| Syrian rebels attack peacekeepers in Golan Heights Posted: 30 Aug 2014 05:04 PM PDT  BEIRUT (AP) — Clashes erupted between al-Qaida-linked Syrian rebels and U.N. peacekeepers in the Golan Heights on Saturday after the militants surrounded their encampment, activists and officials said, as the international organization risked being sucked further into the conflict.
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| Obama attends wedding of longtime personal chef Posted: 30 Aug 2014 04:39 PM PDT  POCANTICO HILLS, N.Y. (AP) — President Barack Obama set aside the pressures of the world's trouble spots on Saturday to assume the role of spectator for something more joyous: the wedding of the Obama family's longtime chef and friend.
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| Australia to fly guns and ammunition into Iraq Posted: 30 Aug 2014 04:37 PM PDT CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian military aircraft will fly guns and ammunition into Iraq to help fight Islamic State militants, Australia's prime minister said on Sunday. |
| In Texas, Cruz sounds like he's running in 2016 Posted: 30 Aug 2014 03:46 PM PDT DALLAS (AP) — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz sounds increasingly like he's made up his mind to run for president in 2016, telling an influential gathering of conservative activists Saturday that "we are part of a grassroots fire that is sweeping this country." |
| Islamic State militants behead captive Lebanese soldier: video Posted: 30 Aug 2014 03:09 PM PDT  Islamic State militants beheaded a Lebanese soldier who was one of 19 captured by hardline Syrian Islamists when they seized a Lebanese border town for a few days this month, a video posted on social media showed on Saturday. The soldier, recognizable as Ali al-Sayyed, a Sunni Muslim from north Lebanon, was shown blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back, writhing and kicking the dusty ground while a militant announces he will be killed. Islamic State, which declared a "caliphate" in June in parts of Iraq and Syria under its control, has been cited as a major security threat by Western governments since posting a video in August of the beheading of U.S journalist James Foley. The Lebanese army declined to comment, but security and Islamic State sources confirmed the latest beheading.
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| Syria jihadists free 4 Lebanese soldiers, policeman held hostage Posted: 30 Aug 2014 03:00 PM PDT  Four soldiers and a police officer kidnapped in the east of Lebanon nearly a month ago were freed late Saturday by the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, a security service official told AFP. The five "taken hostage by the Al-Nusra Front have been freed and have arrived in Arsal," a Lebanese town on the border with Syria, he said. "They are still not in the hands of the security services," he added. The men were taken from Arsal on August 2 during a fierce battle between the Lebanese army and jihadists who had crossed the border from Syria.
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| US launches air strikes on IS rebels near Mosul dam: Pentagon Posted: 30 Aug 2014 02:26 PM PDT  The US military launched fresh attacks on Islamic State forces in Iraq, using fighter aircraft and drones to carry out strikes near the Mosul dam, the Pentagon said on Saturday. "The strikes destroyed an ISIL armed vehicle, an ISIL fighting position, ISIL weapons, and significantly damaged an ISIL building," a US Defense Department statement said, referring to the IS forces also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The statement put out by US Central Command, based in Tampa, Florida, said the strikes were conducted to support Kurdish and Iraqi troops, "as well as to protect critical infrastructure, US personnel and facilities, and support humanitarian efforts." The statement said that US Central Command so far has conducted a total of 115 air strikes across Iraq.
