FBI Director James B. Comey has announced that American intelligence agencies have identified the masked ISIS militant responsible for beheading journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. The killer, who speaks fluent, British-accented English has been nicknamed "Jihadi John," but the FBI is opting against releasing his name or nationality while agents are on the hunt for him.
Over the last six weeks, the U.S. has launched nearly 200 airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq. This morning, President Obama delivered a short statement to officially announce that the U.S. has launched airstrikes in Syria now, too.
Forty-six Turkish hostages, including diplomats, consulate guards and children, who had been captured and held for nearly three months by Islamic State militants in northern Iraq returned to Turkey Saturday morning following a successful Turkish covert operation. Three non-Turkish hostages taken in the same attack were also released.
On Thursday, ISIS released a video of captured British journalist John Cantlie. In the video, Cantlie, who was abducted in Syria in November 2012, calmly tells the viewer that the British government has "abandoned" him and promises to explain, over a series of subsequent videos, the "truth" behind ISIS and the ways in which the Western media manipulates that truth.
In a bizarre new video reportedly released by ISIS late Tuesday that resembles a Hollywood movie trailer, the Sunni militant group appears to threaten to kill American troops in Iraq. The short clip, apparently a preview of a longer video called "Flames of War," ends with the message, "fighting has just begun" and that more is "coming soon."
A pair of Austrian teenagers who apparently fled to Syria to support ISIS may be pregnant by a pair of Chechen fighters, according to a probably-fake report in the New York Post. Several more reputable news outlets, meanwhile, are reporting that either Samra Kesinovic, 16, or her friend Sabina Selimovic, 15, may have been killed in Syria, where they've been since April of this year. The two girls are believed to have become radicalized after attending a local mosque in Vienna, and Interpol has confirmed their disappearance, posting several photos of the two girls in both Western clothing and in burqas. Virtually everything else about the two girls is in dispute, though; we don't even know which of them may have been killed.
Chelsea Manning, the U.S. soldier currently serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking government documents to WikiLeaks, wrote a column for The Guardian criticizing Obama's approach to ISIS. "Based on my experience as an all-source analyst in Iraq during the organization's relative infancy, ISIS cannot be defeated by bombs and bullets," she writes.
On the heels of a third video released by ISIS depicting the beheading of a prisoner, 26 nations and representatives from the United Nations, European Union, and Arab League have assembled in Paris to formalize a battle strategy against the militants that have seized much of northern and western Iraq. "We must not allow them to have sanctuaries," Iraqi President Fuad Masum told the conference. "We must pursue them wherever they are."
Diane Foley, whose son James was beheaded by ISIS earlier this month, told ABC News that an Obama official threatened her and her family over his ransom payments. According to Diane, a high-ranking military officer in President Obama's National Security Council told her she'd be prosecuted for supporting terrorism if she paid the ransom to ISIS.
In a televised speech Wednesday night, President Obama announced plans to ramp up airstrikes, send additional service members to Iraq, and provide more humanitarian aid in an effort to "degrade and ultimately destroy" the terrorist group ISIS.
Shannon Maureen Conley, the 19-year-old Denver, Colorado resident who fell in love with an ISIS militant online, pleaded guilty today to "providing material support" to ISIS. She's agreed to provide the FBI information about her conspirators, but she still faces up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine.
President Obama intends to detail a plan to step up the American offensive against ISIS—including ordering airstrikes in Syria—in a televised address planned for this evening. Administration officials told the New York Times that the plan to be revealed tonight will be a longterm campaign "far more complex than the targeted strikes the United States has used against Al Qaeda in Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere."
