ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

[Piling]

All videos shared by ISIS in the aim to serve their own terror of propaganda should be boycotted, btw. We are not their filthy messengers.

[Anthea]

All videos shared by ISIS in the aim to serve their own terror of propaganda should be boycotted, btw. We are not their filthy messengers.

AGREED

[Anthea]

This has become a war of attrition whereby the Islamic State seek to destroy the weak such as the Yezidis and the al-Sheitaat tribe members - in order to instate fear in whom-so-ever they deem to be their opponent

It is working because there are now many instances - especially Mosul - where the defending army ran away in fear

Had the Islamic State attacked Baghdad some months ago it would have met with a great deal of resistance - the longer IS hold off from their attack - the more time in which they have to build up fear in the hearts of the population

Also - we now have to wonder if other hostages (such as the Yezidi women) are at risk of being executed at some future date

The member of the Islamic State are NOT proud Islamic warriors - they are cowards and bullies - traitors to the Islamic religion they purport to follow

In Islam there is NO HONOUR in slaughtering the weak

In Islam Honour is only gained by defeating a powerful enemy not the weak or elderly

[Anthea]

Independent

Iraq crisis: Fighting resumes at Mosul dam day after Obama claims victory over Isis

Fighting has reportedly resumed at the strategic Mosul dam in northern Iraq just a day after Barack Obama claimed victory reclaiming it from Islamist militants.

The President said US air strikes had helped Kurdish and Iraqi forces drive back the Islamic State (Isis) and that their control of Iraq’s largest dam could have proved “catastrophic”.

But now the militants are trying to gain control once more as US fighter jets and drones attack Isis targets from the air, Sky News reported.

Government forces and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are trying to push back the militants on the ground around the dam, which is 45 miles from Mosul.

As well as providing water and electricity to the city of 1.7 million from its huge hydroelectric power station, the dam has the potential to be used as a weapon of mass destruction, according to American officials.

Analysis during the US occupation claimed a breach in the dam could unleash a 20 metre-high wave on the city of Mosul and the Tigris River valley, wiping away anything in its path.

A letter to the Iraqi government warned that 500,000 people could be killed if the disaster occurred, calling it “the most dangerous dam in the world”.

There is also fierce fighting near the centre of Tikrit, the birthplace of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi army units backed by Shia militias have made their way towards the centre of the city, 80 miles north of Baghdad, which is a stronghold of the Sunni Muslim faction that Isis violently adheres to.

“Our forces are advancing from two directions with cover from army helicopters, mortar and artillery shelling the positions of the Islamic State fighters in and around the city,” an army major in the operations room told Reuters.

Battles were underway on Tuesday afternoon underway near Tikrit's main hospital and helicopters were hitting Isis bases in efforts to stop them regrouping.

As well as a push from the south, Iraqi forces were advancing from the west but progress was being hampered by landmines and roadside bombs planted by militants.

The US has pledged to help the fight against Isis but Mr Obama pledged ground troops would not be sent in.

American air strikes have prompted threats from Isis hinting at international terrorist attacks.

A video posted online showed footage of a US soldier apparently being killed by a sniper and a photo of an American beheaded during the Iraq occupation with a statement in English reading: “We will drown all of you in blood”.

David Cameron has said British troops will not be sent in after reports that UK "military assets" entered the country to help humanitarian operations.

Additional reporting by Reuters

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 78538.html

[Anthea]

Iraq crisis: Kurdish forces battling Islamic State face clever propaganda and unrelenting cruelty

Kurdish security forces are battling fighters from the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in Iraq's north-east. As well as forays to places like Mosul Dam, they are fighting along the boundary of the autonomous Kurdish region.

The little towns to the south and west are dominated by Arabs who share their Sunni faith with the extremists of the IS. The infamous black IS flag flies in full view.

General Sarhad Qadr and his men are trying to push them out. But many locals are on the side of the IS militants.

"Each village has an Emir," General Qadr told ABC

"And people in these villages give information about us to the Islamic State, like the locations of our army and police bases."

The violence is fuelled by Iraq's ethnic and sectarian patchwork.

The Kurds are doing the fighting here because the Shiite dominated Iraqi army fled in June. That is when the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, swept through the north, capitalising on longstanding Sunni discontent.

"This is a reaction to the activities of a sectarian government in Baghdad," Sunni tribal leader Ali Hathem Sulaiman said.

He hails from Anbar province in Iraq's west, where Sunnis rose up against the government last year before IS swept into key cities earlier this year, a precursor to the fall of Mosul. They are an uneasy alliance.

"Therefore the Sunnis are marginalised. The Islamic State seeks to take control or to become the defender of the Sunni areas," Mr Sulaiman said.

The Kurds say they must fight hard against a ruthless enemy. But as they do battle they, too, are alienating their neighbours.

"The Islamic State recruits local Sunnis, trains them to use machine guns and convince them they should die when they fight because they will go to paradise," General Qadr said.

