On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton released, via Twitter, the details of her “three-part plan to defeat ISIS in the Middle East, around the world, and here at home.” With all due respect to the former secretary of state, here is Gawker’s plan:
On Sunday, a fuel tanker rigged with explosives detonated at a checkpoint south of Baghdad, Reuters reports, killing at least 60 people and wounding at least 70 more. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bombing.
After civil wars and/or American interventions destroyed the economies of Libya, Iraq, and Syria, some of the most stable, well-paying jobs left were with the Islamic State. But a new report suggests ISIS grunt work has gone from lucrative and exciting to a real crummy slog.
On Sunday, the Islamic State released a new, 17-minute video threatening to attack the United Kingdom and other “coalition” countries. In it, nine men, thought to be those who carried out the November Paris attacks, are seen executing prisoners in ISIS-controlled territory in the Middle East.
According to the Guardian, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that the Islamic State has announced its intention to reduce its members’s wages by half. This economy!
At least 17 people were killed when Islamic State militants attacked a shopping mall in Baghdad on Monday night, the New York Times reports. Five members of the Iraqi security forces were among the dead. Forty people were wounded.
At least 60 Libyan policemen were killed and 200 wounded after a truck bomb exploded Thursday near their base, officials said. According to the Associated Press, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, but a group affiliated with ISIS has been trying to establish a presence in the town.
Following several months of fighting, Iraqi forces, supported by a U.S.-led airstrikes, drove Islamic State fighters out of the center of Ramadi, military officials said Monday. Ramadi is the provincial capital of Anbar province. It fell to ISIS in May.
Rukmini Callimachi has written an excellent piece of news analysis on how a United States ground war against ISIS would fulfill certain apocalyptic prophesies undergirding the militant group’s ideology and recruitment tactics: “They want troops on the ground. Because they have already envisioned it.”
In the wake of the horrific shootings that left 14 dead in San Bernardino last week, new details have emerged about the 29-year-old female shooter, Tashfeen Malik.
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress that the United States military will deploy a new, permanent “expeditionary force” to Iraq, escalating the fight there against ISIS.
ISIS supporters circulated a video on Wednesday that appears to threaten New York City. In a statement, the NYPD said that it was aware of the newly-released video, but that there is “no current or specific threat to the City at this time.” The video can be seen here.
At a press conference on Monday, President Obama criticized those who have called for more invasive strategies in the United States and elsewhere to combat ISIS. “If folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they want to do, present a specific plan,” he said.
On Sunday, the governors of Alabama and Michigan announced that they would suspend the relocation of Syrian refugees to their states.
Anti-terrorism forces undertook coordinated raids across France early Monday morning, The Guardian reports. Details are scarce but raids were reported to have taken place in Toulouse, Grenoble, Calais, and at least one Paris suburb.
On Sunday, Republican presidential candidate and senator Ted Cruz said that Muslim refugees from Syria should not be permitted to enter the United States. Christian refugees, however, are okay, he argued, because there is “no meaningful risk” that Christians will commit terrorist acts.
Just after dawn on Saturday, the Associated Press reports, French police questioned and released Saleh Abdeslam, now the focus of an international manhunt, after pulling him and two other men over on their way to the French border with Belgium.
French military planes carried out a series of airstrikes on ISIS strongholds on Sunday in the wake of the attacks on civilians in Paris. CNN reports that targets in Raqqa, Syria were hit by 20 bombs delivered by 12 planes.
A suspect has been identified in the tragic attacks that left 129 dead and hundreds wounded in Paris Friday night.
In a statement, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook confirmed that a U.S. military airstrike in Raqqa, Syria, on Thursday targeted the 27-year-old Mohamed Emwazi, a British national born in Kuwait and raised in London, also known as the ISIS executioner “Jihadi John.”
