| Iraqi PM announces operation to retake Shirqat, south of Mosul Posted: 19 Sep 2016 05:29 PM PDT  Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Tuesday the launching of a military operation to retake Shirqat, an Islamic State bastion 100 km (60 miles) south of the jihadists' Mosul stronghold. The northern town on the banks of the Tigris River, which Iraqi troops and allied Shi'ite Muslim militias have surrounded, is thought to contain tens of thousands of civilians. Officials have warned for months of a humanitarian disaster inside where residents living under Islamic State's harsh rule say food supplies have dwindled and prices soared.
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| The Latest: Japan's Abe talks trade with Clinton at UN Posted: 19 Sep 2016 05:21 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. presidential race (all times EDT):
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| Obama hopes for progress on Mosul by year-end Posted: 19 Sep 2016 05:20 PM PDT  By Jeff Mason NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday his administration would ask Congress and other countries to "step up" aid for Iraq to help rebuild Mosul after an expected operation in the coming months to dislodge Islamic State militants from the city. Speaking to reporters at the end of a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Obama said he hoped for progress by the end of the year on Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city which fell to the Islamic State group in June 2014. Mosul is a large city and ISIL has embedded itself deeply within that city," Obama said, referring to the militant group by an acronym.
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| The Latest: Moderator names topics for first debate Posted: 19 Sep 2016 04:02 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. presidential race (all times EDT):
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| Obama, Iraqi leader vow rapid offensive to retake Mosul Posted: 19 Sep 2016 03:57 PM PDT  NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi put the Islamic State group on notice Monday that they plan to recapture the city of Mosul within months. If successful, the operation could mark a major turning point in the campaign to defeat the extremist group.
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| After bomb blasts, Clinton, Trump trade charges on national security Posted: 19 Sep 2016 03:40 PM PDT  By James Oliphant PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton on Monday accused Republican Donald Trump of aiding Islamic State recruitment, while Trump said she had helped weaken national security as bomb blasts in New York and New Jersey resonated on the U.S. presidential trail. Both candidates for the Nov. 8 election tried to use the weekend attacks to flex their credentials to protect America as world leaders gathered in security-heightened New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly.
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| Liberation of Iraq's Mosul could come quickly Posted: 19 Sep 2016 02:56 PM PDT  President Barack Obama said Monday that US-backed Iraqi troops could be in a position "fairly rapidly" to liberate the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State group. The IS group seized Mosul, Iraq's cosmopolitan and religiously mixed second city, in June 2014 in a lightning offensive through the north and west of the country. The defeat exposed deep flaws in Iraq's military, but since then a US-led coalition has sent military advisors and attack jets to bolster the government side.
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| Ex-Islamic State captive pleads to world leaders for refugee help Posted: 19 Sep 2016 02:54 PM PDT  By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A young Yazidi woman held captive and raped by Islamic State militants appealed to world leaders at the United Nations on Monday to end war and improve the lives of millions of refugees as they agreed a voluntary framework to respond to the global crisis. Nadia Murad Basee Taha, 23, recently appointed a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told leaders at a U.N. refugee and migrants summit ahead of the 71st General Assembly: "You decide whether it is to be war or peace." "We have to address the causes of immigration, not just the immigration itself... We have to end wars and put humanity first," said Taha, who was held by Islamic State in Iraq for several months in 2014. "I wished that the rapes I endured by 12 terrorists were 12 bullets in my flesh." With a record 21.3 million refugees globally, the 193-member General Assembly adopted a political declaration in which they also agreed to spend the next two years negotiating global compacts on refugees and safe, orderly and regular migration.
