I really thought these Sunni al Sha'etat (aka Al Sh'etat or Sh’ytat or Shu'aytat) Tribe members in Deir Ezzor, Syria were done for. Their tribe had an agreement with ISIS which it claimed ISIS broke, and they expelled ISIS, killing 9 or 11 ISIS members. ISIS returned with its typical furor, and seized dozens of tribe members, mostly young men. It didn't kill them right away but put them in jail. ISIS released these (non-violent) images of their capture. (The towns were Abu Hamam, Kashkiyeh and Ghranij, in Deir Ezzor.)

There were unofficial reports the men were going to face a Sharia Court for treason, and that the penalty for treason is death, or the hacking off of an arm and a leg on opposite sides of the body.

Today, ISIS announced they were spared by order of the Khalifah, and given the chance to repent and pledge allegiance to ISIS. The photo announcement is here. They look much happier now. (And cleaner, maybe ISIS let them take showers and gave them fresh clothes.)[More...]

Update: Hamas' military wing, al Qassam Brigades, has released this statement:

“The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades has no information on this soldier. We have lost contact with one of our combatant groups, which was fighting in the sector where the soldier went missing and it is possible that our fighters and this soldier were killed,” the group said in a statement

"We have no idea about where the Israeli soldier is or what is the situation. "We lost contact with the group who made the suicide mission near Rafah after it was done. "We believe everyone in this group was killed by an Israeli air strike including the Israeli soldier who the Israelis are talking about having disappeared."

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What's on your mind today? Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Colorado is enacting new rules for recreational marijuana edibles, designed to address the problem some people (like Maureen Dowd) have determining how much to ingest.

The rules will not be "tougher" with respect to the quantity of THC contained in edibles. Colorado's current rules specify each "serving" of recreational pot edibles can contain up to 10 mg of THC. [More...]

With the declassified version of the Inspector General's report outlining the CIA's unauthorized intrusion into U.S. Senate staffers' computers on the horizon, CIA director John Brennan admitted today the agency spied on Senate members. He also apologized. [More...]

The four day trial over Jesse Trentadue's attempt to obtain additional Oklahoma City Bombing videos has ended. The judge reserved ruling.

The FBI presented witnesses today to say the tapes never existed, which was an 11th hour claim. Up until the last few weeks, its defense had been they couldn't find any such tapes.

Oklahoma trooper Charlie Hangar, who arrested Timothy McVeigh, testified his videocam didn't start recording until McVeigh was in the back seat. Trentadue says reports show another version of Hangar's tape exists that shows cars passing by, including a brown pickup truck that belonged to an acquaintance of McVeigh's.

Another FBI witness testified the report about an FBI agent who tried to sell a tape showing McVeigh and John Doe #2 at the Murrah building to CBS and Dateline was a hoax.

They'll try to fix it tomorrow, but as of now, the border control bill has been a total debacle for Republican House leadership today.

[Republican Sen. Ted] Cruz, the hard-line Texas Republican, has been working behind the scenes to stir up conservative opposition to a House GOP plan to approve $659 million to secure the border and handle the flow of 57,000 migrant youths.

And it worked. Amid disarray, House GOP leaders canceled Thursday's vote after it was clear they did not have the votes.

Politico has more. [More...]

Kenneth Ireland of Connecticut was 17 when he was arrested for raping and killing a woman. During his police interrogation, he maintained his innocence. He was 18 when he was tried and convicted. 21 years later, in 2009, he was freed after DNA evidence showed he did not commit the crime, and the real perpetrator was identified, tried, convicted and sentenced.

A state commissioner will decide Ireland's compensation, which may be up to $8 million. During testimony this week Ireland described the horror he experienced daily in prison.

I wish it were an actual nightmare ... because then I could have woken up instead of spending 21 years in a tiny cell with the most violent criminals who targeted me because I was a convicted sex offender."

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I can't bring myself to watch (and won't link to) the ISIS video of the massacre of hundreds of Shi'ite Muslims and army deserters in Tikrit. Almost all are in their 20's and 30's. The video is 36 minutes long, and the real horror is in the last 6 or 7 minutes. Shorter version: There are trucks loaded with hundreds of terrified young men. First they make them lie down in the sand. Then they shoot around 50 of them in the head, one by one. Then there's a scene of an open area packed with more than 100 bodies. And then:

The 36-minute video ends with a scene in which fifteen young men are being escorted to a blood-soaked path along a river, where masked gunmen await, one of whom is holding the Islamic State's flag. The victims are each shot in the head and dumped into the river one by one.

Video above: Neil Young and CS&N, Big Sur Sept 6, 1969:

"Down by the river, I shot my baby
... This much madness is too much sorrow...."

Our last open thread is full. Here's another one, all topics welcome.

Former cartel and AUC right-wing paramilitary honcho Don Berna, aka Diego Murillo, who is serving 31 years in a Florida prison, has written a book. In it, he says it was his brother Rodolfo Murillo Bejarano, alias “Semilla,”, not the Search Bloc cop Hugo Aguilar who fired the shot that killed Pablo Escobar.

Berna was one of the leaders of the Pepes (Persecuted by Pablo Escobar). Aguilar has since been sentenced to 9 years in prison for his ties to the AUC. [More...]

In a NY Times Oped, two scholars in Arab Studies, Chams Eddine Zaougui and Pieter Van Ostaeyen, debunk the myth that ISIS is coming after the West. They say homegrown terrorists are a bigger threat than foreign fighters returning from Syria.

...Contrary to what many counterterrorism experts believe, however, ISIS has so far shown no interest in Western targets. The group’s overarching objective is to consolidate its dominion in the Levant, a place of great religious significance.

What could change this dynamic?

The one thing that might change the attitude of foreign fighters is the United States’ launching military action against them.

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