ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

[Anthea]

Australia on gun run to combat terror in Iraq as PM answers Barack Obama’s SOS call
EXCLUSIVE Samantha MaidenNational Political Editor Sunday Herald Sun

AUSTRALIAN aircraft have participated in a joint-humanitarian aid drop for the beleaguered Iraqi city of Amirli after a commitment to drop arms and munitions for Kurdish fighters battling Islamic state terrorists.

The Pentagon says aircraft from Australia, France and Britain joined the US in the aid

drop of Amirli, where thousands of Shiite Turkomen have been cut off from food and

water for nearly two months by Islamic State militants, AP reports.

The call for aid came at the request of the Iraqi government.

The US military conducted air strikes against Islamic State militants in order to support the aid delivery.

Australia had earlier committed to flying plane loads of arms and munitions into Iraq to help Kurdish fighters battling to repel Islamic State terrorists.

The Prime Minister Tony Abbott will announce today that Australia has agreed to a United States request to airlift support on RAAF C-130J Hercules and C-17A Globemaster aircraft into northern Iraq.

The aircraft, based at the Al Minhad Air Base in Dubai, could fly their first mission within days to help arm Iraqis against jihadists.

Australia will join a multinational effort that includes the United Kingdom, Albania, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Italy and France.

The United States may also ask Australia to consider deploying RAAF super hornets to support US air strikes as early as this week at NATO talks in Wales. Any request by the US secretary of state John Kerry, who is scheduled to hold talks with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, will be considered by Australia’s National Security Committee.

The decision to airlift support to the Kurds was made at NSC a week ago and work has continued since to prepare for the mission.

The escalation of Australia’s involvement in the conflict comes amid Britain’s decision to increase the official terror threat to “severe’’ amid fears foreign fighters returning from the region are plotting terrorist attacks. Australia’s level remains at “medium’’ but may be increased in coming months.

The Prime Minister described the dangers in the region as a “witches brew of complexity and danger’’ on Friday confirming Australia was talking to the United States about further assistance. Last night, Labor leader Bill Shorten was briefed by the government on the plan to airlift assistance to the Iraqis.

Confirmation of Australia’s involvement in the mission to deliver “urgently needed’’ arms to the Iraqis follows the release of another decapitation video featuring the beheading of a captured Kurdish fighter.

The video warns Iraqi Kurdish leaders to end military cooperation with the United States.

Titled “A message in blood to the leaders of the American-Kurdish alliance” warns Islamic State will continue to decapitate prisoners if the cooperation continues.

Australia will not supply arms to the Iraqis but will assist in flying military equipment supplied by other countries into the region.

Albania has committed to sending up to 22 million AK47 rifle rounds and 32,000 artillery shells. Italy has agreed to send light automatic weapons and Soviet Union weapons seized during the Balkan wars.

US defence secretary Chuck Hagel urged other nations to join the mission last week, predicting more countries would announce assistance.

“This multinational effort, which is being coordinated with the Government of Iraq in Baghdad, will greatly assist Kurdish forces in repelling the brutal terrorist threat they face from ISIL,’’ he said.

“The United States appreciates the willingness of more and more of our allies and partners to support the Iraqi people in their fight against ISIL. Operations have already begun and will accelerate in the coming days with more nations also expected to contribute.’’

On Friday night, Britain upgraded the official terror alert from ‘Substantial’ to ‘Severe’ but said it was not based on any intelligence suggesting an attack was imminent.

Attorney General George Brandis confirmed Australia’s own alert remained unchanged at “medium’’. However, intelligence agencies believe the threat is at the higher end of medium and the threat level may be increased in coming months.

Senator Brandis said Britain’s decision underlined the growing threat of returning jihadists. Intelligence agencies believe 60 Australians are engaged in fighting in Syria and Iraq, with up to 100 Australians involved in recruiting foreign fighters and suicide bombers at home. Two Australian men including Melbourne teenager Adam Dahman have blown themselves up in Iraq last year.

“We remain in close contact with the United Kingdom and other partners about the threat from terrorist groups active in Syria and Iraq and from returning foreign fighters,’’ Senator Brandis said.

“The large number of Australians participating in the conflict means Australia is facing its highest threat for some time, Australia’s threat level would be increased to ‘High’ if it were deemed that a terrorist attack is likely to occur. The Government is taking all necessary steps to keep Australia and Australian interests safe.”

