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Hacktivist Group Confronts ISIS (+video)

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By Michael Hasuam. The underground activist group “Anonymous” posted a video on multiple websites on Thursday as a direct response to the Muslim terror attacks in Paris.

Calling it #OpCharlieHebdo, after the name of the satirical French magazine that was the focus of the attacks, they also published a statement summarizing the points made in the video as well.

(Read more on the Hacktivist group confronting ISIS HERE)

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Martin Dempsey: ISIS Will ‘Collapse Under It’s Own Contradictions’

By Greg Richter. While the United States is committed to defeating the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) and other terrorist groups, General Martin Dempsy, current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said eventually ISIS will collapse on its own.

In a pre-taped interview that aired on “Fox News Sunday,” Dempsey said he has long maintained that a group that embraces radical ideology has to maintain momentum to succeed.

The United States has destroyed a lot of their equipment and reversed some of their territorial gains and has had an impact on their leadership and command and control, Dempsey said, but added, “What will eventually cause the defeat of ISIL is that it will collapse under its own contradictions, frankly. When the populations in which it tries to maneuver realize that that ideology is not to their future benefit.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Iraq is Giving US Weapons to Iranian Militias

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By Joel Himelfarb. U.S. weapons intended for Iraq’s embattled military are winding up in the hands of Shiite militias backed by Iran, Bloomberg reports.

Obama administration officials and U.S. lawmakers say the Baghdad government, which received $1.2 billion in training and equipment assistance in the omnibus spending bill passed by Congress last month, has been turning military hardware over to the militias.

A senior administration official told Bloomberg’s Josh Rogin and Eli Lake that the U.S. government is aware of this but is caught in a dilemma. Iraqi security forces are unable to fight ISIS without the assistance of the militias, who are sometimes commanded by officers of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

But if Washington were to stop arming the Iraqi military, the situation would get even worse, with ISIS overrunning even more of Iraq and committing atrocities on an even larger scale. The official said the risk of failing to help the Baghdad government was greater than the risk of doing so. (Read more about Iraq giving US weapons to Iranian militias HERE)

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U.S. Military Back to Training in Iraq, but it’s a Little Different this Time

By Loveday Morris. Years after the U.S. military tried to create a new army in Iraq — at a cost of over $25 billion — American trainers have returned to help rebuild the country’s fighting force.

But this time, things are different.

With the Iraqis dependent on their own logistics, there is a shortage of weapons and ammunition available for training. For the time being, soldiers at Camp Taji are restricted to shouting “bang bang” to simulate firing during exercises. And, mindful of how Iraqi troops fled their positions last June during a major offensive by Islamic State extremists, U.S. trainers have added some new elements to boot camp. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Congress Poised to Expand Obama’s Authority to Fight ISIS

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Photo Credit: International Business Times By Sean Lengell. New Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said he expects Congress will “get the ball rolling” on legislation this month to give the White House expanded authority to conduct military operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants.

“It’s got to be sooner rather than later,” the Arizona Republican told reporters Tuesday.

In December, the then-Democratic controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved along partisan lines a measure to give President Obama more leeway in using the military to fight foreign terrorists. The bill, which barred the use of ground forces, died after it failed to receive a vote in the full Senate.

But with Republicans now controlling both houses of Congress, McCain said the matter is a vital national security priority. The measure will be primarily handled by the foreign relations committee with input from the armed services panel, he said.

McCain said he is “begging” the Obama administration to produce a draft of the bill, known as an Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, but that the Senate is ready to act regardless. (Read more about the possible expansion to fight ISIS HERE)

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Chief Executioner for ISIS Found Beheaded

By Gianluca Mezzofiore. In a grotesque twist of the saying “live by the sword, die by the sword”, an Islamic State executioner in Syria who carried out beheadings for the jihadist group has been found with his head cut off.

The body of the Egyptian man, known to be the deputy emir of the feared al-Hesbah (or Hisbah) force in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, was recovered near a power plant in al-Mayadeen city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The corpse showed signs of torture and carried the message “This is evil, you Sheikh” written on it. The severed head also had a cigarette in its mouth. It is unclear who carried out the decapitation but the message was obvious. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Inept ISIS Attacking US Troops “Almost Daily”

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Photo Credit: CNS News By NBC News. Senior defense officials confirmed Monday that the al-Assad airbase in Iraq, where U.S. military are training Iraqi security forces, has been pounded almost daily by mortar attacks from ISIS militants, but claimed the attacks have been “completely ineffective.”

