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French intelligence officials were not aware until days after this month's deadly terror attack on Paris that the suspected mastermind of the carnage had a female cousin living just north of the capital, according to a published report. The Wall Street Journal reports that information provided by Moroccan intelligence tied Hasna Houlahcen to Abdelhamid Abaaoud, enabling authorities to launch the raid that killed the two relatives this past Wednesday in Saint-Denis. However, that lapse and others has left France's security services with uncomfortable questions to answer as the country reels from a second deadly act of terror following the attacks...

Analysts at U.S. Central Command were pressured to ease off negative assessments about the Islamic State threat and were even told in an email to "cut it out," Fox News has learned – as an investigation expands into whether intelligence reports were altered to present a more positive picture. Fox News is told by a source close to the CENTCOM analysts that the pressure on them included at least two emails saying they needed to "cut it out" and "toe the line." Separately, a former Pentagon official told Fox News there apparently was an attempt to destroy the communications. The...

Some of President Obama's top military officials are the subject of an expanded investigation into intelligence reports that were possibly doctored to paint a rosy picture of progress made in rooting out ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq. At issue is whether analysts at Central Command, which oversees U.S. Department of Defense operations in the Middle East, altered assessments of the campaign against ISIS to make it appear as though the United States and Western partners were making more progress than they really were, at least according to claims from a whistleblower assigned to Centcom, ABC News reported. A whistleblower...

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Tehran for talks with Iranian leaders about the crisis in Syria. On his first trip to Iran in eight years, Putin met with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday, as Russia nears a third month of military engagement in the conflict. The discussions come on a sidelines of a one-day trip to Iran for a summit of gas-exporting countries. Tehran and Moscow have supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the ongoing civil war that has crippled the country since 2011 and killed over 250,000 people. The violence has displaced millions more. On...

"In Al-Bukamal, we destroyed 116 tanker trucks, which we believe will reduce ISIL's ability to transport its stolen oil products," Warren said. "This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike. We did a show of force, by -- we had aircraft essentially buzz the trucks at low altitude." The leaflets, which fluttered to the ground about 45 minutes before the strikes, simply said: "Get out of your trucks now, and run away from them. Warning: airstrikes are coming. Oil trucks will be destroyed. Get away...

Every pundit who said the terrorist violence in Paris would dramatically shake up the race for the Republican presidential nomination, at least for now, appears to have gotten it backwards. Here's the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll. 1. Donald Trump: 32% (unchanged since October) 2. Ben Carson: 22% (unchanged) 3. Marco Rubio: 11% (up one point) 4. Ted Cruz: 8% (up two points) 5. Jeb Bush: 6% (down one point) When it comes to dealing with the threat of terrorism, roughly 4 in 10 Republican voters believe the New York land developer is the most reliable candidate in the GOP...

Happy Thanksgiving week, conservatives: Screen grab Poll: At least 7 GOP candidates beat or tie @HillaryClinton if race held today. @SundayFutures pic.twitter.com/to0piVh2lm Fox News (@FoxNews) November 22, 2015 Rubio's up eight, Jeb's up six, Trump and Carson are up five, Cruz is up four, and Christie's up three. Fiorina is tied with Hillary, at 42 percent apiece. The sample is R+1 -- perhaps a bit generous -- but Hillary's fundamentals remain terrible, including a dead-last (38/58) 'honest and trustworthy' score among the field.  And it's entirely plausible that more Americans are identifying as Republicans in the wake of the Paris attacks, especially...

One common criticism of billionaire businessman and presidential candidate Donald Trump is that he far too often speaks in vague generalities and rarely offers specifics about where he stands on the issues. Well,he’s getting specific now, and you want to hear this! “The Second Amendment to our Constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed upon. Period,” the position paper began. Trump went on to explain that the right to keep and bear arms is a right that pre-exists both the government and the Constitution, noting that government didn’t create the...

The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle has conducted first combat operation against the ISIL targets in Syria. Warplanes from the French aircraft carrier "Charles de Gaulle" engaged in their first combat mission, striking Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq on Monday.

