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Paul Ryan rejects calls for a 'religious test' in refugee screening

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syrian kurd refugees

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan called on Congress on Wednesday to promptly pass legislation tightening controls on Syrians seeking asylum in the United States, but stressed that such a bill will not discriminate against Muslims.

"We will not have a religious test, only a security test," Ryan, the top House Republican said in a speech to the chamber. Some Republicans have said that only Syrian Christians should be eligible for asylum in the United States.

Ryan said the legislation, if enacted, would bring a "pause" in President Barack Obama's program allowing some Syrians fleeing war to come to the United States.

(Reporting By Richard Cowan; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Can Putin use the Paris attacks to mend fences with the West?

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obama putin huddle

He wasn't ostracized. He wasn't isolated. And certainly nobody threatened to shirtfront him. 

In the space of a year, Vladimir Putin has gone from being the pariah of Brisbane to being the star of Antalya.

The contrast between last year's G20 summit in Australia and this year's in Turkey couldn't have been sharper.

Then, Putin was browbeaten by Western leaders for annexing Crimea and supporting separatists in Donbas.

Now, everybody wants to talk to him about teaming up to fight Islamic State militants. 

Then, Putin's humiliating early exit from the summit made international headlines. Now, everybody is talking about that photo of him huddling with U.S. President Barack Obama.

At the Brisbane summit, which took place months after the downing of Flight MH17, the vibe was all about tension between Russia and the West. At the Antalya summit, which came just days after IS's terror attacks in Paris, it was all about unity.

"Putin has changed the G20 agenda from being dominated by Ukraine to having been taken over by Syria,"Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote recently. 

"A number of Western powers now want to fight with Russia against ISIS, ignoring everything else about Russia's policies. That Russia has escalated its military aggression in Ukraine in the last weeks apparently does not matter much to the West."

So is Putin about to get what he has always wanted? Is he now a step closer to forging that "broad international coalition against terrorism" he called for in his speech to the UN General Assembly in September?

Revive 1945, Bury 1991

Putin UN

In his UN speech, Putin invoked the spirit of World War II, calling for an alliance "similar to the anti-Hitler coalition" that united "a broad range of parties willing to stand firm against those who, just like the Nazis, sow evil and hatred of humankind." 

He also invoked the Yalta conference, which laid "a solid foundation for the postwar world order." And he lamented that the end of the Cold War left the world "with one center of dominance."

And all this was no accident. 

Putin wants to relive 1945 and exorcise 1991. He wants to resurrect the glory of the Soviet victory in World War II; and he wants to bury the humiliation of the Soviet defeat in the Cold War.

He wants a temporary alliance of convenience with the West in Syria, one that will end Moscow's international isolation and get sanctions lifted. 

Then he wants a modern version of the Yalta conference, in which Russia and other great powers will divide up the world into spheres of influence.

And of course he wants a free hand in the former Soviet space.

"Russia’s war with the West will not end as long as these new principles are not introduced by 'internationally binding commitment,'"Slawomir Debski, editor in chief of Intersection, wrote in a recent column.

A Window Of Opportunity

paris mourning

Putin clearly thinks that the November 13 Paris attacks give him a window of opportunity to advance these goals.

As political commentator Leonid Bershidsky noted in a recent column, a month ago French President Francois Hollande said Putin "is not our ally" in Syria; but now he is calling for Moscow and the West "to unite our forces."

It is probably no accident that just days after the Paris attacks, and shortly after Hollande's call for unity, Moscow finally acknowledged what it had been denying for weeks: that the October 31 Metrojet crash in Egypt was an act of terrorism.

Putin pledged to pursue those responsible "everywhere, no matter where they are hiding," adding that Russia was "counting on all of our friends during this work, including in searching for and punishing the criminals."

And right on cue, speaking at the APEC summit in Manila, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said: "The terror attacks that Russia and France have just faced affected the whole world. The terrorism expansion is indeed a global challenge. And it requires a united response."

The Moscow punditocracy is also on message. Political analyst Aleksei Arbatov told the daily Kommersant that the Paris attacks will alter relations with the West "in the direction of greater mutual sympathy." 

Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov Russia Debris Egypt Plane Crash

All of this has opponents of the Putin regime duly alarmed. 

A Russo-Western alliance in Syria would be "morally repugnant, strategically disastrous, and entirely unnecessary," self-exiled Russian opposition leader and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, author ofthe book Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin And The Enemies Of The Free World Must Be Stopped, wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

"President Obama and other Western leaders desperate to resolve the conflict in Syria should keep in mind that the enemy of your enemy can also be your enemy," Kasparov wrote.

A Limited Detente

Russian missile cruiser Moskva infographic

So far, Moscow's rapprochement with the West has been been confined to Syria -- and mostly confined to optics and rhetoric. 

French and Russian warplanes have conducted air strikes in the IS stronghold of Raqqa and Putin has ordered the commander of the battleship Moskva to treat France as an ally. 

But huge differences remain over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other Western powers have not exactly been rushing into Moscow's arms.

And despite fears in Kyiv that Ukraine might would get thrown under the bus, there is no evidence of the West softening its stand against Russia's annexation of Crimea and intervention in Donbas.

There have been no moves to lift -- or even ease -- sanctions. And there has certainly been no indication that anybody is prepared to give Russia a free hand in the former Soviet Union. 

French President Francois Hollande (L) shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin after a summit on the Ukraine crisis at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, October 2, 2015.  REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

"A Western alliance with Putin against Islamic State, if it ever comes to pass, won't be much more than a situational military alliance. There will be no political detente,"Bershidsky wrote

"In that sense, the recent terror attacks haven't changed much: The West still has to decide whether to ally itself with a lesser evil to defeat a bigger one."

SEE ALSO: Russia and China just signed a $2 billion deal for Su-35 fighter jets

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NOW WATCH: How a struggling Soviet spy became the most powerful man in Russia

An ISIS defector revealed the spying methods that helped build the 'Islamic State'

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ISIS Islamic StateISIS is dedicating resources to infiltrating other anti-Assad regime groups throughout Syria in order to better expand its "caliphate,"according to a defector from the group that The Daily Beast's Michael Weiss interviewed in Istanbul, Turkey.

