Tag: Middle East

Pakistani Doctor Arrested in MN, Charged with Attempting to Provide Material Support to ISIS

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  The US Attorney for the District of Minnesota today announced charges against a former Rochester MN doctor for allegedly providing material support to ISIS. Muhammad Masood, 28, was taken into custody on Thursday atthe Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, according to the Dept. of Justice press release. According to the allegations in the complaint, Masood, who is a licensed medical doctor in Pakistan, was formerly employed as a research coordinator for a medical clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, under an H-1B Visa. Between January 2020 and March 2020, Masood made several statements to others, including pledging his allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) and its leader, and expressing his desire to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS. Masood also expressed his desire to conduct “lone wolf” terrorist attacks in the United States. On Feb. 21, 2020, Masood purchased a plane ticket from Chicago, Illinois to Amman, Jordan, and from there planned to travel to Syria. On March 16, 2020, Masood’s travel plans changed because Jordan closed its borders to incoming travel due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Masood made a new plan to fly from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to meet up with an individual who he…

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US Sending More Military Power to Counter Iranian Threat

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  The United States military is once again increasing its arsenal in the Middle East to counter Iranian threats, announcing Friday the movement of a Patriot missile battery and the USS Arlington landing platform dock ship used in amphibious assaults. The move comes a day after The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers arrived in the Middle East in response to concerns Iran may be planning an attack against American targets. “It’s important that Iran understands that an attack on Americans or its interests will be met with an appropriate response,” Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan said Friday. “We’re in the Middle East to defeat terrorism, fight and build security … but we will protect ourselves.” The Iranian threat was both “on land and sea” and included commercial shows that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a branch of Iran’s armed forces, loaded with “potential military hardware to include missiles,” a senior military official told reporters at the Pentagon. The USS Arlington will be replacing the USS Fort McHenry to provide “additional command and control capability in the region,” which would “speed up the ability to respond” to any threat, the official added. Pentagon…

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Trump Unilaterally Declares Islamic State in Syria ‘100 Percent Eliminated’

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U.S. President Donald Trump declared the end of the Islamic State terror group’s self-declared caliphate Friday, saying the terror group had been “100 percent defeated” —a claim that was quickly refuted by U.S.-backed forces on the ground. Trump made the announcement following a briefing from Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan aboard Air Force One en route to Florida. Trump then showed reporters onboard a map with no IS presence in Syria. “The territorial caliphate has been eliminated in Syria,” added White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders. At its height in 2014, IS ruled over large swaths of Syria and Iraq, boasting dual capitals in Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq. Since then, the U.S.-led international coalition, along with partners on the ground, have rolled back the terror group’s hold. The very last territory under IS control — a couple of scraps of land in the northeastern Syrian town of Baghuz — began to slip through the terror group’s grip for good late Thursday into early Friday, after the U.S.-led coalition launched a new wave of airstrikes targeting the remaining IS-held positions. But shortly after Trump’s announcement, SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali told VOA’s Kurdish Service he could not confirm IS’s defeat, as his…

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In Middle East, Pompeo Seeks Regional Support Against Iran

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the Middle East for regional security talks as Washington looks to draw new support in its opposition to Iranian aggression. Pompeo began is trip in Kuwait late Tuesday and headed to Israel Wednesday. His trip will also take him to Lebanon. In Israel, Pompeo is due to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government is headed to a tough April 9 re-election contest as Netanyahu is embroiled in a corruption investigation and facing allegations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Pompeo, in comments to reporters en route to the Middle East, dismissed the suggestion that his meeting with Netanyahu could be seen as the U.S. intruding in the Israeli election in support of Netanyahu. A senior State Department official said last week that Pompeo would not be meeting with Netanyahu’s opponents, but Netanyahu alone as the current head of the Israeli government. Netanyahu is visiting Washington next week for the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful Jewish lobbying group in the United States, and also could meet with President Donald Trump. Pompeo said the recent U.S. shift away from terminology describing the West Bank and…

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Last Defenders of Islamic State’s Caliphate Surrounded

