credible information to corroborate or validate this today,” Bodisch wrote in an agency memo.
It’s not the first Judicial Watch report claiming ISIS was using Mexico as a base to stage attacks in the U.S. Last August,the watchdog reported“Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices,”citing anonymous “high-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources.”
In a report that made headlines last October,two Republican lawmakers told BuzzFeedthat suspected terrorists had infiltrated the U.S.–Mexico border and as many as 10 jihadists were captured. The DHS at the time denied the claims.
Numerous U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly warned about ISIS teaming up with drug cartels.
In October, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., warned in a town hall conversation that “groups like the Islamic State collaborate with drug cartels in Mexico who have clearly shown they’re willing to expand outside the drug trade into human trafficking and potentially even terrorism.” ….. “They could infiltrate our defenseless border and attack us right here in places like Arkansas.” Cotton was likely referencing the Judicial Watch report.
In August, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, a member of the House Judiciary Committee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, was asked on Newmax TV’s “America’s Forum” whether there was an ISIS-Mexican drug cartel connection.
“My opinion is yes,”he replied. “There seems to be at least a talking to each other. How much? I don’t know. But … drug cartels use the same operational plan as terrorist groups do. They kill their opponents, they behead their opponents, they brag about it and they have operational control of many portions of the southern border of the United States. Mexico doesn’t.’
“The United States doesn’t,” he continued. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be crossing daily with their drugs. They’re as vicious as some of these other terrorist organizations. We need to recognize them that this is an organized international crime group. And we have to deal with them as such.”
The reports of terrorists trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border also took center stage during the 2012 presidential campaign, when candidates Rick Perry and Mitt Romney both warned terrorists infiltrating via Mexico posed a significant threat to U.S. national security. Texas’s O’Rourke, however, was the public face of the Democrats in responding to those claims. He stated Republicans were simply trying to gin up opposition to immigration reform. “There’s a longstanding history in this country of projecting whatever fears we have onto the border,”stated O’Rourke. “In the absence of understanding the border, they insert their fears. Before it was Iran and al-Qaida. Now it’s ISIS. They just reach the conclusion that invasion is imminent, and it never is.”
Electrical grid
If terrorists are teaming up with Mexican drug cartels, the implications could be cataclysmic. Not only do Mexican drug gangs maintain sophisticated smuggling routes, some of the more dangerous Mexican group have evidenced guerrilla-like tactics already used in terrorist-style attacks.
On Oct. 27, 2013, for example, the criminal drug cartel known as the Knights Templars attacked electrical facilities and blacked out Mexico’s Michoacan state, which boasts a population of 420,000. During the blackout, the Knights Templars reportedly entered towns and villages at will, terrorized the citizens and police, and publicly executed leaders opposed to the drug trade.
In an attack still largely unexplained, on April 16, 2013, a sophisticated assault was carried out on PG&E Corp’s Metcalf Transmission Substation outside of San Jose, California, which supplies power to San Francisco and other areas. A team of gunmen fired sniper and assault rifles on the substation, severely damaging 17 transformers. Peter Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum, believes the assault could have been part of a terrorist group’s preparation for a future attack on the U.S. electrical grid.
Jon Wellinghoff, the former chairman of the U.S. agency responsible for grid security, also warned that the Metcalf attack was likely a dry run for a future large-scale attack.
On the same day as the Metcalf assault, North Korea flew its KSM-3 satellite on the optimum trajectory and altitude to evade U.S. radars and carry out a potential EMP attack drill.
Networks within U.S. cities
An ISIS-Mexican drug cartel alliance could cause pandemonium in U.S. cities. Mexican drug cartels have established major networks within the U.S. Earlier this month it was reported that federal agents arrested 976 suspected gang members across scores of American cities in a large-scale operation in February and March. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said 199 of those arrested were foreign nationals. Criminal street gangs are responsible for the majority of violent crimes within the U.S. and are the primary distributors of most illicit drugs, according to a previous report by the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center, or NDIC.
The NDIC was a task force established in 1993 to coordinate law enforcement actions to stop drug trafficking and to curb the growing threat of violent gangs in the U.S. The agency was closed by the Obama administration in June 2011. In October 2011, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that in 2009 and 2010 it arrested 5,270 illegal alien gang members across all 50 states.
A 2011 FBI report draws a far dimmer picture of the nature of criminal gangs operating domestically. According to the FBI, criminal street gangs – mostly comprised of illegal aliens – are acquiring high-powered, military-style weapons to engage in lethal encounters with law enforcement members and citizens alike. States the report: “There are an estimated 1.4 million active street, prison and outlaw motorcycle gang members in more than 33,000 gangs operating in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.” The report notes those numbers reflect an increase from 2009 figures due “primarily to more comprehensive reporting from law enforcement and enhanced gang recruiting efforts.”
In July 2014,WND reportedthe risk of ISIS infiltrating from Mexico, perhaps with the help of drug gangs. WND senior staff writer Michael Maloof, a U.S. Defense Department analyst under President Bush, warned ISIS could use the Mexican border to infiltrate America, and it could happen “sooner rather than later.” “MS-13 already are in over 1,100 U.S. cities, and, as a consequence, the infiltration capabilities are very, very high and the threat from them can be sooner rather than later,” Maloof warned at the time.
We want to be crystal clear on this subject. First, a Christian holocaust is happening right now at the hands of Muslims in the Middle East. The reason the Christian holocaust hasn’t been stopped can be summed up in one word: politics.
When the US left Iraq, excuse us, when the Barack Obama pulled US forces out of Iraq before their job was done, there were about 1.5 million Christians living in Iraq. And they were living in peace. The pull out was a cheap political maneuver at the hands of a cheap political whore, US President Barack Obama.
Today, there are about 400,000 Christians left in Iraq and they are under siege by ISIS forces, having been given three options. One, convert to Islam. Two, leave. Three, die.
This is a problem that isn’t going to be solved from the pulpit. We should certainly be praying for Christians in Muslim countries, but it’s going to take some serious military intervention to stop this holocaust.
Dr. Sebastian Gorka is an expert in the Middle East and here’s what he had to say last year.
…“in the last 48 hours, ISIS, which is now called the Islamic State in Mosul, has painted the letter “N” for Nazarene on the houses of all the surviving Christians in the city. ISIS has basically given an ultimatum to all the Christians left: You can either flee or convert to Islam, or we will kill you.”
Gorka points out that, over the last 20 years, America has stood up around the world to save Muslims. “Whether it was to save the Muslims in Bosnia or the Albanians, Kosovars, and Muslims in Serbia, it is now time for a humanitarian operation to save the remaining Christians in Iraq,” he said. “It is time for the American people and our representatives to do something for our co-religionists remaining in the Middle East.
… “Let’s face it, this is a Christian version of the Holocaust and nothing less.”
The facts are clear to all who would see. Muslims have been butchering and enslaving their neighbors for 1,400 years. Barack Obama and his enabling media partners go out of their way to compare Muslims to Christian missionaries. They ignore the biggest difference, and they do it intentionally.
Muslims immigrate into a country and insist that their culture be adopted – Sharia Law and all. As they gain more power – or if they’re simply an invading force – they declare that Islam is the state religion and all must convert, serve Islam in a slave-master fashion, leave, or die.
Christian missionaries, on the other hand, immigrate to serve the people of a different country. They are frequently medical missionaries who bring healing along with the Gospel. They serve the people, they don’t enslave or butcher them.
Again, that’s a difference that Barack Obama and his ilk never face.
With respect to Beck, here’s what Dr. Gorka says.
[T]he mainstream media is in full support of the White House narrative “that the President single-handedly killed Osama Bin Laden, and that Al Qaeda is now on the ropes; therefore, jihad must be shriveling up around the world.” This myopic strategy of only targeting Al Qaeda has provided great opportunities for other jihadists and has given rise to ISIS.
“On top of that,” Gorka asserts that, “the mainstream media are warped in terms of their world view.” According to Breitbart’s national security expert, the media is “post-modernist, sophisticated, and secularist. So when it comes to the idea of religious persecution, they say, ‘Well who really cares because I don’t believe in God. If you are not sophisticated enough to be a post-modernist secularist… tough on you!’”
Gorka didn’t finish there with his scathing indictment of the mainstream media. He added that it is their racism that will let this genocide of Christians continue. “To the mainstream media,” Gorka charged, “the dark skin person always has to be the victim. Either the Hamas terrorist in Gaza, the Nicaraguan gang bangers coming across the border likened to juvenile political refugees… the idea that the white skin Christian or the Israelis as victims, that goes against every narrative this media wishes to pedal. They are necessarily so locked into their own ideological vision of the world.”
Barack Obama, the media, and the Democratic Party as a whole are locked into the belief – as an article of faith – that America is the cause of all that is bad in the world. Actually, make that “white America.”
Combine that with an ideology – Islam – that takes it as an article of faith that they have the right and responsibility to butcher “non-believers” and you’ve got the perfect storm that IS a Christian holocaust.
This problem needs to be solved politically and militarily. We need to take the gloves off, understand that Muslims are at war with us, and act accordingly. The Rules of Engagement put in place by George W Bush and then softened significantly by Barack Obama aren’t going to make it.
Talk radio host Glenn Beck is up in arms over his belief that National Rifle Association board member Grover Norquist is a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer and he may end his membership with the gun rights group if Norquist is re-elected. Beck dropped that bombshell on his millions of listeners in an interview on Wednesday with Frank Gaffney, the president of the terror watch group Center for Security Policy. Beck said he is convinced that Norquist, the longtime anti-tax crusader who heads Americans for Tax Reform, is “a dangerous man” and in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has close ties with the terrorist group Hamas.??
Talk radio host Glenn Beck is up in arms over his belief that National Rifle Association board member Grover Norquist is a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer and he may end his membership with the gun rights group if Norquist is re-elected. Beck dropped that bombshell on his millions of listeners in an interview on Wednesday with Frank Gaffney, the president of the terror watch group Center for Security Policy. Beck said he is convinced that Norquist, the longtime anti-tax crusader who heads Americans for Tax Reform, is “a dangerous man” and in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has close ties with the terrorist group Hamas.??