ISIS relies on sewing fear and committing brutal acts of violence in order to maintain its territorial control. The group's brutality also has a propaganda value, and helps attract foreign recruits.

But the defector, who goes by the pseudonym Abu Khaled and was a member of the militant group's internal security services, told Weiss that ISIS doesn't always take such a confrontational approach to some of the forces opposed to it. Abu Khaled said that the Islamic State is dedicating money and manpower to co-opting rebel groups throughout Syria — including ones that have billed themselves as secular or moderate.

ISIS's Amn al-Kharji unit, which is essentially the group's foreign-intelligence service, is a major part of the effort to infiltrate anti-regime forces. The group sends operatives outside of ISIS-controlled areas to learn potentially useful information for future ISIS operations. But they also deploy sleeper agents to manipulate rival groups throughout the country.

According to Abu Khaled, the Amn al-Kharji is one reason ISIS has expanded throughout Syria country despite battling enemies on several fronts.

"A week before I defected, I was sitting with the chief of Amn al-Kharji, Abu Abd Rahman al-Tunisi. They know the weak point of the FSA [Free Syrian Army]," Abu Khaled told Weiss.

He explained how ISIS places its operatives in the upper ranks of rival militant groups: "Al-Tunisi told me: ‘We are going to train guys we know, recruiters, Syrians … Take them, train them, and send them back to where they came from. We’ll give them $200,000 to $300,000. And because they have money, the FSA will put them in top positions.’”

Syria control map oct 2015Abu Khaled explained that these kinds of methods allow ISIS to extend its influence throughout Syria. Even in areas where the Islamic State does not control land, ISIS has agents influencing the behavior of other groups and gathering useful intelligence.

ISIS ultimately learned its infiltration and collection techniques from former officials in the regime of Saddam Hussein.

In April, Spiegel reported, citing captured ISIS documents, that ISIS's intelligence services were created by Haji Bakr, a former career officer under Saddam. According to the report, it was Bakr along with a group of former Iraqi intelligence officials that petitioned for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who had a background in Islamic scholarship, to become the leader of ISIS in 2010 in order to give the organization a greater veneer of religiosity.

Spiegel notes that ISIS first grew by opening Islamic missionary centers that bore no apparent linkage to the militant group. ISIS slowly identified recruits using these centers, gathering intelligence on possible rivals and accumulating real estate that functioned as weapons depots and lodging for fighters once ISIS began to consolidate its hold on territory.

According to Abu Khaled, this sly infiltration and recruitment was the greatest reason for ISIS's successes. Now, armed with an abundance of wealth and territory, ISIS might have an even greater ability to gain recruits and manipulate its rivals.

You can read Weiss' full four-part interview with Abu Khaled here»

SEE ALSO: There are a lot of CIA-vetted Syrian rebel groups taking it to Assad

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NOW WATCH: This is the raid that took down the suspected mastermind behind the Paris attacks

Intense video of Russian Tu-22 on a bomb run over Syria

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tu 22 bomber bombs

Yesterday we posted an interesting video shot from ground level of a swarm of 19 iron bombs falling from the sky.

Here’s footage from the other side.

The footage was mainly shot from the cockpit (and bomb bay) of some of the 14 Tu-22M3 Backfire bombers that on Nov. 17 flew 5h 20min-round trip mission from their deployment base in Ossetia to attack IS targets in Syria along with 5 x Tu-160 Blackjack and 6 x Tu-95MS Bear heavy bombers from Engels that during the first raid launched 34 KH-555 and KH-101 cruise missiles.

As you can see the Backfire dropped FAB-250 iron bombs from very high altitude: whatever they hit, they were probably not too worried about CEP (Circular Error Probability) nor did they have constraints because of potential collateral damage.

SEE ALSO: This is the raid that took down the suspected mastermind behind the Paris attacks

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NOW WATCH: How a struggling Soviet spy became the most powerful man in Russia

CNN's Fareed Zakaria gave Hillary Clinton a 30-second summation of the near-impossible complexity of Syria

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hillary clinton zakaria

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat down for a foreign-policy interview with journalist Fareed Zakaria after she gave a speech laying out her plan to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

The Obama administration has all but ruled out sending US ground troops into front-line combat action in the Middle East.

At the same time, the US has struggled to build an effective force with partners on the ground to defeat both the Islamic State and the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

During their exchange at the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton noted that Assad "has killed far more Syrians than ISIS has to date."

This prompted Zakaria to ask a rather pointed question about how difficult it would be to stabilize Syria:

If the only way you could put together a moderate Syrian force is by having the United States cajole, bribe, arm, and train it. We are then looking for this force to defeat ISIS, then defeat Assad, then defeat al-Nusra,then defeat other al Qaeda affiliates, keep at bay the Shiite militias and Hezbollah, taken control of Damascus, and establish a pluralistic democracy in Syria. Isn't that kind of a tall order?

"Certainly described like that!" Clinton replied to laughs.

The Democratic presidential front-runner said she planned to prioritize defeating the "common enemy of ISIS."

"And that's why I focused on ISIS. Because I think right now we have one overriding goal, as I outlined. We need to crush their territorial domain and we need to try and secure the entire border between Syria and Turkey," she said.

"There is not going to be a successful military effort at this point to overturn Assad," Clinton continued. "That can only happen through the political process. So our effort should be focused on ISIS."

SEE ALSO: A visibly angry Hillary Clinton just went off on Republicans for their Benghazi investigation

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NOW WATCH: US governors say they don't want to accept Syrian refugees, but one that made it to the US describes the horrors he fled

Democrats just delivered a stunning blow to Obama's Syrian refugee plan

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U.S. President Barack Obama takes part in the APEC CEO Summit in Manila, Philippines, November 18, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Turning on President Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders, a significant chunk of the House Democratic caucus sided with Republicans in an effort to effectively stifle the flow of Syrian refugees into the US.

