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White House: We Aren't Going to Get Into What The "Legal, Academic Definition of War" With ISIS May Be

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Photo Credit: TownHallOver the past few weeks, but more specifically since President Obama spoke to the country Wednesday evening about how he will “degrade and destroy” ISIS, Americans are asking one question: Are we at war with these people?

Up until now, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have said the answer is no. Today White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said while the United States isn’t at war with ISIS, the United States is at war with the terror army in the same way we’re at war with al Qaeda.

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CIA: ISIS Ranks Swell to 31,500…(+video)

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Photo Credit: ISIS propaganda videoISIS Can ‘Muster’ Between 20,000 and 31,500 Fighters, CIA Says

By Jim Sciutto, Jamie Crawford and Chelsea J. Carter.

A CIA assessment puts the number of ISIS fighters at possibly more than three times the previous estimates.

The terror group that calls itself the Islamic State “can muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria,” a CIA spokesman told CNN on Thursday.

Analysts and U.S. officials initially estimated there were as many as 10,000 fighters, including those who were freed from prisons by ISIS, and Sunni loyalists who have joined the fight as the group advanced across Iraq.

“This new total reflects an increase in members because of stronger recruitment since June following battlefield successes and the declaration of a caliphate, greater battlefield activity and additional intelligence,” the spokesman said.

The news came a day after President Barack Obama laid out his plan to “dismantle and ultimately destroy” ISIS, including authorizing airstrikes.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo: UncreditedAn imminent beheading?

By Bill Gertz.

Counterterrorism officials are concerned that the Islamic State will behead a British hostage next week, noting consistencies in the terrorist group’s decapitations of two American journalists.

Analysts say the video releases of the beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff took place two weeks apart and both were made public on a Tuesday evening.

If the timing was calculated, officials are concerned that the Islamic State will similarly murder British hostage David Haines on Tuesday.

Mr. Haines, a worker for a French non-governmental organization, was shown at the end of the Sotloff video dressed in an orange jumpsuit. The terrorist who spoke on the video said Mr. Haines would be the group’s next victim.

The videos of the Foley and Sotloff beheadings showed a masked, British-accented jihadist cutting off the American journalists’ heads, sparking global outrage and prompting calls for U.S. intervention against the Islamic State.

Read more from this story HERE.

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The Three Types of People Who Fight for ISIS: A breakdown of the most evil group on the planet

By Graeme Wood.

On February 2012, a young, beefy Egyptian named Islam Yaken took a shirtless selfie and posted it on a Facebook competitor called Vk.com. The picture wouldn’t have attracted much attention outside his circle of Cairo friends, were it not for the photos of himself he tweeted two years later. In that time, the Wahlberg wannabe with tidy, cropped hair had transmogrified into a bushy-haired hipster with heavy-rimmed glasses—who had gone to fight for ISIS. The jihadi accessories in his new photos included a Kalashnikov, a sword, and a bucket of Shia heads.

When Yaken’s pictures went viral a month ago, they provoked some confusion about how this well-educated, urban gym-rat could so rapidly embrace a group known for its austere, backward-looking form of desert Islam. The same confusion reigns over the transformation of Abdel Majed Abdel Bary, the former stoner who rapped in London under the name L Jinny and is now a suspect in the murder of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.1 There is, of course, an obvious continuity between the Yaken who yanked his undies just below the pube-line to give a full glimpse of his abs and the narcissistic poseur now in Syria, as well as a thread of miscreance that runs through the life of Abdel Bary. But not all ISIS fighters are the type to have traded protein shakes and doobies for scimitars and explosive belts.

By now we’re starting to see an emerging taxonomy of the motivations of ISIS supporters. And as the types emerge, they reveal hints of ISIS’s vulnerability, and where its rapid expansion can be used against it. Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer now with The Soufan Group, estimates a total roster of 10,00 to 15,000 ISIS fighters, of whom hundreds may be foreigners, with the remainder from indigenous populations and ex-Baathists.

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Pentagon Official: Obama’s ISIS Strategy Is Doomed To Fail

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Larry DowningAfter weeks of back and forth, on Wednesday night President Barack Obama outlined his strategy for “degrading” and “destroying” the Islamic State, and on the 13th anniversary of 9/11, Americans were able to finally wake up in a country that had a strategy for the most recent Islamist threat.

The problem is that the strategy — to provide logistical support for Iraqi forces, limited air strikes, and a strong Free Syrian Army — is a foolish strategy that is unlikely to succeed.

The president’s strategy calls for U.S. air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria in support of Iraqi army forces and the Free Syrian Army rebels who are fighting the Islamic State on the ground. Obama made it clear that the U.S. military commitment will be limited to air strikes, as he will not order U.S. ground forces into either Iraq or Syria.