Talk radio host Glenn Beck is up in arms over his belief that National Rifle Association board member Grover Norquist is a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer and he may end his membership with the gun rights group if Norquist is re-elected. Beck dropped that bombshell on his millions of listeners in an interview on Wednesday with Frank Gaffney, the president of the terror watch group Center for Security Policy. Beck said he is convinced that Norquist, the longtime anti-tax crusader who heads Americans for Tax Reform, is “a dangerous man” and in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has close ties with the terrorist group Hamas.??
Talk radio host Glenn Beck is up in arms over his belief that National Rifle Association board member Grover Norquist is a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer and he may end his membership with the gun rights group if Norquist is re-elected. Beck dropped that bombshell on his millions of listeners in an interview on Wednesday with Frank Gaffney, the president of the terror watch group Center for Security Policy. Beck said he is convinced that Norquist, the longtime anti-tax crusader who heads Americans for Tax Reform, is “a dangerous man” and in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has close ties with the terrorist group Hamas.
About the Author; Michael Becker
Michael Becker is a long time activist and a businessman. He’s been involved in the pro-life movement since 1976 and has been counseling addicts and ministering to prison inmates since 1980. Becker is a Curmudgeon. He has decades of experience as an operations executive in turnaround situations and in mortgage banking. He blogs regularly at The Right Curmudgeon, The Minority Report, Wizbang, Unified Patriots and Joe for America. He lives in Phoenix and is almost always armed.
Move over, chess club, French club, and all your other useless western organizations. Make room for a club that pays homage to the great work being done by … Islamofacists?
As hard as it is to believe, James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has released an undercover video of a dean at an Ivy League school detailing the steps needed to start a pro-Islamic State/pro-Hamas club on campus with an eye toward raising funds and sending care packages to the terrorist groups.
In O’Keefe’s latest video, Assistant Dean of Students Joseph Scaffido of Cornell University is captured on hidden camera advising reporter posing as a student on how to proceed. In addition, Scaffido provides information on how to bring a member of the IS to Cornell to run a “training camp,”explaining, “It’s just like bringing in a coach, to do a training on a sports team or something.”
When the Project Veritas journalist suggested that the club would support Hamas as well as ISIS, Scaffido stated:
“the University [Cornell] is not going to look at different groups and say you are not allowed to support that group. Because we don’t believe in them or something like that. I think it’s just the opposite. I think the University wants the entire community to understand what’s going on in all parts of the world.”
This new Project Veritas video shockingly and frighteningly exposes that Cornell, an esteemed and storied Ivy League University, is truly detached from reality. This is particularly egregious due to the fact that Cornell has received over $300 million in federal contracts and grants since 2000 and more than $190 million from New York state taxpayers since 2012.
“I was chilled and saddened by Dean Scaffido’s reaction and his position on the pro-ISIS club,”stated James O’Keefe, President of Project Veritas. “At the very best Scaffido’s attitude towards the proposed club is complacent and irresponsible, at the very worst he genuinely and willingly supports those sympathetic to ISIS freedom fighters, or more aptly stated: terrorists. In either case, Scaffido’s comments have placed Cornell in the hot seat. I think it is fair to say that at the very least Cornell owes the American people an explanation, if not an apology.”
The video stunner below is a must watch.
Cross-posted at The Lid
About the Author:
Jeff Dunetz is editor and publisher of the The Lid, and a weekly political columnist for the Jewish Star and TruthRevolt. He has also contributed to Breitbart.com, HotAir, and PJ Media’s Tattler.
Gulf Newstells a story of ISIS’ viral evil spreading into Yemen, which was hardly suffering from a shortage of villainy: “Inspired by the video of Daesh (Islamic State/ISIS) burning to death the Jordanian pilot Muath Al Kasaesbeh, a group of boys set about re-enacting the atrocity in their Al Dahthath village in Yemen’s northern province of Ibb.”
The group of a half-dozen youths trapped a ten-year-old boy in a wooden cage, doused him with gasoline, and set him on fire. They even re-enacted the Islamic State leaders passing judgment on the Jordanian pilot and ordering his immolation. Luckily, the boy’s screams were heard in time, and he was rescued by villagers. He went to the hospital for treatment of the burns on one of his legs.
As Gulf News observes, the village is desperately poor and has unreliable electricity, but the people were still able to get the ISIS propaganda video of Kaseasbeh’s brutal execution on their mobile phones.
This is not the first time young fans of the Islamic State in Yemen have tried re-enacting the horrors of the terror state they admire. The UK Daily Mailrecalls a previous instance weeks ago in which Yemeni boys used a cell phone to film themselves re-enacting the beachfront beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya, using sticks to simulate the knives ISIS prefers for its decapitations. “Lined up on the beach, the young boys are forced to their knees and stare down at the sand whilst they await their mock execution,” writes the Daily Mail. “Each boy appears deep in character, honed from studying the terror group’s depraved videos.” Evidently, the mock victims in this particular bit of live role-playing were not injured.
Not only are kids in Yemen getting with the ISIS swing; the Daily Mail throws in a sidebar about an Egyptian couple who horrified their wedding guests by hiring actors to simulate jihadis hijacking their wedding and shoving them into a cage similar to the one in which Lt. Kaseasbeh was killed. It is not clear if the groom meant this little stunt as sincere homage to ISIS or a joke, but it doesn’t seem to have elicited much laughter in either case.
This is by far the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read.
The author of this email is Dr. Emanuel Tanya, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist. A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Very few people were true Nazis,” he said, “but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.”
We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous. Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people..
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda , which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany , they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.
Now Islamic prayers have been introduced into Toronto and other public schools in Ontario , and, yes, in Ottawa too while the Lord’s Prayer was removed (due to being so offensive?) The Islamic way may be peaceful for the time being in our country until the fanatics move in.
In Australia , and indeed in many countries around the world, many of the most commonly consumed food items have the halal emblem on them. Just look at the back of some of the most popular chocolate bars, and at other food items in your local supermarket. Food on aircraft have the halal emblem, just to appease the privileged minority who are now rapidly expanding within the nation’s shores.
In the U.K, the Muslim communities refuse to integrate and there are now dozens of “no-go” zones within major cities across the country that the police force dare not intrude upon. Sharia law prevails there, because the Muslim community in those areas refuse to acknowledge British law.
As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts — the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just ignores this post without sharing it, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and share this over and over again! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and share it – before it’s too late.
Perhaps as many as 90 Christians in Syria have been taken hostage by the ISIS jihadists. We should all pray for those people who may very well be beheaded or burned alive.
Also the United Nations high commissioner for human rights has issued a report that says the following. ISIS atrocities include;
rape,
slavery,
trafficking of women and children,
forced recruitment of children,
killings of civilians
and kidnappings.
The U.N. agency says young girls are being forced into marriages;
young boys being trained as jihadi fighters. We have seen video of that. And it is appalling.
These young boys are being brainwashed,
trained to kill.
They are powerless to stop ISIS from abusing them.
Meanwhile the world dithers. There is no organized campaign on the ground to stop the atrocities or to defeat the ISIS savages. What a disgrace.
In an excellent bit of reporting from northern Iraq, NBC correspondent Richard Engel interviewed two women who escaped from the ISIS abusers.
RICHARD ENGEL, NBC CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: ISIS is reviving the barbaric tradition of the slave trade, proudly showing its fighters in this ISIS video discussing the Yazidi women they are about to buy.
We showed Farida the video. She instantly recognized the men.
“All of the girls were screaming and crying because they didn’t want to go with them,” she says, “so they beat the girls and dragged them away by force.”
Farida was raped repeatedly for three months.
“They sold me from one man to the next,” she says. The ordeal was even harder for the younger ones.
There is a word we don’t use a lot in the news media but it fits here. This is evil. It was absolute evil by design. This was not a war crime that happened by accident. This is ISIS policy.
O’REILLY: Again, excellent reporting by Richard Engel. And he is right. The news media does not like to use the word “evil” but that’s what the world is witnessing. Once again, Talking Points will remind that you that these ISIS thugs are the same as the Nazis who slaughtered millions of people before and during World War II. There’s no difference in the mentality, none at all. And once again, the world is standing by doing little while the ISIS menace grows spreading all over the Middle East and North Africa.
President Obama is not taking the lead. His stated 60 nation coalition is invisible. And the other nations of the world are even worse. How long are these atrocities going to continue before the world unites against these savages? How long?
Islamic State militants have opened a pair of English-speaking schools in hopes of teaching jihadi children in Syria how to blend in while visiting other countries — making it “easier to spread terror,” a UN official tells The Post. “They start out as mini-jihadists and grow up to become adult jihadists,” the official said, speaking under the condition of anonymity. “The schools are targeting ISIS children who already live in Raqqa,” he added. “They want to give them their form of education, which is teaching them to become jihadists.”
A picture posted online Sunday showing an advertisement for the two schools proves the extremists are trying harder than ever to transform children into Islamic thugs. “ATTENTION ENGLISH SPEAKING MUHAJIROON!” the ad reads. “By the grace of Allah we have opened schools for English speaking children.”
The picture was posted to Twitter by activist group “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently.” Located in the ISIS “capital” of Raqqa, Abu Mus’ab Zarqawi School (all boys) and Aisha School (all girls) will serve as an educational breeding ground for terror pupils ages 6 to 14 — and will include lessons in Islamic scripture, English language and math. Classes will run from 9 a.m. to noon every day except Thursday and Friday. The flier also asks anyone “interested in teaching at the schools” to contact the Islamic State.
Police released CCTV footage of the three girls at Gatwick Airport. Photo: Zumapress.com
Amira Abase, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Shamima Begum, 15, fled their homes in east London on Feb. 17 and flew to Turkey.
The principal of their school explained Monday that there had been “no evidence” that the teenagers had been radicalized while enrolled there, adding that they abandoned their families following the disappearance of a student in December.
“The police spoke to the student’s friends at that time and, further to this, they indicated there was no evidence the girls were at risk of being radicalized or absconding,”Mark Keary told BBC.
Meanwhile, officials confirmed that Begum had used her 17-year-old sister’s passport in order to leave the UK last week when the trio traveled to Istanbul. “Officers are working closely with the Turkish authorities who are providing a great deal of assistance and support to our investigation,” a Scotland Yard spokesman said.