On Thursday, 47 House Democrats voted in favor of a bill authored by Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas). The bill passed, 289-137, giving it just enough to overcome a threatened veto from President Barack Obama.

The legislation bars Iraqi and Syrian refugees from being admitted to the US until the FBI director and the Director of National Intelligence certify to Congress that each refugee does not pose a national-security threat.

The bill's passage comes less than a week after the Paris terror attacks, which left 129 dead and hundreds more injured. One of the suspected attackers was found with a refugee passport, though its authenticity has not been confirmed.

Following the attacks, more than 30 governors and a number of mayors came out Obama's plan to resettle up to 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next fiscal year.

The Obama administration lobbied Democrats hard on Thursday to no avail. In a closed-door meeting, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson tried to convince skeptical Democrats.

But a Democratic source familiar with the meeting told Business Insider that many Democrats came away from the presentation more in favor of the GOP-led bill. The White House's presentation was heavily focused on process, and Democrats feared it would not translate into credible arguments they could make to skeptical constituents.

Indeed, several Democratic sources told Business Insider on Thursday that House Democrats feared the poor optics of voting against a bill strengthening barriers for refugee resettlement specifically from Iraq and Syria. A Bloomberg Politics survey released Wednesday found that 53% of Americans favored barring any Syrian refugees from entering the US.

A Syrian refugee carries a bag she received as aid for the winter from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) in Tripoli, northern Lebanon November 18, 2015. REUTERS/Omar IbrahimHowever, the bill passed with less Democratic support than leadership had feared — which, before the vote, was anywhere up to 100 defections.

And Senate Democrats were quick to say Thursday that the legislation wouldn't pass through that chamber. A Senate Democratic aide told Business Insider that the caucus "doesn't think there's an issue with the refugee process."

Obama, after the White House issued a veto threat late Wednesday, said the legislation would provide unnecessary barriers for refugees while doing little to make the US safer.

"The idea that somehow they pose a more significant threat than all the tourists who pour into the United States every single day just doesn’t jibe with reality," he said after a bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Many experts contend that attaining refugee status is one of the most difficult ways for foreign nationals to travel to the US.

"It is extremely unlikely that someone who is a terrorist will be sent through the refugee resettlement program,"Greg Chen, director of advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told Business Insider on Monday

"It takes a great deal of time, and it wouldn't make sense for someone who is a terrorist for someone to go through that process. There are going to be easier ways for a terrorist to try to infiltrate, rather than going through the refugee resettlement program."

SEE ALSO: The Paris attacks exposed a rift that could lead to a new government-shutdown battle

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NOW WATCH: Ben Carson’s new rap ad aims to reach young black voters ‘in a language that they prefer’

Watch a fully loaded US Navy Harrier launch off an amphibious assault ship for strikes against ISIS

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Harrier with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron aboard USS Essex off San Diego

On November 19th, Harrier Jets from the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron launched from the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge to carry out airstrikes against ISIS targets, according to a US Navy press release.

The Kearsarge was assisting the US Navy's 5th Fleet, whose area of operations encompasses about 2.5 million square miles of the Middle East and includes the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean, on November 1.

uss kearsargeInternational efforts against ISIS took on added urgency after attacks that left at least 129 dead in Paris, France on November 13.

"We will continue to work with our coalition partners to drive ISIL out of Iraq and Syria," said commanding officer Col. Brian T. Koch, of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, whose aviation combat unit is aboard the Kearsarge, according to the Navy press release.

Watch clips of the fully loaded Harrier jets taking off from the Kearsarge below:

SEE ALSO: Intense video of Russian Tu-22 on a bomb run over Syria

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NOW WATCH: Ben Carson admits that he didn't actually get a scholarship to America’s top military academy

A US veteran passionately explains why America needs to welcome Syrian refugees

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syrian refugees in germany

In response to the November 13 attacks on Paris that claimed the lives of  at least 129 people, several United States governors have said they would refuse to admit Syrian refugees. On Thursday, the House of Representatives approved a bill that requires Syrian refugees to pass rigorous backround checks. 

Amidst this growing anti-Syrian sentiment, Phil Klay, author of "Redeployment" and veteran of the US Marine Corps posted a moving series of tweets explaining why the United States should be opening its doors, not closing them. 

From Klay's Twitter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Klay only tweeted earlier Thursday afternoon, people have already begun responding to his powerful words. 

"Phil Klay just made me burst into tears in 16 tweets," tweeted Rachel Fershleiser, who first tipped us off to Klay's tweets.

Tech Insider has reached out to Klay and will update this post if we hear back. In the meantime, you can check him out on Twitter here

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The governors who want to ban Syrian refugees could learn a lesson from Superman

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In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, more than half of US governors have declared that Syrian refugees aren't welcome in their states

As is often the case, these executives could learn a lesson from Superman. 

Here it is, first spotted on Media Matters research fellow Oliver Willis's resplendent Twitter account

superman_psa (2)

In the public service announcement, reportedly from 1960, Superman explains to two boys that:

"Poeple who have fled to another country because of political events, war, or dis taster are placed in refugee camps ... where they live in shabby crowded barracks. Some of the children were born here and have never known what a real home was like" 

The boy's reply: "G-gosh!"

Supes then explains that lots of international organizations help refugees to find homes in new countries — and that they can help by being friendly toward them. 

G-gosh is right. 

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Syrian refugees living in the US say the years-long process is worth the wait

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FILE - In this Nov. 16, 2015 file photo, Syria refugee Nedal Al-Hayk listens during an interview in Warren, Mich. Al-Hayk, who was resettled in suburban Detroit with his family after a three-year wait, said officials interviewed him and his wife in separate rooms, repeatedly asking detailed questions pressing them about their backgrounds and reasons for fleeing Syria. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

Over and over, Nedal Al-Hayk and his wife traveled up to three hours by bus from their temporary home in Jordan to an office where U.S. Homeland Security officials put them in separate rooms and asked them many questions in many different ways: Where were you born? Where were your parents born? Were you part of a rebel group? Were you politically outspoken?

