Obama seeks some limits on ground troops for Islamic State fight

Militant Islamist fighters hold the flag of Islamic State while taking part in a military parade along the streets of northern Raqqa province, June 30, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Stringer

(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will propose to Congress on Wednesday a new three-year authorization for the use of force against Islamic State with limits on U.S. combat troops' involvement, lawmakers and congressional aides said.
Obama has defended his authority to lead an international coalition against Islamic State since Aug. 8 when U.S. fighter jets began attacking the jihadists in Iraq. But he has faced criticism for failing to seek the backing of Congress, where some accuse him of breaching his constitutional authority.
Facing pressure to let lawmakers weigh in on an issue as important as the deployment of troops and chastened by elections that handed power in Congress to Republicans, he said in November he would request formal authorization for the use of military force (AUMF).
An outline of that request, expected to be handed to Congress on Wednesday, could stir debate over how U.S. troops should be deployed and the extent of U.S. engagement in Iraq and Syria.
The proposal would allow the use of special forces and advisors for defensive purposes but bar "enduring offensive ground forces," lawmakers and aides said. It would not, however, set geographic limits for the campaign against the group.
Until now, Obama has justified U.S. air strikes in Iraq and Syria under a 2001 authorization passed after the Sept. 11 attacks and a 2002 authorization used by President George W. Bush in the Iraq war.
The new proposal would repeal the 2002 authorization but leave in place the 2001 AUMF, which has been invoked by the White House to carry out drone and missile strikes against suspected al Qaeda militants in Yemen and Somalia.


Fueled by outrage over the death of aid worker Kayla Mueller, the last-known U.S. hostage held by Islamic State militants, as well as the slayings of journalists and a Jordanian pilot, lawmakers said they planned quick hearings on the authorization, and a vote within weeks of Congress' return from a Feb. 16-20 recess.
Both Republicans and Democrats said there had been unusually close consultations between the administration and Capitol Hill on the authorization.
Many of Obama's fellow Democrats, war-weary after more than a dozen years of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, say they will oppose any AUMF that includes "boots on the ground."
Obama's opposition to the Iraq War helped propel him to victory in the 2008 campaign and bringing troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan has been a focus of his presidency.
"I worry that this AUMF gives the ability for the next president to put ground troops back into the Middle East," said Senator Chris Murphy, adding that that would be a sticking point for himself and many other Democrats.
Some hawkish Republicans oppose restrictions on military commanders such as a ban on ground troops. Others are calling for a more extensive authorization allowing U.S. forces to challenge President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, where a four-year-long civil war has fueled the rise of the Islamic State group.
"If the authorization doesn't let us counter Assad's air power, I think it will fail," said Senator Lindsey Graham, a leading Republican foreign policy voice.
The White House has declined to discuss the specific time frame or details of its planned AUMF.
(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, David Lawder and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Jason Szep and Christian Plumb)

Original post found here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/11/us-mideast-crisis-congress-idUSKBN0LE2BD20150211

The butcher/rapper of ISIS: German jihadist became terrorists' poster boy

In this screengrab from a video believed to have been shot in November, Cuspert holds the severed head of a victim of ISIS (Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently)

BERLIN –  A German rapper whom stardom eluded has achieved twisted infamy with ISIS, appearing on videos gleefully hoisting a severed head and exhorting other radical Muslims to leave the Fatherland and join him on the killing fields of Syria and Iraq. Deso Dogg, whose real name is Denis Cuspert, traded a middling career on the Berlin music scene to become the face of German-grown terror, first in Al Qaeda, and then in the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate. In recent years, Cuspert, 39, who the U.S. State Department on Monday designated a “global terrorist,” appeared in numerous propaganda videos aimed at recruiting German jihadists. But he was rumored to have been killed until he appeared in an especially grisly video that surfaced in November.
In the video, which was made public by a Raqqa-based activist group, Cuspert is seen with other fighters who are shown shooting one person and beheading another. Cuspert is not shown killing anyone, but  holds the severed head and announces that the dead were enemies of ISIS.

