Must be the same ones in charge on 9/11
ISIS Baffling U.S. Intelligence Agencies - The Daily Beast
In a briefing for reporters Thursday, U.S. intelligence officials said the government is re-evaluating an estimate from early this year that said the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) had only 10,000 members. These officials also said intelligence analysts were still trying to determine the real names of many of the group’s leaders from records of Iraqis who went in and out of American custody during the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
While many U.S. officials
have warned publicly in the last year about the dangers posed by ISIS, the fact that the U.S. intelligence community lacks a consensus estimate on its size and the true identities of the group’s leadership may explain why President Obama over the weekend said the U.S. was caught off-guard by the ISIS advance into Kurdish territory.
That said, the U.S. intelligence community assesses that ISIS poses a particularly difficult problem. One American official said ISIS had attracted thousands of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq, some of whom had returned to their home countries and formed terror cells in Europe.
U.S. intelligence officials said the Islamic State makes frequent mention of its intent to attack the U.S., though officials said there is no evidence yet that its operatives have the skills of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) master bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri. AQAP has tried to bring down U.S.-bound airliners three times using bombs he helped design or build.
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A top Saudi official has insisted there are differences between the country's practice of public beheadings and the executions carried out by ISIS militants.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told NBC News that Saudi criminal punishments were legitimate because they were based on "a decision made by a court" rather than ISIS' "arbitrary" killings.
Saudi Arabia — one of America's closest allies in the Middle East — has endured sustained criticism by human rights groups for its justice system based on hard-line Islamic law, its lack of political freedom and policies toward women.
In an interview with NBC News, al-Turki defended the nation's public beheading of convicted criminals. "When we do it in Saudi Arabia we do it as a decision made by a court," he said. "The killing is a decision, I mean it is not based on arbitrary choices, to kill this and not to kill this."