The Australian Human Rights Commission also backed new laws to tackle terror threat yesterday, subject to adoption of human rights safeguards.

“Strong national security is essential to protect the personal security and rights of all Australians, but there are limits to the reach of national security laws when they unjustifiably restrict individual rights and freedoms” said Commission President, Gillian Triggs.

The Commission said that the potential impact of the laws on journalists, provisions enabling warrants for 12 months access to computers, computer networks and premises remained a concern.

Blanket immunity to ASIO officers from Australian law in conducting surveillance activities with inadequate, independent oversight also needed to be the subject of greater safeguards.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/n ... 9325c8e8af

[Anthea]

I B Times

ISIS Release Video Showing Children Brandishing Arms at 'Juniior Jihadis' Training Camp
Priya Joshi

Terror group ISIS have released a video showing children as young as ten at a training camp for "junior jihadi's."

The video shows the youngsters brandishing military weapons and firing machine guns while masked in balaclavas.

Children look on as a small child struggles to control an automatic weapon, as he fires it.

Another boy is seen expertly assembling a weapon, while children watch in the background.

It also shows the young children taking an oath pledging an allegiance to the Islamic State.

A small child is asked on camera what he would like to say to infidels.

He replies: "Infidels... you are to be killed."

It is thought the video is aimed at recruiting more children and young people to the militant group, who in recent months have taken over swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq as their murderous onslaught continues.

A boy, who managed to flee from one of the training camps, told CNN how ISIS tried to recruit him when he was 13 issuing threats to behead his father if he attempted to intervene.

The boy revealed he was forced to attend the camp, where he joined other children for exercise, studied about the Quran and took courses on weapons. He revealed that the children were often forced to watch gruesome videos of beheadings and torture.

"When we go to the mosque, they order us to come the next day at a specific time and place to [watch] heads cut off, lashings or stonings.

"We saw a young man who did not fast for Ramadan, so they crucified him for three days, and we saw a woman being stoned [to death] because she committed adultery."

The boy managed to escape the camp after his father pulled him out. He and his family then fled to safety in Turkey.

The Islamic State also released a decapitation video yesterday in which they threatened America with more beheadings of hostages.

Just hours earlier Islamic State had released shocking footage of the mass execution of 300 Syrian national army soldiers in the Syrian Desert titled '2ndAmessagetoAmerica.'

The group's first warning ten days ago was entitled 'A Message to America' and showed the decapitation of American journalist James Foley.

The video comes after David Cameron announced yesterday that more armed police will patrol Britain's streets to counter the threat posed by fanatics returning from Iraq and Syria.

He warned that the return of hundreds of extremists from Iraq to the UK, posed a greater threat to British security than Al Qaeda or the IRA ever did.

His comments came as Theresa May announced the official terror threat level had been raised to 'severe' – the second-highest state – for the first time in three years.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/iraq-isis-rele ... mp-1463300

[Anthea]

Video that goes with previous article:

phpBB [video]

What they are doing to these children is far worse than fighters killing other fighters - or an adult killing someone

[Anthea]

Reuters

U.S. planes strike militants near Iraq's Amreli, airdrop aid
By Raheem Salman and Matt Spetalnick

The United States carried out air strikes on Saturday against Islamic State fighters near the besieged Shi'ite town of Amerli in northern Iraq and air-dropped humanitarian aid to civilians trapped there, the Pentagon said.

President Barack Obama authorized the new military action, broadening U.S. operations in Iraq amid an international outcry over the threat to Amerli's mostly ethnic Turkmen population.

U.S. aircraft delivered over a hundred bundles of emergency supplies and more aid was dropped from British, French and Australian planes, officials said, signaling headway in Obama’s efforts to draw allies into the fight against Islamic State.

Iraqi army and Kurdish forces closed in on Islamic State fighters on Saturday in a push to break the Sunni militants' siege of Amerli, which has been surrounded by the militants for more than two months.

Armed residents of Amerli have managed to fend off attacks by Islamic State fighters, who regard the town's majority Shi'ite Turkmen population as apostates. More than 15,000 people remain trapped inside.