"Cuspert is the most well-known of Islamic State German fighters.”- German terror expert

“That's why they've received the death sentence,” Cuspert announces in German on the video.
Although the U.S. action came this week, Germany has long known of Cuspert’s bloody exploits in Syria.
"Denis Cuspert stands in the focus of security circles because of his essential role for Islamic State,” a German law enforcement official told FoxNews.com. “He is propagandist of IS."
Another Berlin-based source who has taken part in investigations of Cuspert, told FoxNews.com the onetime rapper, who now identifies himself as Abu Talha al-Almani, and Austrian cleric Mohammed Mahmoud are the leaders of Islamic State’s German-speaking contingent.
"Cuspert is the most well-known of Islamic State German fighters,” said a German terrorism expert who has tracked Cuspert. “If he is not killed, he will remain a long time [as a member of] the Islamic State. There are [numerous] reports of him present at executions involving decapitations.
The U.S. decision to designate a European citizen as a "global terrorist" is rare, and came as German Chancellor Angela Merkel was visiting Washington. The action bans Americans from doing business with Cuspert and freezes any of his U.S. assets. But it is more likely a formality, as Cuspert is unlikely harboring plans to leave the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate alive.

Even the dark lyrics Cuspert wrote as a rapper did not foreshadow the butchery he embraced as a member of ISIS.

Well before Cuspert became a killer for the cause of radical Islam, he was a petty criminal whose rap lyrics revealed a dark and twisted mind. The son of a Ghanian father who left Cuspert’s German mother, he recorded three albums for a Berlin-based gangsta rap label, toured with American rapper DMX and scored a minor hit with "Willkommen in meiner Welt" (Welcome to my World) in 2010.
“Welcome to my world full of hate and blood,” went part of the song. “Children’s souls weep softly when the black angels sing.”
But his career was interspersed with short jail stints and squabbles with promoters. According to a report in Vice.com, he converted to Islam in 2010 following a near-fatal car accident. It was then that his music began advocating violent jihad.
In 2011, Berlin prosecutors charged him with illegal possession of weapons after Cuspert appeared brandishing weapons as "Abou Maleeq" in a YouTube video. A police raid on his home yielded weapons and ammunition, and although it did not result in jail time, he was squarely on the radar of German counter-terrorism investigators.
In 2012, Cuspert left Germany for Egypt, before eventually making his way to Syria where he joined Al Qaeda. When Islamic State broke away from the terror group behind 9/11, Cuspert pledged his loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Cuspert recorded three albums and flirted with stardom before leaving Germany to join ISIS.

In September, 2014, Berlin’s domestic intelligence agency—Verfassungsschutz—published a 25-page analysis of Cuspert. Entitled “Denis Cuspert—a Jihadi career,” the report said he “embodied one of the first Salafist propagandists as a committed and determined Jihadist” to emerge in German society.
A study by King's College in London last year estimated that 3,000 foreigners from Western nations are actively involved in ISIS, with 320 Germans among them. Foreign fighters have taken part in some of the terrorist group’s most barbaric crimes, including the massacres of the Sh’aitat tribe in Syria and the Albu Nimr tribe in Iraq, as well as the almost daily public executions in Raqqa.

Benjamin Weinthal reports on human rights in the Middle East and is a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @BenWeinthal

Original post found here: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/11/butcherrapper-isis-german-jihadist-became-terrorists-bloody-poster-boy/

Jordan executes 2 prisoners after ISIS video shows pilot being burned alive

 

 

DEVELOPING: Jordan said it had executed 2 prisoners early Wednesday after a new video surfaced on the Internet Tuesday showing ISIS burning alive a Jordanian pilot the terror group had held since December.