Instead of ground forces, however, the president said that the United States will increase training and logistical support for those armies on the ground, but herein lies a critical flaw: The Iraqis have not proven to be a reliable partner in the war on terrorism. And this, despite ten years of U.S. military training and equipment provided by the United States.

In Iraq, the Islamic State has swept Iraqi forces in a number of recent engagements, with many Iraqi units simply abandoning their posts and refusing to fight. This problem is not one that can be solved through additional training. Even with the added power and confidence-boost of air strikes, a root issue is sectarianism. On a number of occasions, the Iraqi army failed to fight the Islamic State not simply because of bad officers and cowardice: Sunni units simply did not want to fight fellow Sunnis, even if they were extremists.

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Obama: ISIS 'Is Not Islamic'

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Photo Credit: WNDBy Chelsea Schilling.

In his prime-time speech to the nation on the eve of the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, President Obama vowed to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq and Syria with airstrikes and 475 U.S. boots on the ground – but he also made a particular point of declaring that the Islamic State terrorists “are not Islamic.”

“Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic,” Obama said, speaking from the state floor of the White House residence. “No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.”

He added, “And ISIL is certainly not a state. It was formerly al-Qaida’s affiliate in Iraq, and has taken advantage of sectarian strife and Syria’s civil war to gain territory on both sides of the Iraq-Syrian border. It is recognized by no government, nor the people it subjugates. ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.”

Obama said the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, poses a threat to Iraq, Syria and the broader Middle East – including American citizens, personnel and facilities.

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Digital jihad: ISIS, Al Qaeda seek a cyber caliphate to launch attacks on US

By Jamie Dettmer.

Jihadists in the Middle East are ramping up efforts to mount a massive cyber attack on the U.S., with leaders from both Islamic State and Al Qaeda – including a hacker who once broke into former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Gmail account – recruiting web savvy radicals, FoxNews.com has learned.

Islamic militants brag online that it is only a matter of time before they manage to pull off a highly disruptive attack on America’s infrastructure or financial system. In addition, Islamic State, the terror group that claims to have established a caliphate across Syria and Iraq, boast openly of plans to establish a “cyber caliphate,” protected by jihadist developed encryption software from behind which they hope to mount catastrophic hacking and virus attacks on America and the West.

“The jihadists are investing a lot in encryption technologies and they have developed their own software to protect their communications and when western agencies work out how to crack them they adapt quickly,” said Steve Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington-DC-based non-profit that tracks jihadist Internet activity. “They are forward-thinking and are experimenting with hacking. In the future, the jihadist cyber army’s activities will become a daily reality.”

The terror groups are trying to add to their numbers to boost their capabilities, using social media to reach a larger pool of potential recruits and calling on militant-minded specialists to join them. The targets are the websites of U.S. government agencies, banks, energy companies and transport systems.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Obama lays out plan to ‘eradicate cancer’ of Islamic State fighters

By Amie Parnes.

President Obama vowed to “destroy” Islamic State in Iraq and Syria terrorists in a prime-time address Wednesday that sought to restore eroding public confidence in his leadership and ability to safeguard national security.

The president announced a “systematic campaign of airstrikes” against fighters with the ISIS “wherever they exist,” signaling U.S. targets will expand from Iraq to Syria. [READ FULL TEXT OF OBAMA’S SPEECH.]

“I have made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country wherever they are,” Obama said during the 15-minute address from the White House. “That means I will not hesitate to take action against [ISIS] in Syria, as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.”

Obama also said he will send 475 additional U.S. armed services personnel to Iraq to reinforce that country’s military and ask Congress to approve a program allowing the Pentagon to train and equip moderate rebels inside Syria battling both ISIS and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.

“America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” Obama declared. “Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, [ISIS] through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.”

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Action against Islamic State is a ‘legacy issue’ for President Obama

By David Nakamura.

Nearly six years into a presidency devoted to ending U.S. wars in the Muslim world, President Obama faced the nation Wednesday night to explain why he has decided to engage in a new one.

Obama did not describe his authorization of direct military action to defeat the Islamic State terror group as a conventional war. To the contrary, in a prime-time address from the White House, he sharply contrasted his use of targeted but limited ­American force with the large-scale air-and-ground invasions launched by his predecessor, George W. Bush.

“This effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, casting the strategy as a “counterterrorism campaign” similar to U.S. intervention in Somalia and Yemen. “It is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible.”

But make no mistake: Obama’s escalation of airstrikes and the use of U.S. personnel to help “degrade and destroy” the extremist Sunni group represents a major setback for a commander in chief whose early international appeal was built on a pledge to remove the United States from “permanent war footing.”

