09/13/14

* IISS: The U.S. withdrawal from Gulf led to Mideast cold war, rise of ISIL A senior fellow of the International Institute of Strategic Studies said that Washington decided to reduce its commitment to the Middle East.

* Iran: US playing with fire with Islamic State Iranian officials slammed the US' policy for fighting Islamic State forces currently ravaging Iraq and Syria.

* ISIS Popularity Growing in Israel As the Islamic State (formerly ISIS) inches closer to Israel in its sweeping conquest of Iraq and Syria, the real threat is that the extremist movement will gain a large number of followers in the Holy Land long before its current warriors reach the borders of the Jewish state.

* Israel tells US it will act if IS reaches Jordan In talks with US officials about the Islamic State this week, Israel has made clear that should the extremist group start operating in neighboring Jordan, it will not hesitate to act.

* Egypt 'has key role' in fight against Islamic State - Kerry Egypt has a key role to play in countering Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on a visit to Cairo.

* Pope says world's many conflicts amount to piecemeal World War Three Pope Francis said on Saturday the spate of conflicts around the globe today were effectively a "piecemeal" Third World War, condemning the arms trade and "plotters of terrorism" sowing death and destruction.

* Neo-Nazis Threaten German Newspaper The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Friday that neo-Nazi vandalism and threats against a local newspaper in eastern Germany were "unacceptable and must be stopped."

* Syrian rebels said to control most of the border with Israel Syrian rebels are in control of almost the entire Syrian border with Israel, a monitoring group and the Al-Arabiya news network reported Saturday.

* Palestinians Compare Gaza War to 9/11 State-run Palestinian Authority TV last week ran a report that visually compared the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City's World Trade Center to Israel's bombing of Gaza's terrorist infrastructure over the summer.

* Who won the Russia-Ukraine war? The Ukraine ceasefire might collapse any day. But if it sticks and the war ends here, it poses the question: who won?