Several police officers from the UK have reportedly gone to Turkey to search for the young girls, but their role in the missing persons investigation has not been verified
The latest disturbing video from ISIS shows what the Islamist group touts as the next generation of jihadist killers, pint-sized terror trainees who appear to be as young as 5 participating in drills and reciting verses from the Koran. The 9-minute video released Monday shows about 70 camouflage-clad kids, who are reportedly the children of foreign fighters who have flocked to Iraq and Syria to join the Islamist army. An instructor states in Arabic that most of the children are in the second phase of training and that they represent the “next generation” of ISIS. The video illustrates the charge in a UN Human Rights Council report last year that determined that Islamic State “has established training camps to recruit children into armed roles under the guise of education.” “At the camps, the children recruited received weapons training and religious education,” the report stated. “The existence of such camps seems to indicate that ISIS systematically provides weapons training for children. Subsequently, they were deployed in active combat during military operations, including suicide-bombing missions,”it stated.
In the video, the children wear ISIS’ trademark black headbands and are seen answering religious questions and quoting the Koran against a soundtrack of Arabic music. The clip provides a disturbing snapshot into how the extremist group is taking young innocent children and turning them into their own depraved version of Nazi Germany’s Hitler youth, experts said.
“The existence of such camps seems to indicate that ISIS systematically provides weapons training for children.”
– UN report on ISIS
The tape, which was posted on the Internet, was apparently shot at a military training center the Islamic State calls the Al Farouk Institute for Cubs in Raqqa, Syria. The video cannot be independently verified. Several scenes show the youngsters kneeling in prayer with a trainer kneeling in prayer in front of them with a pair of rifles. There is little laughter, even as the boys in the video are shown eating a post-prayer meal.
“If you believe the ISIS caliphate is the best place to be and Allah commands you to go there, you’d want your family there, too,” said Ryan Mauro, a national security analyst for the Clarion Project, a New York-based research institute that tracks global terrorism. “For ISIS supporters, this is like signing your kid up for the best private school.”
The young jihadists are believed to be the children of foreign fighters.
The video is designed to send a message that ISIS is here to stay, Mauro added. “ISIS is emphasizing its child recruits because it obviously makes for good footage but also to emphasize this is a generational struggle,”Mauro said. “You can kill off the current leaders and fighters, but their kids will fight on. It makes it harder to celebrate ISIS’ losses if you know their manpower will be replenished with brainwashed children.”
Author and former radical Islamist Maajid Nawaz told Fox & Friends Monday the video of the jihadi cubs is disturbing and underscores the militant organization’s long-range objective. “I think this is shocking for everyone who sees such images,”he said. “Islamic State from the beginning has been saying that they’re planning not just to build a state but a new generation of jihadists who have been raised on their diet of blood and violence.”
ISIS has long been known to employ child soldiers, deploying them as human shields, suicide bombers — and even executioners.In one horrifying video the terror group released in January, a young boy is shown executing a pair of captives the terror group claims were Russian spies. The video shows a young boy of 10 or less shooting the two men repeatedly in the head with a pistol.
Experts say the message is intended to show the West that ISIS plans to be around for generations.
Syrians in Raqqa have previously reported that the terrorist army has forced children into its ranks and indoctrinated them in its bloodthirsty ways. One man told the website Syria Deeply.org that his 13-year-old son was forced to attend a training camp where he underwent a form of “brainwashing the children.” When the boy returned, his mother found a blond, blue-eyed doll – along with a large knife given to her son by his ISIS supervisors, in his bag. The boy told his parents the materials were given to children to practice beheading Westerners, according to the report.
Other images and video have emerged on social media from the region showing proud foreign fighters with young children, some even holding the severed heads of Islamic State’s enemies.
WASHINGTON – The United States has laid out a battle plan to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul in an April-to-May time frame, using some 20,000 to 25,000 Iraqi troops who currently are being trained, a highly unusual disclosure that one intelligence source told WND is “pure lunacy.”
In a teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon, a U.S. Central Command official said brigades of Iraqis along with Kurdish peshmerga forces and Sunni militia will seek to take back Iraq’s second largest city from ISIS, which has held it since June. The half-hour briefing attended by WND and other media outlets was given on condition that the official could not be identified. The disclosure surprised many on the call who wondered why details would be released months ahead of the planned offensive.
An intelligence source who spoke to WND also on condition that his identity not be revealed called the disclosure “pure lunacy.”The source referred to previous disclosures in advance of an attack that gave enemy forces in Iraq time to set up improvised explosive devices.
The Pentagon briefer said that all training and equipping of Iraqi forces now under way will be for taking back Mosul. He said that some six brigades of equipment now are in place in preparation for the expected Mosul offensive in April or May. “There are still a lot of things that need to come together, and as we dialogue with our Iraqi counterparts, we want them to go in that time frame; because as you get into Ramadan and the summer and the heat, it becomes problematic if you go much later than that,” he said. “By the same token, if they’re not ready, if the conditions are not set, if all the equipment they need isn’t physically there to the degree that will be successful, we have not closed the door on continuing to slide [the time frame] to the right,”he said. “And, so, although we would like [the battle for Mosul] to occur in the April-May time frame, that decision will still have to be one we will have to contend with in the future.”
In preparation for the Mosul operation, the briefer said the U.S. will provide the “full range of military options that we have given [the Iraqis] and continue to give them every day from the training and equipping and the logistical support we help them with, the air support, the intel, the ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) – that full range and complement that we have been doing now that has proven very successful when we have the ability to plan, rehearse side-by-side and then execute have been deemed successful.”
The Central Command official said the military campaign against ISIS “remains on track.” He said the ISIS advance, especially in Iraq, was “generally holding as we had planned.” Efforts now are under way, he said, to train Iraqi forces and to prepare to train Syrian forces “which will become a reality here very soon” in an effort to degrade ISIS’ capability. He said it was known that the “degrade phase” alone would be a long period of time. But, he added, regarding the “aggregate effect on the enemy, we believe that we may even be slightly ahead in the campaign.” He affirmed ISIS is “in decline.”
Central Command’s assessment is that the anti-ISIS coalition has largely impeded the jihadist army’s ability to operate unconventionally, its ability to govern its territory and its media campaign to “influence the masses.” He pointed out that the support of other jihadist groups in non-contiguous areas, such as North Africa, doesn’t improve its capacity though it does provide “leadership and inspiration.” He said that some three-quarters of a division of equipment has been removed so far from the battlefield. “It is no longer there and available to him,” the briefer said, referring to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
ISIS is having a “very difficult time seizing and holding additional terrain than what it has right now,” he said. He said the air campaign has had “great effect,” with about 2,500 airstrikes carried out, and Iraqi forces already have taken back about 500 square miles of terrain from ISIS.
As for ISIS’ takeover of the city of al-Baghdadi last week, the briefer said in the “operational sense” ISIS is in a defensive mode, but it doesn’t mean that ISIS cannot conduct “limited and/or isolated offensive operations.”
“So, in the aggregate, [ISIS] is in the defense, it is in decline; but it’s not because of his freedom of movement. ISIS, he said, still lacks clear order and safe haven that it has in Syria in its ability to migrate back and forth that still gives him that micro offensive capability,” the briefer said. He said ISIS is in a zero-sum-gain environment. If it were, for example, to put a thousand fighters back in Kobani along the Syria-Turkey border, it means ISIS “would not be doing something somewhere else.”
“In total,” he said, “our effects are outpacing its ability to regenerate.”
ISIS is planning to use Libya as a “gateway” to Europe and has raised the possibility of storming southern European cities to cause “pandemonium” or closing international shipping lines in the Mediterranean Sea. This according to documents released by ISIS supporters and propagandists and obtained by the Quilliam Foundation, a Britain-based think tank that focuses on counter-extremism. The purported ISIS documents, obtained and reviewed by WND, received widespread news coverage. However, some of the more sensational possibilities described within the pages were largely overlooked.
The documents indicate ISIS views Libya as not just fertile ground for a headquarters but as a staging base to infiltrate Europe by boat along with the hundreds of migrants who daily attempt to flee to Italy. One ISIS document recognized Libya has a “long coastline” that “looks upon the southern Crusader states, which can be reached with ease by even a rudimentary boat.” The document noted “the number of ‘illegal immigration’ trips from this coast is massive, estimated to be as high as 500 people a day, as a low estimate.”
It states that “according to many [of these immigrants], it is easily possible to pass through Maritime Security Checkpoints and arrive in [European] cities. If this was even partially exploited and developed strategically, pandemonium could be wrought in the southern Europe. It is even possible that there could be a closure of shipping lines because of the targeting of Crusader ships and tankers.” The Quillium Foundation warns: “Therefore, the opportunities that lie in the exploitation of human trafficking rings make Libya unparalleled as a launching platform for attacking European states and shipping lines.”
The ISIS documents extensivelydiscuss what they claim are massive caches of light, medium and heavy munitions in Libya. Jihadists are urged to make their way to Libya to help expand the caliphate. “Not only will pressure on the land of the Caliphate in ash-Sham be relieved, but the territories of the Caliphate in ash-Sham, Iraq and Hijaz will be linked with those of their brothers in Libya and the Islamic Maghreb and the defeat of all regimes and tyrants in their way will be enabled.”
How real are ISIS’s claims about migrant boats flooding Europe? Just last week, Italy reportedly rescued some 2,164 migrants coming from Libya on about a dozen boats. The incident took place the same day Italian coast guard members were reportedly threatened by four armed men who approached them by speedboat from the Libyan coast. The U.N. refugee organization UNHCR estimates that at least 218,000 migrants from North Africa crossed the Mediterranean by boat last year, with some 3,500 dying on the way.
Italy’s defense minister, Roberta Pinotti, told the country’s Il Messaggero newspaper last week the potential for terrorists infiltrating Italy in boats carrying immigrants from Libya“could not be ruled out.”
SPECIAL NOTE FROM JERRY BROUSSARD OF WHATDIDYOUSAY.ORG
I reported on this last year. I am not surprised that it has come around once again. Perhaps it’s because the Leftist media is finally recognizing this overwhelming threat Islamic State is to the world.
