Earlier today, a veteran White House correspondent laid out his version of how Obama "gets away with it" in a news cycle when everyone's attention should be glued to the economic failures of the lame duck president. One thing he forgot to mention, however, was the use of such conventional "rally around the flag" tactics as taking out a key symbolic nemesis of the US to drum up patriotic fervor.
ISIS security forces and senior leaders are seizing civilian identity documents from residents in Raqqa to use for leaving the besieged de-facto Islamic State capital and Syria.
Despite growing tensions between the West and Moscow, American M1A2 Abrams tanks have been deployed in Georgia within miles of the Russian border. Russian troops controlled the region up until 2001. NBC News reports: The symbolic deployment of the Army’s largest weapon system to this former Soviet republic was part of Exercise Noble Partner which has involved hundreds of American, British and Georgian troops and runs through Thursday. Designed to bring the Georgian military closer to NATO, the drill comes at a time of growing tension between the Western alliance and the Kremlin.
Following two days of searching, Egyptian crews have located the data recorders for EgyptAir Flight 804 close to an area where human remains and debris from the crashed flight have been found, CBS News reports citing government sources.
The U.S. Defense Department has rejected Russia’s proposal of conducting joint airstrikes against ISIS terrorists in Syria from next week. “We do not collaborate or coordinate with the Russians on any operations in Syria,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis told reporters on Friday, explaining that Washington and Moscow have separate military objectives.