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ISIS Tag

Posted by Amy Miller on February 07, 2015 6 Comments
Last night's Real Time with Bill Maher was a mixed bag of weird and weirder. The brutal burning death of a Jordanian fighter pilot, and Jordan's scorched-earth response, has sparked debate about the best way to respond to the continuing threat of ISIS, as well as the United States' proper role in the conflict. This, of course, has led to an uptick in talking heads gathering together to blame coalition forces for ISIS' brutal retaliation against hostages---and last night, they were out in full force: Via Mediaite:
Johann Hari brought up the brutality from nations supported by the United States and said lots of jihadist actions result from U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. And, he said, “the more we show ourselves to be good or loving or decent people,” the less there will be. Maher didn’t think showing the ISIS video is necessary, and then remarked upon how “America has also burned people alive from the air.” And while he acknowledged that collateral damage from drone strikes is different from deliberately burning a man alive and “we’re not the moral equivalent of ISIS,” Maher said the U.S. isn’t “guilt-free” when it comes to horrible acts.
Watch:

Posted by Amy Miller on February 06, 2015 5 Comments
The CIA is investigating claims that American hostage Kayla Jean Mueller was killed during Jordanian airstrikes in Syria. Mueller, an American aid worker, was taken by ISIS a year and a half ago, and is believed to be the last American held hostage by the group. Via the New York Times:
An Islamic State message published by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist activity, said the American woman was killed when the building where she was being held in the Raqqa area collapsed in an airstrike. “The failed Jordanian aircraft killed an American female hostage,” said the message. “No mujahid was injured in the bombardment, and all praise is due to Allah.” Mujahid means fighter. The group said the woman was killed by “fire of the shells dropped on the site.” There was no immediate way to verify the claim by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But it identified the hostage by name, Kayla Jean Mueller, for the first time, and gave her Arizona address, apparently to add credibility to its message.
As was stated by the Times, this report is not confirmed. Department of Defense officials told NBC News that "U.S. military and military intelligence have no information to confirm ISIS' claim, and the State Department said it could not confirm reports of the death 'in any way'":

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 06, 2015 57 Comments
At the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday, President Obama equated the horrific acts carried out by ISIS to the Christian Crusades. Nedra Pickler of AP News reported:
Obama condemns those who seek to 'hijack religion' President Barack Obama on Thursday condemned those who seek to use religion as a rationale for carrying out violence around the world, declaring that "no god condones terror." "We are summoned to push back against those who would distort our religion for their nihilistic ends," Obama said during remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. He singled out the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, calling the militants a "death cult," as well as those responsible for last month's terror attacks in Paris and deadly assault on a school in Pakistan... Obama had a more non-denominational message for the audience that also included prominent leaders of non-Christian faiths. The president said that while religion is a source for good around the world, people of all faiths have been willing to "hijack religion for their own murderous ends." "Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ," Obama said. "In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. "So it is not unique to one group or one religion," Obama said. "There is a tendency in us, a simple tendency that can pervert and distort our faith."
Charles Krauthammer reacted on Special Report. Video via National Review:

Posted by Amy Miller on February 03, 2015 17 Comments
Senate Democrats didn't learn much from their stunning defeat in the midterms, did they? This afternoon, Reid and Durbin led their caucus on an obstructionist crusade to shut down progress on a necessary Homeland Security funding bill; Democrats managed to prevent the bill from reaching the floor for debate, which means that GOP leadership is going to have to circle back on a new attempt to keep the department funded while blocking Obama's 2012 and 2014 plans to grant deportation amnesty. From the Washington Times:
GOP leaders, who have said they will not let the department run out of money, will now have to come up with a Plan B to try to overcome the objections of Democrats, who are trying to defend President Obama’s 2012 and 2014 deportation amnesties. “The only way to finish a bill is to start a bill, and today they voted to refuse to start that process,” said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican. Democrats, though, countered that they won’t debate any bill that tries to undo Mr. Obama’s amnesties, saying the focus should be on giving money to the department, not an effort to try to overturn the president. “They’re mad at President Obama because they want to deport Dreamers,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
GOP leadership had to have seen this coming from a mile away. During today's media roundup, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) lashed out irrationally against the Republican plans to fund Homeland Security while blocking President Obama's executive immigration actions:

Posted by Amy Miller on February 01, 2015 8 Comments
ISIS militants have reportedly released a video showing the beheading of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto. Goto is the second hostage to be executed this month after negotiations broke down between ISIS and the Japanese government. From the Associated Press:
"I feel indignation over this immoral and heinous act of terrorism," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters after convening an emergency Cabinet meeting. "When I think of the grief of his family, I am left speechless," he said. "The government has been doing its utmost in responding to win his release, and we are filled with deep regret." He vowed that Japan will not give in to terrorism and will continue to provide humanitarian aid to countries fighting the Islamic State extremists. The White House released a statement in which President Barack Obama also condemned "the heinous murder" and praised Goto's reporting, saying he "courageously sought to convey the plight of the Syrian people to the outside world." Obama applauded Japan's "steadfast commitment to advancing peace and prosperity in the Middle East and globally, including its generous assistance for innocent people affected by the conflicts in the region."
According to Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, Japan will increase its humanitarian aid to the region, but will not offer its Self-Defense forces in the fight against ISIS, or join air raids.

Posted by Amy Miller on January 28, 2015 4 Comments
The situation for two hostages held by ISIS is rapidly spiraling. Officials in Jordan have agreed to the Islamic State's demands for a hostage swap, but added their own conditions to the mix, which could complicate things for hostages Muath al-Kaseasbeh and Kenji Goto. Via Fox News:
In the case of the ISIS prisoner, Jordanian government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani said in a statement the nation was prepared to free Sajida al-Rishawi, who was convicted of taking part in a 2005 deadly hotel bombing that killed 60 people, if the Jordanian pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, is released unharmed. His comments were carried by Jordan's official Petra news agency. Although he made no mention of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, a hostage audio message released by Islamic State a day earlier tied Goto's fate to that of Al-Rishawi, as well. Jordan is reportedly in indirect talks with the militants through religious and tribal leaders in Iraq to secure the hostages' release. The chairman of the foreign affairs committee of Jordan's parliament, Bassam Al-Manasseer, has been quoted as saying that Jordan and Japan would not negotiate directly with the Islamic State group and would not free al-Rishawi for the Japanese hostage only.
According to officials in Jordan, the negotiators have requested but not yet received proof that Muath is alive. Goto's status is also unknown.

Posted by Amy Miller on January 27, 2015 7 Comments
A video discovered by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) contains a direct threat against the life of President Barack Obama, as well as promises to kill more hostages if Jordan does not release extremist and prisoner Sajida al-Rishawi. Fox News has the details:
In a new online video discovered by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on Tuesday, three Islamic State fighters stand behind a kneeling Kurdish fighter as one of the extremists launches into a diatribe against the U.S. and other Western nations. “Know, oh Obama, that will reach America,” says one of the fighters, clad in black and wearing a balaclava, in a translation from Arabic provided by MEMRI. “Know also that we will cut off your head in the White House, and transform America into a Muslim Province.” The extremist also issued warnings to European nations. “And this is my message to France and to its sister, Belgium,” he said. “We advise you that we will come to you with car bombs and explosive charges, and will cut off your heads.” The video fades to black as one Islamic State fighter brings a knife up to the unidentified Kurdish fighter’s throat.
Like another message released this weekend, this video did not bear the Islamic State's media logo; but officials have not released any statements offering a credible denial of the video's authenticity. The White House has not commented on the threats to President Obama's life.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 25, 2015 11 Comments
A man named Ahmad Rashidi was interviewed on Meet the Press today and provided an alarming look into the goals of ISIS. He claims they want to be "better" than al-Qaeda and orchestrate an attack "more brutal" than the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Andrew Johnson of National Review has more:
Man Who Escaped ISIS: They Want to Plan an Attack ‘More Brutal’ than 9/11 The Islamic State is “happy” about the air strikes by the United States because it validates their efforts in emerging as a global threat, says a man who escaped after a month with the group. Ahmad Rashidi was captured by the Islamic State when he went to Syria from London to retrieve the two daughters of a family friend; the teenage girls had fled England to marry Islamic State fighters. When Rashidi found one of the girls, her husband accused him of being a spy and he was taken prisoner and tortured. He later won the favor of his capturers by telling them he was a doctor; Rashidi is, in fact, a first-year medical student. While embedded with the Islamic State for a month, Rashidi gained access to their computers and communications. He told NBC News’s Richard Engel that the group communicates with its contacts “every day” and is not worried about the West’s response to its attacks. In fact, the Islamic State was “happy” about the American military’s response of air strikes because it proved to the group’s leaders that they were considered as important a threat as al-Qaeda. “They want to be more . . . better than al-Qaeda,” he told Engel. “This is why they need to do something more brutal than the World Trade Center.”
Here's the video: Speaking of Syria, there are new developments in American policy.