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by Jeff Seldin   The last defenders of the Islamic State terror group’s self-proclaimed caliphate are surrounded in a small neighborhood in the eastern Syrian village of Baghuz, facing imminent defeat. The assessment Saturday, from a commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, follows days of slow and difficult fighting as IS fighters cling to an ever-shrinking sliver of land, pausing only for intermittent negotiations over a possible surrender. “In a very short time, we will spread the good tidings to the world of the military end of Daesh,” Jiya Furat, the SDF commander leading the final assault, told reporters during a news conference outside Baghuz. Furat said the self-proclaimed caliphate, which once covered large swaths of Syria and Iraq, had been reduced to an area covering no more than about 600 square meters, and that IS fighters were coming under fire from every direction. But efforts to finish off the final IS enclave have been slowed due to concerns about civilians, including the wives and children of the terror group’s fighters, trying to escape to safety. “There have been some lapses in the battle as we continue to see hundreds of civilians still attempting to flee,” coalition spokesman, Col.…

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Trump Plans to Declare ‘100 Percent’ Victory Over Islamic State Caliphate

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by Jeff Seldin   U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he expected to formally declare victory over the Islamic State terror group’s self-declared caliphate in the next week. “Nobody thought it was possible to do it this quickly,” Trump told members of the global coalition to defeat the Islamic State group, who were meeting in Washington. “It should be formally announced, probably sometime next week, that we will have 100 percent of the caliphate,” he added. “We’ve had victory after victory.” U.S. defense and intelligence officials believe that up to 1,500 IS fighters are still clinging to a 50-square-kilometer patch of land in Syria, but have been more cautious in their assessments. In just the past week, they have described the fighting as tough, saying coalition-backed forces were pushing through booby-trapped streets and settlements. And they warned that even once the last of the IS-held territory was liberated, the terror group still would have as many as another 30,000 fighters and supporters dispersed throughout Syria and Iraq. Yet despite more wary assessments from top military and intelligence officials, Trump said Wednesday that the terror organization had been decimated, losing tens of thousands of fighters and more than 60 high-ranking…

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Commentary: Better Ways to Fight Extremism in Syria Than Endless War

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by Austin Mulka   Yesterday I posted a status in unequivocal support of President Trump’s recent decision to pull out of Syria. The post elicited the abhorrent wails of the president’s purported supporters, one of whom denounced me as a supporter of “child killers.” As baseless as the claim was, empathizing with an opponent’s argument is the most efficient means of coming to mutual understandings of disagreement. Ultimately, those in opposition to pulling out of Syria firmly believe that military intervention is a principled position against the murder of children. As such, any opposition to this position, such as my own, must indicate its reciprocal support. Insofar as I am unequivocally against the murder of children, I hope to explain why military intervention is not the most effective means of fighting the Islamic regime and three alternatives to war with proven effectiveness. Journalism First and foremost, I would like to state that I am not a supporter of the Islamic regime in Syria. In The Home That was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, Arab-American journalist Alia Malek details her first-hand accounts of horrendous acts and grievances by the Syrian regime. Having lived in both Syria and the United States,…

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Commentary: Anti-Semitism Just Gained a New Foothold in Congress

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by Joel Griffith   In 1948, the Jewish people secured sovereignty over their ancestral homeland for the first time in nearly 2,000 years. Once again, they could thrive—religiously, economically, culturally—in the home their ancestors were forced to flee. But more than 70 years after the rebirth of the Jewish nation, enemies of her very existence are using boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) to economically harm and morally impugn one of our closest allies. Unfortunately, several newly elected members of Congress are vocal advocates of BDS—particularly Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Following her election victory, Tlaib said, “Americans should not be aiding any country that doesn’t support human rights. I’ve been very clear. I will not support racist countries that pick and choose who gets access to justice.” She further claims that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pursuing “apartheid policies.” During Israel’s 2012 war against Hamas (an entity designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization), Omar claimed, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” She has also claimed that Israel is an “apartheid … regime.” Following her election victory in November 2018, her campaign said she…

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White House Says US Will Start Withdrawing Troops From Syria

