Search-and-rescue operations are under way off the coast of Hawaii after two Marine CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters on a nighttime training mission collided, with six people aboard each aircraft.
Michael Enright is one of the several hundred Westerners who have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join Kurdish combat units and fight the Islamic State. He’s an unusual volunteer in several respects: he’s 51 years old, the first time he handled a gun was at a shooting range right before he left for Syria, and he is almost certainly the only YPG fighter who has appeared in movies with Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp.
The Assyrian International News Agency relays a report from Dubai television news concerning a raid on an ISIS safe house in Syria, in which rebel forces opposed to the Islamic State discovered a large stash of stolen Western passports. These travel documents have allegedly been used by ISIS to bring Western jihadi recruits to Iraq and Syria.
North Korean Defense Minister Hyon Yong Chol, on the job for less than a year, allegedly developed a habit of falling asleep at public events. He made the mistake of doing this at an event attended by the communist dungeon state’s dictator Kim Jong-un, whose limited sense of humor about perceived insults was amply demonstrated to Hollywood last year.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It remains uncertain whether the Afghan security forces will be able to carry out essential functions by the time the U.S. draws down to a small military presence at the end of 2016, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
Ken Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, spoke exclusively with the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) network earlier this week about the ongoing conflict in Yemen, blaming the United States for Saudi Arabia’s alleged use of cluster munitions.
Over 11,000 Nigerians have returned from Niger since fleeing radical Islamist group Boko Haram. The majority of those fleeing previously lived in areas Boko Haram terrorized the most.
The Associated Press is reporting that a six-hour siege of the Park Palace Guest House hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan has ended, after gunmen stormed the foreigner-friendly locale on a night in which a popular concert had been scheduled. One American citizen is believed dead, the AP reports.
In his first interview with an Arabic-language news organization on Wednesday, President Obama spoke with Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat about various issues related to the Middle East, the Iranian nuclear program, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
During his weekly audience Wednesday, Pope Francis returned to one of his favorite themes: the devil. Reflecting on the importance of good manners and etiquette, Francis insisted that they aren’t enough, because even Satan knows how to put on good manners to get what he wants.
On Tuesday, the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) destroyed the 200-year-old Maryam Khatoon Mosque in Mosul, Iraq, which the Ottoman Empire erected in 1821.
A man from Newport Beach, California will face trial in July for allegedly bilking investors out of over $4 million as part of a scheme to sell phony In-N-Out burger franchises in the Middle East.
On Tuesday, the Breitbart News team on Capitol Hill brought to light Congress’s efforts to allow illegal aliens to enlist in the U.S. military, endangering national security and shoving American citizens to the back of the line for the benefit of invaders. Today, the House Rules Committee will continue to debate this proposition. Live updates are below.
Spanish authorities arrested two individuals on Tuesday who were suspected of attempting to recruit aspiring jihadis through official Islamic State (IS/ISIS) propaganda.
CNN’s report on the hunt for ISIS terrorists in the darkest corners of the Internet begins with a remarkably dour assessment of the war effort thus far: “After months of bombing by the U.S. and coalition forces, ISIS remains undefeated on the ground and has now entered a new phase, using the cyber-world as a weapon… It’s a trend that has captured the attention of law enforcement and now the military.”
A new Human Rights Watch report accuses China law enforcement authorities of dodging new government measures designed to minimize the use of torture and abuse in the police system. Police still routinely use beatings, sleep deprivation, and hanging prisoners by the walls to force confessions, the organization alleges.
Multiple reports indicate that American military officials are considering sending forces to monitor disputed areas of the South China Sea in an attempt, as Reuters describes it, to “assert freedom of navigation around rapidly growing Chinese-made artificial islands.” The reports arrive less than one week before Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to meet with Chinese leadership in Beijing.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican officially recognized the state of Palestine in a new treaty finalized Wednesday, immediately sparking Israeli ire and accusations that the move hurt peace prospects. The treaty, which concerns the activities of the Catholic Church in Palestinian territory, makes clear that the Holy See has switched its diplomatic recognition from the Palestine Liberation Organization to the state of Palestine.
Following the Obama administration’s craven presentation of America’s–largely imaginary–human rights shortcomings to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) Monday, the member states took their turns to add to the criticism. In many cases, the countries piling on were dictatorships that murder and persecute their own citizens with absolute impunity.
The BBC weighs in the contestants in a heavyweight social-media boxing match between the “e-Muftis” of Jordan and Internet-savvy Islamist radicals: “In one corner, there’s the religious establishment of a global faith – complete with 1,400 years of collected learning. In the other, there is the self-styled Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) and its daily dose of propaganda videos flooding the Internet. Have traditional clerics got what it takes to be heard in this digital culture war?”
The President of Chad, Idriss Deby, visited the Nigerian capital Abuja today to meet with both outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan and President-elect Muhammadu Buhari on how to best jointly combat the looming threat of Boko Haram. Speaking to reporters, Deby lamented that cooperation with Nigeria could use improvement, and that such coordination has been a problem in the past.
“Peanuts” fans well remember a recurring Fall theme in the Charles Schulz comic strip: Lucy holding a football on the ground for Charlie Brown to kick, only to remove it at the last second. Each season, Lucy repeatedly assured Charlie “this time” would be different. A gullible Charlie repeatedly put his faith in Lucy, but readers did not. They knew she had no compunction about lying.
The National Security Council (NSC) is meant to serve as “the President’s principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials. Increasingly, it is a repository for radicals whose ideas are too extreme for public scrutiny, and who would never pass congressional muster. The latest case is the NSC’s hosting last month of a Palestinian-American teenager, Tariq Khdeir, who was beaten by Israeli police in 2014.
Gunmen on motorcycles boarded a bus and opened fire on commuters in Pakistan’s volatile southern city of Karachi on Wednesday, killing at least 43, police said, in the latest attack directed against religious minorities this year.
Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga lambasted “movements in the United States” that have expressed criticism of the Pope’s upcoming encyclical letter on the environment, calling it “absurd” to disparage a document that has not yet been released.
On Sunday morning, a group of young Muslim immigrants interrupted a Catholic procession in honor of the Virgin Mary with verbal insults, shouting, and threats as the group passed in front of the Islamic Cultural Center in Conselice, a small town in lower Romagna.