Crackdown on civilians provides crucial intelligence on IS

The ABC accompanied a contingent of security forces sent to one of the villages, looking for some wanted men.

It was a revealing insight into a scrappy conflict which will require a much more subtle form of counter-insurgency than is being waged here.

A camera fitted to the helmet of one of the men showed the Kurdish forces arrive unchallenged. They soon set about searching the houses, asking for names.

As they moved through the village, the camera captured the disdain and lack of regard for the dignity of the locals.

It was not long before a couple of residents were detained.

Then some men were spotted walking across the fields near the village. The general opened fire above their heads before his forces jumped into their vehicles to detain the four men.

Two more men were also taken in, in what appeared to be an ongoing dragnet operation.

General Qadr explained what they were doing.

"Every day when we arrest people like this, civilians helping the Islamic State, they tell us information about who is with them and who is helping them," he said.

Teenagers easily swayed by slick IS propaganda videos

The Kurds are waging their war on terror with the help of weapons and ammunition shipped in from the West.

But in the Sunni Arab communities it is IS that has made insidious headway, winning hearts and minds, especially amongst the young.

Another group of young men was questioned by the Kurdish forces.

They were found with IS propaganda pamphlets proclaiming "now is the time to wipe out the unbelievers".

The eldest of the young men tried to tell the general they were at a checkpoint when someone simply threw the pamphlets at them.

But the general was having none of it.

"Your beard shows you are a member of the Islamic State," he told the man.

"We believe they could be working for the Islamic State, sending information to them about what the police and special forces are doing in Kirkuk," he told ABC.

The mobile phone of another of the men detained reveals the slick, post-modern packaging of the IS's medieval agenda. It is loaded with extreme and violent imagery.

They are videos which should be seen to understand how these young people are being indoctrinated.

One shows a suicide bomber as he sets off for his deadly mission.

The propaganda unit has given the images a sort of video game treatment - highlighting the attack vehicle before it closes in on its target.

A series of killings by a sniper is even more obviously in the video game genre. They match a popular game called Call of Duty.

Even Sunni Arab leaders like Mr Sulaiman – whose men have fought beside the IS – say their youth are easily drawn to the extremist cause.

"This is a reaction for these Sunni youth especially that age group - teenagers. It is easy to co-opt them by marketing religion in the way of jihad," he told ABC.

The most disturbing videos carried by the young man show the execution of Iraqi government soldiers, most of them presumably Shiite Muslims.

Scores, possibly hundreds, are forced into mass graves and shot.

Other are shuffled to a landing on the banks of a river before being shot and their bodies pitched into the water.

There is hatred between the Iraqi people: Sulaiman

The extraordinary brutality underlines the deep fissures in Iraqi society that will take decades to heal, if they ever do.

"There is hatred between the Iraqi people," Mr Sulaiman said.

"Between the Sunni and the Shiites, and we have to acknowledge that."

As the Kurds transfer the young men they have detained for further interrogation, it is clear the insurgency now ravaging Iraq's west and north is also ravaging the minds of its young.

And those battling against it are using crude instruments in the face of a potent mix of genuine grievance, clever propaganda and unrelenting cruelty.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-20/k ... ty/5684246

[Anthea]

ABC

US Official: More Airstrikes in Iraq

American fighter jets and drones continued to pound Islamic State militants in Iraq on Wednesday, and military planners weighed the possibility of sending a small number of additional U.S. troops to Baghdad, U.S. officials said, even as the insurgents threatened to kill a second American captive in retribution for any continued attacks.

The airstrikes came in the hours after militants released a gruesome video Tuesday showing U.S. journalist James Foley being beheaded and underscored President Barack Obama's vow Wednesday afternoon to continue attacks against the group despite its threats.

According to a senior U.S. official, the number of additional troops currently under discussion would be fewer than 300, but there has been no final decision yet by Pentagon leaders. Officials said that the forces were requested by the State Department and, if approved, would mainly provide extra security around Baghdad.

The 14 latest airstrikes were in the area of the Mosul Dam and were aimed at helping Iraqi and Kurdish forces create a buffer zone at the key facility. The strikes, which now total 84 since operations began, have helped Iraqi and Kurdish troops reclaim the dam from the insurgents.

The militants threatened to kill Steven Sotloff, an American journalist who is also being held captive, if the U.S. continued to conduct airstrikes.

The officials were not authorized to discuss the ongoing operations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

It was not clear Wednesday if Obama would have to adjust his recent notifications to Congress under the War Powers Act to accommodate the higher U.S. troop level in Iraq if more soldiers and Marines are deployed.

Currently there are about 748 U.S. forces in Iraq, in addition to the approximately 100 troops that have routinely been assigned to the Office of Security Cooperation in Baghdad. Under the current war powers resolutions sent to Congress, Obama authorized up to 775 U.S. troops for security assistance, assessment teams, and advisers at two joint operations centers in Baghdad and Irbil.