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Homeland Insecurity: Americans Feel Less Safe than Any Time Since 9/11, Poll Finds

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Photo Credit: AP / Charles DharapakAmericans feel less safe now than any time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because of the rise of the Islamic State and its on-camera beheadings of journalists, revealed a new poll released Wednesday.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 47 percent of Americans say the country is less safe now than before the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

That’s more people feeling unsafe than even a year after al Qaeda crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, when just 20 percent felt that way. The fear level has spiked dramatically since just last year, when 28 percent of Americans said they didn’t feel safe.

The numbers underscore the challenges President Obama faced in his address to the nation Wednesday night about his strategy for confronting the terrorists.

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Obama to Congress: No Vote Needed on ISIS Strategy

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Photo Credit: APBy Kevin Liptak and Tom Cohen.

President Barack Obama told congressional leaders on Tuesday he has the authority to carry out his planned strategy against ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria without authorization from legislators, but he asked for their support to show the nation was united.

Obama “reiterated his belief that the nation is stronger and our efforts more effective when the President and Congress work together to combat a national security threat” like the Sunni jihadists who call themselves the Islamic State, a White House statement said.

“The President told the leaders that he would welcome action by the Congress that would aid the overall effort and demonstrate to the world that the United States is united in defeating the threat,” it added.

Earlier, two senior legislators — one from each party — told CNN’s Dana Bash that a congressional vote on military action against the jihadists was unlikely despite calls for one by many of their colleagues.

While some in Congress want to vote on the matter, taking up such a volatile issue as military action weeks before the November elections may be politically dangerous.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Obama reportedly willing to authorize airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, arm rebels

By Fox News.

President Obama reportedly is prepared to expand airstrikes against the Islamic State into Syria and broaden the campaign against the group in Iraq, according to published reports ahead of a prime-time address to the nation in which the president will be expected to lay out an expanded military and political strategy to confront the militants who seized large swathes of territory over the summer.

The New York Times, citing a senior administration official, reported that the president was willing to order airstrikes against the militants, also known as ISIS, inside Syrian territory. The Associated Press also reported that it was likely that Obama would order the expanded airstrikes, in apparent defiance of a warning from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government not to do so without their permission.

Obama had pushed for airstrikes against the Damascus government last year over the apparent use of chemical weapons by Assad’s forces, but opposition in Congress forced him to drop the idea.

Obama is also expected to seek authorization from Congress to arm more moderate elements of the Syrian opposition that has been fighting Assad in a bloody civil war since 2011. The president asked lawmakers earlier this year for a $500 million train-and-equip program, but the plan stalled on Capitol Hill. The U.S. already has been running a smaller CIA program to train the rebels, but Obama is seeking approval for a more overt military effort that could involve staging training locations in countries near Syria.

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Photo Credit: Tatan Syuflana, APSen. Feinstein: Confront ISIS now

By Dianne Feinstein.

In the ghastly video showing the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff, an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria terrorist declares to President Obama, “Our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.”

In the earlier video showing the beheading of James Foley, another U.S. journalist, the ISIS executioner says directly into the camera: “You’re no longer fighting an insurgency. We are an Islamic army.”

Another recent video, also directed at Americans: “We will drown all of you in blood.”

These are ISIS’ true colors. Unlike other terrorist groups, ISIS has grown into a sophisticated military force and is estimated to have between 10,000 and 20,000 fighters. The group now firmly controls large swaths of territory in both Syria and Iraq.

The threat ISIS poses cannot be overstated. This is the most vicious, well-funded and militant terrorist organization we have ever seen, and it is very quickly consolidating its power.

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White House Reportedly Planning Years-Long Campaign to Destroy ISIS

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsThe Obama administration is reportedly preparing a campaign to destroy the Islamic State militant group that could outlast the president’s remaining time in office, according to a published report.

The New York Times, citing U.S. officials, reported late Sunday that the White House plan involves three phases that some Pentagon officials believe will require at least three years of sustained effort.

The first phase, airstrikes against Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is already underway in Iraq, where U.S. aircraft have launched 143 attacks since August 8. The second phase involves an intensified effort to train, advise, and equip the Iraqi army, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, and any Sunni tribesmen willing to fight their ISIS co-religionists. The Times reports that this second phase will begin sometime after Iraq forms a new government, which could happen sometime this week.

The third, and most politically fraught phase of the campaign, according to The Times, would require airstrikes against ISIS inside Syria. Last month, the government of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus warned the Obama administration not to launch airstrikes against ISIS in Syria without its permission.

Obama was scheduled to outline his plan in a meeting Tuesday with House and Senate leaders before addressing the nation in a speech Wednesday, the eve of the 13th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. A senior Obama administration official told Fox News imminent, new military action in either Iraq or Syria was not expected to be announced in Wednesday’s speech. A senior White House official told Fox News that Obama’s primary aim will be to update the American public on what the strategy is to deal with the militant group, saying the administration wants “people to understand how he’s approaching this.”

