Iran President Calls Coalition Airstrikes Illegal Without Syria Approval
Photo Credit: Behrouz Mehri / AFP / GettyBy Associated Press.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday the U.S.-led coalition’s airstrikes in Syria are illegal because they were not approved or coordinated with Syria’s government.
Meeting Tuesday with several news editors on the first day of the United Nations General Assembly gathering of world leaders, Rouhani stressed that Iran condemns the Islamic State group for trampling on human rights and torturing and killing civilians. He said Iran stands ready to help fight terrorism.
Rouhani said the U.S. policy is confused because it simultaneously opposes the militants while also trying to undermine the government of Syria’s President Bashar Assad.
“This is clearly nebulous and ambiguous at best,” he said. “This is a very confusing behavior and policy.”
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ISIS posts second video purportedly showing British hostage
By Fox News.
Islamic State militants have posted a second video online purportedly showing captured British photojournalist James Cantlie, who states that the U.S. and Western nations have underestimated “the strength and fighting zeal” of the group.
In the 6-minute video, a man in an orange jumpsuit who identifies himself as Cantlie says he was abandoned by his government and is a “long-term prisoner of the Islamic State.”
The man quotes a post on a website by former CIA officer Michael Scheuer, who said that Obama does not have a solid plan to defeat ISIS.
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Al Qaeda-linked target of strikes in Syria obsessed with next 9/11
By Benjamin Hall.
The U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Syria put a spotlight on the shady terrorist group known as Khorasan, a small but potent Al Qaeda offshoot whose sole objective is pulling off another 9/11 terror attack.
The 50 or so fighters hardened from battle in Afghanistan and Pakistan were dispatched to Syria by Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri not to topple Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad or help the Islamic State establish a caliphate, but to recruit foreign fighters and send them home to kill. With thousands of fighters from Europe and the U.S. drawn to Syria’s bloody civil war, Khorasan’s recruiters have a surplus of passport-ready jihadists to choose from.
“Their focus is recruiting those that hold Western passports so they can attack Western airliners,” said Ryan Mauro, national security analyst and adjunct professor of homeland security at the Clarion Project. “Since Al Qaeda is looking like a bunch of has-beens, an attack on Western airliners would be a way of restoring their credibility.
“It’s the jihadist equivalent of an old rock band launching a comeback tour,” he added.
The group takes its name from a Middle Eastern region that jihadists believe will be host to a final war that brings about the appearance of the Mahdi, the messianic “End Times” figure of Islam,” according to Mauro.
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