ISIS Video Shows Beheading of British Aid Worker Alan Henning … Threatens American Aid worker Peter Kassig Is Next

ISIS BEHEADS 4TH WESTERNER …

In an act of barbarism and cowardice, ISIS has headed yet another westerner, this time British aid worker Alan Henning. The murdering terrorist who executed Henning blamed the death on the United Kingdom for joining the United States led bombing campaign against the terror group ISIS. Henning was abducted the day after Christmas in 2013 by masked gunmen. He was part of a team of volunteers that traveled to Syria to deliver food and water to people affected by Syria’s civil war.  At the end of the VIDEO, an ISIS terrorist is seen threatening a man identified as an American aid worker Peter Kassig.

“Obama, you have started your aerial bombardment of Sham (Syria), which keeps on striking our people, so it is only right that we continue to strike the necks of your people,” the masked militant in the video said.

VIDEO – CNN

CNN – ISIS video claims to show beheading of Alan Henning.

A short video released by ISIS on Friday shows the apparent beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, with the executioner blaming the death on the United Kingdom for joining the U.S.-led bombing campaign against the group.

Before he is killed, Henning speaks to the camera, referencing the British Parliament’s decision to participate in coalition of more than 40 countries who have banded together to go after the so-called Islamic State terror group in Iraq and Syria.

At the end of the video, ISIS shows American aid worker Peter Kassig and threatens his life.

“The brutal murder of Alan Henning by ISIL shows just how barbaric and repulsive these terrorists are,” UK Prime Minister David Cameron said, referring to the group also known as ISIS.

ISIS threatens to kill American aid worker Peter Kassig next:

Kassig, a 26-year-old American now threatened by the Islamic State group, enlisted in the Army in 2004, and became a Ranger, ultimately serving in the 75th Ranger Regiment, an Army special operations unit.

According to his military record, Kassig trained at Fort Benning, Georgia in 2006, and deployed to Iraq from April to July 2007. He was medically discharged at the rank of private first class in September 2007. His home of record at the time of his enlistment was Indianapolis, Indiana.

His parents, Ed and Paula Kassig, issued a statement asking for the world to pray for their son.

“The Kassig family extends our concern for the family of Alan Henning. We have read about his work and his generous character with great respect and admiration,” the statement said. “We ask everyone around the world to pray for the Henning family, for our son, and for the release of all innocent people being held hostage in the Middle East and around the globe.”

His family said Kassig had been working for the relief organization he found, Special Emergency Response and Assistance, or SERA, when he was captured on Oct. 1, 2013, on his way to Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria. He converted to Islam while in captivity and the family has heard from former hostages that his faith has provided him comfort.

Henning, 47, nicknamed “Gadget,” had joined an aid convoy and was taken captive on Dec. 26, shortly after crossing the border between Turkey and Syria. Earlier this week, Henning’s wife Barbara Henning asked the militants in a televised plea: “Please release him. We need him back home.”

Former Defense Secretary & CIA Director Leon Panetta Calls Out Barack Obama’s Lies on Iraq and ISIS

Barack Obama, The Liar in Chief …

After President Barack Obama threw the US intelligences community under the bus and blamed them for his underestimating Iraq and ISIS. However, Former Defense Secretary & CIA Director Leon Panetta is firing back and calling out Obama’s lies.  Panetta says that not only was Obama advised to keep American military forces in Iraq to protect its fragile stability, he also warned that the rise of the Islamic State “greatly increases the risk that Iraq will become al-Qaeda’s next safe haven.”

It would appear that Panetta wants to put forth the truth as to what really took place and create a firewall between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for her 2016 presidential run.

Leon Panetta … warned the rise of the Islamic State “greatly increases the risk that Iraq will become al-Qaeda’s next safe haven.”

In clear and unequivocal terms, former Defense Secretary and CIA director Leon Panetta confirms precisely what conservative critics, lawmakers, former officials, tactical experts and military officials have said about Iraq: President Obama was advised to keep a stay-behind force and warned  about the consequences if he did not. He preferred to keep his campaign pledge to get all the troops out. The White House therefore allowed negotiations to falter for a status of forces agreement and bragged it had gotten all the troops out. Iraq has now collapsed.

In excerpts of his new book printed in TIME, he writes: “When President Obama announced the end of our combat mission in August 2010, he acknowledged that we would maintain troops for a while. Now that the deadline was upon us, however, it was clear to me — and many others — that withdrawing all our forces would endanger the fragile stability then barely holding Iraq together.” Among others, Panetta and Under Secretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy tried to convince the White House this was essential, but the White House refused to take obvious measures to maintain troops:

More from FOX News:

In them, Panetta explained that Iraqi leaders privately wanted some U.S. forces to stay behind after the formal 2011 withdrawal, though they would not say so publicly. The former secretary, though, said the U.S. had “leverage” to strike a deal, and the Defense and State departments tried to do exactly that.

