Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s characterization of U.S. President Barack Obama and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton as “co-founders” of the Islamic State militant group drew swift rebuke on Thursday as “false” and “unhinged.” The exchange was the latest in a series of attacks from Trump in which he has sought to depict America as less safe, Democrats to blame and himself as the only one who can restore security. Democrats, in turn, have used Trump’s often hyperbolic statements to argue he is unfit to be president and lacks the temperament…
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As Islamic State is pushed back in Iraq, worries about what’s next
As U.S.-led offensives drive back Islamic State in Iraq, concern is growing among U.S. and U.N. officials that efforts to stabilize liberated areas are lagging, creating conditions that could help the militants endure as an underground network. One major worry: not enough money is being committed to rebuild the devastated provincial capital of Ramadi and other towns, let alone Islamic State-held Mosul, the ultimate target in Iraq of the U.S.-led campaign. Lise Grande, the No. 2 U.N. official in Iraq, told Reuters that the United Nations is urgently seeking $400…
Read MoreMass grave found in Syria’s Palmyra after city recaptured from Islamic State: state media
Syrian troops found a mass grave containing around 40 bodies in Palmyra city, captured from Islamic State last Sunday, Syrian state news agency SANA said on Friday. SANA said the grave, which contained many women and children, was in the north-eastern edge of Palmyra. Some of the bodies had been beheaded. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the five-year-old Syrian conflict through a network of sources on the ground, said that Islamic State had killed a number of people at an earlier time and buried them on the…
Read MoreIslamic State truck bomb kills at least 60 people south of Baghdad
People gather at the site of a bomb attack at a checkpoint in the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, March 6, 2016. A truck bomb at an Iraqi checkpoint south of Baghdad killed at least 60 people and wounded more than 70 on Sunday, medical and security officials said, and Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blast. The suicide attack, involving an explosive-laden fuel tanker, is the second deadliest this year after one on Feb. 28 that killed 78 people in Sadr City, a Shi’ite district of Baghdad. This…
Read MoreIslamic State claims killing of retired Saudi officer
A retired security officer in southern Saudi Arabia has been shot dead in an attack claimed Monday by the Islamic State group. Police spokesman Colonel Mohammed al-Harbi said that a man in the Abu Arish area of Jazan region, bordering Yemen, reported at about 2:30 am (1130 GMT Sunday) that his father “was being shot at from an unknown source at his farm”. Police did not identify the victim or give further details of his former security duties. They said a “criminal investigation” was under way into the killing. Usually…
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