The terror group Islamic State released a video Tuesday apparently depicting the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff. Sotloff, kneeling, says he is “paying the price” for the U.S.
The organization calling itself the Islamic State has risen from the fog of war in Syria and Iraq in recent months and drawn the attention of the world with major victories on both sides of the Euphrates River that have claimed swaths of territory for its declared caliphate, or Islamic State. Now in the organization’s new English language publication, Dabiq, aimed at young Muslims in western states, the extremist organization declared, “Islamic State will do everything within its means to continue striking down every apostate who stands as an obstacle on its path towards Palestine.” Denouncing the ineffectiveness of other Arab states and organizations in carrying out the “will of Allah,” the magazine vows that, “Its [Islamic State’s] actions speak louder than its words and it is only a matter of time and patience before it reaches Palestine to fight the barbaric Jews and kill those of them hiding behind the gharqad trees – the trees of the jews.
Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch 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.
Democrats believe global warming poses a bigger threat to the United States than Islamic State terrorists, a new Pew Research Center poll revealed. Just 25 percent of Republicans polled called climate change a major threat to Americans, while 68 percent of Democrats agreed with the statement, according to the Pew Research Center. When asked about Islamic State terrorists, 65 percent of Democrats were worried about the group – fewer than those concerned about global warming.
President Barack Obama has ignited fresh conservative criticism by saying “we don’t have a strategy yet” for airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria. Republicans immediately jumped on the President’s comment during a news conference Thursday by saying it proved their longstanding complaint that his foreign policy failed to seriously respond to the terrorist threat from Sunni jihadists in the Syrian civil war. “I’m not sure the severity of the problem has really sunk in to the administration just yet,” said GOP Rep.
Britain’s terror threat level was dramatically raised to severe today amid fears that UK jihadists returning from Iraq and Syria could launch attacks. The severe warning means an attack is “highly likely”, rather than the earlier assessment of substantial where a terror strike is “a strong possibility”. Home Secretary Theresa May stressed there was no intelligence to suggest an imminent attack.
President Obama said Thursday he doesn’t have a strategy yet for defeating Islamist militants in Syria. “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” Mr. Obama said in a news conference at the White House.
Sickening footage appears to show Islamic State militants parading around 250 captured soldiers through the desert in their underwear before they are killed and their bodies piled on the bare earth. An Islamic State fighter claimed the men were from the Syrian government’s Tabqa air base which extremists seized on Sunday, potentially handing them warplanes, tanks, artillery and ammunition. The video, which has not been independently verified, is too graphic to be published in full.
The Islamic State wants more than $6 million to free an American woman the Muslim extremists kidnapped a year ago while she did humanitarian work in Syria, according to her family, U.S. officials and news reports.
Boko Haram’s leader said a town in the north east of Nigeria seized by the insurgents earlier this month has been placed under an Islamic caliphate, in a video obtained by AFP on Sunday. “Thanks be to Allah who gave victory to our brethren in (the town of) Gwoza and made it part of the Islamic caliphate,” Abubakar Shekau said in the 52-minute video. The military however rejected the claim, saying in a statement the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Nigerian state is still intact”.
ISIS fighters managed to loot SA-16 man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), Sidewinder missiles, and even MiG-21B fighter jets. It is extremely unlikely that the militants have the manpower or the expertise to make use of the jets or the Sidewinder missiles. But the MANPADS pose dangers of their own.
Egyptian feminist Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, 23, challenges the strict nature of Islam on her blog and Facebook pages. She went a step further in her protest against the Islamic State (IS) with a photo of Elmahdy and a veiled woman pooping and menstruating on the black IS flag. Arab nations did not print the photo because the flag states “there is no God but Allah.
Up to 20 Western hostages are being held by the jihadi group that beheaded James Foley. As well as the journalist Steven Sotloff, who was threatened with beheading by the same man who murdered Foley, Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) is holding a number of aid workers, thought to include Vanessa Marzullo, 21, and Greta Ramelli, 20, both Italian. Three aid workers employed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are also being held hostage after they were abducted last October.
It is likely that there are now more British Muslims fighting for the Islamic State than for Britain’s military. Britain’s Ministry of Defense confirmed to USA TODAY that there are approximately 600 British Muslim servicemembers in its armed forces of almost 200,000 people. Official government estimates put the number of British Islamic State fighters operating in Syria and Iraq at up to 800.
