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.
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.
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.”
ISIS claimed Friday that an American hostage was killed during Jordanian airstrikes on the terrorist group.
“The failed Jordanian aircraft killed an American female hostage,” said the message released through a Jihadist watchdog website. “No mujahid (fighters) was injured in the bombardment, and all praise is due to Allah.”
“The criminal Crusader coalition aircraft bombarded a site outside the city of ar-Raqqah today at noon while the people were performing the Friday prayer,” ISIS said. “The air assaults were continuous on the same location for more than an hour.”
The woman, Kayla Mueller, was taken by the terrorists in 2013. The woman had moved to Syria to help children who were orphaned or separated from their families by the civil war.
She is the fourth American to die at the hands of ISIS. Sources say it’s very possible the terrorists actually executed her so they could blame her death on Jordan through social media outlets.
The White House said American intelligence officials are investigating the claim.
The Israel Air Force launched a strike against a Syrian army unit Tuesday night in response to a rocket attack on the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon.
“The IDF views the Syrian regime as responsible for what occurs in its territory, and will act at any time and any way it sees fit to protect the citizens of Israel,” the IDF said in a statement to Jerusalem Post.
The response from the IDF came after two rockets struck the northern Golan Heights Tuesday. Local residents and over a thousand visitors to the Mount Hermon ski site fleeing into shelters or other cover.
“The time has come to bring back Israelis’ sense of security – personal and social. One depends on the other,” Labor leader Isaac Herzog said while speaking to students at Sapir College in Sderot. “We need to be determined and enlist the world to Israel’s side for the good of our security interests, because we cannot make a living without security, and there is no security without being able to make a living The IDF has over the past several days been on alert across the north, deploying air defense, armored units, infantry, and artillery guns.”
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that Iran is seeking to attack Israel through any means possible including using Syrian forces.
An activist group inside Syria has reported the terrorist group ISIS brought 13 teenage boys into the middle of a Raqqa street and slaughtered them for watching a soccer match between Iraq and Jordan.
The boys were killed because the terrorists said their watching the match “broke Islamic principles.”
“The bodies remained lying in the open and their parents were unable to withdraw them for fear of murder by terrorist organization,” the group, Syria Being Slaughtered Silently, wrote on their website.
The murders come two days after the group released a video showing them throwing two men off the top of a tower in Mosul. The video shows a terrorist saying the two men violated Islamic law.
The group which released the information about the murders had published videos showing women taken from western countries being forced into internet cafes to call their families and tell them how much they love it under ISIS’ Caliphate.
Iran threatened Israel on Monday after an Israeli unit killed six Iranian agents during a raid on a Hezbollah terrorist cell.
Iran promised a “crushing response” against the Jewish nation.
“The experience of the past shows that the resistance current will give a crushing response to the Zionist regime’s terrorist moves with revolutionary determination and in due time and place,” Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), told reporters.
The incident comes a week after Iranian officials said they were operating missile sites in Syria and possibly control a nuclear facility.
“If the highest level of Hezbollah commanders were in the Golan Heights and the high level of Iranians, it means that their idea, [what] they’re planning could be a kind of operation, an act against Israel on a high level,” Major General Eyal Ben Reuven of the IDF said during a conference call Monday organized by the Israel Project (TIP). “It’s significant, the high level of this meeting, of this reconnaissance of the Iranians and Hezbollah.”
“It says something about what they plan, what kind of operation they planned,” he added. “If Israel has intelligence that says there is a kind of operation on the way to act against Israel, I think Israel would have a legitimate [reason] to do all we can to prevent it.”
Hezbollah has said they are preparing for war in northern Israel.
A British group that has been monitoring the violence connected to the Syrian civil war says they have proof the terrorists leading ISIS ordered almost 1,900 executions during a six-month period that ended December 27th.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that since the group declared their “caliphate” in Syria the terror group has killed at least 1,175 people in summary executions.
The group admits that the number could be much higher because they have reports of thousands missing including over 1,000 men from a single tribe.
The data includes deaths in the provinces of Deir Ezzor, al- Raqqa, al- Hasakah, Aleppo, Homs and Hama.
U.S. officials say the continued airstrikes against ISIS have weakened the group and has demoralized the group’s forces. The terrorists recently lost a town in the northern part of Iraq to fighters from the Kurds.
Israeli officials say they don’t expect to receive retribution from Syria after an airstrike.
An IDF official who requested anonymity told the Times of Israel that he doesn’t believe Syria can afford to open up another war front when they’re so engaged in fighting against Islamic terrorist groups attempting to overthrow the nation.
The officer also said that it’s unlikely terrorist group Hezbollah, who had been trying to obtain weapons and munitions from Syria, would strike out against Israel.
“I don’t see any reason why in 2015 Hezbollah will turn to Israel, there is no logic to that way of thinking,” he said in a briefing with reporters at military headquarters. “But if you are talking about capacity and the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) should be ready to deal with any capability of any one of its enemies. The capability of Hezbollah is growing every year.”
Israel has stayed out of the Syrian Civil War other than to make surgical strikes when they find Syria attempting to send weapons to Hezbollah. There was no confirmation from the IDF that was the reason for the recent strike but the officer did make comment that seemed to indicate it was the reason.
“Anyone who tries to arm our enemies should know that we can go anywhere, anytime, in any way, in order to foil his plans. We will not compromise on this,” he said.