"At the request of the government of Iraq, the United States military today airdropped humanitarian aid to the town of Amerli, home to thousands of Shia Turkmen who have been cut off from receiving food, water, and medical supplies for two months by ISIL,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said, using an alternative name for Islamic State.

"In conjunction with this airdrop, U.S. aircraft conducted coordinated air strikes against nearby ISIL terrorists in order to support this humanitarian assistance operation," he said, adding that a key objective was to prevent a militant attack on civilians in the town.

He said the operations would be "limited in their scope and duration" in order to protect Amerli’s population.

Warplanes hit three Humvee patrol vehicles, a tank and an armed vehicle held by militants in addition to a checkpoint controlled by the group, according to the military's Central Command, which runs U.S. operations in the Middle East. "All aircraft safely exited the area," it said in a statement.

When Obama ordered the first air strikes and air drops in Iraq earlier this month, he justified the military operation in part to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe for thousands of ethnic Yazidis trapped by Islamic State militants on Sinjar mountain in northern Iraq.

In mid-August, he declared that the militant siege there had been broken.

IRAQI-KURDISH ADVANCE

Earlier on Saturday, two officers said Iraqi troops, militia and Kurdish peshmerga were advancing on Amerli from four directions.

A major in the Iraqi army, who was advancing north towards Amerli from Udhaim, said progress was slow because the militants had mined the roads. He said they were around 15 km (9 miles) from the town, while those approaching from the north were just 3 km away.

The major said he had counted the corpses of more than 40 militants killed in Iraqi air strikes on the road between Udhaim and the village of Injana.

Also on Saturday, the Pentagon said U.S. warplanes and armed drones had carried out five air strikes on Islamic State fighters near Iraq's largest dam, the latest in a series of attacks in support of Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

The strikes destroyed an Islamic State armed vehicle, a fighting position and weapons, and damaged a building near Mosul Dam, the Pentagon said. Backed by U.S. air power, Kurdish forces recaptured the strategic facility nearly two weeks ago.

Separately on Saturday, a suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives killed at least 11 people at a checkpoint in the town of Yusifiya, 15 km (9 miles) south of Baghdad, a police officer said.

Islamic State militants overran most of Sunni Arab areas of Iraq after seizing the northern city of Mosul on June 10, and have proclaimed a caliphate straddling the border with Syria, where they also control vast swaths of territory.

The lightning offensive brought the militants within range of the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region earlier this month, prompting air strikes by the United States.

The Kurds have since been slowly regaining ground from the militants and on Saturday advanced on the northern town of Zumar.

Peshmerga spokesman Halgurd Hikmat said control over Zumar would help the Kurds retake Rabia and Sinjar, two other areas seized by Islamic State.

Violence in Iraq this year has reached levels unseen since 2006-2007, when the country was in the throes of civil war.

(Additional reporting by Isabel Coles in Baghdad; Writing by Matt Spetalnick and Isabel Coles; Editing by Andrew Roche, Toni Reinhold, Paul Tait and Simon Cameron-Moore)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/ ... G920140831

[Anthea]

Rudaw

Kurdish Forces Kill IS Leader, Capture Dozens of Militants

KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish forces killed a prominent Islamic State (IS) leader and captured 36 militants near Sulaiman Beg on Sunday, said Rudaw reporter.

“Abu Taiba has been killed and 36 other militants were captured by Peshmerga forces in Sulaiman Beg,” said Hiwa Hussamaddin, Rudaw correspondent from the frontline.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces have been fighting Islamist militants at Sulaiman Beg, 80 kilometers east of Tikrit, for the past two days.

“Peshmerga and Iraqi forces supported by the US airpower have been pounding Sulaiman Beg for the last 22 hours and according to the information Peshmerga forces gave to me, there has been lots of casualties in the ranks of the IS militants and many have been killed,” said Hussamaddin.

Iraqi and US fighter jets struck IS positions near the town and Peshmerga forces shelled the area with artillery.

Iraqi, Kurdish and IS forces have fought hard for the control of Sulaiman Beg, a strategic town on the main highway that connects Baghdad with the north of the country.

According to Rudaw correspondent, the IS militants said through loudspeakers that they want to surrender themselves to Peshmerga forces.

http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/310820143

[Anthea]

Bloomberg

Kurd Rebels Fighting Islamic State Boost Hand for Turkey Talks
By Selcan Hacaoglu

After fighting the Turkish army for decades, the Kurdistan Workers Party is now confronting a foe that’s shared by its erstwhile enemy, strengthening the group’s hand in talks on a political settlement.