Foley, a 40-year-old journalist from Rochester, New Hampshire, went missing in northern Syria while freelancing for Agence France-Presse and the Boston-based media company GlobalPost. Officials have said the video appears authentic.

Released on websites Tuesday, the video shows a man in an orange jumpsuit kneeling in the desert, next to a black-clad militant with a knife to his throat. Foley's name appears in both English and Arabic graphics on screen.

After the captive makes a statement, the masked man is shown apparently beginning to cut at the neck of the captive.

At the end of the video, a second man — identified as Sotloff — is shown and the militant warns that he could be next captive killed. Sotloff was kidnapped near the Syrian-Turkish border in August 2013 and freelanced for Time, the National Interest and MediaLine.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStor ... q-25053073

[Anthea]

Beheading Signals Islamic State Shifting Tactics on Obama
By David Lerman

President Barack Obama claimed “important progress” in Iraq this week, as U.S. airstrikes helped halt the advance of Islamic State fighters and regain control of the country’s largest dam.

Now comes the hard part.

The beheading of American journalist James Foley, shown in a video released on the Internet yesterday, underscored the shifting tactics of an Islamic extremist group that’s part army and part terrorist organization.

After a march through northern Iraq that captured a large swath of territory, Islamic State now has fighters entrenched in several Iraqi cities, where airstrikes would risk causing civilian casualties. Although the group has threatened to kill a second American it’s holding hostage, the U.S. military’s Central Command today announced 14 new air attacks.

“It gets much more difficult from this point forward,” Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel and former adviser in Iraq to General David Petraeus, said in an interview. “It’s more difficult to eject an armed force from a piece of ground than to merely stop an advance.”

While U.S. airpower helped Kurdish and Iraqi forces recapture the Mosul Dam, Islamic State fighters still have control of Mosul, northern Iraq’s largest city, and other Sunni Muslim cities such as Fallujah and Tikrit.

The U.S. “faces very different challenges the moment it has to use airpower in populated areas where the Islamic State can shelter behind the population,” Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in an e-mailed statement.

Complicated Options

The graphic video of the beheading of freelance journalist Foley may increase the pressure on Obama to take more aggressive action against Islamic State, even as his options become more complicated, said John Nagl, a former Army commander in Iraq and a board member of the Center for a New American Security in Washington.

“The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people,” Obama said today in reaction to the beheading. “We will be vigilant and we will be relentless.”

What more he would do -- and when -- went unaddressed.

In Congress, where some lawmakers have pushed for greater military involvement for months, pressure to do more may build after the beheading and the threat of a second.

Representative Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican and former vice presidential nominee, said today that he would support more aggressive American bombing, more support for Iraq’s government and military and increased assistance to moderate Syrian groups seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

More Airstrikes

“I do believe that probably more of a robust air campaign is called for,” Ryan said in an interview on Bloomberg Television with Mark Halperin and John Heilemann.

Politically, Obama has boxed himself into a corner, vowing to maintain a “limited” military offensive while calling the Islamic State a major threat to the region and ultimately the world, said Douglas Ollivant, a former Iraq director on the National Security Council for the Obama and George W. Bush administrations.

“Obama was elected to get us out of Iraq and make sure there were not terrorist safe havens,” Ollivant said. “Now we’ve got a terrorist safe haven in Iraq, so what’s the guy supposed to do?”

Conflicted Voters

The American electorate is similarly conflicted. While 54 percent of Americans say they approve of airstrikes in Iraq, 51 percent say they’re worried the U.S. will become too involved, according to a Pew Research Center poll. The survey of 1,000 adults was conducted August 14 to 17 -- before Foley’s beheading was disclosed -- and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

In authorizing airstrikes, Obama limited the mission to protecting U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq and averting humanitarian crises. Restoring Iraqi control of the Mosul Dam was necessary, he said, because a breach of the dam could have flooded towns all the way down the Tigris River to Baghdad, where the U.S. Embassy is located.

Obama said on Aug. 18 that the operation demonstrated “that Iraqi and Kurdish forces are capable of working together.” That cooperation would be hard to sustain beyond the areas in northern Iraq that the Kurds claim as their territory.

‘Effective Partners’

Obama has held out the possibility of expanded U.S. involvement if Iraq forms a new and more inclusive government under its prime minister-designate, Haidar al-Abadi.

“If we have effective partners on the ground, mission creep is much less likely,” Obama said.

Ollivant, now a senior national security fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington policy research group, said Obama is in a “holding pattern” until a new Iraqi government takes shape.

“The administration is willing to keep the problem from getting any worse but doesn’t want to fully engage until they get an Iraqi government they can work with,” Ollivant said in an interview. Once a new government emerges, “we may well see a new speech” from Obama, he said.

In seeking a more inclusive government, the U.S. also wants to enlist the support of Iraq’s Arab neighbors and its Sunni tribes, some of whom have allied themselves with the Islamic State after being alienated by the Shiite-dominated government of departing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

‘Everything Is Possible’

Yet recreating the Sunni Awakening -- the 2006 U.S. campaign to rally Iraqi tribes against the terrorist group’s predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq -- would take months even if a new and inclusive Iraqi government is formed, and would require more U.S. military advisers on the ground, said Nagl, now headmaster of the Haverford School near Philadelphia.