Col. Steve Warren described the routine barrage of mortars aimed at al-Assad as “nuisance attacks.” He said “no U.S. personnel or U.S. equipment” have come under direct fire at the base.

There are currently 320 Marines located at al-Assad airbase north of Baghdad to train, advise and assist Iraqi security forces. The Marines are also training some 200 Sunni tribesman who have joined the fight against ISIS. The total number of American military on the ground is expected to reach 3,000, as authorized by President Obama, by early spring. (Read more about the attacks from ISIS HERE)

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ISIS Mounts ‘Regular’ Attacks Against Anbar Airbase Where US Troops are Based

By Patrick Goodenough. American troops training Iraqi recruits at a key airbase in Anbar province face “regular” but “completely ineffective” gunfire from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters, according to the Pentagon.

They don’t shoot back, spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said Monday.

Since last month some 320 U.S. troops have been training and advising Iraqi soldiers at the Ein al-Asad airbase about 100 miles north-west of Baghdad. Mostly U.S. Marines, they include advisors, support personnel and a security contingent. (Read more from this story HERE)

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200 Churches Destroyed in 2 Months By Boko Haram; ISIS Threatens to Destroy 2700 Year Old Niniveh Walls

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Photo Credit: Irish CentralBy WND. There was a surge of anti-Christian violence by Muslims around the world that included the destruction of nearly 200 Christian churches in Nigeria during a short period around October, according to a new report from the GateStone Institute. . .

“In just two months, from August to October, nearly 200 Christian churches were destroyed in Nigeria by the Islamic organization Boko Haram and its Muslim allies, after their capture of towns and villages in the northeastern states of Borno and Adamawa,” the report said. “In the words of Rev. Gideon Obasogie, the director of Catholic Social Communication of Maiduguri Diocese in Borno State, ‘the group’s seizure of territory in both states has seen 185 churches torched and over 190,000 people displaced by [Boko Haram.]”

Ibrahim noted that, “Also in October, the Center for the Studies of Global Christianity in the United States concluded that, ‘About 100,000 Christians die every year because of their religious beliefs, that is to say one every five minutes. In addition, in many countries, many other religious minorities suffer violence and persecution. In countries such as Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sudan, Pakistan, Somalia and Egypt the Christian elderly, women, men and their children live in conditions of total insecurity. They are driven from their homes; put in prison for blasphemy, and brutally killed during liturgical celebrations, churches are burned. Girls are kidnapped and forced to marry.” (Read about the churches destroyed by Boko Haram HERE)

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ISIS Sets Sights on 2,700 Year Old Ancient Nineveh Walls in Iraq

By Mary Chastain. Unnamed sources said the Islamic State leaders told members to set booby traps along the walls. If the Iraqi army attempts to liberate the area, the militants must “complete the bombing of the historic walls.” The walls are attributed to King Sennacherib, who rebuilt the city during his reign beginning in 704 B.C., and consist of a seven and a half mile barrier around the city—presumably to protect it from attack when it served as the capital of ancient Assyria. Nineveh was so important and Sennacherib’s contributions so great that some archaeologists have gone as far as to attribute to him the construction and maintenance of the ancient Hanging Gardens, long believed to be in Babylon.

The Islamic State moved to the Nineveh Plain in early August, “the last stronghold of Assyrians in Iraq.” Over 200,000 Assyrians fled to the Dohuk and Arbel areas.

When militants captured Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in June, they proceeded to destroy shrines and tombs important to Christians and Muslims because they allegedly “distort Islam” and encourage “worship of others besides God.” They destroyed a shrine to Jonah, the biblical prophet, and Yunus in the Koran. The shrine was built in the eighth century BC. Worshippers believe that the prophet Jonah, most famous for surviving being swallowed by a whale in the Biblical legend, is buried there. Saddam Hussein renovated the shrine, and it remained a popular site for pilgrims. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Braindead Canadian ISIS Follower Tweets Location of Safe Houses

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Photo Credit: WNDBy Oliver Lane. The terrorist, who changed his name to the more appropriate-sounding ‘Abu Abdul-Rahman’ uploaded a series of tweets during his travels across the Islamic State, updating his twitter following on his progress with ISIS. The Daily Mail reports a Canadian jihad-monitoring group recorded 45 of these tweets containing geo-location data and passed the information on to intelligence agencies.

