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Global Relief Map of Islamic State Shows Expanding Caliphate
December 28, 2015
The Islamic State ("IS") has expanded the global presence of its caliphate since 2014 to locations in the Mideast, Africa, the Caucasus, and South Asia, through a network of jihadist groups that have pledged loyalty to IS and with a mixture of territorial conquest and control, as well as financial and propaganda support to the caliphate core in Syria and Iraq.
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Turkish Imam Equates Western Free Speech and Islamic State as Causes of Islamophobia
December 28, 2015
Turkey's leading Islamic cleric, who heads the State Directorate for Religious Affairs, has blamed Western free speech and the Islamic State ("IS") as "the pioneers of Islamophobia," condemning newspaper cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed as intolerable expressions of Islamophobia that are also aggravated by IS jihad that has "tarnished Islam's message of grace and mercy."
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US Congress Seeks Firm Stand from President on Visa Waiver Reforms
December 28, 2015
POLITICO reports that as international objections arise over a US law that restricts the US visa waiver system in the wake of terrorist attacks associated with the Islamic State, members of the US Congress are calling for President Obama to stand firm on the restrictions in light of signals that the Administration may waive them for some Iranian and other nationals.
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UN Officials Warn of Religious Hate Speech
December 22, 2015
Citing provisions in international human-rights instruments prohibiting the "advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred," UN Special Advisers Adama Dieng and Jennifer Welsh have issued a joint statement calling on governments and political leaders to counter hostility toward and discrimination against Muslims in the wake of terrorist attacks linked to the Islamic State.
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IS Depends on Cause and Comrades to Promote Its Global Islamist Revolution
December 21, 2015
Because the success of the Islamic State ("IS") in promoting its vision for a global Islamist caliphate has been built on the core logics of historical revolutionary movements, in the form of a revolutionary vanguard that assiduously cultivates followers committed to sacred cause and comrades, policies to defeat IS should draw on historical strategies for countering revolutionary movements.