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| In a first for Middle East politics, Christians and Islamists stump together Posted: 19 Sep 2016 02:27 PM PDT Akef Smeirat is doing something no other Christian candidate in Jordan has done: he's running with Islamists. "Today we need to stop talking about divisions, Islamist and leftist, tribe versus tribe," Mr. Smeirat told residents of this Christian village who gathered recently in a tent overlooking rolling olive orchards on the outskirts of Amman. Ismael Abu Rumman, a Muslim candidate from the nearby town of Salt, chimed in. |
| Where they stand: Trump, Clinton clash on Islamic extremism Posted: 19 Sep 2016 02:19 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Bombings in the New York region and a stabbing attack in Minnesota have thrust Islamic extremism into the forefront of the 2016 election just a week before the first presidential debate, with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton offering dramatically different visions of how to fight it. |
| Terror Attacks Trigger a ‘Sticks and Stones’ Battle Between Trump and Clinton Posted: 19 Sep 2016 01:47 PM PDT  The spate of terror attacks in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota over the weekend, and the subsequent capture of bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami were immediately subsumed into the presidential campaign on Monday, as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump each claimed to be best suited to defend the nation from terrorism while assuring the public that their opponent is exactly the person terrorists want to see in the Oval Office. Trump was coming off another bad weekend in which his surrogates were tripped up on national television trying to defend his false claim that Clinton started rumors about then-Senator Barack Obama's citizenship in 2008. The Trump campaign kept blasting out regular press releases as the news developed on Monday, promising, among other things, that he would simply "end" violence against Americans.
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| The Latest: Trump says he'd admit people who 'love' USA Posted: 19 Sep 2016 01:42 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. presidential race (all times EDT):
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| How to Cope With the Trauma of Terror Events, Even for Those Not Directly Affected Posted: 19 Sep 2016 12:27 PM PDT  "Whether through social media, television ... those images are coming fast and furious," Robin Gurwitch, a psychologist who specializes in disaster trauma at Duke University told ABC News in a previous interview.
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| Persian Gulf incidents spike, sending message from Iran hardliners Posted: 19 Sep 2016 12:14 PM PDT In the latest episode last weekend, Iran warned two US Navy surveillance planes flying high at the edge of its territory that it would shoot them down if they entered Iranian airspace. Recommended: How much do you know about Iran? The US military says all recent incidents have occurred in international waters, and that such "harassment" from Iran is "unsafe and unprofessional." Senior Iranian officers, meanwhile, downplay their actions as "routine" and defensive – but declare that a "severe" reaction will follow if they detect any aggressive US intent. |
| U.N. launches appeal for Libya's Sirte as forces renew push against Islamic State Posted: 19 Sep 2016 11:19 AM PDT  By Emma Batha LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The United Nations launched an emergency $10.7 million appeal on Monday to help tens of thousands of people heading back to the Libyan city of Sirte amid military operations to oust Islamic State fighters from their last hideouts. Libyan forces aligned with the country's U.N.-backed government are said to be close to capturing the coastal city, which became Islamic State's most important stronghold outside Syria and Iraq when the jihadist group took control last year. Military operations have triggered new displacement while many other families have returned to areas now cleared of militants.
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| 'No matter the price', Amal Clooney seeks justice for Yazidi sex slaves Posted: 19 Sep 2016 08:37 AM PDT  By Lin Taylor LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Islamic State militants who have enslaved, murdered and raped Yazidi women and children must be brought to justice, no matter the price, international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney said on Monday. Clooney, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London, is on a mission to prosecute the Islamist group through the International Criminal Court for their crimes against the Yazidi community.
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| Report: Turkey detains 2 would-be IS suicide bombers Posted: 19 Sep 2016 08:04 AM PDT ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Police on Monday detained two suspected Islamic State group would-be suicide bombers near the border with Syria, Turkey's state-run news agency reported. |
| Saudi Arabia says arrests 17 Islamic State attack plotters Posted: 19 Sep 2016 07:47 AM PDT Saudi Arabia has arrested 17 suspected Islamic State sympathizers accused of plotting attacks on religious officials, security forces, civilian districts and economic and military targets, the interior ministry said on Monday. Fourteen of those arrested are Saudi nationals, including one woman, ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki told state television news channel Ekhbariya, which broadcast photographs of the accused. "The activities of this network went beyond the kingdom's borders to provide technical and media support for Daesh," said Turki, using an Arabic acronym for the Iraq and Syria-based Islamist militant group. |
| Saudis say 17 held after 'IS plot' foiled Posted: 19 Sep 2016 07:42 AM PDT  Saudi Arabia said on Monday it has arrested 17 people from three cells linked to the Islamic State group which planned to attack military and other facilities. The interior ministry said 16 men and one woman were in custody. "Months-long efforts culminated in the foiling of a terrorist plot that was to be carried out by a network made up of three cluster cells connected to IS," the ministry said in a statement to the official Saudi Press Agency.