Now comes a report that the group is engaged in a far darker practice. From Fox News:
[T]he Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations … asked the Security Council to look into allegations the militants were harvesting the organs of their executions for sale to fund their military operations.
Ambassador Mohamed Alhakim told reporters that in the past few weeks, bodies with surgical incisions and missing kidneys or other body parts have been found in shallow mass graves.
“We have bodies. Come and examine them,” he said. “It is clear they are missing certain parts.”
He also said a dozen doctors have been “executed” in Mosul for refusing to participate in organ harvesting.
If the assumptions are correct, the plan is as ingenious as it is grotesque. According to an NBC News investigation, the demand for human organs had far outstripped the supply, with a kidney fetching $30,000 on the black market. A report by the World Health Organization notes one human one human organ is sold illegally somewhere in the world every hour. With an unlimited supply of victims, the IS could be in hose for some time.
It’s been some 1,400 years since Islam entered the world’s culture. And from its inception, it has maintained a suffocating menu of choices to mankind…none of which concern free will OR peace. As we have seen and continue to see globally, Muslims hot for the Quran and Sharia Islamic Law, are on a Jihad crusade against all who choose NOT to follow Allah or his prophet Muhammed.
There have been over 25,000 deadly terror attacks committed by Muslims since 9-11. From Canada to Denmark to Australia…Islam’s influence (by its hateful harangues emanating from Islam’s holy books) has encouraged torture, rape, pedophilia and slaughter (via beheadings, incinerations, stabbings and bombings) of thousands upon thousands of innocent human beings.
And yet, anyone who dares mention these facts…is subject to an crushing bombardment of verbal salvos by cowering Westerners…as well as death threats by Muhammed’s faithful.
Exactly WHEN was the last time an Islamic message broke out in loving and serving non-Muslims? Or a street rally of Muslims chanted: “Love to America”, “Hugs to Israel”, “Bless anyone who slanders the prophet” or “Be kind to Infidels, wherever you find them”? Has this EVER happened? As we say in NYC: NEVA!!
Western leaders and the mainstream media like to use the term “Radical” when referring to devout Muslims that commit heinous acts for Islam. But here lies the rub…the actual definition of that term is the antithesis of how it’s being used. The dictionary defines “radical” as: of or going to the root or origin; fundamental.
These Mohammedans have gone back to the roots of their creed. They are fundamentalists who follow in the footsteps and behaviors of their prophet. M0hammed was not a man of peace, but rather a man of war, having been in 100 violent campaigns to spread Islam and fill his Jihad coffers. We see this STILL occurring with ISIS, Boko Haram, Hamas, et al. They invade the lands of non-Muslims, kill, steal and destroy… Just like Mohammed did…
The split second these Islamic attacks occur…the West is falling all over itself in a mad rush for the microphone to announce to the world the mantra of morons: Islam is a religion of peace.
But, in actuality…according to the empirical evidence: Islam is a religion of bigotry, hate and brutality. And that’s on a good day…
Now, I don’t intend to be harsh, BUT…let’s stop being the idiotic infidels that Mohammed told his followers we are. Let’s instead go back to critical thinking where we use the intellect the Judeo-Christian God gave us…and finally confront this centuries-old LIE with TRUTH.
Egypt, now at the forefront of fighting ISIS, is warning it has intelligence revealing the global jihadist group is planning a worldwide offensive this spring or summer that could reach targets within the United States. Interrogations of ISIS members captured in recent weeks in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula Egyptian and information collected by Egyptian security forces indicate ISIS is planning ground offensives this spring and summer aimed at taking over more territory across the Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf, a senior Egyptian intelligence official told WND. Some of the information indicates the new offensive will not be limited to the Arab world. Timed to coincide with its planned surge, ISIS is plotting possible attacks using cells abroad. ISIS and its jihadist allies could activate cells to carry attacks in Europe and possibly within the U.S., the senior Egyptian official warned.
The official advocated the deployment of significant ground troops acting on multiple fronts to stop ISIS’ progression. He complained the Obama administration and international community has been hesitantto take major action against ISIS advances.
Egypt on Monday sent warplanes over the border into Libya to bomb ISIS targets after the terror group’s well publicized, savage attack on Egyptian Christians. Egyptian F-16 fighter jets reportedly struck ISIS training camps and weapons depots along Libya’s coast, including targets in Derna, where Islamic extremist groups have joined with ISIS.
One day earlier, ISIS allies released a video that appears to show the execution of 21 Coptic Christian prisoners. The Coptic Church is headquartered in Egypt. The Egyptian government reportedly dispatched its foreign minister to New York in a bid to rally international support for their military intervention in Libya. Last week, WND reported Egypt estimates ISIS and its allies currently boast an army of about 180,000 fighters.
An Egyptian intelligence document, the contents of which were obtained by WND, warns that while the U.S. has been attempting to maintain a coalition to fight ISIS, the Islamic terrorist organization has itself been hard at work building a sustainable coalition of jihadist gunmen. The 180,000 figure is up to six times greater than a CIA estimate from last September,which placed the number of ISIS fighters at between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters.
According to Egypt, ISIS has created an umbrella army with the Taliban, Al Shabab, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and local jihadist groups from Yemen, Mali, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Egyptian Sinai.
Cells inside U.S.?
There have been numerous claims of ISIS cells embedded in the U.S. Earlier this month, Michael Steinbach, head of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division, was asked by CNN whether or not there are ISIS cells in the U.S. Steinbach said, “[T]here are individuals that have been in communication with groups like [ISIS] who have a desire to conduct an attack,” and those people are living in the U.S. right now. He conceded the FBI finds it extremely difficult to track every American traveling abroad who can join ISIS or receive training by foreign terrorist organizations.
“I’m worried about individuals that we don’t know about that have training,” Steinbach said. “We know what we know. But there is a number that’s greater than that that we don’t know. Once you get to Europe, you can easily get down to Turkey and into Syria,” he noted.
In August, former CIA officer Bob Baer told CNN he had been “told with no uncertainty there are ISIS sleeper cells in this country.” CNN cited two unnamed U.S. officials rebutting the claim but still expressing concern ISIS militants with passports might travel to the U.S. to launch attacks on American soil.
WASHINGTON – Some 3,000 Sunni jihadist fighters have gathered in the Syrian Qalamoun mountains bordering eastern Lebanon, poised to attack a series of Christian towns in northern and central Lebanon. They appear to be preparing to undertake a pincer attack on the north around Tripoli and in the south from the Syrian Golan Heights, according to informed Middle East sources. As they appear to be surviving the harsh winter in the mountains for a possible series of attacks in the spring.
The sources say the fighters, comprised of ISIS and the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, survived the harsh winter in the mountains to position themselves for a possible series of attacks in the spring. To keep open supply lines, the jihadists are conducting sporadic guerrilla attacks against the Lebanese army. Nusra and ISIS fighters generally have been fighting with one another, but in Lebanon there appears to be increasing coordination of their fighters, although their objectives are different, sources add.
According to Middle East analyst Mario Abou Zeid, elements of the Free Syrian Army, which has U.S. backing, also have begun to team up with Nusra fighters. “Free Syrian Army fighters had begun to lose hope of receiving any significant aid from foreign stakeholders,” Zeid said. “The well-supplied Nusra Front won the trust and loyalty of these fighters, which translated into cooperation in Qalamoun. There is a “new death triangle for ISIS,”Lebanese Interior Minister Mouhad al-Machnouq said recently, “stretching from the barren Lebanese lands of Arsal to the Palestinian Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp and Roumieh prison (in east Beirut), reaching Iraq and Raqqa,”the ISIS caliphate capital in Syria.
Arsal is where ISIS and Nusra began their foray last August inside northern Lebanon, taking hostages in the process, including numerous members of the Lebanese army. After the town of 35,000 residents exchanged hands a few times, Arsal has become a center of strict Islamic law imposed on its occupants.
The “death triangle”to which Machuouq referred, said Middle East economist Sami Nader, “suggests that Lebanon not only represents a strategic depth for Hezbollah and (Syrian President Bashar) al-Assad’s regime, but also that ISIS is taking refuge within its borders to escape the international alliance’s airstrikes against it on the eastern front.”
For now, the Lebanese army has been thwarting numerous attacks in the surrounding towns in the north around Ras Baalbek, which is only about 25 miles from the historic Roman city of Baalbek, which has been a major tourist magnet. There have been periodic attacks around Baalbek and near Britel in areas controlled by the Iranian-backed Shia Hezbollah but, to date, the Sunni jihadist attacks have been unsuccessful. Deep in Shia-controlled territory, Baalbek, where settlements are believed to go back 9,000 years, has withstood centuries of attacks from barbarians, the Greeks and the Romans. The city once was given as a gift by the Roman general Marcus Antonius – Marc Antony – to his lover, Egyptian queen Cleopatra, as a birthday gift.
ISIS ‘stepping stones’
Ras Baalbek, in the northern part of the Bekaa Valley, is in a Christian region of the country. Nusra and ISIS seek to target it as a stepping stone to such other ancient Christian towns in central Bekaa as Zahle, Firzel, Ablah and Drous (see map).
“(Jihadist fighters) are under pressure in the ongoing battle in Syria; in retaliation they may attack the Bekaa, but I assure you they will not be able to do more than hit and run operations,”one Lebanese source told WND. “The army is ready alongside the resistance (Hezbollah),”he said. “We will prevail, the takfiris (foreign fighters) will not prevail. God does not allow the takfiri to prevail.”
In the predominantly Christian region, Islamist fighters have threatened to attack churches and the Christians themselves. In response, the residents are taking up arms. “If Hezbollah did not exist, it would have been necessary to create it,” said Albert Mansour, a former government minister who is a resident of Ras Baalbek. “The party’s existence makes the people – including Sunnis, Shiites and Christians of the region – feel safe in the face of this strange formation,” referring to the presence of the Sunni jihadist fighters. According to Esperance Ghanem, however, such attacks would give the militants “both field and moral gains. The field aspect is related to how close these villages are to the international road connecting Beirut to Damascus,”Ghanem said.