As the battle continues, the extremists have shown they’re capable of adapting their tactics to different environments.

“We have former army officers who are leading the battle, and they are experts,” said Abu Abid al-Na’aimy, a spokesman for Sunni tribes allied with Islamic State in Salaheddin province. “Everything is possible as tactics. We try to avoid the airstrikes as much as possible.”

Avoiding airstrikes is easier in neighboring Syria, where Islamic State has a relative safe haven in territory it rules near the Iraq border. The U.S. so far has shunned any direct military involvement in the Syrian civil war, where fighting the group could help Assad, whom the U.S. wants to oust.

“I don’t know who we want to win in Syria,” said Nagl. While airstrikes in Syria eventually may be necessary, “there are no good options there,” he said.

Syrian Targets

Now, however, two U.S. intelligence officials said, the president could invoke Foley’s murder, which they said appears to have occurred in Syria, as well as his statement about the need to protect Americans, to justify expanding the air campaign to Islamic State camps in eastern Syria.

Mansoor, now a military historian at the Ohio State University in Columbus, said a limited U.S. role can’t defeat Islamic State. The U.S. ultimately may need 10,000 to 15,000 troops and advisers on the ground in Iraq, with heavier airstrikes that stretch into Syria to eliminate a safe haven.

If Obama’s not willing to go that far, Mansoor said, “then he’s going to pass on this problem to his successor in office.”

While agreeing that the U.S. now must step up its campaign, the intelligence officials today warned that Foley’s beheading and the threat to murder Steven Sotloff, the second kidnapped American, may be an attempt by the extremists to draw America and its allies deeper into the conflict.

Defining the War

That may seem counterintuitive, the officials said, but the militant group is seeking to define the war as one between believers and their historic crusader and Jewish enemies. Obama, they said, is wise to emphasize rallying the Kurds, Iraq, the Gulf Arab states and Iraq’s Sunni tribes to take the lead in fighting the extremists. The intelligence officials commented on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak to the media.

More overt U.S. and European intervention in Iraq and Syria, the two officials said, would only feed a longtime narrative of foreign oppression and assist the extremists’ ability to attract new recruits in Europe and throughout the Sunni world, from Morocco to Southeast Asia.

In the video of the beheading, titled “A Message to America,” the militants played on that theme. A man hooded in black said “a large number of Muslims worldwide” have “accepted the caliphate as their leadership. So any attempts by you, Obama, to deny the Muslims their rights of living in safety under the Islamic caliphate will result in the bloodshed of your people.”

To contact the reporter on this story: David Lerman in Washington at dlerman1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net Larry Liebert

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-2 ... obama.html

[Anthea]

As US airstrikes in Iraq grow, details stay thin
By ROBERT BURNS

WASHINGTON (AP) — America has returned to war, of a sort, in Iraq with airstrikes that have intensified in recent days against Islamic State militants. But details about the execution of this limited campaign, which so far includes no reported U.S. ground combat, are thin.

Some questions and answers about the mission, which began Aug. 8:

Q. What U.S. forces are involved?

A. The specifics are hard to pin down in part because, as in any U.S. overseas conflict, many of the contributors work behind the scenes, sometimes in secret. We do know that the U.S. has about 750 military personnel in Iraq, not counting the 100 who have worked out of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad since before this crisis began.

None of the 750 are engaged in ground combat, but that does not mean they are not at risk.

Among the 750 are about 160 at what the military calls "joint operation centers"— one in Baghdad and another in Irbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region that is near the center of the latest fighting. Those 160 military personnel are coordinating with Iraqi and Kurdish military officials in support of their efforts to defend Irbil, including the U.S. Consulate there, and surrounding territory from the Islamic State group.

Q. Who is carrying out the airstrikes?

A. The only portion of the air campaign that has been discussed publicly in detail is the work being done by a range of Navy aircraft launching off the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf area. These include F/A-18F Super Hornets, which carried out the first strikes authorized by President Barack Obama.

Also flying are EA-6B Prowlers, which are electronic warfare planes designed to suppress enemy air defenses on the ground.

Speaking Wednesday from aboard the Bush, Rear Adm. DeWolfe H. Miller III, commander of the carrier strike group, said in a telephone interview with Washington reporters that his F/A-18F planes have launched about 30 strikes in Iraq. He would not talk about any air defenses his pilots may have encountered over Iraq.

Q. What about the Air Force?

The Air Force has said little about its combat role, although it is widely known inside the military that its F-15E attack planes as well as B-1 bombers and armed drones have participated in the campaign. The Air Force also flies aerial refueling missions that enable attack planes to remain over target areas for extended periods.