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| 5 US airstrikes target Islamic State fighters Posted: 30 Aug 2014 02:15 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military says fighter aircraft and unmanned drones have struck Islamic State militants near Iraq's Mosul Dam. |
| Captives held by Islamic State prove tough quandary for Obama Posted: 30 Aug 2014 02:06 PM PDT By Mark Hosenball and Warren Strobel WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After Islamic State's beheading of journalist James Foley, President Barack Obama's administration is making little headway in efforts to secure the release of three other Americans held by the insurgent group in Syria, officials said. Journalist Steven Sotloff and two others whom Reuters is not naming are among fewer than 10 Westerners that Islamic State (IS) is holding in kidnappings that until recently were aimed at simply raising ransoms, they said. Washington has contacted about two dozen countries for help in freeing the three, but no foreign government appears to have influence over or even significant contact with IS, which has declared an Islamic caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria. |
| Obama, Harper discuss NATO summit, Iraq in phone call: White House Posted: 30 Aug 2014 01:27 PM PDT President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper talked by telephone on Saturday to discuss next week's NATO summit in Wales and the situation in Iraq, the White House said. "Both leaders agreed on the importance of ensuring Alliance unity on measures to strengthen NATO's readiness and responsiveness to the full range of current and future threats," the White House said in a statement. Obama stressed that agreeing on increased defense investment in all areas would be a top priority at the NATO summit, it added. |
| Israel agreed Gaza truce to focus on jihadist threat: Netanyahu Posted: 30 Aug 2014 01:14 PM PDT  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel agreed to a permanent truce in its 50-day Gaza war with Hamas in order to keep focused on the threat from regional militants. "We fought for 50 days and we could have fought for 500 days, but we are in a situation where the Islamic State is at the gates of Jordan, Al-Qaeda is in the Golan and Hezbollah is at the border with Lebanon," Netanyahu said in an address on public television. He was referring to Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq -- both neighbours of Jordan -- Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front Syria rebels on the Israeli-annexed Golan and Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah. "We decided not to get bogged down in Gaza, and we could have, but we decided to limit our objective and restore calm to Israeli citizens," Netanyahu added.
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| No Islamic State strategy? Obama gets lots of unsought advice Posted: 30 Aug 2014 01:06 PM PDT As the Obama administration works out its strategy for confronting the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq and Syria, President Obama is getting lots of urgent advice. Obama, of course, left himself open to unsolicited suggestions and criticisms earlier this week when he said, "We don't have a strategy yet" – a comment that left at least some potential partners in that most dangerous part of the world worried and nervous. The Post also editorialized on what it termed the "dismaying," "alarming," and "disturbing" aspects of Obama's remarks, including those on Russia and Ukraine, which were distinctly milder than those of his own United Nations Ambassador, Samantha Power. It's time Mr. Obama started emphasizing what the United States can do instead of what it cannot." |
| Iraq launches drive to break jihadist siege of Amerli Posted: 30 Aug 2014 12:43 PM PDT  Iraq launched a major operation on Saturday to liberate a jihadist-besieged town, as US Secretary of State John Kerry called for a global coalition to combat the "genocidal" militants. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah warned that the West would be the next Islamic State (IS) target unless swift action is taken, after Britain raised its terror alert level over the threat of jihadist attacks. The drive to break the more than two-month siege of Amerli came as an NGO said that the IS jihadist group, which has surrounded the Shiite Turkmen-majority town, sold at least 27 women in Syria after kidnapping them in Iraq.
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| Lebanon army probes 'jihadist beheading of soldier' Posted: 30 Aug 2014 12:41 PM PDT  The Lebanese army is investigating pictures and video footage of the alleged beheading of a Lebanese soldier by Islamic State jihadists, a military spokesman told AFP on Saturday. IS supporters released a video showing the decapitation of a blindfolded man in military fatigues, and presented as one of 19 Lebanese soldiers abducted by jihadists in eastern Lebanon on August 2. "We are investigating," a military spokesman said, without saying whether the video was thought to be authentic. One gunman charges that his death is in reprisal for the Lebanese army acting "under the orders" of Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement, which is fighting alongside Syrian regime forces against rebels and jihadists.
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| Number of Yazidi refugees in Turkey swells to 16,000: official Posted: 30 Aug 2014 12:35 PM PDT  The number of refugees from Iraq's Yazidi religious minority who have fled to Turkey from the advance of jihadists has risen to 16,000 and may rise further, a top provincial official was quoted as saying Saturday. The number marks a sharp rise from the figures of several thousand previously given and shows Turkey is dealing with another major influx of refugees as it gives sanctuary to some 1.2 million fleeing the Syria conflict. Some 2,000 Yazidi refugees have entered Turkey through legal border crossings and another 14,000 through other routes, Sirnak province governor Hasan Ipek was quoted as saying in a statement by his office. Turkey is already setting up a refugee camp for Yazidis in the town of Zakho inside northern Iraq and Ipek said it had to function well, "otherwise we are faced with the prospect of 40,000 (Yazidi) refugees entering Turkey."
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| Gulf meeting ends without clear end to Qatar spat Posted: 30 Aug 2014 12:31 PM PDT  RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A meeting of Gulf foreign ministers ended on Saturday without a clear way out of a monthslong diplomatic spat with Qatar, although some envoys signaled that progress had been made.