Fighters linked to the PKK, as the group is known, are battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to Turkish and Kurdish officials and media. The PKK, branded a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and European Union, is also in talks with the Ankara government to end a 30-year armed struggle for autonomy.

Moves toward Kurdish self-rule elsewhere in the Middle East have accelerated during the crisis spurred by the Islamic State advance. The Kurds who rule a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, are receiving U.S. and European weapons to aid their fight against the militants. Syrian Kurdish groups linked to the PKK have also joined the battle, and were credited with helping to rescue ethnic Yezidis driven from their homes by Islamic State and facing slaughter.

The PKK’s role may help it win “legitimacy in the international arena, which would make it demand more” in the peace talks with Turkey, Nihat Ali Ozcan, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara, said by phone.

On the other side of those talks, a Turkish government that faces its own threat from Islamic State may also be more willing to consider concessions to the Kurds. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to pursue the Kurdish peace process “more determinedly” when he took over as head of state last week after 11 years as prime minister.

‘Menacing Force’

Turkey’s 560-mile (900-kilometer) border with Syria provides the major route for foreign fighters joining the civil war there. Until recently, Turkish policy has focused on supporting rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. With the emergence of Islamic State as the strongest of those groups, the calculus may be changing.

Islamic State “has the resources and arguably the appetite to launch large-scale bomb attacks” in Turkey, said Anthony Skinner, head of analysis at Maplecroft, a U.K.-based global risk forecasting company, said in an e-mail on Aug. 26.

That threat “increases the incentive for a peace deal with the Kurds,” he said. “At no other point has Turkey needed a strong Kurdish buffer against this menacing force as now.”

Turkey has shut down three crossings with Syria after Islamist militants seized pockets of land across from customs points and border towns.

‘Directly Threatened’

As the Kurds fight Islamic State and the U.S. seeks to build a broader coalition against it, Turkey is unlikely to join the fight directly. It’s constrained because Islamic State forces in June abducted 49 people at the Turkish consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, as well as by its opposition to any action that may bolster Assad’s rule, Ozcan said.

“Turkey is the only NATO country that is directly threatened by,” Islamic State, Oytun Orhan, an analyst at the Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies, said in an interview. Many Islamic State “targets fall within range of Turkish guns on the border, but Turkey’s hands are tied due to the hostage crisis. The PKK, meanwhile, sees its hand strengthened.”

Kurds, the largest ethnic group in the Middle East without their own state, already control energy-rich northern Iraq and have declared self-rule in northeast Syria since civil war broke out in 2011, fueling the aspirations for autonomy of their ethnic cousins in Turkey.

PKK ‘Savior’

After the deaths of tens of thousands in the conflict since 1984, Turkey has recently enjoyed a lull. Turkey spent an average 3.9 percent of gross domestic product on the military in the 1990s when the war with the PKK was at its height, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. That dropped to 2.3 percent of GDP last year.

Erdogan has already taken steps to meet some Kurdish demands, easing decades-old curbs on use of the language, as well as starting a once-taboo dialogue with the PKK.

Kurds are calling on the government to go further by recognizing ethnic Kurdish identity in a new constitution, freeing imprisoned rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan, allowing full Kurdish-language education in schools, and expanding powers for local authorities.

As Kurdish families in Turkey mourn sons who died battling Islamic State, Kurdish politician Muslum Tank says they are “fighting for regional peace.” Tank is regional head of the People’s Democracy Party, which has links with the PKK, in the Mediterranean port of Mersin. He said three Kurds from the city were killed in Syria last month.

