The top counterterrorism official for the White House admitted Thursday that the overthrow of the Yemeni government by Islamic extremists had taken U.S. intelligence services by surprise.
National Counterterrorism Center Director Nick Rasmussen told the Senate Intelligence Committee the Yemeni army’s response to the advancing rebels was similar to Iraqi forces who simply laid down arms before ISIS last summer.
“As the Houthi advances toward Sanaa [Yemen’s capital] took place,” Rasmussen said, “they weren’t opposed in many places. … The situation deteriorated far more rapidly than we expected.”
The terrorists overran the government last September, deposing the U.S. backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
The terrorists are providing a safe haven in Yemen for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who carried out the terrorist attacks in Paris on magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Kosher market.
The U.S., Britain and France have closed their embassies in the country and Britain & France have told their citizens to immediately leave Yemen.
A report before the House Homeland Security Commission says that a estimates show over 20,000 foreign fighters sympathetic to ISIS have gone to the middle east to join the group or attempt to join them.
Nick Rasmussen, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center said that fighters are joining at a rate never seen in previous conflicts of similar nature like Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Supporters from 80 countries are believed to be in Syria.
The report says that approximately 150 Americans have attempted to travel to the war zone to join ISIS. Officials say that while some have been caught, a majority were able to make it to ISIS territory.
The new estimate is double the previous and experts say it could top 30,000 in the next few months.
“This new total reflects an increase in members because of stronger recruitment since June following battlefield successes and the declaration of a caliphate, greater battlefield activity and additional intelligence,” an unidentified CIA official told CNN this week.
The chairman of the Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, said the report brings him serious concerns.
“I am worried about our ability to combat this threat abroad, but also here at home,” he said. “I wrote to the president recently as part of my ongoing investigation and raised concerns that we have no lead agency in charge of countering domestic radicalization and no line item for it in the budgets of key departments and agencies. I am also concerned that the few programs we do have in place are far too small to confront a challenge that has grown so quickly.”
It was her passionate faith in Christ that compelled her to care for the orphans of Syria.
It was that faith that kept Kayla Mueller at peace during her captivity at the hands of the brutal Islamic terrorist group ISIS.
“I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine, if this is how you are revealed to me, this is how I will forever seek you,” Mueller told the Prescott (Arizona) Daily Courier in 2013.
Pentagon officials confirmed Mueller’s death but said there is no way the woman was killed during an airstrike by Jordanian forces. The Defense Department’s spokesman said that she was clearly murdered by ISIS.
A letter from Mueller to her family was released to the press that further stated her leaning on God in her horrific situation.
“I remember mom always telling me that all in all in the end the only one you really have is God. I have come to a place in experience where, in every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to our creator b/c literally there was no else … + by God + by your prayers I have felt tenderly cradled in freefall.”
President Obama told buzzfeed news that he had authorized a rescue mission to save Mueller but special forces were a day late.
Fifteen women who were not wearing a niqab have been disfigured with acid at the hands of the ISIS Female Police.
The women were abused in the Mosul neighborhood of Salamiya according to Kurdish officials.
They have implemented this punishment so that other women in the city will never consider removing or not wearing the niqab,” a Kurdistan Democratic Party official in Mosul, Saed Mamuzini said.
ISIS issued a warning in July to all women in Mosul that if they were caught without a full face veil they would be punished.
“This is not a restriction on freedom but to prevent her from falling into humiliation and vulgarity or to be a theater for the eyes of those who are looking,” The Islamic State said in its warning statement. “Anyone who is not committed to this duty and is motivated by glamour will be subject to the accountability and severe punishment to protect society from harm and to maintain the necessities or religion and protect it from debauchery.”
The Female Police unit has been caught using medieval torture devices to abuse and mutilate women who violate their regulations.
The first report since 1998 from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child is showing the horrors of ISIS upon religious minorities.
The report, written by 18 independent experts, shows that ISIS is using children with mental illnesses as suicide bombers. The children are unable to understand that they will die as a result of what they’re doing, and because of their autism and other illnesses they believe they are just being “good kids.”
“We have had reports of children, especially children who are mentally challenged, who have been used as suicide bombers, most probably without them even understanding,” Committee expert Renate Winter said. “There was a video placed [online] that showed children at a very young age, approximately eight years of age and younger, to be trained already to become child soldiers.”
The group has also targeted the children of Christians for crucifixions and live burial. The children would sometimes be thrown into open graves that contain the bodies of their parents and buried.
In addition to the active murders of children, ISIS is also locking children inside homes where they die of starvation or thirst. Children are also sold in markets next to fruit and vegetables.
The report outlines the selling of young girls as sex slaves.
The King of Jordan made the boldest statement yet from a world leader when he said that his country would “completely wipe out ISIS.”
