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As the House Select Committee on Benghazi prepares for its first hearing this week, a former State Department diplomat is coming forward with a startling allegation: Hillary Clinton confidants were part of an operation to “separate” damaging documents before they were turned over to the Accountability Review Board investigating security lapses surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Jamila Bibi, a Saskatoon, Sask., woman facing criminal charges for adultery in Pakistan, could be the target of a so-called honour killing by her husband's family if she is deported, her lawyer says. ... She has outstanding criminal charges [in Pakistan] that have been filed against her for the crime of adultery," Khan said in an interview with CBC News. "She is a target for honour killing by her ex-husband's family. The Islamic way of doing that is stoning to death."

A former State Department official has told lawmakers that Hillary Clinton allies privately removed politically damaging documents before turning over files to the supposedly independent board investigating the Benghazi terror attack. The account from Raymond Maxwell, former head of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), was first published in The Daily Signal. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, confirmed to FoxNews.com on Monday that Maxwell told him and other lawmakers the same story when they privately interviewed him last year about the attacks and their aftermath. Chaffetz said that Maxwell claimed Clinton’s chief of staff and deputy chief of staff were...

Washington (AFP) - The United States bombed the Islamic State near Baghdad, the first time the US has targeted the militants close to the Iraqi capital, US officials said Monday. A US defense official told AFP on condition of anonymity that American warplanes carried out one air strike near Baghdad and another near Mount Sinjar, in the north of Iraq, in the past 24 hours. The United States last month began a campaign of air strikes against IS positions in northern Iraq, but Monday's announcement that US warplanes had targeted the militants near Baghdad marks an escalation in the scope...

What is the enduring lesson of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when the Bush administration overestimated and, in some cases, exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein? Some say it's to be skeptical of government officials who are making the case for war. I say the legacy should be skepticism toward government officials, period—all of them. Their hidden agendas can shade the case for peace as well as war, which might explain why there's no consensus among so-called experts about the threat posed today by ISIS. On a scale of zero to panic, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint...

Can Touré Neblett not see the incandescent irony of his statement? His show-ending rant on The Cycle today condemned the censorship of the shocking images of war. Railed Touré: "we're blocked from seeing so much of the cost of war, of the evil of war as if we are too sensitive or squeamish or unable to handle the graphic truth." Touré focused on one particular photo, taken by photojournalist Kenneth Jarecke during the first Gulf War, deploring the fact that AP refused to publish it. Incredibly, Touré then proceeded to . . . censor the photo himself, declaring that "it's...

Hundreds of Likud members took part in a meeting of the party's Central Committee in Ashkelon on Monday, where they passed a party proposal obligating the toppling the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza in the next counter-terror operation. "We must rehabilitate our deterrence, and in the next round destroy Hamas - there must be a clear decisive (blow)," said Likud Central Committee Chairman MK Danny Danon at the event. The statement refers to the perceived lack of decisive military action in Operation Protective Edge, the third such operation in Gaza, which ended with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sealing a ceasefire...

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry Reuters US Secretary of State John Kerry has waffled on his position from last Friday, when he ruled out Iran's participation in a global coalition against Islamic State (ISIS) - on Monday, he said in an interview that he would be open to military cooperation with Iran. Asked in a Yahoo interview whether the US would cooperate militarily with Iran, Kerry did not rule out the option, saying "let’s see what Iran might or might not be willing to do before we start making any pronouncements." Kerry elaborated saying "I think we are open...

Homeland Security spokesman Francis Taylor said in a Senate hearing last week that there is no evidence to support the belief that the Islamic State terror group is planning a cross border attack on U.S. soil. Taylor, DHS undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis, told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs about DHS being "unaware" of a threat from the group, which is also called ISIS or ISIL. "At present, DHS is unaware of any specific, credible threat to the U.S. homeland from ISIL," Taylor said Wednesday, according to a transcript. "I'm satisfied we have the intelligence and...

There were few modern democrats among the armed opposition to Assad two years ago. There are far fewer now. So who can Obama trust not to turn Western-supplied weapons against us later? The young rebels and opposition activists gathered in a school to discuss how the northern Syrian town of Al Bab should be governed after the departure of Bashar al Assad’s soldiers were taken aback by the question: “Why aren’t there any women here?” It was the summer of 2012, more than 12 months into the uprising against the Syrian president, and more than a year before Abu Bakr...