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| Iraq gets Russian Mi-28 attack helicopters: ministry Posted: 30 Aug 2014 12:31 PM PDT  Baghdad (AFP) - Iraq has received Russian Mi-28 attack helicopters and will use them against militants who have overrun large parts of the country, the defence ministry said on Saturday.
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| Saudi king warns of terrorist threat to Europe, US Posted: 30 Aug 2014 12:10 PM PDT  RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — The king of Saudi Arabia has warned that extremists could attack Europe and the U.S. if there is not a strong international response to terrorism after the Islamic State group seized a wide territory across Iraq and Syria.
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| Gulf monarchies say ready to help counter jihadists Posted: 30 Aug 2014 11:44 AM PDT  Gulf Arab monarchies said Saturday they were ready to help counter advances by jihadists in Syria and Iraq, after the US called for a global coalition to fight the militants. US President Obama admitted Thursday that he did not yet have a strategy to tackle jihadists from the Islamic State, which has declared a "caliphate" in large swathes of territory it controls in Syria and Iraq.
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| U.S. to push for coalition to fight 'cancer' of Islamic State: Kerry Posted: 30 Aug 2014 11:34 AM PDT  Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States will use a NATO summit next week to push for a coalition of countries to beat back incursions in Syria and Iraq by Islamic State militants who are destabilizing the region and beyond. "With a united response led by the United States and the broadest possible coalition of nations, the cancer of ISIS will not be allowed to spread to other countries," Kerry wrote in an opinion piece published in The New York Times on Saturday. Public anger over the beheading of American journalist James Foley has led President Barack Obama to consider military strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria. So far, the United States has limited its actions to the group's forces in Iraq.
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| Iraqi and Kurdish forces bid to break Islamic State siege of town Posted: 30 Aug 2014 10:19 AM PDT By Raheem Salman BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi army and Kurdish forces closed in on Islamic State fighters on Saturday in a push to break the Sunni militants' siege of the Shi'ite town of Amerli, army sources said. Two officers said Iraqi troops, militia and Kurdish peshmerga were advancing from four directions on the northern town, which has been surrounded by Islamic State forces for more than two months. In a separate incident on Saturday, a suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives killed at least 11 people in a town just south of Baghdad. Armed residents of Amerli have managed to fend off attacks by the Islamic State fighters, who regard its majority Shi'ite Turkman population as apostates. |
| 5 International Stories You'll Care About Next Week Posted: 30 Aug 2014 10:11 AM PDT  President Obama Visits Wales for NATO Summit
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| Japan ex-wrestler wages 'sports diplomacy' in N. Korea Posted: 30 Aug 2014 08:07 AM PDT  Flamboyant Japanese wrestler-turned-politician Kanji "Antonio" Inoki kicked off his brand of sports diplomacy in North Korea Saturday in an unusual two-day event featuring martial artists from around the world. Inoki, 71, an opposition member of Japan's upper house with a penchant for red scarves, has travelled to the reclusive state with a host of international fighters in an attempt to use sport to thaw relations between Tokyo and Pyongyang. He met with North Korea's ceremonial head of state Kim Yong-Nam on Saturday, hours before the first night of the "International Pro Wrestling Festival" kicked off at Pyongyang's 20,000-seat Ryugyong Jong Ju-Yong Stadium, Japanese media reported from the North Korean capital. Kim presides over North Korea's parliament, the Supreme People's Assembly, and often receives state guests or credentials from foreign ambassadors -- an indication of how seriously Pyongyang is taking Inoki's visit.
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| Dozens of Yazidi women 'sold into marriage' by jihadists: NGO Posted: 30 Aug 2014 07:25 AM PDT  Several dozen Yazidi women kidnapped by Islamic State jihadists in Iraq have been taken to Syria, forced to convert and sold into marriage to militants, a monitoring group said Saturday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based NGO, said it had confirmed that at least 27 Yazidi women had been sold for around $1,000 each to IS fighters. The group said it was aware that some 300 Yazidi women had been kidnapped and transported to Syria by the jihadists, but it had so far documented the sale into marriage of 27. "In recent weeks, some 300 women and girls of the Yazidi faith who were abducted in Iraq have been distributed as spoils of war to fighters from the Islamic State," a statement said.