Finally, nearly three years after the Syrian couple fled their war-ravaged homeland, they and their two young children arrived in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, ready to start a promising new life in a new country.

"I came here to succeed and have a quality of life, not to be a hindrance to the government and the citizens of America," the 28-year-old Al-Hayk said through a translator. He is working at a factory and studying English with hopes of pursuing the agricultural engineering degree he started in Syria. "Even if I need to start over, I'll start over."

As some governors, lawmakers and presidential candidates vow to block the resettlement of more Syrian refugees in the U.S. for fear that terrorists will slip into the country and carry out Paris-style attacks, those who have made it here describe an arduous screening process that they would not have undergone if they didn't want to make America their permanent home.

"They are human beings and human beings with no home," said Al-Hayk, who arrived in the U.S. seven months ago. "They ache to come to a country like America because they know the kinds of opportunities it grants to people."

The Obama administration, which has announced plans to accept about 10,000 Syrians refugees in addition to the 2,500 who have settled here since 2011, disclosed new details this week about how they are investigated.

They must undergo a screening process that can take nearly three years, during which they are fingerprinted and required to submit other biometric information, subjected to criminal and terrorist background checks and put through repeated rounds of questioning about their families, friends and political activities, authorities said.

nedal al-hayk syrian refugeeThe process takes so long that experts said it would be unlikely for an extremist group to rely on a refugee program to sneak someone into the U.S. Terrorist organizations could instead send operatives to America as students or tourists or appeal to people already living in the U.S. to carry out attacks.

Fears about refugees were triggered, in part, by a Syrian passport found near the body of one of the Paris suicide attackers, though its authenticity has not been established and officials said it might have been planted to stoke fears.

Even so, the House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve legislation requiring stringent new background checks that would, in effect, suspend admissions of Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

Republicans said that in dangerous times, the government must first protect its own.

"It is against the values of our nation and the values of a free society to give terrorists the opening they are looking for," said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

nedal al-hayk syrian refugeeAl-Hayk, who had friends who died at sea trying to get to Europe, said he understands the need for the intensive scrutiny he underwent. For him, seeking asylum in the U.S. was far more time-consuming but less dangerous than attempting to go to Europe.

"To come to the U.S., you go through a very troublesome process, but it's justified because these agencies ... are doing their job and doing it very meticulously," he said, adding that he is "grateful for America, regardless of how long it took" to get here.

In Chicago, 35-year-old Hakam Subh, who also underwent a three-year vetting before coming to the U.S. in April, said he is happy and excited to have made it here with his wife and two young sons.

"I love it here. This is a safe country," he said. "I decided America is my country."

(Associated Press writers Tammy Webber in Chicago and Alicia A. Caldwell in Washington contributed to this story.)

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Ted Cruz supported allowing Syrian refugees in the US as recently as February

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The attacks in Paris, however, have apparently changed the presidential contender's calculus. Cruz and other Republicans vying for the White House have rushed to distance themselves from Syrian refugees in a race to appear tough on national security. President Obama has blasted the field for its rhetoric. Cruz has challenged Obama to "insult me to my face."

Cruz has been more sympathetic to Syrian Christians than to the Syrian Muslims he has said should be banned. He says that Syrian Christians are facing immediate persecution. This week Cruz penned his own legislation – "The Terrorist Refugee Infiltration Prevention Act – in the Senate to block refugees from countries like Syria from coming to the United States. His rationale today is that there is no way for the U.S. government to monitor whether an individual might have ties to the Islamic State even though individuals are screened in a multi-agency process that often spans more than a year. Cruz told CNN Monday that "in light of what happened in Paris," the president's plan to continue accepting Syrian refugees to the United State is "nothing short of lunacy.”

Cruz's bill includes a narrow exception, but according to a statement from his office, "the bill also mandates that the Secretary of Homeland Security may not admit any refugee based solely on the assertions of the refugee. DHS cannot simply take the refugee’s word for it."

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NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do

Turkey summons Russian envoy over 'intensive' bombing of Turkmens in Syria

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Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey has summoned Russia's ambassador in protest over the "intensive" bombing of Turkmen villages in northern Syria by Russian warplanes, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters on Friday.

In the meeting with the ambassador, Andrei Karlov, Turkey called for an immediate end to the Russian military operation, which is near the Turkish border, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"It was stressed that the Russian side's actions were not a fight against terror, but they bombed civilian Turkmen villages and this could lead to serious consequences," the foreign ministry said.

Ankara has traditionally expressed solidarity with the Syrian Turkmen, who are Syrians of Turkish descent.

President Tayyip Erdogan has voiced his concern about Russia's increasing involvement in the Syrian conflict and expressed anger at Russian incursions into Turkish air space in October.

Syria control map oct 2015

Russia's air strikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad's forces have shifted the balance of power in the conflict and dealt a setback to Turkey's aim of seeing Assad removed from power.

The foreign ministry said Turkmen villages were subject to "heavy bombardment" by the Russian planes in the Bayirbucak area of northwest Syria, close to Turkey's Yayladag border gate in Hatay province.

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NOW WATCH: Here's why aliens might actually exist

Russia fired more cruise missiles at rebel-held areas in Syria

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Russian missile strike SyriaRussia has continued to ramp its bombardment of Syria, firing cruise missiles at both ISIS and rebel-held areas of the war-torn country from vessels in the Mediterranean Sea and long-range strategic bombers.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and activist media outlets on Friday reported a large barrage of missile attacks striking rebel-held areas of the Idlib and Hama province where ISIS has no military presence. 

 A number of videos and pictures also circulated social media purporting to show not only the damage caused by the strikes in northwest Syria, but also the cruise missiles themselves flying over the area. 

Moscow on Tuesday significantly upped the tempo of its aerial campaign in Syria after announcing that it now believed Metrojet Flight 9268 was brought down over the Sinai by a terrorist attack, which ISIS earlier claimed responsibility for. 

