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EXCLUSIVE – After he escaped from Al Qaeda in Syria, American photojournalist Matt Schrier investigated his own kidnapping and uncovered what he describes as a pattern of "betrayal" by FBI agents handling his case. Schrier is now asking hard questions of former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who now leads the special counsel Russia probe, and former FBI Director James Comey who was fired by President Trump in May 2017. "Not every FBI agent is bad. Some are very good people," Schrier told Fox News. "But the ones that are bad need to be weeded out. And the ones who let...

Two days ago, Trump visited the White House to prepare for his Presidency, and part of that involves his being brought up to speed on ALL aspects of Obama's foreign policy. It turns out that the very same day, the Treasury Department all of a sudden announced that al Nusra is a terrorist organization, making any funding or support for them illegal. Check it out at this linkFor years Obama has been playing a dirty game of opposing certain terrorists in Iraq, while supporting them in Syria. Nusra is particularly bad, these are the thugs who have beheaded bishops, terrorized...

A senior figure from a Syrian rebel group with links to al Qaida was allowed into the United States for a brief visit, raising questions about how much the Obama administration will compromise in the search for partners in the conflict. Labib al Nahhas, foreign affairs director for the Islamist fighting group Ahrar al Sham, spent a few days in Washington in December, according to four people with direct knowledge of the trip and who spoke on condition of anonymity. His previously undisclosed visit is a delicate matter for both sides – the conservative Salafist insurgents risk their credibility with...

Russia and the US have agreed to a "cessation of hostilities" in Syria from sunset on 12 September after intensive talks in Geneva. Under the plan, the Syrian government will end combat missions in specified areas held by the opposition. Russia and the US will establish a joint centre to combat so-called Islamic State and al-Nusra fighters. The plan follows a day of talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

Syrian rebels loyal to the Al Qaeda terror organization, released the second edition of its English-language magazine, “Al Risalah,” Sunday. The rebels, who identify with the Nusra Front (NF), Al Qaeda’s local branch, leaked the magazine onto the social media sphere using the group’s official Twitter account, which has still not been removed. The cover of the magazine reads, “Victory loves preparation,” and shows a jihadi wearing army gear with his face covered, holding two guns. Contents of the magazine include an interview with an Australian jihadi, ads for shotguns, a call to join the Nusra Front instead of the...

Al-Qaeda's leader in Syria has been killed, according to local reports. The al-Nusra Front, the Sunni Islamic jihadist militia fighting against Syrian Government forces in the civil war, confirmed Sheikh Abu Sulaiman Al Masri's death this morning. Images of his body, containing a bloody head wound, have been shared online.

The Syrian Arab Army’s Central Command has announced their next offensive in central Syria after taking a 15 month hiatus from this front due to the Old City ceasefire agreement which resulted in the Islamist rebel fighters surrendering this historical area in the provincial capital of the Homs Governorate. Unlike their previous offensives in the Homs Governorate (i.e. Wadi Al-Nasara in mid-2014), the Syrian Armed Forces will concentrate on the rugged terrain in the Al-Rastan Plains that is currently under the control of the Syrian Al-Qaeda group “Jabhat Al-Nusra” and their affiliates from the Free Syrian Army (FSA). For Jabhat...

Syrian rebels trained by the United States gave some of their equipment to the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in exchange for safe passage, a U.S. military spokesman said on Friday, the latest blow to a troubled U.S. effort to train local partners to fight Islamic State militants. The rebels surrendered six pick-up trucks and some ammunition, or about one-quarter of their issued equipment, to a suspected Nusra intermediary on Sept. 21-22 in exchange for safe passage, said Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, in a statement. "If accurate, the report of NSF members providing equipment to al...

1. Ahmad Abu Adass In 2005, the last year of his life, Ahmad Abu Adass was 22 and still living with his parents in Beirut, Lebanon. He was kind and liked people, his friends later told investigators, but none of them thought he was very sophisticated. The best way to describe him was simple, one said. He was generous and a little naïve. He was very weak, physically. A Sunni Muslim of Palestinian descent, Adass had become interested in religion and now spent many hours at the Arab University Mosque near his home. It was there, after a prayer session,...

Abu Yousef al-Turki, a key al-Nusra Front leader, has been killed in Syrian airstrikes, the group said in a statement. In the statement, which initially was posted on Twitter, the group says al-Turki (i.e. “the Turk”) was killed in U.S.-led airstrikes Tuesday. The statement was accompanied with an alleged proof-of-death photo, CNN reported.

While the Islamic State group is getting the most attention now, another band of extremists in Syria — a mix of hardened jihadis from Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Europe — poses a more direct and imminent threat to the United States, working with Yemeni bomb-makers to target U.S. aviation, American officials say. At the center is a cell known as the Khorasan group, a cadre of veteran al-Qaida fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan who traveled to Syria to link up with the al-Qaida affiliate there, the Nusra Front.

BEIRUT - Heavy fighting between rival Islamic rebel groups in eastern Syria killed 62 fighters and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes, activists said Sunday. Meanwhile, talks continued over allowing rebels to leave the besieged Old City in Homs. Rebels from the al-Qaida breakaway group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and fighters of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front have fought each other for months over territory they previously captured together from President Bashar Assad's forces. The rebel-on-rebel violence has raged in the north along the Turkish border that opposition fighters have controlled since a...

The leader of a Syrian rebel group feted as an alternative to the tide of Islamism which dominates most other rebel brigades has said he has no interest in fighting Al Qaeda. Jamal Maarouf's Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF) had received cautious support from western powers for its prominent role in fighting Al Qaeda-breakaway group ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), but speaking to Britain's The Independent he clarified that as far as he was concerned the wider fight against Al Qaeda is "not our problem". Moreover, Maarouf - who has been forced to flee the front lines...

full title...Syria's rebel army pledges allegiance to Al Qaeda as new Islamist insurgence threatens dictator AssadSyria's most powerful rebel group has formally pledged allegiance to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, according to recording posted online today. The al-Nusra group, the strongest extremist movement in Syria, issued a statement of support for the terror network. Abu Mohammad al-Golani, leader of the Syrian group, said: 'The sons of Nusra Front renew their pledge (of allegiance) to the Sheikh of Jihad Ayman al-Zawahri and declare obedience.' Al-Qaida's branch in Iraq and the most powerful rebel group in Syria have now officially joined...