ISIS has 200,000-strong force, says Kurdish leader

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants have an army of about 200,000 fighters, over six times larger than previous CIA estimates, a senior Iraqi Kurdish leader has claimed. “I am talking about hundreds of thousands of fighters because they are able to mobilize young Arab men in the territory they have taken,” Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, told the UK Independent in an exclusive interview. Controlling roughly one third of Iraq and Syria, Hussein says the 250,000 square kilometer territory has provided IS a 10 to 12 million-large population from which to attract potential fighters.

U.S. army veteran Peter Kassig beheaded by ISIS

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) fighters have issued a new video apparently showing the murder of US hostage Peter Kassig and threatening “slaughter” on Western streets. The 15-minute long grisly video shows the horrific beheading a group of Syrian military prisoners and then the decapitated head of Mr Kassig at the feet of a masked man. The man, who appears to be the same militant known as Jihadi John who has appeared in other beheading videos, says:

Is ISIS 7x Bigger Than The West Believes?

The Islamic State (Isis) has recruited an army hundreds of thousands strong, far larger than previous estimates by the CIA, according to a senior Kurdish leader. He said the ability of Isis to attack on many widely separated fronts in Iraq and Syria at the same time shows that the number of militant fighters is at least 200,000, seven or eight times bigger than foreign in intelligence estimates of up to 31,500 men. Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of the Kurdish President Massoud Barzani said in an exclusive interview with The Independent on Sunday that “I am talking about hundreds of thousands of fighters because they are able to mobilise Arab young men in the territory they have taken.

Brutal female police enforce ISIS sharia vision on women of caliphate

The Islamic State’s bid to impose Dark Ages law on the women within its so-called caliphate depends on a merciless cadre of young women who roam the streets of Raqqa, terrorizing females who fall short of the standard of strict Shariah. Known as the Al-Khansa brigade, the group consists of about 60 armed women between the ages of 18 and 24 who patrol the Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold. Their job, which they are said to perform with cruel relish, is to arrest and beat women who commit such transgressions as allowing ankles or wrists to show or being seen without a male chaperone.

Boy, 17, crucified for three days after ISIS militants accuse him of being paid to take photographs of the terror group’s HQ

Islamic State militants have publicly crucified and murdered a teenager they accused of taking photographs of the terror group’s headquarters in Syria. Sickening images purportedly taken in the central square of the extremists’ de facto capital Raqqa show the battered and bloodstained body of an unnamed 17-year-old boy strapped to a cross. A handwritten placard hangs around the teenager’s neck, accusing him of ‘apostasy’ – the abandonment of his religion – and says he had been crucified for three days after being caught receiving 500 Turkish lira for every photograph he took of an Islamic State military base.