“People in the region have started to see the PKK as their savior,” Tank said by phone on Aug. 28. The PKK’s designation as terrorists is already coming under renewed scrutiny, he said. “Inevitably, it will encourage the PKK to press for essential demands of the Kurdish people from the Turkish government, including autonomy.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at shacaoglu@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net Ben Holland

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-3 ... talks.html

[Anthea]

Turkey’s 560-mile (900-kilometer) border with Syria provides the major route for foreign fighters joining the civil war there. Until recently, Turkish policy has focused on supporting rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. With the emergence of Islamic State as the strongest of those groups, the calculus may be changing

Facts:

As the article states Turkey was supporting the rebel groups

Without Turkey's help the Islamic State would not have had either the man-power or the armament that enabled it to grow

Erdogan is a Sunni Muslim

Erdogan has changed Turkey from a secular country into an Islamic country

Erdogan will increase the Presidential powers and make himself similar to the Supreme ruler of Iran

Erdogan was happy to support the overthrow of the Syrian government by ethnic minorities

While suppressing the enormous Kurdish population in Turkey

Should we trust Turkey?

NO

[Anthea]

Reuters

Islamists in Iraq driving large-scale atrocities - U.N.
By Stephanie Nebehay

Islamist fighters have carried out atrocities on "an unimaginable scale" in months of fighting with Iraqi forces, who have also killed detainees and shelled civilian areas, a U.N. official said on Monday.

There is "strong evidence" Islamic State and allied groups have carried out targeted killings, forced conversions, sexual abuse and torture in Iraq, U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri said, opening an emergency debate on the conflict in Geneva.

Iraq's human rights minister, Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani, told the session that Islamic State militants, "oozing with barbarity", threatened his country and the world, but did not immediately respond to allegations against state troops.

Islamic State has grabbed large areas of Iraq and neighbouring Syria, declaring a cross-border caliphate and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. At least 1,420 people were killed in Iraq in August alone, U.N. figures showed on Monday.

The one-day U.N. Human Rights Council session, called by Iraq with the support of allies including the United States, is expected to agree to Baghdad's request to send a team of U.N. experts to investigate crimes committed in the conflict.

"The reports we have received reveal acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale," Pansieri told the Council, on its first meeting about the latest surge in violence. She later told Reuters she was referring to Islamic State.

Iraqi government forces, police and allied militia had also committed acts that may amount to war crimes, she said.

"TRANS-NATIONAL PHENOMENON"

Human Rights Watch said on Monday it had "credible evidence" including photographs that Islamic State forces had used ground-fired cluster munitions in northern Syria - the first known use of cluster munitions by the militants, although the New York-based watchdog says government forces have used them since 2012.

Pansieri said she was particularly worried about the persecution of Christians, Yazidis, Shia, Turkmen and other ethnic groups by Islamic State forces that have swept through western and northern Iraq.

Such "ethnic and religious cleansing" may amount to crimes against humanity, she said.

Children belonging to targeted minorities have been forcibly recruited and positioned on front lines to shield its fighters or made to donate blood, she said. Women are beaten for breaking rules requiring them to be veiled and escorted by men.

Iraqi police have also executed detainees in Tal Afar and government-allied militias opened fire on a mosque in Khanaqin district northeast of Baghdad killing 73 men and boys, she said.

Iraqi soldiers have shelled towns and carried out air strikes near Kirkuk, Falluja, and Salahuddin, killing and injuring many dozens of civilians, she added.

Iraq's minister al-Sudani told the session Islamic State was threatening the makeup of his country.

"The land of ancient Babylon is subjected to threats starting to its very independence, they are attempting to change its demographic and cultural composition," he said in Arabic.

Islamic State was not just a problem for his country, he added. "It is a trans-national phenomenon that poses an imminent danger to all countries of the world, it defies all human rights principles and international law."

"BURNED ALIVE, BEHEADED"

The U.S. ambassador to the rights forum, Keith Harper, urged Iraq's Prime Minister designate Haider al-Abadi to set up a multi-ethnic government that would investigate all allegations against government forces and "terrorist groups".

"The stories that have emerged from ISIL's (Islamic State's) bloody assault on Iraq are the ones of nightmares. Christians and others have been driven from their homes with the threat of 'convert or die'," Harper said.

"The Yazidis have been buried alive, beheaded or killed in mass executions," he said.

Western and Gulf countries denounced Islamic State abuses. "This organisation has nothing to do with Islam, even if they carry the name," said Kuwait's ambassador Jamal Al-Ghunaim.

But Russia and its ally Syria blamed Western and Arab states for allowing the Sunni extremists to thrive in the region. (very true and all that was achieved was Assad receiving even greater support from the Syrian people)

Russia had supplied arms to counter Islamic State in Iraq, including Sukhoi 25 strike aircraft, ambassador Alexey Borodavkin said.