Called the Al-Sham, or Damascus road, Ghanem said it is of strategic importance to supply lines to Syria and is a “vital crossing connecting the northern Bekaa to central and western Bekaa, where some Christian villages are located.”
Threatening supply route
Middle East expert Jean Aziz said the Damascus-to-Beirut road would cut the supply route between Hezbollah and the Syrian army and also represent a serious threat to the Syrian capital of Damascus itself. “The accomplishment of this would be highly dangerous for Hezbollah and thus cannot be taken lightly,” Aziz said.
Ghanem said it also connects the southern Bekaa region around Arkoub near the Syrian town of Beit Jinn, which remains under the control of the militants and an entry point from which the militants could try to get through to Arkoub. “This goal cannot be achieved unless the militants invest in the moral gains they are aiming to accomplish in the even that their plan in Ras Baalbek had worked and they had succeeded in displacing its residents as well as the residents of other regions by spreading fear across the Christian villages of the central and western Bekaa, guaranteeing there would be no resistance,”Ghanem said. To date, the Lebanese army has thwarted the plan by blunting their push into Tallet al-Hamra, even though the militants are expected to continue their probing attacks.
Nevertheless, Aziz said the Israeli-Syrian border area constitutes a natural geographical extension to the southwest of the Lebanese-Israeli border area. “Any gains by Sunni militant groups opposed to Hezbollah in this area would become a new front for Hezbollah in south Lebanon,”Aziz said. “It would also constitute something of a siege, as Hezbollah would be stuck between Israeli forces on the southern border of Lebanon and armed groups to the east along the border with Syria,” he said. “For Hezbollah, such a scenario would be unacceptable and impossible to endure” since, as Aziz said, “reports alleging cooperation between Israel and Jabhat al-Nusra makes this especially troubling for the organization.”
Aziz was referring to a third area where Lebanon becomes vulnerable, namely in the south opposite the Syrian Golan Heights. He said that area in the three-border area of Lebanon, Syria and Israel is symbolic for Hezbollah and Iran, where Israel on Jan. 18 fired on and killed a group of Hezbollah and Iranian personnel in the Syrian Golan, which has become an area of concern to Hezbollah and Iran. The Hezbollah member leading the group was Jihad Imad Mughniyah, the 25-year-old son of Imad Mughniyah, who was the senior Hezbollah military commander assassinated by Israel and, as reports now reveal, the Central Intelligence Agency on Feb. 12, 2008.
In addition to Jihad Mughniyah, there were five other Hezbollah personnel and Iranian Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, whom sources say was the depty for Syrian operations to Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Israel claims they were planning an attack on the northern part of the country. However, other sources tell WND that the Israelis knew the Hezbollah/Iranian group was planning an attack on Nusra fighters who occupy the area. In turn, this led to the charge that Israel is working with Nusra. “Some Israeli media outlets have further revealed direct cooperation between the militants and the Israeli army,”Aziz said, “and other media outlets have reported about the lack of animosity between the Israeli state and Jabhat al-Nusra, which represents al-Qaida in Syria, as well as Israeli reports about direct contacts with the Syrian opposition and mutual reassurances.”
Nusra’s positioning in the Syrian Golan is not only seen as threatening Hezbollah’s presence at that strategic location to ward off any southern invasion of Lebanon from the jihadists. But it is a strategic location for the Iranian-proxy group against Israel to its north.
Christianity is under fire. Christian leaders are starting to recognize the signs of states trying to squelch the faith. After all, it’s happened before. Nero burned Rome, blamed it on the Christians. Communist governments have labeled Christian faith “the opiate of the masses.” Muslims have been warring against the faithful for 1,400 years. Muslims, specifically, will kill you if you convert from Islam to Christianity (or anything else, for that matter.) If you grew up in a Christian home and convert to Islam, your parents more likely take the outrageous step of praying for you. The one historical fact that those who are going to war against Christianity don’t seem to remember is that when The Church is attacked the Body of Christ grows by leaps and bounds. There were Christians in Nero’s household.
The Rising Tide of Secularism
Governments, and even governments in the West have been marginalizing The Church for decades. They’ve been doing it actively in Europe since the end of WWII. Christianity is in worse shape today in Europe than it ever was in the Soviet Union or in Mao’s China. The one holdout against the rising tide of secularism has been the United States. We’ve routinely elected Presidents who proudly proclaimed their faith in Jesus Christ. Not so long ago, President Jimmy Carter taught Sunday School at their church in Washington DC on most Sundays of his Presidency.
Secularism has been making a frontal attack on faith in recent years with the hand of government replacing the hand of God in many people’s lives. Our current President was elected to increase the role of government in our society so people wouldn’t have to be dependent on a loving God.
The Obama’s attended church in Chicago, but what we’ve learned about the teachings of Jeremiah Wright would call into question the faithfulness of that congregation. Mr. Obama was never held accountable for his attendance there, nor would anyone ask him what he thought of Rev. Wright’s sermons which typically railed against America rather than pointing to a loving God.
A Frontal Attack on The Church in the US.
Last week, we saw the first real frontal assault on Christian faith, and the faithful, by a Government official in the United States. Barack Obama, our President, stood before the National Prayer Breakfast and said this.
“Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”
First of all, the Crusades took place about 1,000 years ago. The President also failed to mention that the Crusades were in response to Muslim aggression and had it not been for the Crusades, it’s very likely that militant Islam would have swept over the European continent. The President also failed to mention that the biggest threat to world peace today is Muslim terrorism.
We have to remember that this is the same President who launched his first term in office with a world apology tour.
Christian Leaders Recognize the Attack.
For the first time in history, Christian leaders are publicly recognizing the attack on the faith by a secular leader. Franklin Graham is standing in the forefront of the call to believers. First by recognizing the attack.
Today at the National Prayer Breakfast, the President implied that what ISIS is doing is equivalent to what happened over 1000 years ago during the Crusades and the Inquisition. Mr. President–Many people in history have used the name of Jesus Christ to accomplish evil things for their own desires. But Jesus taught peace, love and forgiveness. He came to give His life for the sins of mankind, not to take life. Mohammad on the contrary was a warrior and killed many innocent people. True followers of Christ emulate Christ—true followers of Mohammed emulate Mohammed.
Rev. Graham set himself apart from those who follow Mohammed, a pedophile “prophet,” with these words.
Today some of our leaders, including President Obama, have gathered to pray at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. I urge you to set aside time today to pray for our country also. My prayer is this: Lord, no problem is too great for You. This world is full of hatred and sin, but You are loving and holy. You sent your Son, Jesus Christ, so that we might be saved through Him. We repent and call on your name. We ask you to heal our land and bring this nation back to You.
We want to thank Franklin Graham for his wisdom and courage to talk about what is happening in the highest offices of the nation today. We also want to thank him for his faithfulness to God and to His followers, knowing that prayer must be the answer to attacks like this.
Even Secular People Can See.
Charles Krauthammer is not a Christian, at least that we know of. He is a political commentator. The interesting thing about President Obama’s remarks is that they are causing the scales to fall from the eyes of even secular commentators.
We think that the President’s outspoken stand against the Christian faith, and his apologetics and enabling of Muslim terrorism, could well be the first steps to seeing a turn away from the secular and a turn back to faith in the US.
Let’s hope so. Let’s pray it is so.
SEE VIDEO MENTIONED BELOW:
About the Author: Michael Becker
Michael Becker is a long time activist and a businessman. He’s been involved in the pro-life movement since 1976 and has been counseling addicts and ministering to prison inmates since 1980. Becker is a Curmudgeon. He has decades of experience as an operations executive in turnaround situations and in mortgage banking. He blogs regularly at The Right Curmudgeon, The Minority Report, Wizbang, Unified Patriots and Joe for America. He lives in Phoenix and is almost always armed.
The Islamic State, despite being driven by Kurdish fighters from its one-time Syrian stronghold in Kobani last week, nevertheless is extending its reach well beyond Iraq and Syria, military officials and analysts warn — represented, by some estimates, in nearly a dozen countries.
Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, delivered a grim assessment earlier this week in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, as he described how the group was surfacing in North Africa. “With affiliates in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, the group is beginning to assemble a growing international footprint that includes ungoverned and under governed areas,” Stewart said. ISIS continues to hold a wide swath of territory, bigger than the state of Pennsylvania, in its home base spanning parts of Iraq and Syria, propped up by more than 20,000 foreign fighters from at least three dozen countries. But the terror network’s tentacles, as Stewart indicated, are creeping into other nations; largely those with fragile governments.
“ISIS, like Al Qaeda, has thrived in the failed states where there is a vacuum of power,” said James Phillips, Middle East senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation. A key worry is the group’s potential ambitions in Afghanistan, where the U.S. combat mission just ended and Afghan security forces are in control. Defense secretary nominee Ashton Carter, who had his confirmation hearing Wednesday, told Congress he is aware of reports that ISIS may try to expand into Afghanistan, and vowed to work with coalition partners to stop the group. He said he would consider changing plans for withdrawing the remaining 10,600 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016 if security conditions further deteriorate.
The Islamic State’s ambitions do not stop at Afghanistan, the so-called Graveyard of Empires. Militant groups in Pakistan, the Philippines, Israel and the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Indonesia and Jordan, among other areas, reportedly have pledged formal support for ISIS. New York Magazine, in a recent report, wrote, “Think of them as ISIS’s self-appointed foreign bases.”
It’s impossible to know precisely how many members are involved in these groups, but analysts say the biggest groups generally are still affiliated with Al Qaeda, while others are starting to stand with ISIS – and execute attacks.
An ISIS-tied group in Egypt, for instance, claimed responsibility for a series of coordinated attacks on Jan. 30 that killed at least two dozen security officers in restive Sinai.
The Caliphate Soldiers Group in Algeria, which pledged loyalty to ISIS in September, kidnapped and beheaded a French tourist the same month. Terrorists posted a video of the beheading, saying it was in response to French airstrikes in Iraq. Algerian Special Forces killed the terror leader late last year, which analysts say dealt a morale blow to the small group.
In Libya, the Islamic State’s Tripoli Province took credit for a hotel attack on Feb. 1 which killed nine people, including an American.