Describing the blunder, Canadian monitoring group IBRABO said: “It’s a rookie social media mistake and one that intelligence and law enforcement agencies pray for when tracking criminals. This week one of New Zealand’s well known jihadists, Mark Taylor removed 45 tweets after he discovered that he was broadcasting his twitter location to every intelligence agency… Unfortunately for him we captured all of them prior to him removing the tweets”.

“Taylor isn’t the first jihadist to broadcast his whereabouts via social media and in fact looking at the battlefield in Syria we see fighters from Canada, France, and other western countries making the same mistake”. (Read more on the ISIS follower tweets HERE)

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Peshmerga Desperate for US Arms in Battle Against ISIS

By Hollie McKay. Under a gloomy late November sky that dumped cold rain on their frontline fighting position overlooking Mosul Dam, some 16 Peshmerga fighters mustered around a small hut – the only visible means of protection from enemy fire – while others hovered around a small campfire for warmth.

Just hours earlier, the road leading into the Kurdish army’s base was hit by artillery from Islamic State – or “Daesh” as it is known in the Middle East, forcing some closures. But the fighters were calm and collected – sharing jokes and cigarettes ahead of another long and cold night protecting their cherished land in the northern part of this embattled land. . .

Much of the Kurdish population now view the United States of America as their only dependable ally in the ongoing war against the terrorist organization – and their desperation to be supplied with American equipment and weapons remains the eclipsing message.

“The airstrikes are good, but we need weapons,” stressed the official, dismissing the notion that U.S. ground troops are the ultimate answer. “We already have military on the ground, but we’re fighting an enemy that has acquired all the sophisticated U.S. weapons that went to the Iraqis and now ISIS has them. This isn’t a balanced fight.” (Read more from this story HERE)

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Children in ISIS Describe Atrocious Beheading Lessons

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Photo Credit: AFPBy Joel Himelfarb. Jomah, a 17-year-old child soldier who joined the Islamic State (ISIS) last year, sat in a circle of fellow trainees to learn lessons about the proper way to behead captive enemy soldiers – lessons taught to children as young as 8.

Then, the Wall Street Journal reported, his teachers brought in three terrified Syrian soldiers who were forced to their knees.

“It was like learning to chop an onion,” Jomah said. “You grab him by the forehead and then slowly slice across the neck.”

After the lesson, the teachers ordered the children to pass around the severed heads. Jomah, who later defected to Turkey along with his family, said that by that time, he had become “desensitized” to the horror, partly as a result of the beheading videos he had already been shown.

Hundreds of Syrian boys have been “enrolled” in those Syrian camps during the country’s civil war, now almost four years old. Jomah was one of a handful of these boys recently interviewed in Turkey by the Journal about their experiences as child jihadists. (Read more about the stories of the children in ISIS HERE)

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Parenting Guide Released by ISIS

By Frances Martel. The guide, discovered and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), instructs jihadist mothers to start young, lest the child grow older and less susceptible to a full commitment to the Islamic State. The guide specifically calls for teaching children the importance of waging jihad “while they are babies” because anything older than infancy “may be too late,” as the Daily Mail reports: “Don’t wait until they are seven to start, for it may be too late by then!” The Mail highlights specifically that the guide tells mothers, “Don’t underestimate the lasting effect of what those little ears and eyes take in during the first few years of life!”. . .

The guide does impose one restriction on mothers: children should be clear on “who their target is” when allowed near real guns, and they should be taught with toy guns not to shoot anyone friendly to the cause. (Read more from this story HERE)

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United States Advisers Stay Out of Combat but See ISIS Fight Edging Closer; Multiple Reports that ISIS Fighters Have Ebola (+video)

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Photo Credit: Musadeq Sadeq

Photo Credit: Musadeq Sadeq

By Missy Ryan and Erin Cunningham. In Iraq’s western Anbar province, more than 300 U.S. troops are posted at a base in the thick of a pitched battle between Iraqi forces, backed by tribal fighters, and well-armed Islamic State militants.