"ISIL acquired a huge potential: it now controls colossal financial resources that it has seized, is pursuing illegal oil trade and has a considerable arsenal of modern weaponry. All this could have been avoided if the international community had taken measures at the time to remove this cancer at an early stage of its formation," he said.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva and Alexander Dziadosz in Beirut; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/0 ... RK20140901

[Anthea]

Very true - the Islamic State are performing atrocities on "an unimaginable scale"

I have to wonder why did not the UN intercede when the Shiite government in Baghdad were overseeing atrocities meted out on the Sunni population?

It was those very atrocities that have given rise to the welcome Islamic State have received by the Sunni population of Iraq

Estimates around 70-80% of Sunnis welcome the Islamic State into Iraq

Another problem is Turkey - now that it is no longer a secular country but a Sunni Islamic country - how much is it helping or turning a blind eye to the activities of the Islamic State - most of the initial supplies and fighters went through Turkey to reach the FSA and IS

Also - Turkey is a fast growing holiday destination - how will countries such as England ever be able to tell the holiday makers from would be IS fighters?

I think that the UN and America should keep a close watch on Turkey and especially on Erdogan

[Anthea]

Sky News

Iraq Warns Of 'Imminent Danger' Of IS Militants

Miltants from Islamic State pose a threat to every country in the world, Iraq was warned the United Nations.

The jihadist group - previously known as ISIS - has committed barbaric acts against civilians and threatens to break up Iraq in its aim of establishing a caliphate across a large swathe of the Middle East, Iraq's human rights minister told an emergency debate at the UN Human Rights Council.

The debate took place as Human Rights Watch (HRW) released evidence of Islamic State (IS) fighters using widely-banned cluster munitions in Syria - where they are already in common use by President Bashar al Assad's forces.

(cluster munitions as every other type of armement had to travel across a border into Syria - question is which border - perhaps like so many other supplies the bombs went via Turkey?)

Mohammed Shia al Sudani said: "The land of ancient Babylon is subjected to threats starting with its very independence, they are attempting to change its demographic and cultural composition.

"ISIS is not an Iraqi phenomenon, it is a transnational phenomenon that poses an imminent danger to all countries of the world, it defies all human rights principles and international law."

Iraq's appeal came after the first Islamic State suicide bomber captured in Iraq spoke to Sky News, warning that jihadists from around the world, including Britain, are flooding into Iraq and Syria to join the extremist cause.

Senior UN officials said there was evidence that both IS and Iraqi government forces have killed civilians and committed atrocities in three months of fighting.

UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri said there was "strong evidence" that IS fighters and linked groups had carried out targeted killings, forced conversions, abductions, sexual abuse and torture.

She also said Iraqi police have executed detainees, while Iraqi soldiers have shelled towns and carried out airstrikes, killing and injuring many civilians.

Ms Pansieri voiced deep concern at the persecution of Christians, Yazidis, Shia, Turkmen and other ethnic groups by IS forces that have swept through western and northern Iraq since June, driving 1.2 million Iraqis from their homes.

She said: "The reports we have received reveal acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale."

Violence in Iraq killed at least 1,420 people in August, with more than 1,370 injured during the month, the UN's Iraq mission said.

The one-day session in Geneva was called by Iraq with the support of allies including the United States.

The 47-member state forum is expected to agree to Baghdad's request to send a team of UN experts to investigate crimes committed by IS and others in the conflict.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Kurdish forces and Shia militiamen retook Sulaiman Bek from IS on Monday - regaining a key stronghold held by the extremists for more than 11 weeks.

Fighting to retake the village of Yankaja, also located in Salaheddin province, northeast of Baghdad, was ongoing, the official responsible for the nearby Tuz Khurmatu area said.

In Amerli, where Iraqi security forces, Kurdish fighters and Shia militiamen broke an 11-week siege over the weekend, outgoing PM Nouri al Maliki vowed that Iraq would be "a graveyard" for IS.

A clean-up was also under way in Ramadi - 70 miles (115km) west of Baghdad - after a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-packed car into a police checkpoint, killing at least 14 people.

In Syria, New York-based group HRW said reports from local Kurdish officials and photographic evidence suggested IS had used cluster bombs on July 12 and August 14.