Published reports tie other groups to ISIS including The Jundallah militant group and the Tehreek-e-Khilafat groups in Pakistan; the Philippines’ Abu Sayyaf group; Sinai Province in Egypt; Lebanon’s The Free Sunnis of Baalbek Brigade; Indonesia’s Jama’ah Ansharut Tauhid; and Sons of the Call for Tawhid and Jihad in Jordan.
The Heritage Foundation’s Phillips said it’s not just groups like these that have declared loyalty. “There are an unknown number of self-radicalized militants in many different countries that may self-identify with ISIS and carry out ‘lone wolf’ terrorist attacks in its name, without necessarily being members of the group,” he said. He cited the hostage crisis in Sydney, Australia, last December as an example.
ISIS continues to get pounded by coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, where Kurdish forces recently took back the vital city of Kobani.Those strikes are likely to increase following the brutal execution of a captured Jordanian pilot (though the coalition is down a member, with the United Arab Emirates having suspended airstrikes after the pilot’s capture in December.) Phillips said the purpose of the group’s grisly propaganda videos – including of the Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage — is to change the subject, from recent setbacks in Kobani as well as some areas in Iraq, through “jihadist pornography.” He said the point is to show the group as an “invincible army,” psychologically attractive to European teenagers who might join the fight.
Raymond Stock, a Shillman-Ginsburg writing fellow at the Middle East Forum, argued the message carries more weight with Muslims worldwide than most realize. He told Fox News the propaganda videos are “so well-produced and so well-targeted — extremely effective. We have nothing counteracting that.”
Stock, who spent 20 years living in Egypt, sees the group’s ambitions as limitless and argues it is a mistake to believe the Islamic State is an organization seeking to control limited territory. He also suggested Al Qaeda and ISIS are not necessarily direct competitors. He cited an Arabic proverb, which he translates as: “Me and my brother against my cousin; me and my cousin against the outsider.”
In Wednesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing for defense secretary, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pressed Carter on the need to have a strategy against ISIS. “I believe I understand our strategy at this time,”Carter explained. “I also have the intention, again if confirmed, to make it my first priority to go there, to talk to our military leaders there, to confer with you … I think a strategy connects ends and means, and our ends with respect to ISIL needs to be its lasting defeat.” McCain retorted: “Well, it doesn’t sound like a strategy to me, but maybe we can flesh out your goals.”
A manifesto for women published by the Islamic State (IS) group has criticized Western attitudes to women, saying that this so-called “Western model” has failed, that a woman’s place is in the home, and that Western women’s fashions, like earrings, are the work of the devil.
The manifesto, titled Women of the Islamic State, was shared on the Internet on January 23 by the IS group’s all-women unit, the Al-Khanssa Brigade. An English version of the manifesto was shared on February 5 by the Britain-based antiextremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation. It focuses on women’s daily lives and the role of women in an Islamic society and in the “caliphate” (the name given by the IS group to the areas under its control).
The overarching message of the manifesto is that women should be “sedentary” while men are characterized by “movement and flux.” […] Earrings and hair “shaved in some places and not others” are the Devil’s work. The Islamic State’s manifesto on women also covers the important issue of women’s fashion which, unsurprisingly, it condemns as the work of “Iblis” or the devil. The manifesto conflates jewelry such as earrings with plastic surgery, claiming that the devil encourages vulnerable women to “spend huge amounts of money to change God’s creation” including via surgery to alter “the nose, ear, chin and nails.”
The devil, according to the manifesto, preys on women in “fashion shops and beauty salons,” encouraging them to have “things dangling from ears” and “hair shaved in some places and not others.”
WASHINGTON – Before it even begins, the U.S. training and equipping of Syrian opposition forces to fight the Sunni army ISIS appears to have become more difficult with the decision by a U.S.-backed Syrian rebel group to join an Islamist coalition closely associated with ISIS and the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra Front. The Hazzm Movement, associated with the Free Syrian Army, is a secular Syrian insurgent group backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. It was one of the last of the non-jihadist opposition groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in northern Syria. Its leadership has decided to join the Islamist coalition of the Levant Front fighting around the key Syrian city of Aleppo, according to Arab news sources, including NOW Lebanon.
The turn of events comes even though Hazzm was viewed by one former Defense Department intelligence officer as a “model candidate for greater U.S. and allied support, including lethal military assistance.” The Hazzm Movement decided to switch sides after months of battling Nusra fighters and join the Levant Front, which was formed in late December. It reportedly is on good terms with Nusra.
The development further complicates the process of selecting fighters for training. Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby told WND in January some 5,000 members of the Free Syrian Army would receive training in Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia – all Sunni countries – to battle the Sunni group ISIS. At the time, Kirby said the training could begin in spring, but he noted the process of identifying and then undertaking training by U.S. Special Forces of “moderate” Syrian rebels to fight ISIS was still being worked out.
“I think if we continue to make the progress that we’re making now, that we believe that we could start conducting some training of moderate opposition by early spring,”Kirby said. “What I can tell you is that we continue to coordinate and plan joint efforts for training and equipping for moderate Syrian opposition forces” even though “no training has started yet,”he said.
Kirby pointed out that Maj. Gen. Michael Nagata, commander of U.S. special operations forces in the Middle East, still was talking to officials of the three countries regarding how to implement the training program. Each training period is expected to be four to six months, with trainees to number about 5,000 over the course of a year.
While Kirby made it clear that the training of Syrian opposition forces will be aimed at engaging ISIS fighters, Rami Dalati, a member of the FSA Military Command’s Higher Council, called on Washington to amend the military plan and allow the FSA to target not just ISIS but also Assad military forces. “This is something we insisted on,”Dalati said. Like the Hazzm group, however, FSA fighters have been known to defect to Nusra and ISIS despite Western backing. The reason given is to protect themselves from being killed by the more radical fighting groups that welcomed the defection.
“We ask our brothers in all other factions to resolve their disagreements with the movement through the leadership of the Levant Front,” a spokesman for the front said.
The Levant Front has the strong backing of Turkey, a member of the Western North Atlantic Treaty Organization. To date, Ankara, which has allowed Islamist fighters to move through its country to join Nusra and ISIS to fight Assad, worked with Nusra to recruit the Hazzm Movement fighters, according to informed Middle East sources. The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out that the Hazzm group remains in a CIA training program. A request by WND to the CIA for comment went unanswered.
Meanwhile, the U.N.’s World Food Program is investigating photos circulating on social media that indicate ISIS is distributing its food, the Associated Press reported.
‘Effective military force’
The Hazzm Movement, with ties to the FSA, represents a number of moderate rebel groups battling the Syrian military and, at one time, ISIS, in northern Syria. According to informed sources, the group has been seen operating U.S.-manufactured TOW anti-tank missiles which it received from Saudi Arabia with U.S. approval.
Jeffrey White of the Washington Institute and a former senior defense intelligence officer said the Hazzm Movement is a merger of some 22 separate rebel units.Last year, White said Hazzm has “very little Islamist content,” according to its founding documents and Internet postings.
“In general, the movement appears more interested in warfighting against the (Assad) regime than the infighting that has long plagued the political and military opposition.” He said the group was well organized militarily and “appears to be a model for the type of group the United States and its allies can support with meaningful, lethal military assistance.” Saying that it “appears effective as a military force,”White said the Hazzm Movement has an inventory of heavy weapons and combat experienced fighters. “Harakat Hazzm has many qualities that make it a good candidate for such assistance,” White said.
“It appears secular in orientation, is well organized from a military perspective, has a significant inventory of heavy weapons, operates across an important area of Syria and has an established combat record in fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime,”he said. “In short, the group seems to provide at least a partial answer to longstanding questions about which rebel groups Washington should arm.”
U.S. Marines fight the Taliban in Afghanistan / AP
Argue about the limits of free speech, the definition of “true” Islam, whether terrorists are lunatics or rational, or the social and political repercussions of terrorism as much as you’d like. The truth is that such debates are irrelevant to the core security problem: There is a growing and energetic movement of radical Muslims dedicated to killing as many people as they can and imposing their will on the rest.
And there is really only one way America can respond to this challenge. We need to kill them first. We need to kill them on a field of battle whose contours are determined not by the terrorists but by us. We need to kill them over there—in the Middle East—before they reach the West.
I realize that for at least the next two years what I propose is wishful thinking. American policy has reverted to a defensive condition in which Islamic terrorists set the terms of conflict. We have been here before. Until 2001, the United States treated Islamic terrorism as a matter of law enforcement. When our embassies were raided or bombed, when our barracks were destroyed, when our soldiers and sailors were murdered, when our World Trade Center was attacked, when our destroyer was damaged, we treated the assailants as members of an Arabic-speaking mafia, as criminals to be apprehended, tried, and punished.
Didn’t work. The jihad grew. It even found a base in Afghanistan, where it could equip and train and plot. In 2001, in a single fall morning, the World Trade Center was destroyed, the Pentagon bludgeoned, and more than 3,000 innocent people were killed.
America rethought its approach to terrorism. No longer were the terrorists considered felons. They were now unlawful combatants. Surveillance, interrogation, and detention policies became more aggressive. We invaded Afghanistan, we toppled the Taliban, and we sent al Qaeda leadership into hiding.
When America invaded Iraq in 2003, al Qaeda and its followers—joining forces with Saddam’s former commanders and marginalized Sunni tribes—designated the Tigris-Euphrates plain the main battleground of the global jihad. Aspiring jihadists, enemies of the West, traveled to Iraq where they encountered, and were killed by, heavily armed and expertly trained U.S. pilots, soldiers, and Marines.
The point of the war on terrorism was not merely to “decimate” the “core of al Qaeda.”The objective was also, in the course of a long struggle, to delegitimize the Qaeda movement and deter its fellow travelers by revealing Islamism as an evolutionary dead end. The unstated message of the strategy was this: If you choose jihad against the West, you will spend your life in Guantanamo or you will die.
Look what happened. By May 2008, plagiarist and emceeFareed Zakaria could report: “If you set aside” the war in Iraq, “terrorism has in fact gone way down over the past five years.” And soon one did not have to “set aside” Iraq. When the change in strategy and surge of troops Bush ordered in 2007 began to take effect, violence in Iraq went “way down” too.