Q. Where are the Air Force planes flying from?

A. U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for all U.S. military operations in Iraq and across the greater Middle East, will not say what bases are being used. It cites "host nation sensitivities," which is a diplomatic way of saying the U.S. government is acceding to the wishes of Gulf states like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates that insist their involvement in U.S. offensive military operations not be publicly acknowledged.

It is no secret inside the Pentagon that the U.S. is flying some of its Iraq missions from al-Udeid air base in Qatar. The U.S. has an advanced air operations center at al-Udeid but specifics are rarely acknowledged publicly; it used the center to coordinate air operations during the 2003-11 Iraq War as well as the war in Afghanistan.

The U.S. also has considerable ground and air forces in Kuwait.

Q. How many targets have been bombed in Iraq so far?

A. Central Command said Wednesday that it has conducted a total of 84 airstrikes since Aug. 8. That includes 14 on Wednesday against a range of Islamic State militant targets in the vicinity of a Tigris River dam just north of Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq. Of the 84 strikes, 51 have been in support of Iraqi forces near the dam. President Barack Obama declared Monday that Iraqi and Kurdish forces had recaptured the dam.

Q. What else is being struck?

A. U.S. warplanes have hit a wide range of Islamic State militant targets, including artillery, armored personnel carriers, armored Humvees, light trucks, mortar positions, checkpoints and roadside bomb emplacements.

There's the potential for the air campaign to expand into Syria, in which case the U.S. would have to call on aircraft and other elements of its military based in the Middle East and possibly Europe.

Follow Robert Burns on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP

[Anthea]

Rudaw

Christians Refugees in Erbil Desperate to Go Home

More than 100,000 Christians have fled to the Kurdistan Region as Islamic State militants drive minority communities out of Nineveh province in Northern Iraq.

The United Nations and local NGOs in are struggling to accommodate over half a million internally displaced people who have fled to areas controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government and their Peshmerga forces. Thousands have come to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region.

Although basic humanitarian aid has been delivered most refugees who escaped the Islamic State, countless Christians families are sleeping in the sidewalks of Erbil’s Christian quarter, Ainkawa, with nowhere else to go.

Yusud Serkiz, a resident of one of the region’s largest Christian towns, Qaraqosh, is desperate to return.

“Thank God everyone is doing their best to give us food, but we want to return to our homes,”

For Karramah Tuma and other refugees living in Erbil’s streets, sleep is even harder to come by because of the memories of leaving relatives and friends behind.

“My elderly father is 75 years old. He was left in Qaraqosh and we know no traces of him, we only know all of his sheep are taken away. He stayed because he didn’t want to abandon his flock.”

While many Christians from Nineveh have escaped the Islamic State to the safety of Kurdistan, the ones who refused to leave face two choices: convert or die.

Christians who elected to leave were forced to leave property behind. The majority had all their valuable belongings confiscated by Islamic State fighters as they left.

Akhahan Tebbakh appeals to the Kurdistan Regional Government for help.

“We hope Peshmarga forces under the leadership of Massoud Barzani can free the villages we have lost, so we can go back.”

While a significant number of Ezidi refugees are eager to leave Iraq, shocked and furious that their Sunni Arab neighbors turned against them, most Christians Rudaw spoke to simply wanted to get home as soon as possible, even if that meant rebuilding their homes and starting life all over again.

http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/20082014

[Anthea]

Raid on Syria Isis camp may have been US rescue attempt
By Erika Solomon in Erbil

Long before the US acknowledged that its special forces tried and failed to free American hostages in Syria, among them the recently murdered James Foley, Syrian activists in the city of Raqqa were avidly discussing a mysterious night-time raid.

In conversations with the Financial Times last month, they recounted how on the night of July 3 a jet circled continuously over their homes without dropping a single bomb. The lights in the entire city went out, and every fighter was on high alert.

“It started somewhere around midnight or 1am,” said one activist, who asked not to be identified. “As for the helicopters, the fighters barely heard them coming, they were so quiet.”

While many could describe what had happened that night, and guessed that US forces were involved, few understood the reason for the raid. The US announcement of the failed attempt to rescue Mr Foley may explain the mystery.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (known as Isis) had occupied Raqqa for two years but had recently stretched its hold across a third of both Syria and Iraq. The following morning many of its fighters believed they had just experienced their first western attack.

The incident came just before Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Isis’s “caliph” gave his first public speech just across the border in Iraq.

Independent activists, who cannot be fully identified for their safety, said local Isis leaders imposed a blackout on rumours of what they suspected was a US attack. But the close ties they had developed with many local fighters meant the news quickly spread.

The raid targeted the Akershi base outside the city, which only a few local activists knew was being used as more than a military facility.

“Very few people knew there was a prison in the Akershi base. Most people thought it was just a training base. It’s not,” one activist, known as Abdelqader, told the Financial Times in an interview at the time. “There’s a secret prison. No one knows who is inside except some of the [Islamic] State’s emirs [commanders].”

The prison inside the Akershi base – which Isis renamed the “Martyr Osama bin Laden Camp” – lies south of the Euphrates river, and just north of a mountain that stretches into miles of desert terrain.