They were deployed in fighting around the town of Ayn al Arab in Aleppo province, near the border with Turkey, in clashes between the jihadist group and Kurdish fighters.

The group said it was believed to be the first time IS had used cluster bombs, but it was unclear how it had acquired them.

Cluster munitions contain dozens or hundreds of small bomblets and can be fired in rockets or dropped from the air.

They spread explosives over large areas and are indiscriminate in nature, often continuing to maim and kill long after the initial attack when previously unexploded bomblets detonate.

http://news.sky.com/story/1328162/iraq- ... -militants

[Anthea]

UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri said there was "strong evidence" that IS fighters and linked groups had carried out targeted killings, forced conversions, abductions, sexual abuse and torture.

She also said Iraqi police have executed detainees, while Iraqi soldiers have shelled towns and carried out airstrikes, killing and injuring many civilians.

Which group of murdering scum-bags is the world supposed to support ?

I say NEITHER

because over the years both the Shiite and the Sunni in Iraq have proved to be as bad as each other

Support the Kurds and give them an Independent Kurdistan

Divide Iraq and separate the Sunni and Shiite forever otherwise within a short time - whichever side wins the current conflict will inevitably take it's revenge on the losing side - the history of past conflicts between the 2 warring factions shows this to be so

2 choices really - separate the Sunni and Shiite or allow them to kill each other

Whatever the world decides to do - it must not support either the Sunni against the Shiite - or the Shiite against the Sunni

[Anthea]

The Washington Post

Fareed Zakaria: A second Sunni Awakening?

What are the strengths of the Islamic State? I posed this question to two deeply knowledgeable observers — a European diplomat and an American former official — and the picture they painted is worrying, although not hopeless. Defeating the group would require a large and sustained strategic effort from the Obama administration, but it could be done without significant numbers of U.S. ground troops.

The European diplomat, stationed in the Middle East, travels in and out of Syria and has access to regime and opposition forces. (Both sources agreed to speak only if their identities were not revealed.) He agrees with the consensus that the Islamic State has gained considerable economic and military strength in recent months. He estimates that it is making $1 million a day each in Syria and Iraq by selling oil and gas, although U.S. experts believe this number is too high in Iraq.

The Islamic State’s military strategy is brutal but also smart. The group’s annual reports — it has issued them since 2012 — detail its military methods and successes to try to impress its backers. The videos posted online of executions are barbaric but also strategic. They are designed to sow terror in the minds of opponents who, when facing Islamic State fighters on the battlefield, now reportedly flee rather than fight.

But the most dangerous aspect of the Islamic State, this diplomat believes, is its ideological appeal. It has recruited marginalized, disaffected Sunni youths in Syria and Iraq who believe they are being ruled by apostate regimes. This appeal to Sunni pride has worked largely because of the sectarian policies of the Baghdad and Damascus governments. But the Islamic State has also grown because of the larger collapse of moderate, secular and even Islamist institutions and groups — such as the Muslim Brotherhood — throughout the Middle East.

How to handle this challenge? The American, a former senior administration figure, counsels against pessimism. The Islamic State “is not nearly as strong as al-Qaeda in Iraq was in its heyday,” he noted, playing down recent reports that the militant forces contain within them fearsome elements of Saddam Hussein’s disbanded army. “We fought that army. It was not very impressive,” he noted. The Islamic State could be defeated, he said, but it would take a comprehensive and sustained strategy, much like the one that undergirded the surge in Iraq.

“The first task is political,” he said, supporting the Obama administration’s efforts to press the Iraqi government to become more inclusive. “We have more leverage now than at any time in recent years, and the administration is using it.” If this continues, the next step would be to create the most powerful and effective ground force that could take on the Islamic State — which would not be the Free Syrian Army but rather a reconstituted Iraqi army. Built, trained and equipped by the United States, “it’s actually got some very effective units. Iraqi special forces were trained in Jordan and are extremely impressive,” the American said, pointing out that it was those forces that recaptured the Mosul dam recently. It has underperformed because then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had transformed it in the past three years into a sectarian and loyalist force.

The reconstitution of Iraqi army units will require the firing of the Shiite commanders that Maliki appointed. This again mirrors the surge, during which 70 percent of Iraq’s battalion commanders were replaced to create a more inclusive and effective fighting force.

