Surf around the web and there is no shortage of charming decapitation videos. But you may or may not be surprised to learn that many of them have nothing to do with ISIS or al-Qaeda. The Setas and Sinaloa drug cartels behead each other’s members. There is one online video of a Mexican drugs cartel beheading two men with a chainsaw. Nigerian soldiers and Boko Haram have both traded online executions of each other’s members.

targeting ISIS militarily in Syria if authorized by U.S. President Barack Obama will be aimed at dealing a blow to the terrorist group without lending advantage to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Walking this fine line will be debated in policy rooms inside the administration in anticipation of a presidential decision by the end of week, according to The Daily Beast.

This is indeed a world gone mad.

Nonetheless these are, as Netanyahu explains to Blitzer, only “telegenic images” that Hamas captures for publicity purposes to instill in the viewers a sympathy for Gazans; they are not Israel’s fault, they are but the accidents of “war.” One must not weep over them for they were unintended casualties. We are after all a civilized society greater than all other developed nations. After all, we have been able to surreptitiously gain control of the governments of Britain, of Canada, of Australia and of the United States ensuring that they will support whatever we do even if it defies international law.

…

Die United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) ist ein Truppenkontingent, das aufgrund der Resolution 350 des Sicherheitsrates der Vereinten Nationen vom 31. Mai 1974 auf die Golanhöhen entsandt wurde. Es ist eine der am längsten andauernden Missionen der Vereinten Nationen. Dem Beschluss ging ein Entflechtungsabkommen zwischen Syrien und Israel voraus, das am selben Tag in Genf geschlossen worden war.

Army operations against terrorist organizations continued on Thursday in full swing, resulting in the death of increasing numbers of terrorists, including non-Syrian terrorists, and the destruction many of their vehicles, some equipped with heavy machine guns.

(9. Dezember 2003) The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the home of US special forces, and according to two sources, Israeli military „consultants“ have also visited Iraq.

US forces in Iraq‘s Sunni triangle have already begun to use tactics that echo Israeli operations in the occupied territories, sealing off centres of resistance with razor wire and razing buildings from where attacks have been launched against US troops.

Citing unnamed Iraqi sources, the TV station alleged that the US embassy in Iraq sent a team to gather up the drone’s remains.

Iraqi police and security forces said they did not know why the unmanned aircraft came down.

Representatives of the US embassy in Iraq arrived on the scene and collected the pieces of the broken aircraft, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

(5. Juli)

(4. Juli) Das seien Dokumente, “von denen wir gar nichts wissen sollten”, empört sich der deutsche Kollege. Offenbar war ihm sehr wohl bewusst, wie heikel der Deal seines Unternehmens war. Es geht um illegale Waffenlieferungen ins Bürgerkriegsland Kolumbien, um Pistolen, die in Schleswig-Holstein gefertigt wurden und die die amerikanische Schwesterfirma an das US-Militär verkauft hat – im Wissen, dass sie von dort auch an die kolumbianische Bundespolizei gehen. Insgesamt handelt es sich um 98.000 Pistolen im Wert von 70 Millionen US-Dollar.

(23. Januar 2014) Kurdische Rebellen hätten gegenüber van Aken und mitgereisten Journalisten erklärt, sie hätten in einem Gefecht mit Al-Nusrah Waffen erbeutet.

The shop has a white tile floor, two counters with a center access hatch and two safes on the wall. Behind the counter are six American made M-16 rifles, four M-4s and several Kalashnikovs.

Weapons hang on the walls and in display cases. Practically any small-arm you can imagine is available for purchase. Kalashnikovs of all variants, a British Sterling submachine gun, German MP5 and MP5K submachine guns, a 61 Skorpion machine pistol and a wide array of handguns, shotguns and hunting rifles.

They’re all just sitting there, unlocked.

More than 12 miles of steel fencing and more than 9,000 police will guard the UK‘s biggest ever gathering of world leaders

President Obama will huddle with NATO leaders on the threat posed by fighters with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria during a meeting next week in Wales, the White House said Wednesday.

Press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that he anticipated discussion of ISIS would “be a topic of some conversation” at the NATO summit next week.

It is widely assumed that a free press should report accurate and relevant information to the population, and act as ‘watchdog’ of power in the name of public interest. The reporting of secret government surveillance programs leaked by Edward Snowden rekindled a debate in the U.S. concerning the role of the free press, and the boundaries of freedom that journalists ought to respect. Some commentators and government officials were occupied with the possibility of the press taking its watchdog role too far, revealing information that harms national security. (A scenario that so far remains hypothetical.) Would journalists, then, be accomplices to a crime? The converse scenario, by contrast, is rarely raised: Should the press be considered an accomplice to a government crime for withholding information that, if revealed, would change public opinion of criminal government policies – perhaps leading to policy reform?

During a brief stint working for UNRWA in Israel Palestine a few years ago I came across a documentary film called ‘No Sharp Objects’. Made by the UN agency, it is about 15 children from Gaza who travel to the US. They meet politicians, go to New York, visit the UN and the Holocaust museum and meet American children. I particularly remember one scene where a dying father tells his son, who is about to go on the trip, to show the world that ‘the people of Gaza have principles and values.’

Mohammed Abulriban was one of the children in that film. We became friends. He is now 18. He lives in the Al Nuseirat Refugee Camp in Gaza. As the most recent slaughter in Gaza has unfolded we in the west have heard comparatively little from the Palestinians who live there and are experiencing it. I asked Mohammad what living in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge has been like. The following was written in the middle of August. – Justin Randle

The United States is intensifying its push to build an international campaign against Islamic State jihadist fighters in Iraq and Syria, including recruiting partners for potential joint military action, Obama administration officials said on Wednesday.

David Cameron is planning to indicate to Barack Obama and other Nato leaders at a summit in Wales next week that Britain is keeping open the option of joining the US in launching air strikes against forces of the Islamic State (Isis) in Iraq.

White House photographer Pete Souza tweeted a photo of President Barack Obama and Chief of Staff Denis McDonough taking a meditative walk on the White House grounds Monday. It was a small reminder of the infamous walk the pair took nearly a year ago when Obama decided to go to Congress for permission to bomb Syria.