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| Iran president calls US sanctions an 'invasion' Posted: 30 Aug 2014 07:18 AM PDT TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called Western sanctions an "invasion" Saturday after Washington imposed new penalties over the country's contested nuclear program, though he promised negotiations with world powers would go on. |
| WFP says it needs $70 mln to feed 1.3 mln people in Ebola quarantine Posted: 30 Aug 2014 07:18 AM PDT  The World Food Programme needs to raise $70 million to feed 1.3 million people at risk from shortages in Ebola-quarantined areas in West Africa, with the agency's resources already stretched by several major humanitarian crises, its regional director said. WFP's West Africa Director Denise Brown said the organisation was currently providing food for around 150,000 people in Ebola-striken nations but needed to rapidly scale that up as the worst ever epidemic of the virus advanced. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have pledged to impose a 'cordon sanitaire' on the most affected communities in their joint border region, restricting travel to and from the areas and limiting their access to food supplies. "We've agreed this morning...that we need to extend that because WHO is already talking about 6-9 months before this is contained." Brown said the WFP would look from donations from major donors like the United States, the European Union, the World Bank and Japan, as well as from non-traditional benefactors such as Arab states.
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| Iran nuclear talks to continue on fringes of U.N. assembly: Ashton Posted: 30 Aug 2014 07:16 AM PDT  The six global powers will discuss ways to reach a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, the European Union's foreign policy chief said on Saturday. Talks aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for ending sanctions began in February. Catherine Ashton, the EU's top diplomat, is expected to continue to lead nuclear negotiations with Iran even as she leaves her EU job at the end of October.
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| WFP says it needs $70 million to feed 1.3 million people in Ebola quarantine Posted: 30 Aug 2014 06:11 AM PDT  The World Food Programme needs to raise $70 million to feed 1.3 million people at risk from shortages in Ebola-quarantined areas in West Africa, with the agency's resources already stretched by several major humanitarian crises, its regional director said. WFP's West Africa Director Denise Brown said the organization was currently providing food for around 150,000 people in Ebola-striken nations but needed to rapidly scale that up as the worst ever epidemic of the virus advanced. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have pledged to impose a 'cordon sanitaire' on the most affected communities in their joint border region, restricting travel to and from the areas and limiting their access to food supplies. "We've agreed this morning...that we need to extend that because WHO is already talking about 6-9 months before this is contained." Brown said the WFP would look from donations from major donors like the United States, the European Union, the World Bank and Japan, as well as from non-traditional benefactors such as Arab states.
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| Anti-jihadist fight forges fragile Kurdish unity Posted: 30 Aug 2014 03:57 AM PDT  Kurdish groups from Iraq and three neighbouring countries are putting aside old rivalries to battle jihadist militants, but there are cracks in this newly-forged unity and it may not last. Fighters from the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group have marauded through large areas of Iraq and Syria, sparking alarm across the region and international concerns that they may export the violence to the West. With Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan and parts of Syria on the frontlines of the IS aggression, fighters from the two countries have been joined in their battle against the jihadists by Kurds from Turkey and Iran, both of which also have large Kurdish populations.
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| Saudi king warns West will be jihadists' next target Posted: 30 Aug 2014 02:37 AM PDT  King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned that the West will be the next target of the jihadists sweeping through Syria and Iraq, unless there is "rapid" action. "Terrorism knows no border and its danger could affect several countries outside the Middle East," said the king who was speaking at a welcoming ceremony on Friday for new ambassadors, including a new envoy from Saudi ally the United States. The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group has prompted widespread concern as it advances in both Syria and Iraq, killing hundreds of people, including in gruesome beheadings and mass executions. President Barack Obama has yet to decide whether the United States should launch raids against positions held by the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria to follow US air strikes on IS activities in Iraq.
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| Palladium hits 13-1/2-year high on supply fear; gold eases Posted: 30 Aug 2014 01:30 AM PDT  By Frank Tang and Jan Harvey NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Palladium rose to a 13-1/2-year high on Friday on worries over uncertain supplies from Russia, the world's largest producer of the metal, while gold prices eased on a dollar rise and gains in U.S. Tensions rose after Ukraine called for full membership in NATO, its strongest plea yet for Western military help after accusing Russia of sending in armoured columns that have driven back its forces in support of pro-Moscow rebels. Supply of autocatalyst metal palladium from Russia is expected to fall 2 percent this year, GFMS analysts said, but the impact of potential sanctions over the Ukraine conflict is likely to be minimal. Russia accounted for more than 40 percent of supply last year.
