Showdown imminent over nurse's quarantine in Maine

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The bodies of 150 members of an Iraqi Sunni tribe which fought Islamic State have been found in a mass grave, security officials said on Thursday.

Islamic State militants took the men from their villages to the city of Ramadi and killed them on Wednesday night and buried them, an official in a police operations center and another security official told Reuters.

In a separate case, witnesses said they found 70 corpses from the same Albu Nimr tribe near the town of Hit in the Sunni heartland Anbar province. Security officials there were not immediately available for comment.

Most of the victims found near Hit were members of the police or an anti-Islamic State Sunni force called Sahwa (Awakening).

"Early this morning we found those corpses and we have been told by some Islamic State militants that 'those people are from Sahwa, who fought your brothers the Islamic State, and this is the punishment of anybody fighting Islamic State'," an eyewitness said.

Tribal sheikhs from Albu Nimr say both sets of victims were among more than 300 men aged between 18 and 55 who were seized by Islamic State this week.

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government wants Sunni tribal leaders to back the armed forces in the war against Islamic State militants who are notorious for beheading or executing anyone opposed to their radical ideology.

(Reporting by Raheem Salman; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Jerusalem is teetering on the brink of disaster

Jerusalem's Temple Mount — home to the holiest site in Judaism and one of the holiest in Islam — is closed for the first time in at least 14 years, and possibly since Israel took over east Jerusalem in 1967. The reason is that fears of large-scale political violence are rising in the city. After months of clashes between Arab residents and Israeli police, an operative allegedly with Islamic Jihad attempted to assassinate a far-right Jewish activist on Wednesday, raising tensions to critical levels. Some analysts are already calling this the start of a third intifada, though others say it's far too early to tell.

So how did Jerusalem get so bad? What happened, and what's going to happen next? Here's a guide to the Jerusalem conflict.

The violence in Jerusalem has been ongoing since before this summer's Gaza war

More October 30th violence. (Salih Zeki Fazlioglu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Much of the violence has been spontaneous. Arab residents of East Jerusalem — who are residents of Israel, but overwhelmingly not citizens — have taken to the streets, throwing rocks and firebombs at Israeli police (who responded with force that, in some cases, may have been excessive) and attacking the city's light rail system. But to understand this story, you have to go back to before this summer's Gaza war.

Even before the war, street-level conflict had been a fact of life in Jerusalem. "There were 'minor' clashes for a few months" before the war, according to Brent Sasley, an expert on Israel-Palestine at the University of Texas-Arlington. "It's been ongoing for a long time."

IT'S ONE OF THE WORST BOUTS OF VIOLENCE IN THE CITY SINCE 1967

In early July (just before the official onset of the Gaza war), 16-year-old Palestinian Muhammed Abu Khdeir was killed by extremist Israelis. Since then, the clashes have escalated severely. "It's been more or less continuous since the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir," Matt Duss, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, says. Terrestrial Jerusalem, a group that focuses on issues surrounding the city, noted in September that there had been "violence and rioting almost daily" since July.

Since then, the severity of the clashes has ebbed and flowed, depending on events on the ground. Take the massive bout of protests on the weekend of October 26. Those escalated after a 14-year-old American-Palestinian boy was killed by Israeli police at a protest that's held every week. Israeli police claimed he was about to throw a firebomb at them; the protestors dispute that.

Ultimately, the root cause of the conflict is Arab anger at the political status quo, which they see as a suffocating Israeli occupation without end. "The current eruption," according to Terrestrial Jerusalem, "reflects a number of factors, including deeper and more personalized hatreds; a generational shift; growing despair of a political solution; and the Gaza conflict." Another important factor is recent Israeli settlement expansion near east Jerusalem. Ominously, Terrestrial Jerusalem warns it's one of the worst bouts of violence in the city since 1967.

This week's dangerous escalation began with a shooting

VosIzNeias @VINNews Follow Jerusalem - Rabbi Yehuda Glick Seriously Wounded In Jerusalem Shooting http://www.vosizneias.com/182601/2014/10/29/jerusalem-unknown-assailant-shots-seriously-wounds-known-right-wing-activist-in-jerusalem … 4:33 PM - 29 Oct 2014 2 RETWEETS

Late on Wednesday night, an Arab gunman shot a right-wing Israeli-American rabbi, Yehuda Glick, in Jerusalem. The attempted assassination has heightened the existing, generalized tensions in the city for its simple political violence but also because it touches on one of the Israel-Palestine conflict's most sensitive issues: the Temple Mount.

Glick leads the Temple Mount Faithful organization, which is dedicated to re-building the long destroyed Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount. That's a highly political, even dangerous, idea: access to the Temple Mount is controlled by Israel, but only Muslims are allowed to pray there. Both the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, Muslim holy sites, are located there; allowing Jews access to the Western Wall and Muslims access to the Temple Mount is meant as a sort of compromise. Calling to rebuild the ancient Temple on the Mount is a way of upsetting that balance, and claiming the entirety of the holy site for Jews.