Government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani said that prisoners Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouli were executed. Al-Rishawi has been on death row for her role in a triple hotel bombing in the Jordanian capital Amman in 2005 that killed dozens. Over the past week, Jordan had twice offered to swap her for the pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh. However, officials have said his captors did not deliver proof he was still alive, and the swap never moved forward.
The 44-year-old Iraqi woman's suicide belt did not detonate at the time of the Amman attack and she fled the scene, but was quickly arrested. After a televised confession, she recanted, but her appeal was turned down.
Al-Rishawi had family ties to the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda, a precursor of ISIS. Ziad Al-Karbuli was a former aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian Al Qaeda operative who was killed in 2006.
The 22-minute video, which Jordan said is authentic, brought a grisly end to speculation into the fate of Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, 26, who was captured when his plane crashed during a bombing mission in Syria Dec. 24. The video, which reports said could have been made more than a month ago, shows the pilot standing in a cage with a line of fuel leading to him, which is then ignited, causing him to burst into flames. Islamic State had previously sought to trade Al-Kaseasbeh for Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman who is in a Jordanian prison for her role in a 2005 suicide bomb attack that killed 60 people in Amman.
WARNING, EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIDEO: Jordanian pilot burned alive by ISIS
"It's just one more indication of the viciousness and barbarity of this organization," said President Obama, who met Tuesday evening with Jordan's King Abdullah in the Oval Office, where he offered his condolences. "And I think it will redouble the vigilance and determination on the part of the global coalition to make sure that they are degraded and ultimately defeated.”
In a statement before his meeting with Abdullah, Obama vowed the pilot's death would "redouble the vigilance and determination on the part of our global coalition to make sure they are degraded and ultimately defeated."
"Lieutenant Al-Kaseasbeh's dedication, courage and service to his country and family represent universal human values that stand in opposition to the cowardice and depravity of ISIL, which has been so broadly rejected around the globe," Obama said.

"This horrific, savage killing is yet another example of ISIL's contempt for life itself."- Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel

Dubai-based TV news channel Al Arabiya reported that the Jordanian military had notified al-Kaseasbeh's family that he had been killed and Jordanian TV reported that the pilot was killed Jan. 3.
In the video, viewed by Fox News, Al-Kaseasbeh, clad in an orange jumpsuit, speaks under clear duress. A narrator speaking in Arabic blasts Arab nations, including Jordan, for taking part in U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State. The final five minutes of the video show the caged pilot, his clothing apparently doused in gasoline as the fuel is lit. His screams are audible as he collapses to his knees. After being killed, the burned man and the cage are buried by a bulldozer. The video ends with ISIS offering "100 golden Dinars" for any Muslims in Jordan who kill other Jordanian pilots, whose names, pictures and hometowns are shown.
U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said administration officials are examining the video.

"We are aware of the video purporting to show that [al-Kaseasbeh] has been murdered by the terrorist group ISIL," read Meehan's statement. "The intelligence community is working to confirm its authenticity. The United States strongly condemns ISIL’s actions and we call for the immediate release of all those held captive by ISIL. We stand in solidarity with the Ggvernment of Jordan and the Jordanian people."
CIA and counter-terrorism analysts noted the tape follows a pattern familiar in ISIS clips. It features news clips of the Jordanian king with sound of coalition strikes and ground operations. Sources told Fox News it demonstrated the highest production values of any tape to date, suggesting it took considerable time to shoot and produce.
Release of the video follows days of intense protests by Jordanians outside King Abdullah’s palace over the government's refusal to agree on a prisoner swap with the terror group. Many Jordanians as well as the pilot’s family are faulting Amman – not ISIS – for allowing their country to be drawn into a "war" they claim is one between the Islamic State and the U.S. and its allies. Demonstrators outside the gates of the royal palace have cried out, “Abdullah, why are we fighting?” while other Jordanian protesters have taken to social media, creating an Arabic hashtag on Twitter that reads #NotOurWar.
The horrific footage surfaced just a day after top Islamic State leaders warned against social media disclosures of the terror army's activities that were not sanctioned by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi or the group's spokesman, Mohammad al-Adnani. It also came just hours after Secretary of State John Kerry met with King Abdullah and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh in Washington.
On Saturday, an online video surfaced that appeared to show Islamic State executing Japanese journalist Kenji Goto. And one week earlier, a video posted on the Internet showed the Islamist terror group delivering the same fate to another Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa.

