ARLINGTON, VA - JULY 6: (AFP OUT) U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks after meeting with members of his national security team concerning ISIS at the Pentagon July 6, 2015 in Arlington, Virginia. From left, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, Commander of U.S. Africa Command Gen. David Rodriguez, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. Obama announced the U.S. military is making progress against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. (Photo by Drew Angerer - Pool/Getty Images)
Maybe because of all the noise we’ve heard from the Republican presidential candidates lately, that President Obama is “doing nothing about ISIS” and “Obama has no plan” for ISIS, that caused the President to hold this brief press conference, reminding Americans and the world of all the successes the US led coalition against ISIS is having.
Surrounded by some of his top generals, the President outlined a few of the things his administration and coalition forces have done, including the nearly 9,000 bombs dropped on ISIS targets as of December 14th, and the taking out of ISIS leaders, “one by one.”
The President stressed the point that “ISIL cannot hide,” saying that “our message to their leaders is, ‘you’re next.'”
The face of ISIS, the man seen on video beheading three U.S citizens, was the target of a successful U.S airstrike. His fate is still unclear.
Mohammed Emwazi has participated in numerous propaganda videos showing the killings of Westerners, including American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, American aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, officials said.
A senior U.S. official told NBC News that the Kuwait-born British citizen was directly “targeted” by the strike in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria, on Thursday night.
“There is no vengeance, but there is accountability,” said the official, who stressed that “we are still assessing and not confirming” whether Emwazi had been killed.
A senior U.S. counter-terrorism official also told NBC News early Friday that there was “no definitive proof yet that he was killed.”
Another win for America. Another win for the president many Republicans say is “soft on terrorism.”
Islamic State senior commander, Abu Sayyaf, was killed and his wife captured in Syria during a raid by U.S. Special Forces, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said.
The operation in eastern Syria was authorized by President Barack Obama, according to a statement from Carter. He said Abu Sayyaf helped direct Islamic State’s oil, gas and financial operations and that his wife, Umm Sayyaf, was suspected of involvement in the militant group’s activities.
The raid comes after Obama’s meeting at the presidential retreat at Camp David with leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which has expressed concerns about the president’s policies in Syria and Iraq.
“The operation represents another significant blow to ISIL, and it is a reminder that the United States will never waver in denying safe haven to terrorists who threaten our citizens, and those of our friends and allies,” Carter said, using an alternative term for Islamic State.
Abu Sayyaf was killed when he engaged U.S. forces, none of whom were killed or injured, according to the statements from Carter and Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the White House’s National Security Council. Umm Sayyaf is being held by the U.S. military in Iraq, Meehan said.
The car never made it to the intended target. It is believed that as the car made its way to a group of unsuspecting potential victims, it drove over an IED, causing a massive explosion sending the car airborne. And if that didn’t kill the ISIS bomber, the bombs in the car caused a second massive explosion high in the air.
The video was produced by Kurdish Peshmerga forces who are on a mission to document failed attacks by Islamic State militants as part of a concerted anti-extremism media campaign.
And just when you thought you saw the dept of the savagery from the ISIS monsters with their beheadings and burning live bodies in cages, they manage to go even lower. A 9-year-old girl is reportedly pregnant after being raped by ISIS savages in Iraq.
“The abuse she has suffered left her mentally and physically traumatized,” said Yousif Daoud, a Canadian-based aid worker who recently returned from the region. “This girl is so young she could die if she delivers a baby. Even cesarean section is dangerous.”
At least 10 different men with the Islamic State were said to have sexually assaulted the child, the Toronto Star reported.
“Most of them were front-line fighters or a bombers who are given girls as a reward,” Daoud explained. “She was in very bad shape.”
The young girl was one of over 200 Yazidi women and children to be released this week after spending eight months captive in the hands of the extremists, according to the Canadian newspaper.
Iraqi and Kurdish forces have reclaimed more than 25 percent of ISIS-held territory inside Iraq, according to a U.S. assessment that also determined that Kurdish fighters are responsible for the majority of the territory retaken from ISIS in northern Iraq, ABC reports.
“We assess ISIL’s front lines have been pushed back in northern and central Iraq,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said at a Pentagon briefing today, referring to the militant group also known as ISIS. “ISIL no longer has complete freedom of movement in roughly 25 percent of populated areas of Iraqi territory where they once operated freely.”
The recaptured areas represent an area between 4,100 and 5,200 square miles or 11,000 and 13,500 square kilometers, Warren said. At its peak, ISIS was in control of 55,000 square kilometers in northern and western Iraq, Pentagon officials said.
“ISIL lost large areas where it was once dominant in the governance of Babil, Diyala, Nineveh, Salahadin and Kirkuk,” Warren said.
The gruesomeness of this so called Islamic group fell to an even more unbelievable level, when a video was released showing their latest murder – the execution of the Jordanian pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh.
Although there were ongoing talks and negotiations between ISIS and the Jordanian government surrounding the release of the pilot, ISIS went ahead killed the pilot in their most gruesome video yet.
Dressed in the customary orange outfit now recognized by ISIS prisoners, Mauth al-Kaseasbeh is seen in a cage with ISIS members looking on. A trail of accelerate is lit by an ISIS member and the flame eventually makes its way to the cage where the pilot is burned to death. The video was posted on YouTube but has since been taken down.