Posted by Amy Miller on January 25, 2015 11 Comments
Yesterday, the Islamic State released a video they claim contains an image of the decapitated body of Japanese hostage Haruna Yukawa. A second hostage, journalist Kenji Goto, appears in the video holding a photo of what ISIS claims is the remains of Yukawa, and in accompanying audio relays a proposed hostage trade. Via the New York Times:
In the three-minute audio recording released Saturday, the voice of a man who claimed to be Mr. Goto said Mr. Yukawa had been “slaughtered” and blamed Mr. Abe’s failure to pay the ransom. (In the audio, the voice says he is Kenji Goto Jogo; it remained unclear late Saturday why that was different from the name given by the Japanese government and his own website.) The audio is addressed to Mr. Goto’s wife, telling her that the Islamic State was now demanding the release of the woman imprisoned in Jordan, Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi. “They no longer want money,” the voice says in accented English. “You bring them their sister from the Jordanian regime, and I will be released immediately. Me for her. Don’t let these be my last words you ever hear. Don’t let Abe also kill me.”
Although officials are hesitant to deny the authenticity of the video, it did significantly differ from previous messages from the Islamic State. Fox explains:

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 17, 2015 7 Comments
President Bill Clinton appeared on the Seth Meyers show last week and offered some common sense about the double standard of Islamic radicals who take advantage of freedom in western countries. Clinton's view is distinctly different than what we've heard from the Obama administration which is having trouble even naming America's enemies. Greg Gutfeld and the panel of The Five analyzed Clinton's comments on the air yesterday: Naturally, liberal news outlets are ignoring that part of Clinton's appearance, instead choosing to focus on another segment.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 14, 2015 13 Comments
The Obama administration has engaged in absurd linguistic gymnastics to pretend that the terrorists who shot up Charlie Hebdo and the HyperCasher supermarket merely were individuals who happened to adopt radical Islamic extremism almost by chance.  Could have been any extremism, we're told. Generic "extremism" is the problem, as if it lived out of body. By playing these word games, the administration does no favor to those in the Muslim world who recognize the reality and want it to stop.  To the contrary, the administration's word games constitute an abandonment. The President of Egypt is one of those voices, calling for a revolution within the Muslim world against the extremism. Another voice is Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief of Al-Arabiya In late September 2014, I wrote about an article by Melhem, The Barbarians Within Our Gates. Melhem made points as a Muslim examining the Muslim world that would get him labeled "Islamophobic" and "racist" by groups like CAIR and the Southern Poverty Law Center:
Arab civilization, such as we knew it, is all but gone. The Arab world today is more violent, unstable, fragmented and driven by extremism—the extremism of the rulers and those in opposition—than at any time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire a century ago. Every hope of modern Arab history has been betrayed.... And let’s face the grim truth: There is no evidence whatever that Islam in its various political forms is compatible with modern democracy. From Afghanistan under the Taliban to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and from Iran to Sudan, there is no Islamist entity that can be said to be democratic, just or a practitioner of good governance. The short rule of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt under the presidency of Mohamed Morsi was no exception. The Brotherhood tried to monopolize power, hound and intimidate the opposition and was driving the country toward a dangerous impasse before a violent military coup ended the brief experimentation with Islamist rule....