US forces did not drop into the base’s military camp, the activists said. Instead, they landed in one of the five guard sites around its perimeter. One of these holds the secret prison that is likely to have held Mr Foley and many other foreign hostages for months.

Activists say it was one of the first bases taken over by Isis and remains one of the biggest in its central Syrian stronghold.

Isis fighters told activists that two helicopters dropped at least 10 commandos on to the site and immediately killed all the guards. Some said dozens of Isis militants were killed in the operation. Others said it was only five. Most insisted that one commando was killed – a Jordanian – and believe Amman may have been involved in the operation.

“No one knows who is inside the prison, except for some of the State’s emirs. The commandos went into the prison and abducted 12 people – no one knows who they were,” Abdelqader said.

No foreigners have been freed from Syria since the operation, so it is unclear if the information was incorrect or if other people were taken.

An Isis commander named “Abu Waleed” was allegedly asked to send reinforcements, but refused, two activists said. “He responded to the request saying, ‘Don’t send more people. We won’t benefit at all, and will lose more souls for nothing,’” Abdelqader said.

If the activists’ accounts are accurate, the raid may have missed its target by a matter of hours.

“The same evening those forces landed, Isis had sent out two big convoys,” the second activist said at the time. “We believe it contained important emirs, even perhaps Mr Baghdadi himself . . . but maybe something else was happening.”

Link to Article & Video:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8423706c-293a ... abdc0.html

[Anthea]

Independent

Ten more Westerners are hostages of Isis – including Britons – and in grave danger

Young Westerners fighting jihad are in contest to commit most barbaric acts

Isis militants are holding up to 10 other Western hostages, including Britons, whose lives are now in grave danger following the murder of the American journalist James Foley, it emerged last night.

Reports from America suggested that at least three other US hostages were being held alongside Mr Foley in the months leading up to his death and threats have been made against their lives.

The Independent knows the identity of at least one of the British hostages, but is withholding that information at the request of the families and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The militants had demanded a ransom of $132.5m (£80m) for Mr Foley’s releaseh, his employer said last night. It went unpaid in line with US policy, which prohibits negotiations with terrorists.

The journalist’s murder and the threat to Western lives has so far not had any effect on US air strikes on Isis positions in Iraq. Since the video of his beheading was released on Tuesday, US aircraft have launched 14 strikes including several yesterday. US Navy fighters and drones also provided air cover for Kurdish and Iraqi forces fighting Isis near the city of Mosul.

In the UK, police and intelligence agencies mounted an intensive operation to identify the masked man who spoke with a British accent on the video before executing Mr Foley. They are understood to be using voice recognition software to trawl police records and extremist material on the internet for a match. A public appeal has also been launched.

Richard Barrett, a former British security official and co-ordinator of the United Nations al-Qa’ida Taliban Monitoring Team, said he expected the man to be identified fairly quickly but that bringing him to justice may prove more difficult. “The most important thing is to demonstrate that you cannot do these things even in the middle of the desert, just because you are in something called Islamic State [as Isis now calls itself] or the caliphate,” he said.

David Cameron has now resumed his holiday in Cornwall. A spokesman for the Prime Minister said he remained “in close contact with his team”.

Dozens of journalists and aid workers are thought to have been taken hostage in Iraq and Syria, but few have been named. One is Steven Sotloff, a 31-year-old American journalist, who was captured near Aleppo in northern Syria in August last year. He is being held by the same group responsible for the death of Mr Foley, who have also threatened to murder him.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, an adviser to the Muslim Council of Britain, said Mr Foley’s murder showed that the UK must act urgently to stop other young Muslims being seduced by a “sub-culture of this ‘jihadi-cool’.” He added: “This is a problem that affects all of us”. He added that Britain’s Muslim community was pushing the message that acts like this are “totally alien to Islam” and that families were informing authorities when they discovered that their sons had headed to the Middle East to fight.

Haras Rafiq, head of outreach at the counter-extremism group Quilliam, said he was “not surprised” that Mr Foley’s killer had a British accent. “We’ve had decades of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood indoctrinating our youngsters that they have to struggle for this utopian Islamic caliphate.

Isis fighters from Western countries were also more likely to compete against each other by committing horrific acts, he added. “There is this massive competition among the Western foreigners who are going out there to be the most barbaric. The Europeans and especially the Britons have taken to it a lot more than some of the Arabs have.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 84451.html

[Anthea]

The Economist

A war that crosses national boundaries

Iraq and America have pushed back the Islamic State, but it will take much more to quash the threat of it across the wider region

TEN days after America carried out its first air strike on August 8th against the Islamic State (IS) on Iraqi territory, government forces regained control of the biggest dam in the country, near Mosul, the country’s second city. A ferocious al-Qaeda-inspired jihadist group that controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq and wants to turn the entire region into a caliphate, IS looks as if it is at last on the defensive in northern Iraq.

