EGYPT – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has instructed authorities to assist with the evacuation of Egyptians from neighboring Libya after the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group claimed it had kidnapped 21 Coptic Christians there, Al Arabiya reports.
IS published photos of the Egyptian Coptics—wearing orange jumpsuits, handcuffed, and blindfolded—in the latest issue of its online English outlet Dabiq. The terrorist group called the 21 hostages “Coptic crusaders” and alleged that the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt had tortured and killed Egyptian Christians who converted to Islam. (more…)

(Via FOX NEWS) A small band of ISIS fighters mounted a bold, dawn attack Friday on an air base in Iraq where U.S. forces are training troops, in what experts believe may have been a probe that could foreshadow a coming clash involving Americans.
All eight Islamic State fighters were killed by Iraqi forces in the 7:20 a.m. raid on Ain al-Asad air base in the western province of Anbar, and none of the 400 U.S. military personnel at the base were involved, according to officials. Sources rejected reports that the militant fighters, who killed at least two Iraqi troops, had infiltrated the base wearing Iraqi army uniforms.
“It was a regular ISIL attack,” a senior defense official told Fox News. “It happened at the gate about 3 kilometers from where U.S. forces are. We sent drones and Apaches [attack helicopters], but it was all over before they arrived and neither fired a shot.”
Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said that initial reports Friday showed that all of the Islamic State fighters were killed at or inside a gate to the sprawling, 25-square-mile base. (more…)

… When he finally did act, a month later, they were gone.
WASHINGTON DC – The U.S. government obtained intelligence on the possible location of American captives held by ISIS in Syria last year, but Obama administration officials waited nearly a month to launch a rescue mission because of concerns that the intelligence wasn’t conclusive and some of it had come from a foreign service, U.S. and British officials told The Daily Beast.
British officials, as well as private security contractors, said they were frustrated by Washington’s hesitance to give the go-ahead for a rescue attempt, which eventually was carried out on July 4, 2014, by which time the hostages had been moved. The following month, ISIS began beheading its American and British prisoners in a series of grisly Internet videos. (more…)

Via Peoples Cube

SHEEESH !!  The Democrat response to the Netanyahu speech before congress is over-the-top ridiculous.  Congressional Cuckoo Birds… 
What makes the entire thing all the more absurd is that the White House was fully informed by both Speak Boehner and Benjamin Netanyahu, yet Democrats are determined to run with an entirely manufactured White House talking point.
The White House claimed Speaker Boehner invited Prime Minister Netanyahu without consulting with President Obama; ergo their chosen narrative became Obama was disrespected. However, since the time the White House made such a claim, it has been proven that Boehner did inform the administration; and secondly, prior to Netanyahu accepting the invitation he too contacted the White House to discuss. It was the white house who refused to discuss – apparently, just so they could manufacture a controversy.
Now the Congressional Black Caucus is pushing the narrative that House Speaker Boehner and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu are racist leaders who are attacking President Obama simply because Obama is black. The White House has tried to use the position that any opposition to President Obama’s policies contain racist connotations before, but this recent effort is beyond absurd.
Yesterday Representative Charlie Rangel challenged Prime Minister Netanyahu to a fight because Rangel was defending Obama’s honor or something. Today Rep Hank ‘Tippy Guam’ Johnson enters the foray: (more…)

Russia and Egypt are working on several strategic alliances. Russia has committed to assist in building Nuclear power plants, and interestingly both Egypt and Russia are negotiating plans to drop the dollar as their trade currency.
(Reuters) – United by a deep hostility toward Islamists, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Russia’s Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday they were both committed to fighting the threat of terrorism.
The general and the former KGB officer found common ground on security at talks in Cairo that signaled a rapprochement between their two countries, at a time when relations between Egypt and the United States have cooled.
Sisi, who is fighting a raging Islamist insurgency in the Sinai region, said Putin had agreed with him that “the challenge of terrorism that faces Egypt, and which Russia also faces, does not stop at any borders”. (more…)

JORDAN – United Arab Emirates fighter planes roared out of an air base in Jordan on Tuesday to pound Islamic State militant positions, marking a return to combat operations by one of the United States’ closest Arab allies in the fight against the extremists.

The Emirates’ decision to launch fresh airstrikes from the kingdom after a hiatus of more than a month was a strong show of support for Western-allied Jordan, which has vowed a punishing response to the militants’ killing of one of its pilots.
It also is likely to quiet concerns in Washington about the oil-rich Emirates’ commitment to the fight. (more…)

D’oh, essentially Mueller was a victim of believing a life-long liberalist narrative where all dangers of the world can be eliminated if we just hug each other more.   Kayla’s ‘go give-em-hugs’ efforts led her to Syria, where ISIS appreciated  her naiveté, took her as a hostage and sold her to a militant commander to use as a war trophy.
(Via International Solidarity Movement) […] Abdullah Abu Rahma, coordinator of the popular committee in the village of Bil’in where Kayla joined the protests, told ISM: “Kayla came to Palestine to stand in solidarity with us. She marched with us and faced the military that occupies our land side by side with us. For this, Kayla will always live in our hearts. We send all our support to her family and will continue, like Kayla, to work against injustice wherever it is.”
Our hearts are with Kayla, her family, friends, and all those who have lost liberty, lives and loved ones in the global struggle for freedom and human rights.
With the ISM, Kayla worked with Palestinians nonviolently resisting the confiscation and demolitions of their homes and lands. In the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Occupied East Jerusalem, she stayed with the Al Kurd family to try and prevent the takeover of their home by Israeli settlers. (more…)

(Washington DC) A Muslim Brotherhood member who recently was hosted at the State Department along with several of the Islamist group’s key allies now claims that a White House official also was present in that meeting, according to recent remarks.

Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member and former Egyptian parliamentarian, was in the United States late last month along with a delegation of fellow Brotherhood leaders and allies.
The Brotherhood-aligned delegation caused an international stir after the Washington Free Beacon revealed that it had been hosted for a meeting with several State Department officials.
Another member of the group, a Brotherhood-aligned judge in Egypt, posed for a picture while at Foggy Bottom in which he held up the Islamic group’s notorious four-finger Rabia symbol. (more…)