Posted by Amy Miller on January 13, 2015 13 Comments
The Obama Administration's foreign policy has from the start been plagued by a near-fatal dose of mixed messaging regarding the actions of our enemies, our mission in the Middle East, and the place the American military should hold in the context of the global economy. Late last year, members of Congress lashed out against the Administration over the Executive's inability to define exactly what we were doing in the Middle East, and what we should be doing to prepare for future missions. Now, we may finally receive some answers. In a meeting with Congressional leadership today, President Obama indicated that he's ready to propose terms authorizing U.S. military force against Islamic State. He's been having this conversation with the leadership since November, but this is the first time he's even come close to showing his hand. From Bloomberg:
“A good starting place is for him to tell us what he wants,” McConnell of Kentucky told reporters after the meeting. A debate over efforts to defeat Islamic State would reopen tension over the president’s authority to conduct military operations and uneasiness among some lawmakers -- mostly Obama’s fellow Democrats -- about being drawn into open-ended conflicts and ground combat. Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, told reporters after today’s meeting at the White House that the president’s statement came as “a little bit of a surprise.” “I think that’s helpful because we’ve been trying to get him to come up with the plan and show a little bit of what his strategy is going to be,” the senator said. Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, said he believes Obama “is going to make some proposal” on an authorization for use of military force.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 13, 2015 32 Comments
Following the terror attacks in Paris by Islamic radicals, the Obama administration is preparing for a summit on "extremism" which is leaving many people wondering one thing. Who are they talking about? Byron Tau of the Wall Street Journal:
White House to Convene Summit on Violent Extremism The White House will convene a summit next month on ways the U.S. and other governments can counter violent extremism and domestic radicalization, the Obama administration said Sunday. The Feb. 18 event will highlight efforts at home and abroad aimed at stopping extremists from “radicalizing, recruiting, or inspiring individuals,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a written statement.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf appeared on the Megyn Kelly show last night and was asked by guest host Martha MacCallum to name the extremists. Like everyone else in the White House, she had a hard time putting it into words.

Posted by Amy Miller on January 12, 2015 11 Comments
Hackers claiming a connection with the Islamic State have taken control of two social media accounts owned by the U.S. Central Command. Via the Washington Free Beacon:
“ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now,” said one tweet sent from CENTCOM’s account. The apparent hack came as President Obama addressed the nation regarding cyber security. He is expected to propose two pieces of cyber security legislation and to address the effort in his upcoming State of the Union address. The hackers subsequently tweeted images of spreadsheets containing the home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses of dozens of current and former senior U.S. military officers. “AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING WATCH YOUR BACK,” one tweet stated.
The hackers have also posted to PasteBin sensitive and personal information they claim they obtained by breaking in to mobile devices. A search of the Google cache reveals the tweets posted to CENTCOM's now-suspended Twitter account: Twitter Centcom Hack We know everything

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 10, 2015 16 Comments
The terror attack on Charlie Hebdo this week was a stark reminder that Europe and the rest of western civilization has a serious problem. As people seek explanations for how this happened and what should be done about it, one voice speaks bravely and deserves attention. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the writer and activist who has drawn the ire of many in the Muslim community as well as American feminists for her defense of women, has written an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in which she addressed the attack:
How to Answer the Paris Terror Attack After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam. This was not an attack by a mentally deranged, lone-wolf gunman. This was not an “un-Islamic” attack by a bunch of thugs—the perpetrators could be heard shouting that they were avenging the Prophet Muhammad. Nor was it spontaneous. It was planned to inflict maximum damage, during a staff meeting, with automatic weapons and a getaway plan. It was designed to sow terror, and in that it has worked. The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised. If there is a lesson to be drawn from such a grisly episode, it is that what we believe about Islam truly doesn’t matter. This type of violence, jihad, is what they, the Islamists, believe. There are numerous calls to violent jihad in the Quran. But the Quran is hardly alone. In too much of Islam, jihad is a thoroughly modern concept. The 20th-century jihad “bible,” and an animating work for many Islamist groups today, is “The Quranic Concept of War,” a book written in the mid-1970s by Pakistani Gen. S.K. Malik. He argues that because God, Allah, himself authored every word of the Quran, the rules of war contained in the Quran are of a higher caliber than the rules developed by mere mortals.
You can read the whole thing here. Ms. Ali appeared on Megyn Kelly's show this week after the attacks.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 09, 2015 33 Comments
Increased Muslim immigration to Europe has created small areas which are essentially countries within countries which European law enforcement officials have dubbed "No-Go Zones." Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times recently described what's happening in France:
Muslims segregated from French society in growing Islamist mini-states A backdrop to the massacre in Paris on Wednesday by self-professed al Qaeda terrorists is that city officials have increasingly ceded control of heavily Muslim neighborhoods to Islamists, block by block. France has Europe’s largest population of Muslims, some of whom talk openly of ruling the country one day and casting aside Western legal systems for harsh, Islam-based Shariah law. “The situation is out of control, and it is not reversible,” said Soeren Kern, an analyst at the Gatestone Institute and author of annual reports on the “Islamization of France.” “Islam is a permanent part of France now. It is not going away,” Mr. Kern said. “I think the future looks very bleak. The problem is a lot of these younger-generation Muslims are not integrating into French society. Although they are French citizens, they don’t really have a future in French society. They feel very alienated from France. This is why radical Islam is so attractive because it gives them a sense of meaning in their life.”
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