The Russian Defense Ministry has since touted that it conducted three “massive” waves of airstrikes against so-called ISIS targets in Syria, saying that long-range Tu-22M3 bomber taking off from Russia had been firing air-based cruise missiles in conjunction with air strikes from Latakia-based Russian fighter jets.

russian cruise missile

 Meanwhile, US officials told Reuters that Russia has also been firing cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea, for the first time since the start of its military intervention in Syria on September 30.

Although Moscow insists that that it is striking ISIS targets, its own public statements reveal that it has hit targets in the Idlib province, which is controlled by the Islamist Army of Conquest rebel coalition that has no ties with ISIS.

Strikes against Idlib and Hama

A flurry of reports emerged by midday Friday that Russia had launched its fourth massive missile barrage since November 17, this time hitting targets in rebel-held Idlib and Hama.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that six missiles had struck areas on “on the road connecting the villages of Ehsim and Al-Barra, as well as other areas in Jabal al-Zawiya and the village of Al-Sahn near Jisr al-Shughour.” 

“This caused injuries and material damage to civilian property.”

russian cruise missileMeanwhile in the Hama province, the monitoring NGO said that“what was thought to be a ballistic missile hit an area [near] the village of Sarireef to the west of Hama.”

“News has also emerged of the death of four civilians and the injury [of others] due to a suspected ballistic missile strike on areas in the village of Midan al-Ghazal in rural Hama’s Jabal Shahshabo [area] this morning.”

Activist media also reported on the Russian missile strikes throughout northwest Syria, with Shaam News saying that a barrage rocked Idlib’s Jabal al-Zawiya area.

“Jabal al-Zawiya’s villages were shaken at dawn this morning by 6 powerful explosions after they were targeted with 6 Russian Kalibr missiles,” the activist-run network reported.

“The rockets caused massive damage to residential buildings and the areas where they fell. They also injured over ten civilian, including women and children in the village of Ain La Rose.”

“Civil defense teams are working in cooperation with locals to collect the remains of the ballistic missiles, fill the large craters that they left, and move the injured and families affected by the bombing.”

Watch a Russian cruise missile fly over Idlib:

And here's video of Russia firing the cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea: 

SEE ALSO: There are a lot of CIA-vetted Syrian rebel groups taking it to Assad

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NOW WATCH: Donald Trump's 'strange' morning habit tells you everything you need to know about him

Anti-Islamic discourse is ‘promoting a clash of civilizations’

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donald trump sitting

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said this week that as president he would "look very, very carefully at mosques" and would not rule out the creation of a national database for Muslims.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) declared America to be "at war with radical Islam," adding that failing to say so "would be like saying we weren't at war with Nazis, because we were afraid to offend some Germans who may have been members of the Nazi Party but weren't violent themselves."

Not long ago such views would have been far beyond the pale for acceptable mainstream discourse. But today they barely stood out in a presidential field desperately outbidding each other to be the toughest on "radical Islam."

Rhetorical excess in a presidential primary is nothing new, of course, but something more seems to be going on this time.

The public discourse surrounding the so-called Islamic State seems like a major step backward from the hard-won analytical progress of the previous decade.

Five years ago, political scientists and the broader policy community had developed a robust and sophisticated understanding of the nature of Islamist movements. The organizational and ideological differences between Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda were well-understood.

So was the constructivist logic of al-Qaeda's use of terrorism to encourage polarization, spread their unpopular worldview and promote a "clash of civilizations." Politicians across the spectrum understood the strategic as well as moral importance of denying al-Qaeda its audacious claim to represent Islam.

mecca hajj pilgrimage

Today, the American public sphere is arguing over the political urgency of using the words "radical Islam," the Islamic credentials of the Islamic State and whether "Islam is a religion of violence."

This isn't just the usual histrionics of presidential candidates. The op-ed pages, policy journals and talk shows are now filled with earnest discussions of the Islamic nature of the Islamic State and the pathologies of Islam as a religion.

There's nothing surprising about the persistence of such ideas within the anti-Islamic fringe, which is ideologically committed, well-funded and enjoys access to a robust conservative media ecosystem. It is the mainstreaming of once fringe ideas about Islam that is so disturbing.

The insistence by mainstream pundits that "the Islamic State is really Islamic" is a worthwhile analytical debate, but in the current climate it has served as a gateway for the mainstreaming of ideas about the pathologies of Islam once contained on the radical fringe. It isn't just the politicians and the pundits — the center of gravity among the policy community has palpably shifted as well.

Why is this happening? Partly, it is simply the reality of the Islamic State's terrorism and savvy use of horrifying media spectacles to generate publicity.

Jihadi John Mohammed Emwazi

Last year's beheadings of journalists and burning alive of hostages received enormous media coverage and genuinely shocked a worldwide audience. Last week's Paris terrorist attacks, like the slaughter of Charlie Hebdo journalists, seemed to signal a frightening new type of low-cost, indiscriminate urban terrorism. But I don't think that's enough to explain this new public discourse.

Jihadists have always sought to use terrorism to polarize politics, spread their ideas, discredit moderates and advance their preferred narrative of clashing civilizations. They have not always been so successful in winning mainstream acceptance for their narrative.

I would highlight three possible explanations. One part of the answer may be the pervasive effects of social media. By this I do not mean the Islamic State's use of social media for recruitment and propaganda, as impressive and interesting as this phenomenon has been.

Instead, I mean the ways in which social media itself is structured, creating new openings for extreme ideas to gain traction with the broader public. Social media networks typically tend to encourage ideological clustering, in which self-selected communities of the like-minded cultivate shared narratives, identities and arguments.

Today's pervasive social media is organically interwoven with broadcast media and more traditional print publications in ways that facilitate the movement of these narratives from isolated clusters into the mainstream.

ISIS Islamic State

The 9/11 attacks took place at a moment when blogs had only just begun to reshape the American political public sphere, but the Islamic State's rise has occurred in an era of near complete social mediation of information and opinion. Such an environment seems highly conducive to the cultivation and nurturing of radical fringe ideas — and their transmission into the broader public arena.