With the election of President Obama, however, the conflict between Islamism and America entered a third phase. Our troops were removed from the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving Special Forces and drone pilots to do most of the fighting. The defense budget was cut. Harsh interrogation was curtailed, and Guantanamo Bay slowly emptied. Surveillance practices were disrupted. The words “Islamic terrorism” would not be uttered, for that somehow legitimized extremists. As for the terrorists themselves, they were once again treated like criminals.
What has resulted is a dramatic uptick in Islamic radicalism. In January 2014 the RAND Corporation found that“the number of Salafi-jihadist groups and fighters increased after 2010, as well as the number of attacks perpetrated by Al Qaeda and its affiliates.”Attacks including the Ft. Hood massacre; the assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi; the Boston Marathon bombing whose victims included an 8-year-old boy; and the public beheading of British Fusilier Lee Rigby.
The absence of American troops in Iraq created an opportunity for ISIS, the Islamic army born of the Syrian civil war. Last summer, from its base in Raqqa, Syria, ISIS invaded Iraq. It captured and imposed sharia law on Mosul, a city of more than a million people, beheaded journalists, and threatened Baghdad, the Kurds, and minority sects with extermination.
ISIS “controls more land and has more weapons than any other jihadist organization in history,” according to experts at the American Enterprise Institute. ISIS is said to possess “more than $2 billion in assets” and command an “estimated 40,000 fighters.” ISIS is expert at “propaganda by the deed”: the spectacular use of public violence to provoke fear in your enemies and loyalty in your friends. There is even an ISIS gift shop. A global movement cowering in fear does not sell tchotchkes.
Nor is ISIS the only jihadist group on the offensive. Yemen has collapsed into a civil war between Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Iranian-backed Houthi militants. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb operates freely in Libya and Algeria and Mali. Boko Haram slaughtered thousands while expanding its holdings in Nigeria. Al-Shabaab runs central and southern Somalia. Hamas kills Jews from its Gaza satrapy. The Taliban is ready for its comeback in Afghanistan. This swelling of radical Islam—in territory, in resources, in adherents, in scalps—extends to Muslim communities around the world, and to disturbed and alienated men and women hungry to join a winning fight.
The central front of the war on terror is no longer Iraq. It is not Afghanistan. It is the West, and all lands associated with the West. So the radicals strike Israel, they kill in Sydney, they gun down cartoonists and Jews in Paris, they plan to strike the U.S. Capitol with pipe bombs and rifles.
Such a pattern of destruction ought to force a reevaluation of American strategy. But that has not happened. Instead our response to jihadism has been confusing, contradictory, insipid, self-destructive, and inane.
Guantanamo inmates are released to Oman, which borders Yemen, on the same day an American jihadist is arrested for plotting an attack on the nation’s Capitol. The State Department says it’s okay for Iran—a radical theocracy that is the largest sponsor of terrorism in the world, that sows upheaval from Lebanon to Syria to Iraq to Bahrain to Yemen, that originated the idea of assassinating Western authors who blaspheme Mohammed—to build additional nuclear plants.
The means by which the president reluctantly has attempted to take the fight to the terrorists are not succeeding. Micromanagement by White House officials of the air campaign against ISIS has resulted in a stalemate. American advisers to Iraq say it will take a minimum of three years to prepare the Iraqi army to roll back the Caliphate. Meanwhile our soldiers are subjected to mortar rounds launched from ISIS positions. So passive-aggressive is the president’s war on ISIS that Iraqis are beginning to suggest that “ISIS is a U.S. creation.” One Iraqi told the Wall Street Journal: “The international coalition against ISIS is a comedy act. America can destroy ISIS in one day only, but it does not do it.”
What about Yemen, which President Obama has held up as a model of intervention? Michael Crowley of Politico reports, “Since mid-September, the U.S. has conducted just three drone strikes in Yemen, down from 19 last year, according to data compiled by the New America Foundation. And that was a fraction of the 2012 peak of 56 drone and air strikes.”Yemen and Syria are the key nodes of a global network of financing, training, and planning for jihadist operations.The United States has allowed this network to persist, indeed to grow in complexity and reach.
Above all, America must cease pretending that Muslim rage is something the United States can ignore and avoid or is powerless against or cannot fight over there. We must fight it over there, or be resigned to terrorist attacks over here. Again and again and again.
Multiple Iraqi and Kurdish media sources have claimed that some Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Mosul, Iraq, have contracted the deadly Ebola virus, Mashable reports.
The Iraqi outlets reportedly claimed that Ebola had started to spread in a Mosul hospital. The city, known as ISIS’s most important strategic stronghold in Iraq, has been under the control of the Islamic State since June.
Christy Feig, the World Health Organization (WHO) director of communications, told Mashable, “We have no official notification from the Iraqi government that it is Ebola.” She said that WHO had reached out to authorities and asked if they needed help investigating the matter.
Kurdish media network Xendan reported that ISIS jihadists’ symptoms were similar to those shown by someone who has contracted Ebola. However, it is highly uncertain whether Mosul health authorities have the means, tools, or skill-set necessary to test for Ebola, given the current hostile environment in the area.
In late December, the Islamic State reportedly executed doctors who refused to treat their militant jihadis. The Washington Post said of the ongoing situation in Mosul, “Services are collapsing, prices are soaring, and medicines are scarce in towns and cities across the ‘caliphate’ proclaimed in Iraq and Syria by ISIS.”
Iraq’s pro-government Al Sabaah (The Morning) daily newspaper reported that Ebola made its way into Mosul through Africa-based Islamist “terrorists” who then linked up with ISIS. Mashable notes, however, that the majority of ISIS recruits in Africa have come from countries that have not reported any Ebola cases, such as Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Libya, and others.
Meanwhile, Mosul’s liberation remains a strategic priority for Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition. Mosul has been described as ISIS’s de facto capital in Iraq. While under ISIS control, many of the city’s one million residents have lived under fear of severe punishment or execution should they not comply with the jihadists’ mandates.
Juergen Todenhoefer’s journey was a tough one: dangerous, but also eye-opening. The author traveled deep into ISIS territory — the area they now call their “caliphate” — visiting Raqqa and Deir Ezzor in Syria, as well as Mosul in Iraq.
Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, was taken by ISIS in a Blitzkrieg-like sweep in June.
Todenhoefer managed to visit the Mosque there where the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi, gave his only ever public address.
And he saw the realities of daily life under ISIS, with all shops having to close for prayers in the middle of the day.
“There is an awful sense of normalcy in Mosul,”Todenhoefer said in an exclusive interview with CNN.
“130,000 Christians have been evicted from the city, the Shia have fled, many people have been murdered and yet the city is functioning and people actually like the stability that the Islamic State has brought them.”
Nonetheless, he also says there is an air of fear among residents: “Of course many of the them are quite scared, because the punishment for breaking the Islamic State’s strict rules is very severe.”
According to ISIS’s leadership, the group’s fighters managed to take Mosul with only about 300 men, even though more than 20,000 Iraqi army soldiers were stationed there when the attack was launched.
Todenhoefer spoke with several ISIS fighters who took part in the operation.
“It took us about four days to take Mosul,” a young fighter told him.
“So you were only about 300 men and you defeated 20 000 troops in four days?”Todenhoefer asked.
“Well, we didn’t attack them all at once, we hit their front lines hard, also using suicide attacks. Then the others fled very quickly,” the fighter explained. “We fight for Allah, they fight for money and other things that they do not really believe in.”
Glow in their eyes
Todenhoefer told CNN the enthusiasm the ISIS militants showed was one thing that stood out.
“When we stayed at their recruitment house, there were 50 new fighters who came every day,”Todenhoefer said. “And I just could not believe the glow in their eyes. They felt like they were coming to a promised land, like they were fighting for the right thing.’
“These are not stupid people. One of the people we met had just finished his law degree, he had great job offers, but he turned them down to go and fight … We met fighters from Europe and the United States. One of them was from New Jersey. Can you imagine a man from New Jersey traveling to fight for the Islamic State?”
He went on to say that one of ISIS’s main points of strength is their fighters’ willingness — even their will — to die on the battlefield.
Todenhoefer met one somewhat overweight recruit in a “safe house” who said he wears a suicide belt to every battle because he is too chubby to run away if he is cornered and would choose to blow himself up, rather than be captured.
ISIS also has a track record of abusing, torturing and executing prisoners of war. Todenhoefer was briefly able to speak to a Kurdish captive while in Mosul. The captive claimed he had not been tortured, but Todenhoefer said he found that hard to believe.
“This was a broken man,”Todenhoefer said. “It was very sad to see a person in this state. He was just very weak and very afraid of his captors.”
Todenhoefer conducted the interview with the prisoner while several ISIS fighters stood guard. He asked the man whether he knew what would happen to him.
“I do not know,” the captive told him. “My family does not even know I am still alive. I hope that maybe there will be some sort of prisoner exchange.”
Child ISIS fighters
Todenhoefer was also taken to see child soldiers outfitted with Islamic State gear and brandishing AK-47s. One of the boys seemed very young but claimed he had already gone to battle for ISIS.
“How old are you?” Todenhoefer asked.
“I am 13 years old,” the boy replied — though he looked even younger than that.
One of the most remarkable episodes of Todenhoefer’s trip to the ISIS-controlled region came when he was able to conduct an interview with a German fighter who spoke on behalf of ISIS’s leadership.
The man — clearly unapologetic about the group’s transgressions — vowed there was more to come; he also issued a warning to Europe and the United States.
“So you also want to come to Europe?”Todenhoefer asked him.
“No, we will conquer Europe one day,”the man said. “It is not a question of if we will conquer Europe, just a matter of when that will happen. But it is certain … For us, there is no such thing as borders. There are only front lines.’
“Our expansion will be perpetual … And the Europeans need to know that when we come, it will not be in a nice way. It will be with our weapons. And those who do not convert to Islam or pay the Islamic tax will be killed.”
Todenhoefer asked the fighter about their treatment of other religions, especially Shia Muslims.
“What about the 150 million Shia, what if they refuse to convert?”Todenhoefer asked.