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| Obama seeking allies for fight against extremists Posted: 30 Aug 2014 01:05 AM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's acknowledgement the U.S. still lacks a strategy for defeating the growing extremist threat emanating from Syria reflects a still unformed international coalition.
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| Westerners linked to extremist groups in Syria Posted: 30 Aug 2014 01:02 AM PDT As many as 12,000 foreigners have gone to Syria to fight the government of Bashar Assad. Many have joined extremist groups, including the al-Nusra front, an al-Qaida affiliate, and the Islamic State group, which now controls a territory straddling Syria and Iraq. The State Department lists these foreigners fighting the Assad government in Syria: |
| Intelligence nightmare: Extremists returning home Posted: 30 Aug 2014 12:57 AM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — The case of Mehdi Nemmouche haunts U.S. intelligence officials.
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| Saudi king warns of terrorism threat to U.S., Europe Posted: 30 Aug 2014 12:54 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah said terrorism would soon spread to Europe and the United States unless it is quickly dealt with in the Middle East, the Saudi state news agency reported late on Friday. "I ask you to convey this message to your leaders... Terrorism at this time is an evil force that must be fought with wisdom and speed," said King Abdullah. "And if neglected I'm sure after a month it will arrive in Europe and a month after that in America." The world's top oil exporter shares an 800-km (500-mile) border with Iraq, where Islamic State militants and other Sunni Islamist groups have seized towns and cities. Britain raised its terrorism alert on Friday and Prime Minister David Cameron said Islamic State posed the greatest ever security risk to the country.
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| Gulf rivals struggle to build anti-jihadist front Posted: 30 Aug 2014 12:01 AM PDT  Gulf countries, while siding with Washington against Islamic State jihadists, are struggling to build a common front because of differences within their own ranks and with non-Arab Iran. US President Barack Obama is sending his Secretary of State John Kerry to the Middle East to try to build strong regional support against IS, which is rampaging through Iraq and Syria. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal has over the past week been at the centre of diplomatic efforts to stand up to the challenge posed by IS to the status quo. He and his counterparts from Egypt, Qatar and the Emirates held talks on Syria and "the rise of terrorist extremist ideology", according to an official statement.
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| IN IRONS Posted: 29 Aug 2014 10:00 PM PDT Perhaps only in 1914, 1938 and 1939 -- maybe even 2001, if you consider that planning for the September attacks was continuing apace over Labor Day weekend -- have world leaders returned to their posts to so dangerous a mix of global conditions as the ones Barack Obama, the American Congress, the Western allies, Middle East warriors and Eastern European leaders now confront. As the world slipped into war in 1914, Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign minister, was off bird-watching. It had been a splendid summer, the prettiest in memory in Europe, elegized by the poet Alice Meynell (1847-1922), whose "Summer in England 1914" speaks of a golden time when "The hay was prosperous, and the wheat/The silken harvest climbed the down/Moon after moon was heavenly-sweet." There is much competition for this title, but it may go to the new Caliphate spilling over the borders of Syria and Iraq and headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose group, known as the Islamic State, is rapidly replacing al-Qaida as the sum of all American fears. |
| Pentagon: Iraq operations cost $560 million so far Posted: 29 Aug 2014 09:08 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military operations in Iraq, including airstrikes and surveillance flights, have cost about $560 million since mid-June, the Pentagon said Friday. |
| Kerry reassures Egypt over Apache delivery Posted: 29 Aug 2014 06:24 PM PDT  Secretary of State John Kerry told his Egyptian counterpart that the United States intends to make good on its promise to deliver 10 Apache helicopters to help Cairo's counterterrorism efforts. Kerry announced in June that he was "confident" Egypt would receive the helicopter gunships soon, and reiterated that in his phone call to Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, a senior State Department official said. "Secretary Kerry informed Shoukry that the United States intends to move forward on deliveries of Apache helicopters to the Egyptian military, which we believe are a critical tool that will help the Egyptian government in its counterterrorism efforts," the official said.
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