A second strand is the absence of George W. Bush. For all his other foreign policy struggles, Bush was staunchly opposed to the demonization of Islam, and frequently argued — as Hillary Clinton does today — that America was not at war with Islam.

He understood the importance of denying the al-Qaeda narrative of a clash of civilizations. Bush's stance acted as a check on the anti-Islamic impulses of the right wing base. That obstacle has long since passed from the scene. President Obama's invocation of the same themes invites the opposite response. The right wing now can be unified against this rhetoric, without Bush to restrain them.

Meanwhile, the waning of the Obama presidency has encouraged a large portion of the policy community to position themselves against the outgoing administration, which typically means adopting more hawkish and interventionist positions. By the old political math, the majority of Democrats combined with the Bush Republicans to block the anti-Islamic trend. By the new political math, the vast majority of Republicans combines with enough Democrats to push the "center" well to the right.

A third factor is the real changes within the Islamist landscape, far beyond the Islamic State itself. Syria has generated a wide variety of jihadist groups, which often position themselves against the Islamic State. Local insurgencies that once took on the al-Qaeda label now embrace the Islamic State's franchise.

Syria control map oct 2015

Above all, the 2013 Egyptian military coup and subsequent repressive campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood severely weakened one of al-Qaeda's traditionally most powerful competitors. The destruction and demonization of the Brotherhood has likely contributed to eroding the idea of a mainstream Islamism buffering the jihadists. The political push by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to label the Brotherhood a terrorist organization has reshaped the politics of the issue as well.

Propaganda from the region against the Muslim Brotherhood then refracts through the Western public discourse. Old debates revolving around the Brotherhood's role as a firewall against extremism are now far less relevant, with its organization shattered and ideology of peaceful participation discredited. Analysts who follow Islamism closely are now in uncharted territory, creating openings for those peddling simple, well-rehearsed narratives about Islam.

All of this may help to explain the timing of this eruption of anti-Islamic political discourse into the mainstream political public. But this does not make it any less disturbing.

Obama was on the mark when he warned recently, using another name for the Islamic State, that "I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric coming out of here in the course of this debate. ISIL seeks to exploit the idea that there's war between Islam and the West … that feeds the ISIL narrative."

U.S. President Barack Obama  in Manila, Philippines, November 19, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst -

The seemingly endless recurrence of the "clash of civilizations" narrative, after long years of hard-fought analytical progress and painstaking policy work, is an object lesson in the resilience of populist ideas in the face of academic and public criticism.

Promoting a clash of civilizations and destroying the reality of productive coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims was always at the heart of al-Qaeda's strategy. The Islamic State has avowed the same goal of eliminating the "gray zones" of toleration. 

With American political discourse these days, the prospects for escaping the iron logic of this strategy have never looked more dismal.

 

SEE ALSO: Jeb Bush calls Donald Trump’s Muslim surveillance comments ‘abhorrent’

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Here's the CIA's damage assessment for Jonathan Pollard, who was just freed after 30 years in prison for spying for Israel

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Pollard release

One of the most notorious spies in American history has been freed after three decades in prison.

On November 20th, Jonathan Pollard was paroled 30 years after being convicted of spying for Israel.

It's not hard to see why Pollard's case has been such a consistent source of controversy.

Pollard was spying on behalf of a US ally and received a life sentence despite pleading guilty and fully cooperating with US investigators. He turned over thousands of classified documents and even allegedly sold documents to Pakistan and apartheid South Africa as well.

For some, Pollard is a victim of what they believe to be sectors of the US national-security establishment's discontent toward its close operational relationship with Israel. Pollard's defenders believe that his life sentence was used as a blunt tool for bringing an often difficult ally to heel.

For others, Pollard was nothing more than a particularly energetic traitor who sold crateloads of secrets to a foreign government.

The debate over Pollard, and what, if anything, his case may still mean for the US-Israel relationship probably won't end, even with his release from prison. Members of Israel's parliament are already calling on the US to relax Pollard's parole restrictions, something that would allow him to move to Israel.

But his release is an opportunity to revisit the US intelligence community's official report on one of the most controversial affairs in national security security.

In 2012, the National Security Archive at George Washington University successfully compelled the US government to release a version of the CIA's 1987 damage assessment of Pollard's espionage. The heavily redacted document expands upon an almost entirely redacted version of the study's preface which was released in 2006.

Jonathan PollardThe damage assessment is a window into the tangled world of mid-1980s global power politics. It also chronicles a high-stakes intelligence operation gone horribly and perhaps inevitably wrong.

Here are some of the more startling bits of the CIA's assessment of a spy drama that's still a source of contention 30 years later — an event that will remain controversial even after Pollard's release from prison.

Pollard stole an astounding amount of stuff.

"Pollard's operation has few parallels among known US espionage cases," the damage assessment states.

Pollard stole "an estimated 1,500 current-intelligence summary messages," referring to daily reports from various regions of interest to US national security. He stole another 800 classified documents on top of that.

During the investigation into his espionage, Pollard recalled that "his first and possibly largest delivery occurred on 23 January [1984] and consisted of five suitcases-full of classified material."

He delivered documents to his Israeli handlers on a biweekly basis for the next 11 months, with only a short break for an "operational trip" to Europe.

In contrast, Adolf Tolkachov, who was one of the most valuable US intelligence assets of the Cold War, met with his CIA handlers fewer than two dozen times over the course of seven years.

Pollard and his handlers' tradecraft was surprisingly shoddy.

As the assessment notes, Pollard gave himself away by blatantly accessing documents that were far outside of his professional purview:

Pollard

But his handlers don't come off looking terribly competent either. One handler wanted Pollard to report on whether US intelligence had any potentially incriminating information about high-level Israeli officials and to help root out Israelis passing information to the US.

After this individual left the room, Pollard's personal handler reportedly told him he would terminate the operation if he complied with his supervisor's order, a sign that there were certain disagreements within the Israeli side on how the operation should proceed and what kind of information their asset should target.

