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Last night, Barack Obama promised America that he would take the fight to ISIS/ISIL, using a four-pronged strategy that he laid out in his much-anticipated war speech. In each phase of this strategy, Obama insisted, we would be “joined by a broad coalition of partners,” emphases mine: First, we will conduct a systematic campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists. Working with the Iraqi government, we will expand our efforts beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense. Moreover, I have made it clear that we will hunt...

Germany is not ruling out military action against Islamic extremists Isis in Syria, following US President Barack Obama’s announcement that airstrikes against the terror group will be expanded into the Middle Eastern country. “I won't rule out [German participation] in these airstrikes,” Philipp Mißfelder, foreign affairs spokesman in the Bundestag for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian-Democratic (CDU) party, said on Thursday morning. […] Germany might also send units to take part in aerial surveillance and allow flights over its territory to and from the conflict zone, Mißfelder said, but added that deployment of ground troops “from the West as a whole”...

Peshmerga forces in Mosul dam in Northern Iraq News / Kurdistan PM Barzani: Peshmerga has Freed Most IS Controlled Areas 08.09.2014 Mewan DolamariBasNews, Erbil Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has called IS a state in possession of heavy weaponry, but with the help of US air strikes, the Peshmerga have been able to take back control of most of the Kurdish areas they captured. In an interview with the Turkish Milliyet newspaper, Barzani has spoken about the latest situation on the front lines, ’Due to the capture of Iraqi army heavy weapons by IS insurgents, they are stronger...

The U.S. has launched fresh airstrikes against the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS, in an effort to keep the Haditha Dam in western Iraq in the hands of that country's army. Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby confirmed the airstrikes in a statement issued early Sunday, saying that the strikes destroyed five Humvees, an armed vehicle, and a checkpoint. The strikes also damaged a militant bunker. Kirby also said that the U.S. had carried out one airstrike that destroyed an ISIS humvee at the crucial Mosul Dam in northern Iraq. Sunday's strikes bring the total number...

This was one of the headlines greeting me when I woke up this morning, and in a week filled with generally dreary news it was a small ray of sunshine. A US airstrike six days ago took out Ahmed Godane in Somalia. A leader of the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab has been killed in an American air strike, military chiefs have confirmed.The death of Ahmed Godane was announced on Friday by Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby, who declared it a “major symbolic and operational loss”.The lethal strike in Somalia took place on Monday, but military analysts were...

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has lost his aide after a strike on the ISIS-held city of Mosul, in northern Iraq, the Iraqi defense ministry said Thursday. Another ISIS figure was also declared dead, the ministry added. .... Baghdadi, who was a prominent figure in the Sunni extremist response to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the later Sunni insurgency, has declared himself the caliph of an Islamic State in the territories his organization has seized in Iraq and northeastern Syria.

<p>Jubilant boys flashed victory signs and unfurled a Kurdish flag at the entrance to this abandoned village, signaling the latest advance of fighters known as peshmerga against militants in northern Iraq.</p> <p>On a nearby wall, "Peshmerga," spray-painted in gold scrawl, blotted out the black-and-white insignia of the militant group Islamic State.</p>

Since early Thursday morning, United States military planes have begun shelling the outskirts of Mosul, a Sunni-majority city in northern Iraq and military post of Islamic State (IS) militants. According to a source from the Peshmerga forces stationed near Mosul, US warplanes began bombing the hideouts of IS militants in Mosul and the surrounding areas in the ill-lit hours of dawn. The current shelling began in the neighborhoods of Somar and Intisari, which are on the outskirt of Mosul. US planes also attacked high buildings in the city that have been used as hideouts and supply storage by the Jihadi...

U.S. military forces attacked the extremist al-Shabab network in Somalia Monday, the Pentagon said, and a witness described ground-shaking explosions in a strike that reportedly targeted the group’s leader. Al-Shabab had attacked the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, killing at least 67 people a year ago this month and the U.S. had targeted planners of the bloody assault. There was no immediate comment from al-Shabab and U.S. commanders were waiting to determine the attack’s outcome. “U.S. military forces conducted an operation in Somalia today against the al-Shabaab network. We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide...

