Some Turkish journalists' unions have harshly criticized the beheading of US journalist James Foley, who had been missing since 2012, by the “Islamic State” (IS) on Tuesday and expressed concern for the Turkish citizens who have been held captive by the terrorist organization since June.

The number of foreign fighters who have flooded into Syria throughout the past three years now exceeds the total number of jihadists who fought invading Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to a report by the Soufan Group.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group that has seized large parts of Iraq and drawn the first American air strikes since the end of the occupation in 2011 has warned the United States it will attack Americans “in any place” if the raids hit its militants.

The political leader of Iraq's Kurds, Massoud Barzani, has appealed for international military aid to help defeat Islamist militants in the north.  The plea came as the US launched a fourth round of air strikes targeting Islamic State fighters near Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Saudi Arabia has just decided to give the Lebanese military $1 billion in military aid, mostly in ammunition and small arms. This latest dollop of cash has a lot more to do with the fact that the Islamic State, which has recently shown a noticeable lack of concern about what anyone else has to say about national borders, recently bopped over into Lebanon to go raise hell, shoot up, and finally occupy a small town called Arsal in the northeast of the country.

A man claiming to be the self-appointed caliph of the Islamic State jihadist group made what is thought to be his first taped appearance in a video that circulated on social media Saturday.  Previously there were only two known images of the notoriously elusive Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.