| Islamic State on the defensive, territory shrinking in Syria and Iraq: U.S. official Posted: 15 May 2016 03:03 PM PDT  By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - Islamic State has not gained significant ground since it took the Iraqi city of Ramadi a year ago, which it then lost in December, as the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria has been helped by better intelligence and better equipped local forces, a senior U.S. official said on Sunday. Islamic State "is shrinking so they are very much on the defensive," Brett McGurk, U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy in the fight against Islamic State, told a news conference in Amman.
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| IS attack and bombings leave 29 dead across Iraq Posted: 15 May 2016 01:45 PM PDT  BAGHDAD (AP) — The Islamic State group launched a coordinated assault Sunday on a natural gas plant north of Baghdad that killed at least 14 people, while a string of other bomb attacks in or close to the capital killed 15 others, Iraqi officials said.
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| Seven dead in raid on Iraqi gas plant claimed by IS Posted: 15 May 2016 12:30 PM PDT  Suicide attackers stormed a gas plant north of Baghdad Sunday, killing at least seven people and setting fire to tanks in the latest such assault claimed by the Islamic State group. Brett McGurk, the top US envoy to the coalition battling IS, said meanwhile that the increase in such attacks showed the jihadists were under pressure in the face of the offensive against it. In an online statement, IS said the attack was carried out by four suicide bombers, for whom it provided noms de guerre.
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| US says bid to retake Iraq's Mosul from IS making progress Posted: 15 May 2016 11:28 AM PDT  The US-led offensive to recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State group is making progress, the top American envoy to the coalition said Sunday. IS had "returned to suicide bombing" because the area under its control was shrinking and it was on the defensive, Brett McGurk said at a conference in the Jordanian capital. "We are now making progress against Daesh," McGurk said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.
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| IRAQ ATTACK Posted: 15 May 2016 09:02 AM PDT Map locates Taji and Latifiyah, Iraq, sites of bombings; 1c x 2 1/4 inches; 46.5 mm x 57 mm; |
| Could the Latest Trump Stories Be Different From the Rest? Posted: 15 May 2016 07:44 AM PDT  Donald Trump in 1995 with then-wife Marla Maples and daughter Tiffany, about whose potential future beauty Trump was talking at the time. (Jeff Christensen / Reuters)
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| Islamic State attacks gas plant north of Baghdad, killing 11 Posted: 15 May 2016 06:11 AM PDT  By Ahmed Rasheed and Kareem Raheem BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Islamic State attack on a state-run gas plant in Baghdad's northern outskirts on Sunday killed at least 11 people, including policemen, and forced two power stations it supplied to suspend electricity production. A suicide car bomb went off at the entrance of the facility in Taji at around 0600 local time (0300 GMT), allowing another vehicle carrying at least six attackers with explosive vests to enter and clash with security forces, police sources said. When reinforcements arrived, they set off a parked car bomb before clashing with the security forces and detonating their suicide vests.
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| Iraq takes aim at media as security forces struggle to contain strife Posted: 15 May 2016 04:44 AM PDT  By Saif Hameed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Shi'ite-led authorities have shut the offices of two television channels popular with Sunni Iraqis and ordered a satirical show off air, tightening control over the media as political tensions rise in Baghdad. The crackdown, which began in March, appears to be prompted by concerns that the channels could enflame sectarian rivalries which over-stretched security forces would struggle to contain. The Communication and Media Commission (CMC), has shut down the Baghdad office of the pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, closed the local TV channel Al-Baghdadia, and ordered a halt to broadcasts of the satirical Albasheer Show.
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| United Arab Emirates military plane crashes during training Posted: 15 May 2016 02:05 AM PDT DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The military of the United Arab Emirates says a military aircraft has crashed during a training flight in the Gulf country, killing two onboard. |
| Boko Haram to increase cooperation if Islamic State boosts Libya presence-UK Posted: 15 May 2016 12:45 AM PDT  By Ulf Laessing ABUJA (Reuters) - Boko Haram jihadists are likely to step up cooperation with Islamic State should the latter extremist group gain a stronger foothold in Libya, a senior British official said on Saturday. Boko Haram, which has been waging a seven-year insurgency in northern Nigeria, last year pledged loyalty to Islamic State. Little is known about the extent of cooperation.
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| Efforts to counter IS propaganda bear fruit, experts say Posted: 14 May 2016 09:43 PM PDT  US authorities and Internet giants are boosting attempts to counter the Islamic State group's online propaganda, though it is unclear how effective these efforts are in hampering the jihadists' public-relations machine. With calls to jihad and highly produced videos of IS fighters in battle or killing captives, the IS group has long used the Internet and social media to recruit fighters for its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and to incite individuals around the world to commit terrorist attacks. To try to stop this, web giants like Twitter and Facebook are working hard to shut down jihadist accounts, though these often pop back up under a new name.
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| Today in History Posted: 14 May 2016 09:05 PM PDT Today is Sunday, May 15, the 136th day of 2016. There are 230 days left in the year. |
| Five face terror charges over Australia-Syria boat plan Posted: 14 May 2016 08:07 PM PDT  Five young men face life behind bars after they were charged with terrorism offences over a plan to sail to Indonesia to join jihadist groups in Syria, Australian police said. The men, aged in their twenties and early thirties and whose passports had been cancelled, included notorious Australian Islamic preacher Musa Cerantonio, who was detained in the Philippines in 2014 and deported for reportedly urging people to join jihad in Iraq and Syria, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. The men, who were arrested on Tuesday, bought a seven-metre (23-foot) boat and drove it 2,840 kilometres (1,765 miles) from Melbourne north to Queensland state where they planned to set sail to Indonesia, the Australian Federal Police said.
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| How to Get Away With Dictatorship in the Age of Democracy Posted: 14 May 2016 05:00 PM PDT  Dozens of men around the world resist the tide of democracy. What is there to be done?
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