Pollard also delivered 1,500 intelligence summaries that the Israelis never explicitly asked him for; despite the potential to expose the operation, Pollard's handlers kept accepting them anyway. And they didn't seem to care that such large, biweekly intelligence deliveries could expose their entire operation.

There seemed to be little consideration for the undue harm the operation could do to Israel's relationship with the US, either.

According to the report, "Pollard's objective was to provide Israel with the best available US intelligence on Israel's Arab adversaries and the military support they receive from the Soviet Union." The damage assessment gives a strong impression that Israeli operatives believed that their lack of interest in US weapons systems or capabilities could insulate them from a geopolitical incident if Pollard were ever exposed.

But they were wrong.

In some ways, Pollard's espionage took place in an entirely different world ...

The Israelis were primarily interested in getting two things out of Pollard: information about Pakistan's nuclear program and information relating to Soviet upgrades to the conventional arsenals of the Arab states, with a particular focus on Syria, then under the rule of president Hafez al-Assad. Pollard also provided details of the Palestine Liberation Organization's compounds in Tunis, Tunisia, information which the Israelis may have used during a 1985 raid.

The damage assessment notes that Israel was particularly keen on obtaining an NSA handbook needed to decrypt intercepted communications between Moscow and a Soviet military-assistance unit in Damascus, Syria. Pollard attempted emergency communications with his Israeli handlers on just two occasions: once to provide intelligence on an impending truck-bomb attack and another time to warn that the Soviet T-72M main battle tank had entered service with the Syrian military.

Assad_Tlass_war_1973Israel was eager for information on Soviet weapons systems likely to be passed to the Arab states, and wanted information on armaments its military would face if the conflict with the Arab states ever escalated into a hot war.

Today, there's little conventional military threat to Israel's existence and Syria is no longer a unitary state. The Palestine Liberation Organization is no longer at war with Israel, and the Soviet Union doesn't even exist.

But at one point, Israel was willing to jeopardize its relationship with the US to gain an advantage in all of these areas.

... and, in some ways, it's the same world.

Pollard's Israeli handlers at least tried to make it seem as if the US wasn't the target of their espionage, as Pollard was instructed not to take any information related to US weapons systems or strategic and military planning.

But Pollard still exposed highly sensitive operational details of US intelligence collection, giving invaluable insight into US intelligence methods, sources, and collection priorities. And it's possible to glimpse fissures between the US and Israel in the damage assessment.

Pollard's espionage was enabled by the US's refusal to share information that the Israelis considered vital to their national security. Of course, the US is never under any obligation to share the entirety of their intelligence with any foreign state, regardless of how closely allied it may be, and had perfectly valid reasons to withhold certain intelligence from Israel in the mid-1980s.

For instance, the damage assessment notes that Pollard's spying was damaging partly because of what it might have led the Arab states to conclude about the US's strategic posture:

Pollard

The US and Israel are different countries with interests and objectives that sometimes contradict. Sometimes they diverge in ways that only become visible when a once-a-decade Pollard-type scandal breaks.

And sometimes they diverge on a geopolitical level, as is currently occurring in the controversy over the Iranian nuclear deal, a top US foreign-policy priority that Israel's leadership vehemently opposes.

Israel versus Syria

The damage assessment includes this interesting aside about how long US intelligence believed it would take Hafez al-Assad's army to retake the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, which Israel seized during the 1967 Middle East War and which Syria had used as a staging area for invasions of Israel in 1948 and 1967:

Pollard

The name of the agency that gave the more pessimistic assessment is still redacted, strongly suggesting that this was the view of a US entity.

So some office within the US intelligence community believed that the Defense Intelligence Agency had a highly inflated view of Israeli military capabilities — or was underestimating the military strength of the Assad regime.

Read the entire damage assessment here.

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Something Jeremy Corbyn said in 2013 is coming back to haunt him

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Jeremy Corbyn

A speech that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn made to Parliament in 2013 is coming back to haunt him because it contradicts his current stance on military action in Syria.

There is a huge amount of tension in the Labour Party at the moment between MPs who want to be able to choose how to vote on whether to extend RAF airstrikes into Syria, and Corbyn's desire to force all his MPs to vote against military action.

Here is the speech that was unearthed by politics website Guido Fawkes:

Jeremy Corbyn

And here is what Corbyn said yesterday when asked whether he would allow his MPs to choose how they would vote over bombing Syria.

"No, we would have to consider it as a party, consider it as a group and decide how we would react at that point, I can't predict at this stage."

Labour MPs are particularly annoyed that Corbyn is trying to dictate how they vote on military action because during Corbyn's 32 year career as an MP, he voted against his party over 500 times. This speech from two years ago isn't going to make things any better.

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Russians inscribe 'For Paris' on bombs destined for Syria

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Handout of a still image taken from video footage, released by Russia's Defence Ministry on November 20, 2015, shows a ground crew member writing the words

Russian ground crew are inscribing the words "For Paris" on some bombs destined to be dropped on targets in Syria, in a message of solidarity with the victims of last week's Paris attacks.

A video posted online by the Defence Ministry here also shows a serviceman writing "For Our Guys" on a bomb at Russia's Hmeymim airbase.

"Pilots and technicians of Hmeymim airbase have sent their message to terrorists by priority airmail," said a caption accompanying the post.

Russia has intensified strikes on Syrian militants, including from Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris and for downing a Russian airliner in Egypt last month, killing all 224 on board.

Russian politicians have said the Paris attack underscores the need for the West and the Kremlin to bury their differences and join forces to take on militants in Syria.

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Turkey seized 11 million pills of a stimulant that's helping to fuel the Syrian civil war

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captagon

Turkey conducted two massive drug raids along its Syrian border this week.

The raids, AFP reports, netted nearly two tons worth of an amphetamine called Captagon, totaling nearly 11 million pills. 

As an amphetamine, the drug functions as a stimulant that greatly increases energy and allows users to stay awake for long periods of time. It's become popular in Syria and the broader Middle East because of its uses on the battlefield.

Due to Captagon's effects, the drug has seen its popularity soar throughout Syria as combatants on various sides of the country's civil war have reportedly used it in order to stay awake during patrols and to suppress their appetites. 