That's considered a dangerous idea. Construction on one of Islam's holiest sites would infuriate Muslims in Israel, the Palestinian territories, and around the world. It's also an extreme position among Jews: most rabbis believe the temple cannot or should not be rebuilt until the Jewish Messiah comes. In addition to rebuilding the Temple, Glick also wanted to expand Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount, a less radical challenge to the Temple Mount status quo.

So shooting Glick, a polarizing figure, was almost immediately seen as a political act. The would-be assassin, reportedly named Mu'taz Hijazi, was killed in a shootout with Israeli police. The militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for his attack; according to Israel's Channel 2, a spokesman for the group said that "the assassination attempt on Glick is an act of Palestinian vengeance, in response to what is happening in Jerusalem."

Khaled Abu Toameh @KhaledAbuToameh Follow Photo of Mu'taz Hijazi, who was shot dead by police this morning in J'lem. 12:40 AM - 30 Oct 2014 27 RETWEETS 13 FAVORITES

After the attack on Glick, things went nuts. Israeli authorities closed the holy site to Jews and Muslims alike after the shooting, citing security concerns. Notoriously provocative right-wing Israeli lawmaker Moshe Feiglin and other conservative Jewish leaders discussed plans to lead a march on the Temple Mount. A spokesperson for Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas called the closure of al-Aqsa a "declaration of war."

As of right now, reporters on the ground in east Jerusalem describe the largely Arab area as a "ghost town." The Temple Mount has been reopened, but Israeli police suffuse the area, sporadic clashes have arisen, and an atmosphere of tension pervades the city. The question now is whether or now this will erupt into a new, huge round of violence.

What happens now?

Seth Frantzman @sfrantzman Follow .#Jerusalem old city like ghost town as #Israel police close access to Temple Mount; #Palestinians close shops 7:20 AM - 30 Oct 2014 37 RETWEETS 5 FAVORITES

The situation is very bad. Even a slight provocation by either side could set off a wider conflict. But is this already a Third Intifada — another Palestinian mass uprising against Israel, like the First Intifada beginning in the late 1980s, and the far deadlier Second Intifada of the early 2000s?

It's tough to say. "Simmering tension/violence is not the same thing" as an intifada, Sasley argues, "though it could well develop into [one]." Rather, he says, "what's going on now feels more like a demonstration of frustration, rather than an uprising."

"NEITHER THE ISRAELI NOR THE PALESTINIAN LEADERSHIP HAS DONE MUCH TO CALM THINGS DOWN"

Moreover, the pressure is largely concentrated in Jerusalem, and hasn't yet spread to Gaza or the West Bank. "One of the reasons it's getting out of hand is precisely because there's no Palestinian Authority there to keep a lid on it," Duss writes. In his view, it's easier for Palestinian security forces to contain popular outrage than for their Israeli counterparts to do the same. The PA stands "between the people and the occupation" in the West Bank, but not in Jerusalem.

That said, this could get uglier, and quickly. Any number of things — Israeli government concessions to demands for Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount; sectarian violence by one group against another; inflammatory statements by either side's political leadership — could set off a major escalation.

"The sustained rioting, violence, and tension is among the worst it's been in a long time, and things keep piling on top of it," Sasley says. "Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian leadership has done much to calm things down or, more importantly, stop or reverse policies that inflame things."

The Islamic State is a unique hybrid of terrorist group and nation-state that has shown remarkable strategic clarity and organization. But its threat to the America – and America's options for dealing with it – remain limited.

The Islamic State is a unique phenomenon that "is unprecedented in the modern age," according to a new report, but a co-author suggests that – for now – the threat to theUnited States remains limited and the potential for solving the crisis is frustratingly familiar.

The investigation, conducted by the Soufan Group, a security intelligence firm in New York, delves into the terrorist group’s own strategy papers and tweets, as well as the observations of defectors and analysis of Soufan's staff, including a former CIA officer.

What sets the Islamic State apart is its strategy and organization, says Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer who has worked in the region and was a co-author of the report. That makes the militant group a hybrid between a terrorist group and a nation-state with the ability to switch between the two as needs dictate.

Recommended: How much do you know about the Islamic State?

“We’ve never seen a group as strategic and clear as they have been,” says Mr. Skinner.

For example, in July 2012, the Islamic State announced that it was undertaking a campaign called “breaking the walls” to begin springing ts fighters – more than 1,000 of them, according to Skinner – from two major prisons in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib.

“It took a year, but that’s exactly what they did,” Skinner says. “It helped swell their ranks.”

