As part of an effort to de-radicalize captured ISIS fighters, the Syrian Democratic Forces are using a tactic that has seen success around the world: Art therapy.
Marc and Debra Tice, the parents of Austin Tice, who is missing in Syria for nearly six years, speak during a press conference, at the Press Club, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018. The parents of an American journalist Austin Tice who has been missing in Syria since 2012 say they are hopeful the Trump administration will work on releasing their son the way they did with Americans who had been held for long time in North Korea. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Thirty-eight years ago Sunday, after nine months of waiting, we finally had the great delight of meeting our firstborn, Austin Bennett Tice.
Today, we wish we could remind him of how glad we are he was born, how blessed we are to be his parents, how truly we believe the world is a better place for having him in it.
But we can't do that; Austin is detained in Syria. We are not allowed any contact with him.
Nearly six months after President Donald Trump
declared ISIS defeated, the terror organization is making a comeback in both Iraq and Syria, according to a new report from the Pentagon inspector general's office — and that's largely thanks to the president's decision to prematurely pull the rug out from under local security forces at a critical time.
WASHINGTON — Al-Qaeda and its affiliates remain as much of a threat to the U.S. as "it has ever been" after the terrorist group rebuilt itself while the U.S. and other nations focused on destroying ISIS in Iraq and Syria, a State Department official said Thursday.
"Al-Qaeda has been strategic and patient over the past several years," Nathan Sales, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, said at a briefing in Washington. "It's let ISIS absorb the brunt of the world's counterterrorism efforts while patiently reconstituting itself. What we see today is an al-Qaeda that is as strong as it has ever been."
A member of the U.S. Army's elite Delta Force who died during a raid in Syria last year was actually killed by friendly fire rather than an enemy IED as the Pentagon initially claimed, U.S. Special Operations Command confirmed on Monday.
A member of the British Army's elite Special Air Service who died alongside a U.S. special operator during a counter-ISIS operation in Syria last year was killed by "the accidental detonation of explosives carried by coalition forces" rather than an enemy IED as the Pentagon initially claimed, according to an investigation by the UK Ministry of Defense.