“But,” he wrote, “the President’s team at the White House pushed back, and the differences occasionally became heated. … and those on our side viewed the White House as so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests.”

He said the negotiations with then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went down to the wire in December 2011, but the White House never stepped up.

“To my frustration, the White House coordinated the negotiations but never really led them,” Panetta charged. “Officials there seemed content to endorse an agreement if State and Defense could reach one, but without the President’s active advocacy, al-Maliki was allowed to slip away.”

The account from Panetta challenges the notion that the Obama administration would have left some troops behind – as U.S. military advisers wanted – if only the Iraqi government had been more willing to negotiate. While Panetta lays some blame at the feet of the Iraqis, he also argues that the White House never seized the chance at a deal.

Panetta claims that a residual troop presence like he and others had advocated could have made the difference.  

“To this day, I believe that a small U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have effectively advised the Iraqi military on how to deal with al-Qaeda’s resurgence and the sectarian violence that has engulfed the country,” he wrote.

Panetta also warned that the rise of the Islamic State “greatly increases the risk that Iraq will become al-Qaeda’s next safe haven.”

Barack Obama Blames Intel Officials for ISIS … “Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.”

Barack Obama … The Buck always Stop with somebody else other than me …

It did not take long in last nights CBS ’60 Minutes’ interview for President Barack Obama to blame some one else for his not having a strategy or a clue in how to deal with ISIS. Barack Obama threw Intel officials and James Clapper under the bus and stated they underestimated ISIS. Who underestimated ISIS, or did you just not want to see what they were doing?  I could not have said it any better than Instapundit, When things go well, it’s always “I, me, mine” with this guy. When things go badly, it’s always “they” who screwed up.

But wait a minute, didn’t FOX News report Obama given detailed intelligence for a year about rise of ISIS?

President Obama was given detailed and specific intelligence about the rise of the Islamic State as part of his daily briefing for at least a year before the group seized large swaths of territory over the summer, a former Pentagon official told Fox News.

The official — who asked not to be identified because the President’s Daily Brief is considered the most authoritative, classified intelligence community product analyzing sensitive international events for the president — said the data was strong and “granular” in detail.

60 Minutes – Barack Obama interview

The Hill: Obama – Intel officials underestimated ISIS.

President Obama largely blamed the United States’ intelligence community in an interview broadcast Sunday for giving an incorrect assessment of the capabilities of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

“Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” Obama said on CBS’s “”60 Minutes.”

Obama said ISIS, also known as ISIL, went “underground” when United States forces fought al Qaeda in Iraq in the last decade.

That, along with Syria’s civil war, allowed ISIS to regroup and recruit fighters from all over the world, including Europe, the United States, Australia and the Muslim world, Obama said in an excerpt from the interview. The full interview with Steve Kroft will air Sunday night.

“And so this became ground zero for jihadists around the world,” Obama said of Syria.

Jim Geraghty at NRO says, oh contaire … “How Many Times Was Obama Warned About an Islamist Takeover of Iraq?”

Isn’t this what all of those allegedly horrific warmongering Bush administration officials warned about? Didn’t we have an entire 2008 presidential campaign debating the consequences of a “precipitous withdrawal”? Didn’t Obama and his team assure us, over and over again, that they would manage the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq responsibly?

Vice President Cheney, November 21, 2005:

Would the United States and other free nations be better or worse off with terrorists like Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi running Iraq? And would the United States be more or less safe with Iraq ruled by extremists intent on its destruction?

A precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be a victory for the terrorists, an invitation to further the violence against free nations and a terrible blow to the future security of the United States of America.

President Bush, July 12, 2007:

I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region, and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.

Even The Daily Beast is calling Obama on his comments … Why Obama Can’t Say His Spies Underestimated ISIS.

Still, other senior intelligence officials have been warning about ISIS for months. In prepared testimony before the annual House and Senate intelligence committees’ threat hearings in January and February, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the recently departed director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the group would likely make a grab for land before the end of the year. ISIS “probably will attempt to take territory in Iraq and Syria to exhibit its strength in 2014.” Of course, the prediction wasn’t exactly hard to make. By then, Flynn noted, ISIS had taken the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, and the demonstrated an “ability to concurrently maintain multiple safe havens in Syria.”

Flynn was not alone. Clapper himself in that hearing warned that the three most effective jihadist groups in Syria—one of which he said was ISIS—presented a threat as a magnet for attracting foreign fighters. John Brennan, Obama’s CIA director, said he thought both ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda’s formal franchise in Syria, presented a threat to launch external operations against the West.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said February 4 that because of areas of Syria that are “beyond the regime’s control or that of the moderate opposition,” a “major concern” was “the establishment of a safe haven, and the real prospect that Syria could become a launching point or way station for terrorists seeking to attack the United States or other nations.”