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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ISIS is Setting Sites on Israel (+video)

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Photo Credit: ISIS video

Photo Credit: ISIS video

By WND. A new video issued by ISIS contradicts the oft-repeated claim that the Islamic movement now controlling large portions of Iraq and Syria has no interest in the Palestinian jihad against Israel.

ISIS, which now calls itself the Islamic State after declaring the creation of a new caliphate, vows in the video: “Allah willing, we will continue to fight against the Israelis and their allies.”

Islam researcher Robert Spencer, editor of Jihad Watch, notes, for example, Jay Michaelson claimed in the Jewish Daily Forward that “the Islamic State is a Salafist jihadist/fundamentalist movement that regards Hamas as impure and the Israel/Palestinian conflict as largely irrelevant.” (Read more on how ISIS is setting sites on Israel HERE)

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Islamic State Releases Interview with Captured Jordan Pilot

By Newsmax. The hardline Islamic State group has released what it said was an interview with a Jordanian pilot captured last week after his plane crashed during U.S.-led coalition bombing in eastern Syria.

It was not possible to independently verify the interview published in the group’s English-language online magazine Dabiq in which First Lieutenant Muath al Kasaesbeh was quoted as saying his F-16 fighter was “struck by a heat seeking missile”.

“I heard and felt its hit. The other Jordanian pilot in the mission contacted me from a participating jet and told me that I was struck and that fire was coming out of the rear nozzle of my engine,” Kasaesbeh said.

He made brief comments about life at his base, sharing meals with hundreds of U.S. personnel.

“The Americans sometimes have dinner with us and eat mansaf (a traditional Arab dish) which they like alot. Their talk does not include details about operations because of matters of secrecy and security.” (Read more from this story HERE)
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ISIS Complains About Media Treatment of Australian Hostage-Taker

By Patrick Goodenough. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on Monday praised the man responsible for a 17-hour siege at a café in Sydney, Australia this month, saying he had “added his name to the list of Muslims who answered the Khilafah’s [caliphate’s] call to strike those waging war against the Islamic State wherever they may be.”

In the latest edition of its propaganda publication Dabiq, ISIS lashed out at media for highlighting the fact that at the time of the “daring raid,” the hostage-taker, Man Haron Monis, was awaiting trial on several criminal charges.

It said any past transgressions had been wiped away by his act of martyrdom. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Suicide Bomber Attack Near Funeral, ISIS Believed to be Involved

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

By Associated Press. BAGHDAD – A government official says the death toll in a suicide bombing at a funeral north of Baghdad is now 15.

An Interior Ministry spokesman says the bomber blew himself up inside a funeral tent in a farming area outside the mainly Sunni town of Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad. He said another 26 mourners were wounded in the attack. (Read more about the suicide bomber attack HERE)

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Nearly 200 Fighters Executed by ISIS For Trying to Return Home

By Ben Tufft. Isis has executed at least 120 of its own militants in the past three months, the majority of whom were foreign fighters trying to return home, according to a Syrian monitoring group.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the brutal militant group killed the jihadists – most of whom were foreign fighters – for trying to flee the territory adding that the true number could be even higher.

Rami Abdurrahman, the director of the group, told The Independent: “We can confirm that 120 fighters have been killed by Isis, but from our sources on the ground we believe that over 200 have actually been killed.”

Of the 120 militants confirmed executed for “exceeding the limits in religion”, 116 are believed to be foreign fighters who wanted to return home. (Read more from this story HERE)
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Taliban Claims America ‘Defeated’ in Afghanistan

By Geoffrey Norman. Reuters is reporting that:

Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan on Monday declared the “defeat” of the U.S. and its allies in the 13-year-old war, a day after the coalition officially marked the end of its combat mission.

Meanwhile, as the AP reports:

Thousands of Afghans are pouring into makeshift camps in the capital where they face a harsh winter as the Taliban return to areas once cleared by foreign forces, who this week are marking the end of their combat mission. (Read more from this story HERE)