The US claims Syrian President Bashar Assad has broken the chemical weapons treaty he agreed to earlier this year, by launching chlorine gas attacks in Syrian villages. It comes as the Senate officially approved a plan to arm and train Syrian rebels. US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday accused Assad of breaching the terms of the global pact on chemical weapons, by unleashing chlorine g [...]

Islamic State responded in a video to US President Barack Obama's vow to "ultimately destroy" it, promising to kill any American ground forces deployed. The extremist group has gained recruits since Obama's declaration, according to observers in Syria. The 52-second clip, released late Tuesday as a preview for a longer video, uses quick edits and high-resolution images to depict besieged Americ [...]

UK airstrikes against Islamic State extremists in Syria could be illegal without the agreement of President Bashar Assad's government or a UN Security Council resolution, according to a House of Commons Library assessment. Prime Minister David Cameron will recall MPs to parliament to outline his plans for deeper military intervention in Iraq and Syria when he returns from the UN General Assembl [...]

Iran has refused an offer from the United States to join a global alliance preparing to combat Islamic State militants, according to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei said Monday that the US offered to discuss a coordinated effort with Iran against Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS or ISIL), a common foe in the region, in the midst of an escalating campaign of violence [...]

What’s wrong with this picture? Israel gets $3 billion a year in military aid from the US. Over the last 60 years, the Jewish state has received about $250 billion worth of airplanes and armaments. Yet when Obama appeals for a “a broad international coalition” to fight ISIS, which supposedly threatens the whole Middle East, Israel is not asked to join. Canada, Germany, Australia, France, T [...]

The US has no real plan for tackling the Islamic State in Syria, with airstrikes and arms supplies to the unreliable opposition announced “just to do something,” Matthew Hoh, former US marine and analyst at the Center for International Policy, told RT. Damascus has warned that unauthorized US airstrikes in Syria would be tantamount to an act of war, with Moscow stressing that such action ca [...]

Islamic State jihadists have released a video which they claim shows the beheading of a 44-year-old British aid worker, David Haines, who has been held hostage since his abduction last year. The masked man in the latest video released across social media on Saturday night claims that Haines was killed because of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s pledge to arm Kurdish forces in order to battle [...]

Key US allies, Turkey and Jordan, are thought to backing away from US calls for a 'bomb ISIS' coalition. Ankara is a notable absentee among the nations that signed a joint communiqué at a Thursday meeting in Saudi Arabia, where US Secretary of State John Kerry was drumming up support for the US anti-Islamist effort. Turkey refused to join 10 Arab nations, who vowed to contribute “as appropri [...]

Prime Minister David Cameron is supportive of President Obama'€™s decision to authorize US airstrikes against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria, Downing Street has confirmed. While UK government officials claim there are currently no plans for Britain to engage in airstrikes in Syria, such military action has not been ruled out in the future. [...]

France may take part in the US bombing campaign in Iraq aimed at crippling the Islamic State militant group if it would be called upon. "In Iraq... we support the formation of an inclusive government. We will participate if necessary in an aerial military action," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday in a speech in Paris. [...]

USA Today reports: “President Obama spends Tuesday soliciting congressional support for expanded military action against the insurgent group known as the Islamic State.” The Jacksonville Journal-Courier in Illinois reports today: “President Barack Obama’s plans to expand the U.S. military role against Islamic extremist groups could overstep his authority, according to a longtime Jackson [...]

A favorite tactic to get Americans and Europeans ready for another war is to liken some foreign “enemy” to Hitler, no matter how ill-fitting or absurd the comparison. But once the Hitler slur is slung all rational debate ends, as Danny Schechter explains. The ISIS gang makes great enemies. They dress in black, wear Halloween masks, wave flags, act viciously, and cut off the heads of journal [...]

Given the very high stakes of a nuclear confrontation with Russia, some analysts wonder what’s the real motive for taking this extraordinary risk over Ukraine. Is it about natural gas, protection of the U.S. dollar’s dominance, or an outgrowth of neocon extremism, asks Robert Parry. A senior U.S. diplomat told me recently that if Russia were to occupy all of Ukraine and even neighboring [...]

With America’s government-and-media war hawks back in full flight – preparing to swoop down on Syria as well as Iraq – wiser heads might reflect on the chaos that previous adventures have caused, as Danny Schechter recalls. Sound the bugle! Get the press to march along; we are going to war. Again! Enemies R ‘Us! [...]

BAGHDAD: Islamic State insurgents posted a video on Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley and images of another US journalist whose life they said depended on how the United States acts in Iraq. The video, titled "A Message To America," presented President Barack Obama with bleak options that could define America's& [...]

The US is conducting air strikes and supplies weapons to help outgunned Iraqi Kurds fight off the offensive of Islamist militants. The Kurds are battling against extremists armed with American arms and nurtured thanks to America's policies. The airstrikes aimed at positions of the militants from the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS or ISIL, in northern Iraq are not expected to seriously un [...]

As the Islamic State tears through minority communities in northern Iraq, the extremist terror group, that owes its ascendance to funding from US allies in the Middle East, sent a message to the White House: We're coming for you. “I say to America that the Islamic Caliphate has been established,” Abu Mosa, a spokesman for the Islamic State (IS), formerly know as the Islamic State in Iraq an [...]

Washington is supplying some Syrian rebels with both "lethal and non-lethal" aid, according to National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who confirmed the longstanding suspicion that the Obama administration is arming anti-Assad forces. “That’s why the United States has ramped up its support for the moderate vetted opposition, providing lethal and nonlethal support where we can to support both the [...]

It was a bad week for blow back. So it goes. Tit-for-tat. Violence begets violence, as every schoolboy knows. Just at the brouhaha over the US solider Bowe Bergdahl being freed by his Taliban captors was simmering, the Taliban attacked Karachi Airport. Soon after, this was followed by yet more drone attacks on Waziristan that killed women and children. [...]

Apparently, the bloody wave of Islamic extremism gripping Iraq is an internal occurrence and was in no way facilitated by the Western invasion. This is former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair'€™s version of events concerning the entire Middle East. In fact, the former prime minister describes at length how it’s necessary to rid oneself of any feeling of responsibility that the crumbling country an [...]

The recent presidential polls in Egypt proved once again that the West interprets similar events in the way they correspond to the US and EU interests, calling "€˜legitimate"€™ elections which have nothing in common with real democratic choice. On June 3 Egypt got official results of the presidential elections which took place on May 26-28. [...]

I'm confused. A few weeks ago we were told in the West that people occupying government buildings in Ukraine was a very good thing. These people, we were told by our political leaders and elite media commentators, were 'pro-democracy protestors'. The US government warned the Ukrainian authorities against using force against these 'pro-democracy protestors' even if, according to the pictures we [...]