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by Wayne Lee   The White House said Wednesday the United States has begun withdrawing troops from Syria, shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted the U.S. has defeated the Islamic State terror group there. “We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign,” White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said in a statement. She added the defeat of ISIS does not mean the military campaign by coalition forces is ending in Syria. “The United States and our allies stand ready to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests whenever necessary, and we will continue to work together to deny radical Islamist terrorists territory, funding, support, and any means of infiltrating our borders,” Sanders said. Later on Wednesday, Pentagon spokesperson Dana White said in a statement that “the coalition has liberated ISIS-held territory, but the campaign against ISIS is not over.” ISIS an acronym for the Islamic State terror group. “We will continue working with our partners and allies to defeat ISIS wherever it operates,” she said, giving no details as to a timeline, noting “force protection and operational security reasons.” Just last week, U.S. special presidential envoy for the global…

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Top US Navy Admiral in the Middle East Found Dead in ‘Apparent Suicide’

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by Evie Fordham   A replacement has been named for Vice Adm. Scott Stearney, the top Navy admiral in the Middle East, after he was found dead in his residence in Bahrain Saturday. Vice Adm. Jim Malloy, the deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans and strategy, will take Stearney’s place commanding U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the 5th Fleet, Stars and Stripes reported Monday. Defense officials called Stearney’s death an “apparent suicide,” CBS News reported. Navy officials declined to comment on those reports, according to Stars and Stripes. “Scott Stearney was a decorated naval warrior. He was a devoted husband and father, and he was a good friend to all of us,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said in a statement Saturday. “The Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Bahraini Ministry of Interior are cooperating on the investigation, but at this time no foul play is suspected.” There will be a private memorial for Stearney on the Navy’s Bahrain base, officials told Stars and Stripes Monday. The 5th Fleet that Stearney commanded is based in Bahrain. It functions in the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean as well as strategically important…

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Commentary: Big Media’s Power Games and the Khashoggi Affair

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by Joseph Duggan   Jamal Khashoggi was a thoroughly charming and charismatic person. In March 2012, I took the last available seat at a luncheon table at the 20th Public Relations World Congress in Dubai. By sheer accident I found myself sitting next to Khashoggi and conversing with him for an hour or so. It was the first and last time I had any contact with the man. His gruesome murder last month distressed me deeply. Here was a human being, a prominent one in his own part of the world, who had accorded warmth and courtesy to me, a foreigner in his region. I love Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, which embraced my family and me as our adoptive home for a number of years. I would like to see the tens of millions of citizens of Saudi Arabia enjoy peace, prosperity, and greater freedom. It’s in interest of the West—and that of the whole world—for Saudi Arabia to establish good relations with all of its neighbors, including Israel—a prospect that once seemed impossible—as well as a prospect that today seems impossible, Iran. Khashoggi’s murder, and the revelation that it had been committed on orders of the government…

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Education Facination: Texas State Board of Education Attempts Another ‘Edit” of Social Studies Curriculum

Julie Carr

On Tuesday’s Gill Report – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 1510 WLAC weekdays at 7:30 am – Star News Digital Media National Political Editor Steve Gill discussed the peculiar fascination with the Texas’s Board of Education and their obsession with editing their state’s social studies curriculum. He went on to reflect on The Tennessee Star’s last story regarding the Alamo and the most recent attempt of taking out Hillary Clinton and Helen Keller from the state’s history books. Gill continued: What the heck is going on in Texas? Now we had a story a week or so ago about the state of Texas Board of Education deciding whether or not to remove the word ‘heroic’ in describing the defenders at the Alamo. They ultimately decided after they got some national push back that the description of the defenders of the Alamo as heroic was appropriate, so they’re leaving that in the social studies curriculum. And now the Texas Board of Education has voted to remove former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the state’s social studies curriculum. They’ve also dropped Helen Keller. Now it came after the fifteen-member board nominated volunteer work group created a scale to grade historical figures.…

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New Batch of US-backed Forces Finish Border Training in Northern Syria

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The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria concluded a training course for 500 members of the Syrian Democratic Forces this week. The goal is to prepare them to protect their borders after the removal of IS in northern Syria. Without giving a timetable, Kurdish commanders at the training camp in the northern Syrian city of Hasakah told VOA the new graduates will join a 30,000-strong border army that the coalition announced it would form last week.

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Trump Informs Leaders of Plan to Recognize Jerusalem as Israeli Capital

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President Donald Trump is telephoning several Middle East leaders ahead of an expected announcement as early as Wednesday that the United States will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. A White House statement said Trump was speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah in the morning, and would be calling other regional leaders later in the day.

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