British authorities have determined the identity of the masked ISIS member who has beheaded several captives in online videos.
The terrorist has been identified as Mohammed Emwazi, in his mid to late 20s and crossed into Syria sometime during 2012. Emwazi was born in Kuwait but grew up with a wealthy family in West London and obtained a college degree in computer programming. After graduating from college, he became more radicalized and left to join jihad.
British officials are admitting they had been watching Emwazi for at least five years after returning from a job with a computer company in Kuwait. He was imprisoned by British officials when he returned to the country.
“I had a job waiting for me and marriage to get started,” the BBC reports Emwazi as writing in a June 2010 email. “[But now] I feel like a prisoner, only not in a cage, in London, a person imprisoned and controlled by security service men, stopping me from living my new life in my birthplace and country, Kuwait.”
He escaped to Syria in 2012.
Prime Minister David Cameron declined to comment on the identity of the terrorist.
Al Arabiya is reporting that a number of ISIS leaders have been killed by an American air strike.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was en route to the area of the strike but officials were not able to confirm if he was at the site of the strike during the attack.
Dozens of leaders and members of the group were killed in the strike. A hospital source said that at least 17 ISIS terrorists are dead and another 29 wounded; many of the wounded were in critical condition.
Local residents in al-Qaim said that many ISIS buildings and key institutions were struck by the strike. The terrorists locked down the city and said that all citizens were prohibited from leaving their homes after the attack.
ISIS reportedly called for reinforcements from Syria after the attacks to help evacuate the dead and wounded and also to try and strengthen their hold on the town.
ISIS has abducted at least 90 people from Assyrian Christian villages in the northeastern part of Syria.
The British-based Observatory for Human Rights say the terrorists conducted dawn raids on villages west of Hasaka, a town controlled by the Kurds. The Kurds had launched two major offensives against the terrorists on Sunday helped by U.S. airstrikes.
Kurdish leaders said that 14 terrorists were killed in their offensive.
ISIS refuses to admit they conducted the kidnappings although they posted pictures on social media showing the assault.
Assyrian Christians made up the majority of citizens of the region before the terrorists began their campaign. Those remaining in the village after the raid are packing and fleeing to Hasaka seeing safety.
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.