Jordan’s interior minister Hussein al-Majali said his nation’s forces would go after ISIS “wherever they are” and “eliminate them and wipe them out completely.”
The move comes after ISIS burned alive a Jordanian pilot shot down over Syria.
King Abdullah said that Jordan would fight “to the last bullet, the last plane, the last missile.”
The move by Jordan has spurred the United Arab Emirates to enter back into the airstrike coalition. The UAE had suspended their attacks after the capture of the pilot in an attempt to get ISIS to release him.
The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi told the UAE’s official news agency “deep belief in the need for Arab collective cooperation to eliminate terrorism, through actions and words, and bolster the security, stability and moderation of the nation through the collective encountering of these terrorist gangs and their misleading ideology and brutal practices” was the reason for the resumption of air strikes.
ISIS is using social media video to campaign for youth to join their terrorist organization.
The theme of the videos is “What are you waiting for?”
A video posted last week called “Blow Up France 2” features a young jihadist waving an assault weapon telling Muslims they need to continue their attacks on France.
“Don’t give up and particularly don’t lower your weapons, don’t surrender — kill. Today, it’s our darwa — kill them. You now have more than 4 million targets,” the jihadist said in French.
Just hours after the release of the video, Islamist Moussa Coulibaly stabbed three French soldiers patrolling near a Jewish Community Center in Nice. While the attacker shares the same last name as the gunman who killed four a Jewish supermarket in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo killings, police could not confirm if they were related.
“ISIS did not want this exclusively for a French audience,” said Ryan Mauro, security analyst for the Clarion Project, an educational group focused on Islamist extremism. “The group wanted to send a message to Americans, as well.”
One of the young Jihadists in the video is believed to be the widow of one of the men who carried out the murderous rampage at Charlie Hebdo. Hayat Moumeddiene is labeled as France’s “Most Wanted Woman” by security authorities.
A new “manifesto” for girls under the rule of ISIS has been issued telling them they can be married to a Jihadist as young as 9 and that they are to remain “hidden and veiled” to “serve their masters”.
The manifesto, “Women in the Islamic State: Manifesto and Case Study” was uploaded to a Jihadist forum used by ISIS and is written by the all-female Al-Khanssaa Brigade. The same group is the one that beats and stones women and girls who do not follow strict Sharia Law.
The document focuses on Sharia law and a rebuttal of “western civilization” that includes human rights and equality for women.
“It is considered legitimate for a girl to be married at the age of 9. Most pure girls will be married by 16 or 17, while they are still young and active,” it says.
The document tells women to be covered from head to toe at all times, to stay inside their homes to cook, clean and take care of their husbands and that it’s acceptable for women to be locked inside their homes by their husbands. Western women who join ISIS are encouraged to immediately marry a Jihadist and begin duties as a wife.
ISIS tells the women that it is fundamental women have a sedentary lifestyle and that it is her “divinely appointed right” to stay inside and care for husbands except in “narrowly defined circumstances.”
The document also justifies the enslavement of “infidel” women as sex slaves.
Over 100 tablets that have been dated back to Nebuchadnezzar’s era in Babylon have provided further support for the Scriptures showing the exile of the Jewish nation.
The tablets, which have just gone in display in Jerusalem, provide a look into the lives of the Jews as they lived in exile. Among day to day life items, the tablets trace a Judean family over four generations.
The tablets had been discovered in Iraq and rescued from ISIS by a UK-based Israeli collector. The artifacts are written in ancient akkadian cuneiform script.
“We started reading the tablets and within minutes we were absolutely stunned,” Babylonian expert Filip Vukosavovic told reporters. “It fills in a critical gap in understanding of what was going on in the life of Judeans in Babylonia more than 2,500 years ago.”
“On the one hand it’s boring details, but on the other you learn so much about who these exiled people were and how they lived,” he added.
The tablets will be displayed for one year at the Bible Land Museum in Jerusalem.
A jihadi who faked his death in an attempt to sneak back into Britain has been jailed for 12 years.
Imran Khawaja joined a faction aligned with ISIS and was part of a terrorist training camp in Syria for six months. He also appeared in several online videos for the group including one where he posted with the severed head of the terror group’s victims.
The lawyer for Khawaja said that his client just wanted to return to the country because he had “had enough” of the terrorist camp. He faked his death in online postings until it was reported in local newspapers. He thought by doing so he could resume his life in Britain.
He was caught when he tried to enter England in June by sneaking into a port in Dover.
Judge Jeremy Baker said that Khawaja was a risk to the public and said that despite his claims, he was a “willing and enthusiastic” participant in the terror group.
“You took part in the production of films designed to promote the Islamic State cause and encouraging U.K. Muslims to join you in jihad,” he said. “Your interest was sufficiently profound for you to travel to Syria to train for jihad.”