Graphic videos showing British and American hostages being murdered by Islamic State (Isis) fighters are stirring support among foreign jihadis who are excited by a new confrontation with the west, monitoring of Islamists' social media activity suggests. Barbarous online films, such as the two-and-a half-minute video showing the killing of British aid worker David Haines released on Saturday night, are "turning on" jihadists in countries such as Tunisia and Libya who had previously reacted coolly to the civil war between the Sunni fundamentalists of Isis and the Shia minorities in Syria and Iraq. Evidence from the Twitter, Facebook, Ask.fm and...

Holder apparently never explained what kind of “violent extremism” he hopes to counter. Susan Jones of CNS News writes that it “sounds like he wants law enforcement and community leaders to meet regularly, to share information on people who may have traveled overseas to join ISIS, or on people who may be plotting attacks right here in the U.S.” Yet if Holder did make any reference, however oblique, to jihadis traveling overseas to join the Islamic State, Jones did not quote it. The only thing Holder says that is close to that, at least according to this report, is this:...

Pity poor Gen. Lloyd Austin, top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East. Rarely has a U.S. general given his commander in chief better military advice, only to see it repeatedly rejected. In 2010, Gen. Austin advised President Obama against withdrawing all U.S. forces from Iraq, recommending that the president instead leave 24,000 U.S. troops (down from 45,000) to secure the military gains made in the surge and prevent a terrorist resurgence. Had Obama listened to Austin’s counsel, the rise of the Islamic State could have been stopped. But Obama rejected Austin’s advice and enthusiastically withdrew all U.S. all...

Woodruff, S.C. - 7 On Your Side was contacted by several upset parents who say Woodruff High School students were made to take down American flags from their vehicles on September 11. Spartanburg District 4 Superintendent Rallie Liston said four students arrived at the school Thursday morning with U.S. flags propped up on poles in their pickup truck beds. The school's principal, Aaron Fulmer, confiscated the flags because he said it is against district policy to “draw attention” to one's vehicle. The flags were returned to the students at the end of the day. The students were not punished. Fulmer...

Retired Marine Gen. John Allen has been selected to coordinate the international effort against the Islamic State militant group, Secretary of State John Kerry announced Saturday. "General Allen is a patriot and a remarkable leader," Kerry said in a statement issued late Saturday. "His extraordinary career in the military speaks for itself." Allen's official title is Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. ISIL is another name for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS. Allen, who has been serving as a security adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry, is expected to work with...

Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses.” (Exodus 1:11) An Egyptian researcher accused Israel last week of attempting to Judaize Egyptian archaeology. Amir Gamal of the “Non-Stop Robberies” movement told Egypt’s Elaph newspaper that Israel has been attempting to falsify Egyptian archaeological evidence to prove the Biblical Israelites built the pyramids. Loath to be caught doing so, the claim goes, Israel does not send its own archaeologists into Egypt. Rather, the tiny Jewish country operates through foreign missions, particularly from the Czech Republic, indirectly engaging...

the leader of the Nigerian terror group Boko Haram has established the world's second Islamic "caliphate" this summer and is seeking to cement his bloody rule on a territory that is now roughly the size of west Virginia. While much of the world has been focused on the brutal reign of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the forces of Boko haram have been racking up victories in northern Nigeria and have been violently imposing an equally harsh version of Islamic law on approximately 3 million civilians - including beheadings, forced marriages and the forced induction of children into its military...

The administration has not been gushing over Iran’s decision to send troops into Iraq to fight against the Islamic State alongside Kurdish fighters. Tehran, for its part, is also issuing searing condemnations of Washington’s decision to reengage militarily in the Islamic world. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sent out a tweet on Monday accusing the United States of “planning a war… to dominate the region.” Khamenei added that America appears to be envisioning a conflict in Syria similar to that which it is engaging in over Pakistan where, as the Iranian leader said, the United States “can commit...

The United Nations said Monday it has withdrawn its peacekeepers from many positions on the Golan Heights because of escalating fighting in the war between Syrian government forces and opposition fighters. U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told The Associated Press that he doesn’t think every single post has been vacated. The U.N. peacekeepers withdrawn Monday have been moved to the Israeli side of the border. …

BEIRUT (AP) — Kurdish fighters have captured more than a dozen villages from Islamic militants in heavy fighting across northeastern Syria, an activist group and a Kurdish official said Monday. The fighting in the mainly-Kurdish Hassakeh province came as diplomats at a Paris conference tried to agree on a global strategy to fight the extremist Islamic State group, which has captured large tracts of territory in Iraq and Syria. Kurdish fighters have been battling Islamic State militants for more than a year in northern Syria. The Kurdish People's Protection Units, known by the acronym YPK, have been the most effective...