(Washington, D.C.) — The President and his top advisors have told us over and over again in recent years that “al Qaeda is on the run,” and “we decimated al Qaeda.” 

Now we know it’s not true.

In recent days, an ultra-radical faction of the Sunni terrorist network — ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq & Al Sham — has captured huge swaths of Iraqi territory, hundreds of millions of dollars from Iraqi banks, and even U.S. military equipment.

At the moment, ISIS forces are rapidly moving toward Baghdad, imposing Sharia law, killing thousands, terrorizing millions, creating an exodus of Iraqis trying to flee for safety, and raising serious new questions:

• Was the ISIS leader released from prison by the U.S. in 2009?
• How did ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi become the world’s most powerful jihadist leader?
• Will Iraq fall to the jihadists?
• Will ISIS create an Islamic caliphate?
• Did U.S. military forces who fought in Iraq die in vain? [See Military Times article: Iraq War vets angry, distraught as insurgents gain ground]
• Will Iran intervene?
• Will the U.S. intervene?
• If Baghdad does fall, then what?
• Will ISIS capture Damascus, too?
• Where next — Amman? Jerusalem?
• And how soon do the jihadists begin targeting Americans, or even the U.S. homeland?

I’m not going to try to answer these questions today. Just the fact that they need to be asked shows how badly U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has failed, and how high the stakes are for the American people, for Israel, and for our Arab allies.

At the moment, I need to go back to finishing the manuscript for my new novel on a future ISIS plot to conquer the Middle East and build and Islamic caliphate.

But first, please keep praying for the Lord to intervene and stop the rise of the jihadists, pray for safety for all Iraqis (and Syrians), and please keep praying for courage for the Christians. Pray, too, for regional and world leaders to have wisdom to know how best to stabilize and pacify the situation.

Then, please keep on top of the latest developments.  Here is some of the latest news coverage from the epicenter worth paying attention to:

“The Obama administration is facing its worst-case scenario in Iraq, which seems on the verge of crumbling as Islamic militants march on Baghdad,” reports The Hill newspaper. “Just more than three years after U.S. soldiers left the country, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has taken over hundreds of square miles ranging from Syria’s coast to the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Tikrit. The terrorist group is in control of a wide swath of land from which it could launch attacks on the West, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte warned Thursday.”

“If these people succeed in multiple countries, that is going to represent some kind of permanent terrorist threat to the West, to our interests around the world and to ourselves,” he said on MSNBC. 

“The sudden developments have left the White House with few good options and opened President Obama to severe criticism from Republican critics in an election year,” The Hill noted. “They argue the failure to reach a security agreement that would have left some troops in Iraq has hastened the government’s downfall. What’s more, the group is now taking access of U.S. arms and equipment that were left behind when troops left after nearly a decade in Iraq. Militants posted pictures on Twitter that showed they had acquired U.S. Humvees and armored vehicles….U.S. officials are worried that more weapons could fall into ISIS’s hands if the militants reach Baghdad. The U.S. has already sold the Iraqi military armed helicopters, drones, Hellfire missiles and a number of small arms….”

“This is pretty bad…These guys are our mortal enemies. These are the people, or one strain of the group of people, we’ve been fighting at least since 9/11,” said Michael Eisenstadt, senior fellow and director of The Washington Institute’s Military and Security Studies Program….“It feeds the perception that the United States is being pushed out of the region and the few accomplishments that we’ve had seem be unraveling,” he said.  

THE LATEST HEADLINES WORTH TRACKING (via Drudge):

Exodus from Iraq as chaos spreads…
UN: 800k refugees…
Terrorists ‘full-blown army’…
Medieval Sharia Law Imposed…
‘Roads lined with decapitated police and soldiers’…
Iraqi government ‘paralyzed’…
Army Collapses…
VIDEO: Thousands of soldiers captured by ISIS…
Iran Deploys Forces…
Americans evacuated…
USA Secretly Flying Drones…
Pentagon: Rebels may have captured military equipment…
PAPER: ‘Worst case scenario’…
FLASHBACK: Biden: Iraq One of Obama’s ‘Great Achievements’…
Vets in Congress: ‘What was point of all that?’…
Oil Soars…
OBAMA HINTS AT ACTION…

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• Learn more about the true stories of four remarkable heroes that really did escape the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in the spring of 1994 to tell the world the truth about the genocide of the Jewish people by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi tyranny.
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