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| Britain says took part in air strikes believed to have killed Syrian soldiers Posted: 19 Sep 2016 05:49 AM PDT  Britain said on Monday it had taken part in a U.S-led air strikes in Syria over the weekend that Russia says killed Syrian soldiers. "We can confirm that the UK participated in the recent coalition air strike in Syria ... on Saturday, and we are fully co-operating with the coalition investigation," the defence ministry said in a statement. The Russian Defence Ministry said on Saturday U.S. jets had killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers in four air strikes by two F-16s and two A-10s coming from the direction of Iraq.
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| GSK cuts vaccine price for refugees, bowing to pressure Posted: 19 Sep 2016 05:39 AM PDT  GlaxoSmithKline is cutting the price charged for its pneumococcal vaccine when given to refugees, following complaints about the product's "exorbitant" cost by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres. GSK said its offer was made on the basis that others would not seek to reference the special price, which is intended solely to support refugee populations. Pfizer also makes a pneumococcal vaccine called Prevnar.
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| 10 Things to Know for Today Posted: 19 Sep 2016 03:02 AM PDT  Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today: 1. LINKS PROBED BETWEEN BLASTS, DEVICES IN TWO STATES Law enforcement is questioning several people ...
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| Jordanian voters sceptical ahead of general election Posted: 19 Sep 2016 02:33 AM PDT  Jordan's electoral system gives disproportionate clout to rural districts, which are less populated than the cities but tend to return tribal candidates loyal to the monarchy. Believe me, elections in Jordan are a big lie," he says, declining to give his full name. Mohammed says he has visited the tent every day since campaigning began out of a sense of "duty" to support a candidate from his tribe, but also that is determined not to vote on election day.
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| Turkey's Erdogan to address Syria crisis, terrorism fight in U.N. speech Posted: 19 Sep 2016 12:30 AM PDT ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan plans to discuss the crises in Syria and Iraq, the fight against terrorism and the failed July 15 coup attempt at speech at the United Nations General Assembly this week, he said on Monday. Erdogan, who was speaking to reporters at a news conference before departing Istanbul for New York, also said that Turkey-backed rebels in northern Syria could push further south after clearing an area along the border of Islamic State militants. (Reporting by Orhan Coskun and Seda Sezer; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Toby Chopra) |
| Non-Aligned summit backs Maduro, slams US 'interference' Posted: 18 Sep 2016 07:58 PM PDT  The 120-member group issued a statement at the end of the two-day meeting calling for peace, urging world powers not to meddle in other countries' affairs and voicing concern over violence in Syria, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories. The 190-page document also urges support for "the struggle against terrorism, for solidarity with refugees in northern Africa, and the Venezuelan people's right to peace," Maduro told a press conference. Founded 55 years ago to give a greater voice to countries squeezed in the power struggle between the United States and Soviet Union, the Non-Aligned Movement has struggled to stay relevant since the end of the Cold War.
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| Obama praises Clinton, blasts Trump at DNC fundraiser in NYC Posted: 18 Sep 2016 07:09 PM PDT  NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama on Sunday praised Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her intellect, fortitude and "unerring" judgment and blasted "the other guy," Republican Donald Trump, on his New York home turf as unqualified to be president and uninterested in learning enough to make the hard decisions the job requires.
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