French Hostage Hervé Gourdel Beheaded in Algeria by Islamic Jihadists Linked to ISIS

Another beheading from ISIS, this time is is Jund al-Khilafa who posted a video of French hostage Herve Gourdel being killed that  was entitled “Message of blood for the French government”. The group calling itself  Jund al-Khilafah,  Soldiers of the Caliphate,  released a video that appeared to depict the beheading of  55 year old Hervé Gourdel,  a mountain guide from Nice, France who had only arrived in Algeria the previous day. TheIslamic terrorists said that the murder of Herve Gourde was a response to his government’s action against Isis in Iraq, where France launched its first air strikes last Friday.

ISIS has now beheaded individuals from the United States (James Foley and Steven Sotloff) , Great Britain (David Haines) and now France.

France has confirmed that an Algerian jihadist group linked to Islamic State (IS) militants has beheaded tourist Herve Gourdel, seized on Sunday.

Jund al-Khilafa killed Mr Gourdel, 55, after its deadline for France to halt air strikes on IS in Iraq ran out.

French President Francois Hollande condemned the killing as a “cruel and cowardly” act.

He said that French air strikes which began on IS targets in Iraq last week would continue.

Speaking at the UN general assembly, Mr Hollande said that Mr Gourdel’s abduction and decapitation was a barbaric act of terrorism which presented a problem not only for the region but also for the world.

He said the fight against terrorism should know no borders and that France was now in mourning.

“It is not weakness that should be the response to terrorism but force,” he said.

 French tourist beheaded in Algeria by jihadis linked to Islamic State

The video shows Gourdel kneeling, with his arms tied behind his back, in front of four masked militants who read out a statement in Arabic criticising France’s military intervention. They then pushed him on his side and held him down.

The beheading is not shown, but one militant holds his severed head up to the camera. “This is why the Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria have decided to punish France, by executing this man, and to defend our beloved Islamic State,” one of the militants said in the video.

Gourdel briefly addressed his family before the militants gave their statement.

The release of the beheading video could have been timed to coincide with Barack Obama’s address to the General Assembly on Wednesday in which the US president urged the world to come together to defeat a jihadist “network of death” in Iraq and Syria.

US and Colalition of 5 Arab Allies Begin Bombing Missions in Syria Against ISIS

Military operations have begun in Syria against ISIS.

As reported at FOX News, the United States and five Arab allies, Jordan, Saudia Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qater, have begun military operations in Syria against ISIS. The bombing campaign consisted of  airstrikes, bombings and Tomahawk cruise-missile attacks against the Islamic State.  The airstrikes focused on the city of Raqqa, the declared capital of ISIS’ self-proclaimed Islamic State, but also about 20 to 25 targets have been struck.

VIDEO via The Gateway Pundit from Fox News

The United States, joined by five Arab allies, launched an intense campaign of airstrikes, bombings and cruise-missile attacks against the Islamic State and another militant group in Syria Monday night – marking the first U.S. military intervention in Syria since the start of that country’s civil war in 2011.

U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement released early Tuesday that 14 Islamic State targets were hit, including the group’s fighters, training camps, headquarters and command-and-control facilities, and armed vehicles. The operation involved a combination of fighter jets, Predator drones and Tomahawk missiles launched from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.

VIDEO – AP: The U.S. Navy released video early Tuesday of missile launches from sea toward Islamic State militant group targets in Syria. (Sept. 23)

The strikes “destroyed or damaged” multiple targets, according to the U.S. military, which reported “all aircraft safely exited the strike areas.”

The mission was not limited to hitting Islamic State positions. Centcom said that U.S. aircraft also struck eight targets associated with another terrorist group called the Khorasan Group, made of up Al Qaeda veterans. Those strikes, near the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo, targeted training camps, a munitions production facility, a communication building and command-and-control facilities.

Centcom said the Khorasan Group was involved in “imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western interests.”

CNN: U.S. airstrikes hit ISIS inside Syria for first time

American jets began bombing ISIS targets in Syria early Tuesday, raising U.S. involvement in the war-torn country and sending a forceful message to the terror group.

The airstrikes focused on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, a U.S. official told CNN, though other locations were hit as well.

At least 20 targets in an around Raqqa were hit, the opposition group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

They’re the first strikes against the terror group inside the country since President Barack Obama’s announcement this month that he was prepared to expand the American efforts beyond targets in Iraq.

All foreign partners participating in the strikes with the United States are Arab countries, a senior U.S. military official told CNN. Those nations are Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.

Diplomatic sources told CNN that Qatar was also involved, though it was not clear whether Qatar actually conducted airstrikes itself.

BBC News -  US begins air strikes on Islamic State in Syria