According to a Reuters report from 2014, both "Syrian government forces and rebel groups each say the other uses Captagon to endure protracted engagements without sleep, while clinicians say ordinary Syrians are increasingly experimenting with the pills." 

Captagon has effects that go beyond just keeping its users awake — effects that are especially useful in stressful combat situations. Captagon generates a euphoric feeling that allows users to face skirmishes with less fear and an added recklessness, according to fighters within Syria that BBC Arabic interviewed for a documentary.

"You're awake all the time. You don't have any problems, you don't even think about sleeping, you don't think to leave the checkpoint," a Syrian rebel told BBC.  "It gives you great courage and power." 

Syria control map oct 2015Captagon use surged in Syria after the outbreak of the war. Syria's breakdown of law and order, along with the relative ease of making the drug, has turned the country into a major Captagon production center as well, Reuters reports. Lebanon, where the drug was produced prior to the Syrian civil war, has seen upwards of 90% of their production shift into neighboring Syria instead. 

But despite the rise in Captagon use in Syria, Saudi Arabia, a country that isn't in the grips of a nationwide civil war, remains the main consumer of the drug, The Washington Post reports.

In 2010, the country was the endpoint for a third of the world's supply of Captagon. And at the end of October, a Saudi prince was detained in Beirut, Lebanon over an alleged attempt to smuggle two tons of Captagon into Saudi Arabia aboard his private plane. 

SEE ALSO: An ISIS defector explained a key reason people continue joining the group

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Watch Iranian F-14 Tomcats escort a Russian Tu-95 bomber during an air strike in Syria

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bombsaway

Something really interesting details have been exposed by the material released by Russia’s MoD lately.

Indeed, as you can see in the video below, IRIAF (Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force) F-14 Tomcat interceptors escorted Russian Air Force Tu-95 Bear bombers flying in Iranian airspace during their 9h 30mins missions (from Engels airbase and back, along the Iraq-Iran-Caspian Sea 6,500 km-long corridor) against terrorist targets in Syria.

iran f 14 russia tu 95 bomber syria

With the US Navy retiring the legendary F-14 in September 2006, nowadays the IRIAF is the only operator of the Tomcat, a type of aircraft that Tehran has kept airworthy throughout the years in spite of the embargo imposed after the 1979 Revolution.

Not only did the Iranians keep some F-14s in active service but they have also upgraded it with some domestic avionics upgrades and weapons that should extend the life of the last flying Tomcats until 2030.

 

SEE ALSO: Russia fired more cruise missiles at rebel-held areas in Syria

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The Paris attacks exposed a rift that could lead to a new government-shutdown battle

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Barack Obama

The burgeoning dispute over the issue of resettling Syrian refugees could complicate plans to keep the federal government from shutting down in December.

President Barack Obama's administration is planning to resettle about 10,000 refugees from the war-torn country during the 2016 fiscal year, which began October 1. But two dozen governors across the country have said over the past two days that they will oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states.

And calls have increased to strip funding for Obama's program from a crucial spending bill that needs to pass by December 11 to keep the government funded. That could lead to a fight with the White House, which has defended its plans in recent days, that could precede a shutdown.

"There are so many amendments — Planned Parenthood topped the list before the Syrian issue — that the omnibus budget bill could stall after Congress returns from its Thanksgiving break," said Greg Valliere, the chief global strategist at Horizon Investments. "Still another stopgap bill, extending until December 18, is likely ... and beyond that, no one is finalizing holiday plans."

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday that requested the cancellation of what he called a "blank check" for refugee resettlement in the government-funding bill.

Sessions said his subcommittee, the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, had identified at least 26 foreign-born individuals in the US "charged with or convicted of terrorism over approximately the last year alone."

"The barbaric attacks in Paris — an assault on civilization — add immense new urgency," he wrote in the letter.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, also sent a letter to Obama calling on him to immediately suspend the admission of Syrian refugees into the US.

And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a presidential candidate, said he would introduce legislation to bar Syrian refugees from entering into the US. Cruz has been a recurring presence in these budget battles, including the 2013 fight over the Affordable Care Act that led to a 16-day government shutdown.

"Sessions/Cruz will probably want to push for riders related to the refugee crisis," a Democratic Senate aide told Business Insider. "And if they do, yes I think it jeopardizes [government] funding. Depends whether Sessions/Cruz convince other [Republicans] to join them."

Indeed, the issue is already permeating throughout the presidential campaign trail. On Monday, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas (R) suggested that newly minted House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) should "step down" if he did not "reject the importation of those fleeing the Middle East."

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson sent a letter to Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), urging them to move legislation that would strip funding for refugees from Syria.

Ryan said Tuesday that no Syrian refugees should be admitted unless "we can be 100% confident that they are not here to do us harm."

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who has made immigration a central theme of his campaign, has also railed for months about the Syrian-refugee program, saying refugees could constitute a "Trojan horse."

ted cruz

Stephen Worley, a spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee, said refugee policies were one of numerous issues Congress would have to work through with the White House in the budget-negotiation process.

"In the coming weeks, the committee expects to be part of the effort by Congress and the White House to work through these issues to ensure that US refugee policies are in our national interest, will protect the American people, and be consistent with American values," Worley said.

The White House has defended its plans, saying the administration is thoroughly vetting potential refugees and stressing the need to do its part to help its allies in resettlement. Germany, for example, is planning to take in about 500,000 Syrian refugees annually over the next several years.

Obama has not weighed in on whether he would veto a potential Republican-backed budget bill hamstringing the US' ability to accept refugees. But he gave a vehement defense of the administration's plan to take in more refugees on Monday, and he forcefully rejected Republican plans to the contrary as "shameful."

"When I hear folks say that, 'Well, maybe we should just admit the Christians, but not the Muslims,'" Obama said. "When I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who is fleeing a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing from political persecution, that's shameful."

The president added, "That's not American."

SEE ALSO: A slew of states are saying they'll refuse Syrian refugees, but they might have 'no legal authority'

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