Fox News' Catherine Herridge and Nadiah Sarsour contributed to this report.
Original post found here:http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/04/new-isis-video-purpotedly-shows-jordanian-pilot-being-burned-alive/

New ISIS video purportedly shows Jordanian pilot being burned alive

 

 

A new video that surfaced on the Internet Tuesday appears to show ISIS burning alive a Jordanian pilot the terror group has held since December -- an act that reportedly has prompted Jordan to ready the execution of an unknown number of terrorist prisoners.
If authentic, the 22-minute video would bring a grisly end to speculation into the fate of Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, 26, who was captured when his plane crashed during a bombing mission in Syria Dec. 24. The video, which reports said could have been made more than a month ago, shows a man standing in a cage with a line of fuel leading to him, which is then ignited, causing him to burst into flames. Islamic State had previously sought to trade him for Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman who is in a Jordanian prison for her role in a 2005 suicide bomb attack that killed 60 people in Amman

“Should in fact this video be authentic, it’s just one more indication of the viciousness and barbarity of this organization," President Obama said. “This organization appears only interested in death and destruction.”

“Should in fact this video be authentic, it’s just one more indication of the viciousness and barbarity of this organization."- President Obama

Several media outlets reported that Jordan moved swiftly following the video's surfacing, transferring imprisoned jihadists, including al-Rishawi and Ziad Al-Karbuli, a former aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian Al Qaeda operative who was killed in 2006, in preparation for execution, perhaps within hours. Lebanon-based news channel Al Mayadeen nreported that Jordan intends to execute Al-Rishawi at dawn on Wednesday.
Jordan had shown a willingness to make the exchange, but had sought proof that its pilot was still alive. Dubai-based TV news channel Al Arabiya reported that the Jordanian military had notified al-Kaseasbeh's family that he had been killed and Jordanian TV reported that the pilot was killed Jan. 3.
In the video, viewed by Fox News, the man believed to be al-Kaseasbeh, clad in an orange jumpsuit, speaks under clear duress. A narrator speaking in Arabic blasts Arab nations, including Jordan, for taking part in U.S.-led airstrikes against Islamic State. The final five minutes of the video show the caged pilot, his clothing apparently doused in gasoline as the fuel is lit. His screams are audible as he collapses to his knees. After being killed, the burned man and the cage are buried by a bulldozer. The video ends with ISIS offering "100 golden Dinars" for any Muslims in Jordan who kill other Jordanian pilots, whose names, pictures and hometowns are shown.
U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said administration officials are examining the video.

"We are aware of the video purporting to show that [al-Kaseasbeh] has been murdered by the terrorist group ISIL," read Meehan's statement. "The intelligence community is working to confirm its authenticity. The United States strongly condemns ISIL’s actions and we call for the immediate release of all those held captive by ISIL. We stand in solidarity with the Government of Jordan and the Jordanian people."
CIA and counter-terrorism analysts noted the tape follows a pattern familiar in ISIS clips. It features news clips of the Jordanian king with sound of coalition strikes and ground operations. Sources told Fox News it demonstrated the highest production values of any tape to date, suggesting it took considerable time to shoot and produce.
Release of the video follows days of intense protests by Jordanians outside King Abdullah’s palace over the government's refusal to agree on a prisoner swap with the terror group. Many Jordanians as well as the pilot’s family are faulting Amman – not ISIS – for allowing their country to be drawn into a "war" they claim is one between the Islamic State and the U.S. and its allies. Demonstrators outside the gates of the royal palace have cried out, “Abdullah, why are we fighting?,” while other Jordanian protesters have taken to social media, creating an Arabic hashtag on Twitter that reads #NotOurWar.
The horrific footage surfaced just a day after top Islamic State leaders warned against social media disclosures of the terror army's activities that were not sanctioned by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi or the group's spokesman, Mohammad al-Adnani. It also came just hours after Secretary of State John Kerry met with King Abdullah and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh in Washington.
On Saturday, an online video surfaced that appeared to show Islamic State executing Japanese journalist Kenji Goto. And one week earlier, a video posted on the Internet showed the Islamist terror group delivering the same fate to another Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa.

Fox News' Catherine Herridge and Nadiah Sarsour contributed to this report.

Original post found here: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/03/new-isis-video-purpotedly-shows-jordanian-pilot-being-burned-alive/