Free Republic

Yemen's U.S.-backed president quit Thursday under pressure from rebels holding him captive in his home, severely complicating American efforts to combat al-Qaida's powerful local franchise and raising fears that the Arab world's poorest country will fracture into mini-states. Presidential officials said Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi submitted his resignation to parliament rather than make further concessions to Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, who control the capital and are widely believed to be backed by Iran. Concerns were also mounting about an economic collapse. Two-thirds of Yemen's population are already in need of humanitarian aid, according to reported U.N. figures. Iran's regional...

Foreign ministers from 21 countries are meeting in London to discuss ways to co-ordinate their efforts to combat the jihadist group Islamic State (IS). IS controls large swathes of Syria and Iraq and the US-led coalition has been carrying out air strikes since August. But UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond insisted much more needed to be done. He told the BBC that the countries wanted to find ways to halt the flow of recruits to IS, cut off its funding and "tackle the underlying narrative". At the start of Thursday's conference at Lancaster House, which he is co-hosting with Mr...

The U.S. Embassy warns all U.S. citizens to avoid the areas around 50 and 60 Meter Road near the Presidential Palace, Presidential residence, and Haddah Area in Sana’s due to heavy fighting. While the fighting appears to be politically motivated and an internal domestic dispute not directed against foreign interests, all U.S. citizens should be vigilant of the continued high risk of kidnapping and terrorist attacks throughout Yemen. U.S. citizens living in Yemen should take extra precautions and consider leaving the country. The U.S. Department of State continues to warn U.S. citizens of the high security threat level in Yemen...

With the worsening security situation in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa, the U.S. military has moved two Navy amphibious ships into the Red Sea to assist with any potential evacuation of U.S. embassy personnel should the State Department order its personnel to leave the country, Pentagon officials said today. The U.S. embassy there remains open as of now. A State Department spokesperson told ABC News that officials are "continuing to closely monitor developments in Yemen and will adjust the embassy’s security posture response in accordance to the situation on the ground." "The embassy has been operating with reduced staffing and heightened...

The U.N. Security Council condemned the recent escalation of attacks by the Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram on Monday and expressed deep concern that its activities are undermining peace and stability in central and west Africa. The statement was sponsored by Nigeria, which had been reluctant to have the council discuss the Islamic militant group despite being a member of the Security Council. The Security Council has previously responded to specific terrorist acts by Boko Haram with press statements that do not become part of its official record. The militant group seeks to impose Islamic Shariah law across Nigeria, Africa's...

Despite years of diplomacy and a CIA operation to vet and train moderate rebels, the U.S. finds itself without a credible partner on the ground in Syria as it bombs the Islamic State group. That's a potentially serious flaw in its strategy to ultimately defeat the militants. The U.S. strategy to crush IS rests on the use of local proxy forces, and hinges on plans to use $500 million and a base in Saudi Arabia to build an army of moderate Syrian rebels. The ground force component has always been seen as a challenge in Syria, but the difficulty has...

FIFTY years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized a strategic bombing campaign against targets in North Vietnam, an escalation of the conflict in Southeast Asia that was swiftly followed by the deployment of American ground troops. Last month, President Obama expanded a strategic bombing campaign against Islamic insurgents in the Middle East, escalating the attack beyond Iraq into Syria. Will Mr. Obama repeat history and commit ground troops? Many analysts believe so, and top officials are calling for it. But the president has expressed skepticism about what American force can accomplish in this kind of struggle, and he has resisted...

If President Obama and his spinners won’t accept conservatives’ take on the failures and missteps leading up to the Islamic State and the region-wide chaos in the Middle East, maybe they will believe the New York Times. Strangely enough, it confirms the facts and arguments conservative critics have been making for years now. What is also evident is that President Obama picked on the wrong people; the intelligence community is striking back by going to the media with chapter and verse of the president’s dereliction. The report substantiates eight key points: 1. Leaving Iraq with no troops was a disaster....

President Obama has put America at the center of a widening war by expanding into Syria airstrikes against the Islamic State, the Sunni extremist group known as ISIS and ISIL. He has done this without allowing the public debate that needs to take place before this nation enters another costly and potentially lengthy conflict in the Middle East. He says he has justification for taking military action against the Islamic State and Khorasan, another militant group. There isn’t a full picture — because Mr. Obama has not provided one — of how this bombing campaign will degrade the extremist groups...