Once the Iraqi army is fighting again, the American said, it should employ the “oil spots” strategy of the surge, clearing and holding areas. But the key to that would be winning the trust of the local Sunni populations. That same approach could be used in Syria, with the Free Syrian Army using money and providing security to win over locals who oppose Assad but now ally with the Islamic State out of fear rather than conviction.

The two observers agreed on one central danger. The temptation to gain immediate military victories over the Islamic State could mean that the United States would end up tacitly partnering with the Assad regime in Syria. This would produce a short-term military gain but a long-term political disaster. “It would feed the idea that the Sunnis are embattled, that a Crusader Christian-Shiite alliance is persecuting them and that all Sunnis must resist this alien invasion,” the European diplomat said. “The key is that Sunnis must be in the lead against IS. They must be in front of the battlefield.”

The strategy that could work against the Islamic State is nothing less than a second Sunni Awakening. It’s a huge challenge but appears to be the only option with a plausible chance of success.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

[Anthea]

Rudaw

IS Militants Reportedly Run Down, Gathered South of Kirkuk

phpBB [video]

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Islamic State 'kills US hostage'

An Islamic State video has appeared which purports to show the beheading of Steven Sotloff, a US journalist being held hostage by the militants.

Mr Sotloff, 31, disappeared in Syria in 2013. He appeared at the end of a video last month which showed fellow US journalist James Foley being killed.



A militant in the latest video also threatens to kill a British hostage.

Mr Sotloff's family said they were aware of the video and were "grieving privately".

After Mr Foley's death, Mr Sotloff's mother appealed to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to save her son's life.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said US officials were checking the reports.

The US has recently carried out dozens of air strikes against IS targets in Iraq.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the apparent beheading is a way for IS to get back at the US for its actions.

'Arrogant policy'

The video, entitled "A second message to America", shows a masked figure together with Mr Sotloff, who is dressed in an orange jumpsuit.

Mr Sotloff reads out a text addressed to Mr Obama saying: "You've spent billions of US taxpayers' dollars and we have lost thousands of our troops in our previous fighting against the Islamic State, so where is the people's interest in reigniting this war?"

The masked man then describes the act he is about to commit as retribution for the US air strikes.

"I'm back, Obama, and I'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State... despite our serious warnings," the man says.

"We take this opportunity to warn those governments that enter this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State to back off and leave our people alone."

The video ends with the militant threatening to kill a captive who is claimed to be British.

US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: "If the video is genuine, we are sickened by this brutal act."

Mr Earnest urged caution about the veracity of the video.

"Our thoughts and prayers, first and foremost, are with Mr Sotloff and Mr Sotloff's family and those who worked with him," he said.

"I'm not in a position to confirm the authenticity of that video or the reports.

"If there is a video that's been released, it's something that will be analysed very carefully by the US government and our intelligence officials to establish its authenticity."

UK Prime Minister David Cameron described the apparent beheading as an "absolutely disgusting, despicable act".

'Unbiased observer'

A friend of Mr Sotloff, US film maker Matthew Van Dyke, told the BBC: "He was a complete professional and there was no reason for this to happen to him.

"He was an unbiased, impartial observer to the events, to tell the world about it and now he's paid for it with his life."

Mr Sotloff was abducted near Aleppo in northern Syria in August 2013.

He had worked for Time magazine, Foreign Policy and the Christian Science Monitor, and reported from Egypt, Libya and Syria.

Friends said he had lived in Yemen for many years and spoke good Arabic.

At the time of his capture, his family chose not to go public with details, on the advice of officials.

Last month a video was released showing the beheading of Mr Foley.

Mr Sotloff was shown at the end, as a militant gave a warning that his fate depended on President Obama's next move.

The US launched has launched more than 120 air strikes in Iraq in the last month, in an attempt to help Kurdish forces curb the advance of Islamic State militants and protect minorities threatened by them.

Link to Article and video (not THAT video)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29038217

[Piling]

There is a general movement in networks to boycott the publishing of ISIS executions. That's what they wish we do. So please don't post it there.

Moreover, there is something that surprises me : why hostages accept to read ISIS statement ? they know that they will be executed just after it is not even to save their life. I wonder why they don't say something like 'fuck off Al Baghdadi… ' or 'I shit on your caliph'…