“150 million, 200 million or 500 million, it does not matter to us,”the fighter answered. “We will kill them all.”
Beheadings
The interview became testy when they reached the topic of beheadings and enslavement, especially of female captives.
“So do you seriously think that beheadings and enslavement actually signal progress for humanity?” Todenhoefer asked.
“Slavery absolutely signals progress,”the man said. “Only ignorant people believe that there is no slavery among the Christians and the Jews. Of course there are woman who are forced into prostitution under the worst circumstances.’
“I would say that slavery is a great help to us and we will continue to have slavery and beheadings, it is part of our religion … many slaves have converted to Islam and have then been freed.”
The ISIS spokesman blamed the beheading of captured Western journalists and aid workers on the policies of the United States.
“People should really think about the case of James Foley,”he said. “He did not get killed because we started the battle. He got killed because of the ignorance of his government that did not give him any help.”
Even with recent gains by Kurdish forces against ISIS in Northern Iraq, Todenhoefer sees the extremist group as entrenched, building state institutions, and that it shows no sign of losing its grip in the main areas it controls in Iraq and Syria.
“I think the Islamic State is a lot more dangerous than Western leaders realize,”he said. “They believe in what they are fighting for and are preparing the largest religious cleansing campaign the world has ever seen.”
“Pundits and news agencies have reported and questioned the validity that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, is beheading children in its conquests of Syria and Iraq. But there is one fact that can’t be contested: that the Sunni-dominated al-Qaida splinter group is on a war rampage using some of the most heinous and barbaric means to exterminate anyone who opposes them, particularly Christians,”he wrote.
He cited:
In July, CNN reported various Iraqi village residents described horrific attacks by ISIS fighters, who “seize local men and pillage homes and places of worships,”according to Human Rights Watch directors in Iraq.
CNN also reported ISIS killed 40 Shiite Turkmen, “including children,”in four communities in Kirkuk, Iraq, last month.
ISIS slaughtered 270 Syrians, including national guard members, security guards and employees in the al Shaer gas field in Syria.
According to the human rights team at the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, a minimum of at least 757 civilians were killed and 599 injured in Nineveh and Salah al-Din provinces, north of Baghdad, and Diyala, in the east, between June 5 and 22. At least an additional 318 people were killed and 590 wounded during the same 17 days in Baghdad and areas in the south.
Some 500 Yazidi community members in Sinjar and the surrounding area were executed by ISIS, according to U.N. special advisers on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng, and on the responsibility to protect, Jennifer Welsh;
The U.N. special advisers also reported that some 1,500 Yazidi, Christian and Shabak women and girls were abducted by ISIS.
CNN reported: “At least 2,400 Iraqis died in violence in June, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq. Of those, the United Nations said more than 1,500 were civilians, including 270 civilian police officers, and almost 900 were members of Iraqi security forces.”
U.N. News Centre reported ISIS “has broadcast more than a dozen videos showing beheadings and shootings of hors combat soldiers and police officers, as well as apparent targeting of people based on their religion or ethnicity, including Shia and minority groups such as Turcomans, Shabak, Christians and Yazidis.”
“And what are we to make of ISIS’ summary crucifixions?”he wondered.
Now, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, ISIS has published a penal code, with penalties drawn from the Quran, for offenses such as “blasphemy, adultery, sodomy, spying, slander, theft and apostasy.”MEMRi’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor says exile is the penalty for the offense of terrorizing people. A document detailing the ISIS penal code was released Dec. 15 on the Jihadi Media Platform forum, alplatformmedia.com. The document, which was titled “Clarification [regarding] the Hudud [Quranic punishments],”included a list of crimes and their respective punishment according to Islamic law, or Shariah. The report said ISIS published the document as a warning and a reminder to the people living under its rule. ISIS also reaffirmed its commitment to enforce it vigilantly.
“The document begins with various Quranic verses emphasizing the need for Muslims to adhere to the Shariah, while noting that those who do not follow it are considered unbelievers,”MEMRI said.
Blasphemy against Allah, Muhammad or Islam is punished with death. For adultery? Stoning “until death in case the adulterer was married and 100 lashes and exile if he or she were unmarried.”
Others:
Sodomy (homosexuality): Death for the person committing the act, as well as for the one receiving it.
Theft: Cutting off the hand
Drinking alcohol: 80 lashes
Slandering: 80 lashes
Spying for the unbelievers: Death
Apostasy: Death
Murder and stealing: Death by crucifixion
Murder only: Death
Stealing (as part of banditry): Cutting off the right hand and the left leg
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported one man was stoned after ISIS found cell phone videos “purporting to show the man ‘practicing indecent acts with males.’” And another man was executed “without any proof.”
Noted Norris in his commentary: “CNN reported in May that of seven public crucifixions in Raqqa, two adults were left on display. But Abu Ibrahim, a member of a recently formed anti-ISIS activist group in Raqqa, said that ‘the remaining five victims were children under the age of 18, one of them a seventh-grade student.’”
He said it’s just what the Quran demands: “Verse 33 of the fifth book of the Quran says: ‘Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.’”
Battle allegedly occurred near base where U.S. troops are stationed. Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons
A news agency attached to the Shafaq Foundation for Culture and Media of Faili Kurds reports U.S. ground troops engaged in a battle with IS fighters. The battle allegedly occurred near the Ain al-Asad base in western Ramadi, Iraq. According to sources, the U.S. soldiers were equipped with light and medium weapons and supported by F-18 aircraft. The report states the U.S. troops were “able to inflict casualties against fighters of ISIS organization, and forced them to retreat from the al-Dolab area, which lies 10 kilometers from Ain al-Assad base.”
“NO BOOTS ON THE GROUND”
“OBAMA DISARMAMENT”
US troops have entered with its Iraqi partner, according to Colonel, Salam Nazim in line against ISIS elements and clashed with them for more than two hours, to succeed in removing them from al-Dolab area, and causing losses in their ranks, at a time American fighter jets directed several strikes focused on ISIS gatherings that silenced their heavy sources of fire. He points out that the clashes took place between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. on Sunday night.
In November 180 U.S. military advisors arrived at the base.
“The U.S. military advisors will help in training Iraqi combat forces to fight ISIS on the ground while the US-led coalition is supporting them by providing aerial cover. They will also help in setting the plan to liberate the province of Al-Anbar as they work closely with the Iraqi security forces,”Iraqi News reported on November 10.
On December 11 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a measure authorizing the use of military force against the Islamic State but barred the use of ground troops.
“Ex-CIA Director Morrell says terrorist attack in U.S. “guaranteed””
Former CIA Director Mike Morrell said terrorists will attack the U.S. “sometime over the next year or so, guaranteed.” Morrell was commenting on the current Sydney, Australia, hostage situation on CBS Monday when he claimed jihadist militants will likely carry out a similar operation in the U.S.
“What concerns me the most is we’re going see this kind of terrorism around the world and we’re going to see it here,”he stated. “We need to be prepared for that.”
“You know, it shouldn’t surprise people when this happens here sometime over the next year or so, guaranteed.”
The hostage situation in Australia wasn’t surprising, Morrell said, because 300 Australians left the country to fight in Iraq and Syria, including 70 who are fighting for ISIS.
“ISIS has had a focus on Australia for sometime,”he added. “Just a couple of months ago the Australians did a countrywide raid arresting a number of people after a senior ISIS leader called for individuals in Australia to behead Australians in public for ISIS, so there is this focus on Australia.”
No doubt the federal government will use the Sydney hostage situation, and ISIS in general, to justify a greater expansion of the police state which creeps into every aspect of Americans’ lives. This is a centuries-old government strategy called “problem – reaction – solution” in which the government manufactures a crisis or takes advantage of an existing one to scare the public into demanding a “solution” which was the government’s objective all along, before the crisis even started.
“Most of us unwittingly fall victim to it all too often and sadly if we don’t stop, we will continue to lose our free will and liberties,”journalist General Maddox wrote. “It has been widely used by our governments and corporations around the world.”
“You could say that in terms of controlling the masses, and society in general, its deployment has been an effective tool in keeping humanity in check.”
And it’s also worth wondering what else Morrell knows which he isn’t revealing.
Following the eruption of violence in Ferguson, Missouri, some apparent supporters of Middle East Islamists added their voice to the debate, accusing the U.S. of being a “fake” democracy, likening the U.S. to a terrorist group, and calling for Shariah law to be implemented in the U.S.
It all came as a result of the no indictment of police officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Journalist Jenan Moussa with the Dubai-based Al Aan television first reported Tuesday morning that supporters of the Islamic State group and others were actively commenting on the Ferguson developments using Arabic hashtags which translate to “America burning” and “America collapsing.”
The vast majority posted their thoughts in Arabic, but some posted in English.
One Twitter user took the opportunity to criticize the U.S. military’s use of drones in pursuit of terrorism suspects.
The same user also called for the flag of Allah to be raised at the White House:
This photo montage was added to the Twitter conversation accompanied by the Arabic headline “America collapsing.”
Reporter Moussa’s tweet about the existence of the Arabic hashtags on the Ferguson strife also elicited responses, including these:
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Mon, July 13, 2015
Sadiq el-Husseini “The organization booby trapped the baby in front of dozens of armed ISIS men and then detonated it from afar,” Sadiq el-Husseini said. The rigging of the baby and its detonation was a training exercise of ISIS to teach its people booby-trapping techniques.
Move over, chess club, French club, and all your other useless western organizations. Make room for a club that pays homage to the great work being done by … Islamofacists?
Jeff Dunetz is editor and publisher of the The Lid, and a weekly political columnist for the Jewish Star and TruthRevolt. He has also contributed to Breitbart.com, HotAir, and PJ Media’s Tattler.
![isis-islamic-state-300x204[1]](https://whatdidyousay.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/isis-islamic-state-300x2041.jpg)
It’s been some 1,400 years since Islam entered the world’s culture. And from its inception, it has maintained a suffocating menu of choices to mankind…none of which concern free will OR peace. 
WASHINGTON – Some 3,000 Sunni jihadist fighters have gathered in the Syrian Qalamoun mountains bordering eastern Lebanon, 
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