Children in Syria are being taken from their families to be trained as Islamic State fighters and used as informants, according to a civilian who fled the city of Raqqa. Former student Abu Abrahim Raqqawi gave Sky News a chilling account of life inside the IS-controlled city where he claimed children are being indoctrinated to become jihadists. The US launched airstrikes against IS targets in Syria on Tuesday and Abu Abrahim said IS members in the city were killed after rockets struck their communications hub and a hospital used exclusively by the militants. But there are mixed feelings about the...

U.S. planes pounded Islamic State positions in Syria for a second day on Wednesday, but the strikes did not halt the fighters' advance in a Kurdish area where fleeing refugees told of villages burnt and captives beheaded. "Those air strikes are not important. We need soldiers on the ground," said Hamed, a refugee who fled into Turkey from the Islamic State advance. Mazlum Bergaden, a teacher from Kobani who crossed the border on Wednesday with his family, said two of his brothers had been taken captive by Islamic State fighters. "The situation is very bad. After they kill people, they...

No link now, they are just announcing it now.

The United States last declared war many wars ago, on June 5, 1942, when, to clarify legal ambiguities during a world conflagration, it declared war on Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Today’s issue is not whether to declare war but only whether the president should even seek congressional authorization for the protracted use of force against the Islamic State. Promising to “destroy” this group with the help of “a broad coalition” of “partners,” President Obama said last week, “I welcome congressional support for this effort.” He obviously thinks such support is optional, partly because this “effort,” conducted by U.S. combat aircraft,...

The use of the W-word could have both legal and political implications. Top Obama Administration officials have publicly given conflicting accounts in recent days over a fundamental question of the new U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria: Is the nation at war? With 158 airstrikes carried out on ISIS targets and more than 1,600 troops deployed to Iraq in various capacities, Secretary of State John Kerry told ABC News Thursday that the nation was not in fact at war with the militant group. But by Friday afternoon, the White House and the Pentagon were...

ANKARA--U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday played down chances of an imminent broad coalition against Islamic State militants, illustrating the difficulty Washington faces winning commitment for a military campaign in the heart of the Middle East. Kerry met Turkish leaders to try to secure support for U.S.-led action against Islamic State, but Ankara's reluctance to play a frontline role highlighted the challenges of building a willing coalition to wage what will likely be a tough offensive. Kerry has been touring the Middle East to build support for President Barack Obama's plan, announced on Wednesday, to strike both sides...

President Obama’s strategy to “degrade and destroy” ISIS comes with an additional 475 American troops gearing up to go to Iraq, bringing the total number of U.S. service members there to over 1,600 – but don’t call those “boots on the ground.” Like the hundreds of American soldiers already in Iraq, the new crop has not been assigned to any combat duties, the military says, and Thursday that’s how the White House told ABC News it defines “boots on the ground” in this context: “U.S. military service members serving in combat roles.”

The U.S. is not at war with ISIS, Secretary of State John Kerry insisted today. Kerry was asked today whether the U.S. was at war with ISIS. "No. Look, we’re engaged in a counterterrorism operation of a significant order," the secretary responded. "And counterterrorism operations can take a long time, they go on. I think 'war' is the wrong reference term with respect to that, but obviously it involves kinetic military action."

The prospect of the first American attacks on Syrian soil during three years of brutal civil war electrified Syrians on Thursday, prompting intense debate over whether airstrikes on the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria would help or harm President Bashar al-Assad, his armed Syrian opponents and war-weary civilians. But even among fervent opponents of ISIS there was ambivalence over President Obama’s declaration that he would “not hesitate” to strike ISIS in Syria. Now, framing the attack on ISIS as driven by American national security concerns, Mr. Obama faces mistrust from both sides. Many insurgents consider his action too...

Secretary of State John Kerry plunged into an intensive series of meetings here with Arab officials on Thursday to coordinate strategy against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The meetings are being hosted by Saudi Arabia, which has agreed to provide bases for the training of moderate Syrian rebels who are battling the Sunni militants and the Assad government in Damascus. The talks will also include the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. The Obama administration is eager for the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, to...

Russia's foreign ministry said on Thursday airstrikes against Islamist militants in Syria without a UN Security Council mandate would be an act of aggression, Interfax news agency reported. "The US president has spoken directly about the possibility of strikes by the US armed forces against ISIL positions in Syria without the consent of the legitimate government," ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said. "This step, in the absence of a UN Security Council decision, would be an act of aggression, a gross violation of international law."