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Obama Says His Comment About Extremists Being a JV Team "Wasn’t Specifically Referring To" Islamic State

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Photo Credit: APBy Steve Contorno, Politifact.

President Barack Obama granted an exclusive sit down to Meet the Press for new host Chuck Todd’s inaugural show.

As expected, Todd and Obama had a long discussion about the administration’s strategy for dealing with Islamic State, the terrorist group responsible for the beheading of two American journalists, with Obama stating “we’re going to defeat them.”

Todd then remarked that Obama’s response was a “long way from when you described them as a JV team.”

“Was that bad intelligence or your misjudgment?” Todd asked.

“Keep in mind I wasn’t specifically referring to (Islamic State),” Obama replied. “I’ve said that, regionally, there were a whole series of organizations that were focused primarily locally, weren’t focused on homeland, because I think a lot of us, when we think about terrorism, the model is Osama bin Laden and 9/11.”

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On ISIS, Ted Cruz Tells President Obama to ‘Take Them Out’

By JEFF ZELENY and ARLETTE SAENZ.

Sen. Ted Cruz accused President Obama of underestimating and misjudging the threat posed by ISIS, but said he should seek congressional approval before deciding whether to escalate the military campaign against the Islamic extremists.

“What we ought to have is a directed, concerted, overwhelming campaign to take them out,” Cruz said in an interview on “This Week.” “The focus should be Iraq, but the real focus should be taking out ISIS. Within Syria, it should not be our objective to try and resolve the civil war.”

Cruz, a Texas Republican, said the president “has not demonstrated that he’s taking ISIS seriously.” Even as Cruz delivered a blistering critique of the administration’s foreign policy, he conceded that Republicans have their own foreign policy debate unfolding inside their party, which he said makes him more inclined to seek the presidency.

“The American people in 2014 and also November 2016 are going to be looking for leaders who want to work to restore America’s leadership in the world,” Cruz said.

When pressed whether the challenges abroad made him more inclined to open his own bid for the Republican presidential nomination, he declared: “It increases my interest in doing everything I can to change the direction we’re on.”

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Military Experts: With ISIS in El Paso, Ft. Bliss in Danger of Terrorist Attack

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Photo Credit: Marines / Creative CommonsThe recent increase in security at a key Army base near a Mexican border city where Islamic terrorists are confirmed to be operating and planning an attack on the United States indicates that the facility is a target, according to senior military experts contacted by Judicial Watch.

Last week JW reported that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is working 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 (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources confirmed to JW that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued. Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat.

Juarez is a famously crime-infested narcotics hotbed situated across from El Paso, Texas. Ft. Bliss is the Army’s second-largest installation, spanning more than 1 million acres with an active duty force of 34,411 and headquartered in El Paso. Two days after JW broke the story on ISIS operating in Juarez, Ft. Bliss announced it was increasing security measures. A statement that went out to the media was rather vague, attributing the move to several recent security assessments and the constant concern for the safety of military members, families, employees and civilians.

But senior military officials contacted by JW this week reveal that military installations in the U.S. only make changes to security measures when there are clear and present threats. “It’s a significant issue when this is done,” says retired Army Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, former commander of the Army’s elite Delta Force who also served four years as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. “That means they’re getting a threat stream. Ft. Bliss had to have a clear and present threat.”

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New ISIS Threat: America's Electric Grid; Blackout Could Kill 9 of 10

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Photo Credit: APBy Paul Bedard.

Former top government officials who have been warning Washington about the vulnerability of the nation’s largely unprotected electric grid are raising new fears that troops from the jihadist Islamic State are poised to attack the system, leading to a power crisis that could kill millions.

“Inadequate grid security, a porous U.S.-Mexico border, and fragile transmission systems make the electric grid a target for ISIS,” said Peter Pry, one of the nation’s leading experts on the grid.

Others joining Pry at a press conference later Wednesday to draw attention to the potential threat said that if just a handful of the nation’s high voltage transformers were knocked out, blackouts would occur across the country.

“By one estimate, should the power go out and stay out for over a year, nine out of 10 Americans would likely perish,” said Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

At the afternoon press conference, Gaffney dubbed the potential crisis the “grid jihad.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: TownHallScary: Deceased, American-born ISIS Terrorist Used to Work at Midwestern Airport

By Daniel Doherty.

No, he didn’t just work there. More precisely, he had a security clearance and “unfettered access” to airplanes at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, according to Fox News’ local affiliate KMSP-TV.

For obvious reasons, this should concern all of us:

He was the second known American killed while fighting for ISIS in Syria, and the second from Minnesota — and a Fox 9 exclusive uncovering his employment history is raising a few eyebrows.

An airport is probably the last place anyone would want a suspected terrorist to work, but before he died overseas, that’s exactly what Abdirahmaan Muhumed did in the Twin Cities. In fact, he may have cleaned your plane at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Read more from this story HERE.