Thanks to a series of American air raids, Kurdish and Iraqi forces scattered IS fighters who had hoisted their black flags on the walls of the great dam. The Iraqi government in Baghdad hailed the event. The Iraqi Kurds in their capital, Erbil, posted photographs of their Peshmerga forces lording it over the turquoise lake. Barack Obama cited the recovery of the dam as “important progress”.

With American aerial help and the advice of nearly 400 American advisers on the ground, Iraq’s government forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga have made gains elsewhere, too. Most of the tens of thousands of Yazidis stranded on Sinjar mountain since IS raided their towns at the start of August have been carried to safety. Erbil is secure. The Americans, who have now carried out at least 60 air raids on IS, have revived the morale of the Iraqi government forces, who fell apart at the start of the jihadist offensive in June. On August 19th Iraq’s army said it had started a campaign to recapture Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town, which lies about 180km (112 miles) north-west of Baghdad.

But IS is far from contained, let alone defeated. It continues to massacre people belonging to non-Sunni sects in a string of villages around Mosul, which it captured in June, and along the border with Kurdistan. In Tikrit it may be beating back the government’s forces. It still holds a slew of towns in Anbar province and along the Euphrates river on both sides of the border with Syria. Even hitherto anti-American Iraqis, such as Hakim al-Zamili, a parliamentarian from Muqtada al-Sadr’s populist Shia movement, want the Americans to increase their air attacks on IS.

More significantly, IS has been consolidating its grip over large chunks of northern and eastern Syria, and has been gaining ground against moderate rebel Syrian groups opposed both to Bashar Assad’s regime and to IS. Though the Americans say their strikes have hurt IS badly, the group is still expanding its membership. The vast majority of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims reject IS’s claim to speak for them, but it is increasingly popular among global jihadists. Hundreds of recruits are thought to have joined since June, when a caliphate was declared, many of them from countries outside Iraq and Syria. New groups claiming to be cells of IS have popped up recently as far away as Morocco. This month an IS unit made a foray into Lebanon. With fresh acquisitions of land, oilfields, cash and global support, it is trying to consolidate its rule in Syria, while performing the functions of a state in such towns as Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor.

Moreover, IS presents a threat beyond Iraq and Syria. “First, they may not be imminent but it’s only a matter of time before transnational operations are launched,” says Fred Hof, a former State Department man now at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think-tank. “Second, nationals who return home pose a threat.”

On August 15th the UN passed a resolution backing sanctions on anyone recruiting, financing or fighting for IS, or supplying it with weapons. Two days later David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister, wrote of the danger IS posed “on the streets” of his country. Pope Francis spoke out against IS, too, calling for it to be “stopped”, implying even by force. In retaliation for America’s recent intervention in Iraq, IS put out a video on August 19th showing one of its members, thought to be British, beheading an American journalist, James Foley, who had been captured in Syria in 2012. (It emerged that American special forces, in their first known raid on Syrian soil, had earlier failed to rescue him.) IS is threatening to kill a second journalist it is holding.

The battle against IS will not be won by military means alone. In that respect, the agreement on August 14th by Nuri al-Maliki, a sectarian-minded Shia, to step down after eight years as Iraq’s prime minister, opens the way under his replacement, Haider al-Abadi, to a more inclusive Iraqi government. It might draw away disgruntled Iraqi Sunnis from IS’s embrace.

Sunnis in Baghdad say that Mr Abadi, if he is to win them over, must seek to amend the deBaathification and anti-terrorism laws, which Mr Maliki abused to crack down on them. He must also free thousands of Sunni prisoners and give more powers to local politicians. Sunni tribal leaders insist that they could kick out IS in a flash. But Sunnis must first be persuaded that the government in Baghdad is giving them a fair deal. “There is no way to gain back control of Mosul and other areas without convincing people there to fight,” says Mr Zamili.

Since IS turned its guns on Iraq’s Kurds, many of their leaders have softened their demands for outright, immediate independence. But they want the government in Baghdad to cede the disputed territories taken by them since the Iraqi army fled in the face of the IS onslaught. The Kurds also want a deal over oil and gas in their area. Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, a senior Shia member of parliament familiar with negotiations for a new government, says the “biggest demand” of Sunnis and Kurds is for “real participation in political and security decision-making—and this can be agreed on.” But Mr Abadi will have to hurry.

If the war against IS in Iraq can be won, the struggle in Syria could be more fraught. Even though it has less support there, it is well entrenched in parts of the country. Since January, groups of more moderate Sunni rebels in Syria have been fighting a desperate two-pronged war, against both Mr Assad’s forces and against IS. In recent days IS has advanced against the few bases still held by the regime in the east, taking four in as many weeks. Around Aleppo it has captured at least a dozen villages and is now besieging Marea, a nearby town long held by the moderate rebels, who are in increasing danger of being snuffed out.

