Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Two men are shown sitting on a sofa with Alexanda Amon Kotey on the left, wearing a blue sweatshirt.

British national pleads guilty to role in terror beheadings

Extremism

Alexanda Anon Kotey pleaded guilty to all eight counts against him at a plea hearing in US District Court in Alexandria. The charges include hostage-taking resulting in death and providing material support to ISIS from 2012 through 2015.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is shown in a black shawl and turbine speaking into a microphone.

Trump says ISIS leader Baghdadi dead in US raid

Conflict & Justice
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS

Syrian rights monitor says ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead

Conflict
An armed motorcade belonging to members of Derna's Islamic Youth Council, consisting of former members of militias from the town of Derna, drive along a road in Derna, eastern Libya October 3, 2014.

This man got a glimpse of life under ISIS control — in Libya

Conflict
A fighter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) holds a weapon while another holds a flag in the city of Mosul, shortly after the Islamic State captured the city. The flag reads, "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.

The so-called Islamic State is even worse than you thought

Conflict
Dean Obeidallah

Middle East comedians are using ISIS to make jokes

Culture

The rise of ISIS and their brutal acts of terror have been a horrifying development in the past year. And yet within in the Middle Eastern artistic community, an unlikely group of voices has begun to stand up to try and combat’s the group’s message of fear and intolerance: comedians.

Freed Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg stands outside the Home Office with his father, Azmat, after delivering a petition in London on March 14, 2005.

Former Guantanamo detainee says the UK rejected his offer to help save an ISIS hostage

Justice

Moazzam Begg, a former prisoner at Guantanamo Bay prison, says he offered to help negotiate the release of British hostage Alan Henning. Instead, the British Foreign Office ignored him for months.

Camp Bucca

Meet the US prison camp that helped give birth to ISIS

Global Scan

The US has long worried that its attempts to fight terrorism might actually spur more terrorism. We learn that a US detention camp in Iraq seems to have helped incubate ISIS. Meanwhile, it is Election Day in the US and an app lets Americans show their partisan choices as they shop. And an Egyptian bus driver found one heck of a way to fail a drug test. We have those stories and more in today’s Global Scan.

A man inspects a damaged site in what activists say was a US strike in Kfredrian, Idlib province, Syria, on September 23, 2014.

Airstrikes in Syria may help — but their impact will be limited

Conflict

After resisting involvement for months — and even years — the US and five other countries finally launched airstrikes in Syria against ISIS, the Khorasan Group and other Islamist militants. But will the US be able to keep its long-standing vow not to send ground troops to defeat ISIS?

A man looks at a computer screen showing logos of Russian social network VKontakte in an office in Moscow.

The ISIS Internet army has found a safe haven on Russian social networks — for now

Global Politics

When ISIS accounts were kicked off of Facebook and Twitter, the terrorist group turned to Russian social network VKontakte to keep up its propaganda and fundraising. A new report from a Russian news site exposed the extent of the militants’ use of Russian sites and that seems to have started a crackdown by authorities.