IRAQ – U.S. military forces conducted four more airstrikes on Islamic militants in Iraq Saturday, taking out armored carriers firing ‘indiscriminately’ on civilians, US military officials said.
U.S. Central Command said the strikes on the Islamic State (IS), the militant group formerly known as ISIS, were spread out, with three before noon Eastern Time on Saturday and one at about 3 p.m.
“At approximately 11:20 a.m. EDT, a mix of U.S. fighters and remotely piloted aircraft struck one of two ISIL armored personnel carriers firing on Yazidi civilians near Sinjar, destroying the APC,” a statement released late Saturday by US Central Command said.
The statement said that all indications suggested that all strikes were successful in destroying the armored vehicles, and that all aircraft left the area safely. (more…)

No more religion based political parties, good move.

EGYPT – A court in Egypt has dissolved the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing.

The ruling will effectively prevent the banned Islamist movement from formally participating in parliamentary elections expected later this year.
The government declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group in December.
It was accused of orchestrating a wave of violence to destabilise the country after the military overthrew President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013.
The Brotherhood has denied any connection to the jihadist militants based in the Sinai Peninsula who have killed hundreds of security personnel.
At the same time, more than 1,400 people have been killed and 16,000 detained in a crackdown by the authorities on Mr Morsi’s supporters.
President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, a former military chief who was elected head of state in May, has vowed to wipe out the group. (more…)

[Warning Graphic Imagery] If you ever wondered whether or not applied Liberalism can factually disconnect brain synapses these two recent examples should answer the question.

The United States has factually and officially considered Hamas a terrorist organization since 1997.  In part because the foundational charter of Hamas calls for all Jews to be killed and all Muslims are responsible to wage jihad against Israel.
But the top Democrat, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, takes to the airwaves and appears on CNN last week to proclaim:

….” […] we have to confer with the Qataris, who have told me over and over again that Hamas is a humanitarian organization.”…

One would think the former Speaker, and formerly 2nd in the succession chain to become President in an emergency, would know better.   One would think.
However, not to be outdone this week we find Massachusetts Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren, a potential presidential candidate in 2016, discussing the situation in Iraq and the extreme terror group ISIL.  Warren states: (more…)

As with all complex stories the valuable discoveries come with time.

This Brief has been updated to include the newly spotlighted research on Syria and ISIL.  Most importantly the previously unknown “Second Presidential Finding Memo” to the CIA in 2012 specifically directed to arm/aid ISIL in Syria.  The new information from the month before the Benghazi attack explains the motive of the Turkish delegation toward Chris Stevens.
Grab a cup of coffee and you’ll see how the Trey Gowdy special committee is really a waste of time.   There is no benefit to be gained from house hearings that will never be allowed to disclose the operational aspects of covert CIA intelligence ops.

We know from the Bret Baier interview with Hillary Clinton that she was physically located at her 7th floor office in Washington DC on the night of the attack. Unfortunately we also know during the November 2012 Thanksgiving holiday a mysterious fire took place in that building. Well, actually directly above her exact office – cause undetermined.
A “fire” which preceded an unfortunate slip and fall for the Secretary, resulting in a concussion, which led to the discovery of a blood clot, that ultimately delayed her congressional testimony before a Senate Hearing into the events of the night in question.
We know the Libyan uprising began on February 10th of 2011, and we also know that sometime around the end of February 2011 President Obama signed a presidential directive authorizing the State Dept and CIA to begin a covert operation to arm the Libyan “rebels”.
We also know of a Second Presidential Finding Memo authorizing additional CIA covert action in 2012, this time in Syria.   However, unlike the 2011 Libyan operation we do not know the operational name of the second action in 2012 Syria.
We know the Libyan “rebels” were positioned in two strategic places. Benghazi, and the port city of Darnah, both located in Northeastern Libya.
We know this 2011 Libyan covert operation came to be known as “Operation Zero Footprint“, and fell under the military command authority of NATO not (important to repeat), NOT, the U.S. Military. (more…)

Video from two U.S. military targeted airstrikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets in northern Iraq.
The first attack occurred about 6:45 a.m. EDT when two F/A-18 aircraft dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a mobile artillery piece near Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region. ISIL was using this artillery to shell Kurdish forces defending the city, where U.S. personnel are located.

(more…)

The Sinai border tunnels were being used by Hamas to transport weapons into Gaza.
CAIRO, Aug 8 (Aswat Masriya) – Eleven “extremists” were killed on Friday in a wide-scale security crackdown on Sinai, state-run MENA agency reported.
Three tunnels were also demolished and one SUV vehicle was confiscated in the security campaign to “clear” areas of Al-Arish and Sheikh Zuweid of terrorists, the source added.
Army and police forces have been cracking down on extremists and militants that have been targeting security elements and installations in Sinai since the ouster of former President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013.  (read more)
Meanwhile – […] Deadly hostilities engulfed Gaza on Friday once again where a 10-year-old boy was killed and Israeli warplanes struck targets in retaliation for dozens of Palestinian cross-border rockets attacks. (more…)

In 2011 President Obama stated -to much controversy- he did not need to notify congress, or the American people, of his military engagements in Libya (which eventually he called R2P, Responsibility To Protect).   His own White House attorneys were perplexed.

However, since then, and perhaps because the political risk (ie. polling disapproval) in year 6 is too great, he appears to have found his notification pen. (more…)

Let’s get the McCain story out of the way first….

Back in May 2013 Republican Senator John McCain made a secret trip to Syria to talk to the forces fighting against Assad.

(more…)

ANALYSIS – The uprising against the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad was still young when moderate rebels made their plea to Washington: Provide us with arms so we might fight the dictator — and prevent the rise of more extremist groups.
But President Barack Obama, who had come into office on the promise of drawing down American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, was reluctant. He was not getting into another Middle East mess.
Now, however, those same extremist groups feared by the moderates have gone on a murderous rampage through Iraq and Syria, slaying security forces and civilians and openly bragging about it on Twitter. After the fighters captured a strategic dam and sent tens of thousands of people on the run in northern Iraq, creating a humanitarian crisis, Washington was finally forced to respond. On Friday, U.S. forces bombed Islamic State positions near the Kurdish city of Erbil.
If the previous administration was too eager to get into Iraq; the current administration was all too hesitant.
(more…)

BAGHDAD (AP) — Hundreds of women from the Yazidi religious minority have been taken captive by Sunni militants with “vicious plans,” an Iraqi official said Friday, further underscoring the dire plight of Iraq’s minorities at the hands of the Islamic State group.

Kamil Amin, the spokesman for Iraq’s Human Rights Ministry, said hundreds of Yazidi women below the age of 35 are being held in schools in Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul. He said the ministry learned of the captives from their families.
“We think that the terrorists by now consider them slaves and they have vicious plans for them,” Amin told The Associated Press. “We think that these women are going to be used in demeaning ways by those terrorists to satisfy their animalistic urges in a way that contradicts all the human and Islamic values.” (more…)