Its underground cells became military divisions, the report notes. These changes required leaders with different skills, so “it was fortunate for the Islamic State that many in its top echelons were ex-Ba’athists who had held senior positions under Saddam Hussein.”

In this way, Islamic State is unique in its ability to “act like a terrorist group when they want to, but with an infantry Army, so they can jump back and forth,” Skinner says.

Yet those capabilities likely do not yet pose a direct threat to the United States, Skinner suggests. While there is always a danger that IS tries to attack US interests abroad, as they have vowed to do, attacking America is less likely.

“The idea of sending fighters over is kind of a Hollywood notion,” he says.

The greater potential threat relates to Americans becoming radicalized by the Islamic State’s message, largely through its social media campaign, the report argues.

And the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is unlikely to collapse soon, the report adds.

“ISIS isn’t going away,” Skinner says. Starting with its roots in Al Qaeda in Iraq, “It took a decade for things to get this bad,” and will take “years, not months or weeks,” to address.

But how? Even if America did have the desire to wage another long war, hundreds of thousands of US troops would not be advisable. “It’s the absolute worst thing we could do.”

The conditions that gave rise to the Islamic State were in large part the result of US military intervention in Iraq, he says, adding that US boots on the ground would “reinforce every single propaganda message IS has.”

Currently, rebel groups are fighting one another, and “IS doesn’t have any friends.” But US troops on the ground would unite them. “Every one of them would turn and fight us.”

And so US strategy is to wage airstrikes and contain the Islamic State. With that strategy, “We’re probably not going to be able to push them back – and we’re not trying to,” Skinner says. “We’re trying to keep them from gaining ground.”

The idea is “to put them in a box and pound them and hope the new Iraqi government can do some kind of reconciliation,” he adds. “But for that to work, so many other things have to go right at the same time.”

Chief among them, the report argues, is addressing the conditions of deprivation and hopelessness that give rise to such fighters in the first place.

“Military action will limit its physical reach,” the report concludes of the Islamic State, “but will not destroy its appeal.”

The Islamic State's biggest problem might well be that it becomes a victim of its success. Military leaders do not always make good civilian administrators, , the report argues, and the challenge of governing territory could prove the state’s undoing.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Militants from the Islamic State carried out a mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi prison inmates when they seized the country's second-largest city of Mosul in June, an international rights group said on Thursday.

Some 600 male Shiite inmates from Badoosh prison outside Mosul were forced to kneel along the edge of a nearby ravine and shot with automatic weapons, Human Rights Watch said in a statement based on interviews with 15 Shiite prisoners who survived the massacre.

The New York-based watchdog added that the Shiite prisoners were separated from several hundred Sunnis and a small number of Christians who were later set free. A number of Kurdish and Yazidi inmates were also killed, they said.

The prisoners had been serving sentences for a range of crimes, from murder and assault to nonviolent offenses.

Before separating them, the gunmen herded up to 1,500 inmates onto trucks and drove them to an isolated stretch of desert about two kilometers from the prison, the survivors said. After taking several hundred away in trucks, they forced the Shiites to form one long line along the ravine edge and then count their number in the line before showering them with machine-gun fire.

"A bullet hit my head and I fell to the ground, and that's when I felt another bullet hit my arm," one survivor said. "I was unconscious for about 5 minutes. One person was shot in the head, in the forehead, it (the bullet) went out the other side, and he fell on top of me," the statement quoted him as saying.

Before the shooting started, he added, he kissed the men on each side "because we knew we were going to die" and "after we said goodbye to each other, I took my daughter's picture and kissed it, and I prayed to God to save me for her, because I have no one else."

Between 30 to 40 prisoners survived, most by rolling into the valley and pretending to be dead, or from being shielded by the bodies of other prisoners, they said. Several wounded men died while trying to crawl or stagger away.

Then the gunmen set fire around the ravine and flames spread to the corpses. HRW withheld the names of the survivors to protect them from possible retaliation.

"The gruesome details of ISIS' mass murder of prison inmates make it impossible to deny the depravity of this extremist group," HRW's senior terrorism and counterterrorism researcher, Letta Tayler said. "People of every ethnicity and creed should condemn these horrific tactics, and press Iraqi and international authorities to bring those responsible to justice," Tyler added.

Also in June, the Islamic State group claimed it had "executed" about 1,700 soldiers and military personnel captured from Camp Speicher outside Tikrit city.

The onslaught by the Islamic State group has stunned Iraqi security forces and the military, which melted away and withdrew as the extremists advanced, capturing key cities and towns. The militants also targeted Iraq's indigenous religious minorities, including Christians and followers of the ancient Yazidi faith, forcing tens of thousands from their homes.

Since then, the Islamic State has carved out a self-styled caliphate in the large area straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border that it now controls.

In early August, the United States launched airstrikes on the militant group in Iraq, in an effort to help the Iraqi forces fight back against the growing militant threat.