United States Advisers Stay Out of Combat but See ISIS Fight Edging Closer; Multiple Reports that ISIS Fighters Have Ebola (+video)
Photo Credit: Musadeq Sadeq
The militants, positioned at a nearby town, have repeatedly hit the base with artillery and rocket fire in recent weeks. Since the middle of December, the U.S.-led military coalition has launched 13 airstrikes around the facility.
U.S. troops have suffered no casualties in the attacks. But the violence has underlined the risks to American personnel as they fan out across Iraq as part of the expanding U.S. mission against the Islamic State, even as President Obama has pledged that U.S. operations “will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.” (Read more on what the United States advisers said HERE)
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US Veteran Says Fighting in Syria was Just as Easy as Buying a Ticket to Miami
By Catherine Herridge. All it took was a plane ticket, and an informal background check over Facebook. Then he was ushered to the front lines in Syria, fighting against the Islamic State.
In a rare, exclusive interview with Fox News, a U.S. military veteran with multiple tours in Iraq detailed his journey to Syria to fight against ISIS, on the condition his identity was protected.
The veteran, who asked to be identified as “John,” described a surprisingly simple process that took him from America to the dangerous Syrian civil war – and not as part of the U.S. military.
“I just went online and bought a ticket. It was that easy. It was like booking a flight to Miami Beach,” said “John.”
Then he found a Kurdish group known as the YPG. (Read more from this story HERE)
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Reports: ISIS Fighters Have Ebola
By Jordan Schachtel. 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. (Read more from this story HERE)
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