(Reuters) - The United States carried out air strikes on Saturday against Islamic State fighters near the besieged Shi'ite town of Amerli in northern Iraq and airdropped humanitarian aid to civilians trapped there, the Pentagon said. President Barack Obama authorized the new military action, broadening U.S. operations in Iraq amid an international outcry over the threat to Amerli's mostly ethnic Turkmen population. U.S. aircraft delivered over a hundred bundles of emergency supplies and more aid was dropped from British, French and Australian planes, officials said, signaling headway in Obama’s efforts to draw allies into the fight against Islamic State. Iraqi...

Americans are deeply apprehensive about President Barack Obama’s strategy, or his admitted lack thereof, for tackling the threat posed to Western interests by the Islamic State militants. Just one year ago, the president was marshalling support among Americans and around the world for strikes in Syria with the aim of punishing Bashar al-Assad for gross crimes against humanity. He found that the public was deeply skeptical of his proposed military solution in Syria. Today, however, the opposite is true, and the public thinks the U.S. is not doing enough to protect its interests around the world through military force....

August 26, 2014 21:25 Egypt and the United Arab Emirates reportedly attack Libya while leaving US in the dark. Why is the Obama administration so out of the loop?

President Barack Obama faces a familiar question as he contemplates airstrikes in Syria: Should Congress have a say in his decision? […] This time around, the White House is suggesting it may not be necessary to get a sign-off from Congress. …

Senior U.S. officials said Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have launched airstrikes against Islamic militants in the Libyan capital twice in the past week. U.S. officials told reporters that the move caught the United States by surprise, potentially dealing a blow to relations between Washington, Cairo and the Emirates. U.S. officials said Egypt provided the base for the launch of the airstrikes, and the U.A.E. provided the aircraft and pilots. Egypt has not publicly acknowledged any role in the air strikes. The UAE had no immediate comment. The first strike took place in Tripoli a week ago and targeted...

BEIRUT — Syria warned the Obama administration Monday not to extend its air war against the Islamic State into Syria, as the militants celebrated another key victory over government forces in the north of the country. The warning came a day after the group overran a major air base in north-central Syria, putting the Islamic State in full control of Raqqah province, where American photojournalist James Foley was held for much of his captivity and where his beheading last week is thought to have occurred. Raqqah also was the site of a failed rescue attempt this summer in which Delta...

Says who? In 1965-66 I huddled at night inside my dug-in defensive perimeter and watched the flickering lightning of the explosions of Operation Arc Light, an aggressive use of American heavy bombing capabilities against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese enemies we faced. The sky-lighting flashes accompanied seconds later by muted rumbles gave only the barest hint of the unbelievable violence being unleashed upon our enemy a few kilometers distant. Days later, our ground patrolling into the bombed areas gave us an awed appreciation of the power of America’s Air Forces. The former jungle terrain was a scorched and scarred...

The White House said Monday that President Obama won’t necessarily seek congressional approval if he decides to order airstrikes in Syria against militants of the Islamic State. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Mr. Obama, who is meeting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Monday afternoon, “has not made a decision to pursue any military action in Syria.” But he said the president doesn’t see the need to seek congressional approval as he did a year ago, when he was considering an attack on the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad for its use of chemical weapons. “That was a...

President Obama has authorized the use of drones for surveillance in Syria even as the Assad regime demanded that the U.S. seek permission before launching any airstrikes on its territory against Islamic State targets. A senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that Obama this weekend authorized the use of drone surveillance over Syria for the first time. The action is considered the first “intrusive” surveillance by the U.S. in Syria since the country’s civil war began. This differs from protective surveillance, such as the U.S. used in the failed mission to rescue American hostages held in Syria. The authorization...

Syria's foreign minister said on Monday his country welcomed any potential military strikes by by the U.S. in Syria targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's terrorist bases, but warned that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad should be warned first. The Assad regime is mired in a three-year-old civil war, and has been losing ground to Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants. "Syria is ready to cooperate and coordinate with regional and international efforts to combat terror in accordance with U.N. resolutions and respect of Syrian sovereignty," Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told a press conference...

The United States was said to be considering air strikes aimed at eliminating individual leaders of Islamic State as Turkey came under mounting pressure to stem the flow of jihadists across its border into Syria. As Washington debated extending air strikes into Syria on Saturday, senior British politicians urged Ankara to act to block recruits from the UK and other countries from entering Syria via Turkey, en route to joining Islamic State (formerly Isis). This weekend large numbers of Isis jihadists were trying to secure greater control of the border area, pushing northwards in armoured trucks looted from abandoned Iraqi...