The Jordanian government has verified the authenticity of the video and vows retaliation. “The military forces announce that the hero pilot, Muath al-Kaseasbeh, has fallen as a matryr, and ask God to accept him with the martyrs,” Jordanian armed forces spokesman Mamdouh al-Ameri said in a statement. “While the military forces mourn the martyr, they emphasize his blood will not be shed in vain. Our punishment and revenge will be as huge as the loss of the Jordanians.”
And President Obama also responded to the cowardly act.”Should this be authentic, it’s just one more indication of the viciousness and barbarity of this organization,” he told reporters. “It will redouble the vigilance and determination on the part of our global coalition to make sure they are degraded and ultimately defeated.”
President Obama also said “that whatever ideology they’re operating off of is bankrupt. This organization appears only interested in death and destruction.”
The pilot was captured by ISIS back in late December.
Despite the tremendous negotiations from the Japanese government to free the second man captured by ISIS, a video surfaced on Saturday purportedly showing the beheading of the man, a Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.
“I feel indignation over this immoral and heinous act of terrorism,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters after convening an emergency Cabinet meeting.
“When I think of the grief of his family, I am left speechless,” he said. “The government has been doing its utmost in responding to win his release, and we are filled with deep regret.”
He vowed that Japan will not give in to terrorism and will continue to provide humanitarian aid to countries fighting the Islamic State extremists.
The White House released a statement in which President Barack Obama also condemned “the heinous murder” and praised Goto’s reporting, saying he “courageously sought to convey the plight of the Syrian people to the outside world.”
Obama applauded Japan’s “steadfast commitment to advancing peace and prosperity in the Middle East and globally, including its generous assistance for innocent people affected by the conflicts in the region.”
Ain’t nobody does scary like the Republicans. Even Democrats, who’ve been scaring the elderly for years saying that the GOP would cut their Medicare, can’t hold a candle to the right wing fright machine once it gets enough cheap American gasoline inside it. This week was a banner week for scary, and it’s going to grease the midterm slide so completely, that the Democrats won’t need Joe Biden around anyhow.
Never mind that Ebola is devastating West Africa and wreaking havoc on international travel and national psyches. It’s now a political issue and a subject for conspriacy theories. Some are comparing the government’s response to the outbreak to GW Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina, though the scale is, at this point, much smaller. And of course the anti-government crowd is blaming the government, the CDC and local administrations for fumbling the response. There is an element of truth in this. Potential carriers should not have flown on commercial airlines, nor should hospitals be unprepared for possible outbreaks.
Now, here comes the fear. If it’s not Ebola, it’s ISIS and the scary possibility that our borders are so porous that diseases and Islamic terrorists are pouring into the American southwest. With the economy growing slowly and the stock market sagging, it’s more evidence to many that the Democrats do not deserve to keep their majority and since most of the Senate races are in red states, well, the writing’s on the wall. I have been saying that the Democrats will hold their majority in November, but that will now depend almost solely on turnout.
So make sure you get out and vote. And don’t be afraid.
The two Australian girls who fled their homes back in April to join the terrorist group ISIS, are now saying they want out of the barbaric lifestyle led by the terrorist group.
Samra Kesinovic, 17, and Sabina Selimovic, 15 are now both pregnant and believed to be married, and according to Central European News (CEN), the girls have had a change of heart.
The change of heart is a much different tune than the note they left behind for their parents when they fled back in April, which read: “Don’t look for us. We will serve Allah — and we will die for him.”
Kesinovic and Selimovic grew up in Vienna, where they became accustomed to talking to whomever they wanted, saying whatever they pleased and wearing whatever clothes they liked. They did not have to live a life being controlled by people telling them what they can and cannot do.
But Kesinovic and Selimovic decided to leave all that behind and shack up with the same people they’ve now grown to hate.
For weeks, social media accounts believed to belong to the girls have been posting pictures and information leading many to feel they enjoyed living a life of terror.
Authorities in Austria say this was all an elaborate plan set up by ISIS in order to get people to think the two wanted to be the poster girls for jihad in Syria.
Now Austrian media are reporting that Kesinovic and Selimovic have said enough is enough and want to return to their families, according to CEN.
They have contacted their loved ones and told them they are sick of living with the Islamic State jihadis, but they also said they don’t feel they can flee from their unwanted new life because too many people now associate them with ISIS.
“The main problem is about people coming back to Austria,” said Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck. “Once they leave, it is almost impossible.”
The Vice President spoke to the leader of the Turkish people on Saturday and apologized for comments he made on Thursday, the White House said.
In a speech on Thursday, the Vice President of the United States said that the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has conceded that Turkey mistakenly helped foreign fighters trying to unseat the Syrian government, foreign fighters like ISIS. Needless to say, the statement did not go over well with the Turks, prompting President Erdogan to say that Biden would become “history to me.”
According to the White House, the Vice President apologized “for any implication” that Turkey or other allies had intentionally supplied or helped in the growth of the Islamic State group or other extremists groups in Syria.
Republicans want nothing to do with the war against the terrorist group ISIS, and they are doing everything possible to avoid the issue all together, even suggesting that the next Congress handle the vote.
Republicans in Congress are standing on the sidelines, but observing from the sidelines does not stop them from pointing and dictating how things should go.
House Speaker John Boehner says the U.S. may have “no choice” but to send ground forces into Syria to battle the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“At the end of the day, I think it’s gonna take more than airstrikes to drive them outta there,” the Ohio Republican said in an interview airing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” according to a transcript. “At some point somebody’s boots have to be on the ground.”
Asked if the U.S. should supply those ground forces if no other country would, Boehner said: “We have no choice. These are barbarians. They intend to kill us. And if we don’t destroy them first, we’re gonna pay the price.”
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