Page 99 - Elevant News Today

Analysts say the brutal terror group marching toward baghdad is now the most powerful militant movement on the planet, even more powerful than al qaeda. leah gabrielle is live in the new york city newsroom. what have you learned about the groups objective? >> well, harris, as you mentioned before, the group is called isis but also referred to as isil or the islamic state of iraq and levant. both of english translations of the name. the levant refers to the area in the indian sea across iraq, jor...

Ben wedeman, im going to tap into your long knowledge of this region having lived there pretty much most of your life. when we talk about this caliphate, this sort of great land without borders if you like, that al baghadi wants, and he talks, he mentions the levant, give us a sense of this caliphate and how it might appeal to many islamists. >> the caliphate was a political entity set up after the death of the prophet muhammad and its essentially the political entity that includes all muslims w...

Incidents. martha: the president has said that al qaeda has been decimated. that theyre on the run. there has been a lot of suggestions that the war on terror is over. it feels like anything but. in fact it feels like the war on terror in all the hot spots around the globe is getting worse, peter? >> you know, martha, when the president said on the run he may have meant they were on the run to africa and syria, away from pakistan and afghanistan. martha: thats exactly right. >> this was a mislea...

17,000 foreign fighters many sympathetic to al qaeda have flooded into syria. those who fought for al qaeda in iraq announced the formation of the islamic republic of iraq and the levant essentially taking over the northeast part of syria. those are the same fighters who the u.s. spent years fighting in iraq. they have reconstituted themselves. there is even more concern in the wake of that prison break at the end of july in iraq which about 500 hardened iraqis were busted out of abu ghraib pris...

As unsavory as this may be, perhaps the only glimmer of hope or one of the only glimmers of hope for resolution in the middle east is some form of a deal between the united states and iran. what kind of a deal would that even be, all of us recognizing the absurdity. >> its a difficult prospect at this point to imagine. there have been attempts in the past. especially when you see iranian moves throughout the region, particularly in the persian gulf, theres a lot of pressure on the united states ...