Britain's Prince Charles has pointed to the world's failure to tackle climate change as a root cause of the civil war in Syria, terrorism and the consequent refugee crisis engulfing Europe. The heir to the British throne is due to give a keynote speech at the opening of a global climate summit in Paris next week where 118 leaders will gather to try to nail down a deal to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions. "Some of us were saying 20 something years ago that if we didn't tackle these issues, you would see ever greater conflict over scarce resources and...

The stories told by five top Syrian Christian leaders about the horrors their churches are experiencing at the hands of Islamic extremists are biblical in their brutality. Bishop Elias Toumeh, representative of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, tells of the funeral he led ten days ago for the headless body of one of his parishioners in Marmarita. Rev. Adeeb Awad, vice moderator of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, explains how the rebels blew up his church and then pointed the finger at the regime. Bishop Armash Nalbandian, primate of the Armenian Church...

Dozens of American special operations forces will arrive in Syria "very soon," as promised by President Barack Obama's administration, a senior official said Sunday.

WILTON, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson likens his learning foreign policy to his ability to absorb changing complex medical practices. But Carson is standing by his support for monitoring groups he describes as "anti-American" and keeping Syrian refugees out of the United States. Carson has been pushed into the spotlight as he's among the leaders in national, and early voting state Republican polls. And yet, some have criticized the retired celebrated neurosurgeon as having insufficient grasp of foreign policy. Referring to critics, Carson said Sunday at a meeting of about 400 eastern Iowa GOP activists: "They say...

Leading Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said on Sunday the United States is not doing enough to fight Islamic State, and the group is gaining strength outside Iraq and Syria. Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said Secretary of State John Kerry gave the panel a more comprehensive picture last week of the U.S. strategy to combat Islamic State, including talks in Vienna to find a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis. However, she said on CBS, "I don't think the approach is sufficient to the job." Feinstein said President Barack Obama's decision to send 50 special forces...

At least 16 people have been shot during the filming of a music video at the Bunny Friend Park in New Orleans, officials say. (more) The shooting happened just after 6 p.m. when about 500 people, including many children, were at the park as a music video was being filmed. Multiple victims were seen at the park’s main building as ambulances raced to the scene. Nearby streets have been closed by police.

November 22, 2015Fox News Presidential Poll: Trump Economy, Trump Leadership, Trump Change, – Trump, Trump, Trump... by sundance The hilarious agenda of Fox News and their GOPe objectives was evident again this evening when Harris Falkner interrupted live coverage of a Belgium police terror-hunt interview/presser to go back to Fox News Sunday and the pre-recorded Rubio interview.Falkner (6:02pm): …“Well, I’m,.. I’m sorry to cut you off but we must return to Fox News Sunday and the interview with Marco Rubio”… ROFLMAO ! Whoopsie.Oh well, here’s the Fox Poll (full pdf below):View this document on Scribd Candidate Jeb Bush attends Chamber...

The FBI investigation into the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon has led agents back to a familiar area: northern New Jersey. It was there, in Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, that a Muslim cell plotted the 1993 bombing of the twin towers and sought to destroy other New York landmarks as part of an urban guerrilla war against the United States. ~~snip~~ In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners' plowing into the World Trade Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the...

The latest poll following the attacks in Paris, by Fox News, shows Donald Trump moving ahead of Democrat-front-runner Hillary Clinton (in a head-to-head match up if the election were held today), but it is the turmoiling below the surface of the GOP nominations that is garnering most headlines. After a week or two of hope for GOP leadership, as Ben Carson appeared to catch up to Trump, the retired neurosurgon's lies and weakness on foreign policy ("he clearly has no idea what he's talking about," as one Iowa GOP insider noted), have sent his poll numbers reeling... and Cruz surging....

So NPR, the New York Times and the Associated Press searched contemporaneous news accounts and could find no evidence of Muslim-Americans cheering in Jersey City. That’s odd. Because it took me less than two minutes to find this story from the Washington Post dated September 18, 2001 (although I did have to spend $3.95 to buy it from the Post’s archives): In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners’ plowing into the World Trade Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they...