Mr Assad has previously tended to leave IS alone, happy to let it hurt the more moderate rebels. But recently his air force has struck the group’s base in Raqqa. The Americans have so far decided that they cannot do likewise, deeming that they must not be seen to operate on the same side as the man whose overthrow they have repeatedly demanded.

But they may be persuaded to change their mind if the most influential governments in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and even Iran, were able in joint or parallel statements to endorse the bombing of IS in Syria—or at least to abstain from opposing it. So far the West has lacked a policy that spans national borders. Yet Mr Hof points out that “IS is a problem that transcends national boundaries and has to be approached as a problem that transcends nationalist boundaries.”

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-ea ... -much-more

[Anthea]

Iraq Business News

Potential Genocide at Amerli

The Associated Press has reported recently on the northern Iraqi town of Amerli where some 15,000 members of Iraq’s Shi’a Turkmen minority are cut off from food and water supplies and besieged on all sides by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters.

If ISIL are able to enter the town it is highly likely there would be mass killing of civilians, given the group’s stated aim of eradicating Shi’as, who they believe are “apostates”.

As such, townsfolk have armed themselves and Iraqi army armoured columns from the 9th division (pictured) are on their way to try and break the siege. Given that recent attempts by Iraqi units to recapture Tikrit have fared badly, it is uncertain whether an attempt to save Amerli would succeed.

Conditions inside the town are said to be terrible. Iraqi air force helicopter re-supplies are insufficient for the number of trapped and starvation is said to have taken hold.

The mayor of Amerli has appealed to the US government to intervene and save the town in a similar manner to the operation to save members of the Yazidi community.

http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2014/0 ... at-amrili/

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Islamic State militants pose 'biggest threat' to US

Islamic State militants are the most dangerous threat the US has faced in recent years, Washington has warned.

Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said US air strikes had helped to break the Islamist advance in Iraq, but the militants could be expected to regroup.

America's top general Martin Dempsey stressed that IS could not be defeated without attacking their base in Syria.

The warnings come after IS posted a video showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley.

The US has now begun a formal criminal investigation into Mr Foley's death, with US Attorney General Eric Holder warning that the country has a "long memory".

It has emerged that a special US military mission tried but failed earlier this summer to rescue Mr Foley and other US hostages held in Syria.

The militants had also reportedly wanted a $132m (£80m) ransom for his release.

'Apocalyptic vision'

Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Mr Hagel described IS as an imminent threat.

"They are beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess, they are tremendously well-funded... this is beyond anything that we have seen."

Meanwhile, Gen Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said IS was "an organisation that has an apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision and which will eventually have to be defeated".

"To your question, can they be defeated without addressing that part of their organisation which resides in Syria? The answer is no. That will have to be addressed on both sides of what is essentially at this point a non-existent border."

Neither Mr Hagel nor Gen Dempsey announced a change in the limited military campaign adopted by Barack Obama, and the US president is unlikely to deepen his involvement in Iraq or Syria, the BBC's Barbara Plett Usher in Washington reports.

But US officials did not rule out additional action against IS in Iraq or Syria, our correspondent adds.

Hunt for killer

In the UK, police and security services are trying to identify the jihadist who appeared in footage of Mr Foley's killing.

Unconfirmed reports suggest the man - who had an English accent - is from London or south-east England.

In the video of Mr Foley's murder, IS militants threatened to kill another American if the US did not stop its air strikes against the group in northern Iraq.

US air strikes have continued near Mosul despite the warning.

On Wednesday, President Obama vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

"We will be vigilant and we will be relentless," he said. "When people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what's necessary to see that justice is done."

Air strikes intensify

The US has been conducting air strikes across Iraq since 8 August, as part of a campaign against IS targets.

US aircraft destroyed or damaged four IS vehicles and several bomb placements in strikes near the strategic Mosul Dam in northern Iraq on Thursday, the military said.

There have been a total of 90 air strikes across Iraq since operations began, the Pentagon said.

Of those 90 strikes, 57 have been near the dam.

The US said Iraqi troops and Kurdish peshmerga fighters recaptured the dam with American assistance on Monday.

IS fighters have waged a violent campaign in Iraq and Syria, seizing large swathes of both countries.

The violence has displaced an estimated 1.2 million people in Iraq alone.

Link to Article & Videos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28891325

[Anthea]

Lord Dannatt: West must intervene

Lord Dannatt has suggested now is the time for Western intervention in Syria saying: "we should be supporting Kurdish Peshmerga to defeat IS fighters.".

The west should be supporting Kurdish Peshmerga to defeat Islamic State (IS) extremists, the former head of the Army has said.

Lord Dannatt believes Britain should join America in conducting airstrikes on militants from Islamic State (Formerly known as Isil).

In an interview this morning, he said: "The United States quite correctly identified that the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters on the ground need to be supported from the air, and they are doing that in carrying out airstrikes pretty effectively.

"It is for our government to decide whether we join them or not."

"My own hunch is that probably, sooner rather than later, because it is in our strategic interests to be shown to be a good ally of the United States," he continued.

Article & Video:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... Syria.html