ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

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CNN

ISIS appears to execute British aid worker David Haines
By Greg Botelho, Michael Pearson and Phillip Taylor

British aid worker David Haines appears to have been executed by ISIS militants, according to a video posted Saturday to a website associated with the group, making him the third Western captive to be killed by the Islamist extremist group in recent weeks.

The ISIS video post showing Haines' apparent beheading called his execution "a message to the allies of America."

It is produced very similarly to the videos that showed the executions of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, the last of which included Haines and the threat that he'd be killed next.

The new video pictures a masked ISIS militant placing his hand on another captive, whom he identified as Alan Henning, a British citizen.

When contacted by CNN, the British Foreign Office said that it was analyzing the video.

News of the apparent gruesome killing came the same day that Haines' family released a brief message to his captors through the British Foreign Office.

In it, the family says, "We have sent messages to you to which we have not received a reply. We are asking those holding David to make contact with us."

A logistics and security manager for the Paris-based Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development, a nongovernmental humanitarian agency, the 44-year-old Haines was abducted in March 2013 near a refugee camp in Atmeh, Syria.

At that time, Haines was working to arrange for the delivery of humanitarian aid to people staying at the camp. He had previously worked on aid operations for victims of conflict in the Balkans, African and other parts of the Middle East, according to an ACTED spokesman.

British hostage of ISIS was helping displaced Syrians, aid group says

Haines' face became known to the world in the ISIS video, released September 2, in which he looks forward and kneels as a masked ISIS militant stands behind him.

The militant says in that video, "We take this opportunity to warn those governments who've entered this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State to back off and leave our people alone."

British officials said after the video's release that they had sent troops to try to rescue an unidentified British citizen "some time ago," but failed. They released no other details.

ISIS, which also calls itself the Islamic State, has killed thousands in Syria and Iraq as it presses a military campaign to establish itself as an Islamic caliphate. Witnesses report mass killings, beheadings and crucifixions.

The United States has been using airstrikes to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces battling ISIS, and is working to build a coalition to broaden the effort against ISIS. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was in Egypt Saturday seeking that country's help in the fight.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/13/world ... y-message/

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Reuters

Iraq PM says he will protect civilians after U.S.-Iraq air strikes against IS
By Oliver Holmes and Jason Szep

Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Saturday that he had ordered his air force to halt strikes on civilian areas, following attacks by both Iraqi and U.S. jets in large areas of the country held by Islamic State fighters.

The announcement, which comes as the United States tries to build regional support for deeper military action against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, may be aimed at winning Sunni Muslim support for Abadi's new Shi'ite-led government as it battles the group which controls one third of Iraqi territory.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been touring the Middle East to coordinate a response to Islamic State's growing power in eastern Syria and western Iraq. In Cairo on Saturday, he said Egypt has a critical role to play in countering the group's hardline Sunni Islamist ideology.

Abadi said his order to protect civilians had been issued on Thursday, a day after he held talks with Kerry in Baghdad.

Sunni Muslim tribal figures, who the U.S. hopes can be persuaded to turn against the jihadists, have demanded a freeze on military action on civilian areas as one of the conditions for their support of the Shi'ite-led government.

But residents in two Sunni areas of Iraq said there had been indiscriminate air strikes during the past two days.

"I have ordered the Iraqi Air Force to halt shelling of civilian areas even in those towns controlled by ISIS," Abadi said on his official Twitter account, using the former name for militant group Islamic State.

Herak, a Sunni opposition grouping which has led anti-government protests and has ties to armed Sunni groups, said they "positively welcomed" Abadi's comments, a rare break in their usually dissenting rhetoric.

The United Nation's representative in Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, welcomed the comments, which were repeated by Abadi at a conference about refugees on Saturday in Baghdad.

"Protection of civilians and ensuring their safety and security is a paramount priority for the United Nations," Mladenov said.

Islamic State took the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Tikrit in June and has announced an Islamic Caliphate in areas it controls.

Its fighters have shocked the world with killings of Sunnis, Shi'ites, Christians, Yazidis and Kurds. Western governments and Islamic countries fear their citizens who fight for Islamic State could threaten national security if they return.

CAIRO CALLS FOR GLOBAL ACTION

President Barack Obama plans to strike both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi frontier to defeat Islamic State Sunni fighters and build an international coalition for a potentially complex military campaign in the heart of the Middle East.

Egyptian security officials, in particular, have expressed concerns that Egyptian militants based across the border in chaotic post-Gaddafi Libya who are inspired by Islamic State are plotting against the Cairo government.

Egypt's foreign minister Sameh Shukri said on Saturday during a press conference with Kerry that ties existed between Islamic State and other militants in the region and that global action was needed to counter the threat.

"Ultimately this extremist ideology is shared by all terrorist groups. We detect ties of cooperation between them and see a danger as it crosses borders," said Shukri.

Egypt's call for international action could bolster Kerry's bid to gather regional support for action in Syria and Iraq.

But Iraq's powerful neighbour Iran -- which Kerry said will not join talks in Paris on Monday about confronting Islamic State -- accused the United States of trying to monopolise the international campaign and blamed Washington for fostering an environment which had allowed the group to flourish.

"In taking a big jump ahead of international bodies, America seeks to emerge as a Hollywood-style hero battling a crisis of its own making," Admiral Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, was quoted as saying.

"America's actions (in coalition-building) are aimed at distracting world public opinion from the central role it played in arming and training terrorist groups to topple the legal Syrian government," state news agency IRNA quoted him as saying.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Friday 64 percent of Americans in a online survey said they backed Obama's campaign. Twenty-one percent were opposed and 16 percent said they did not know.

Pope Francis said on Saturday the conflicts in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere were effectively a "piecemeal" Third World War, condemning the arms trade and "plotters of terrorism" sowing death and destruction.

In the past few months, Francis has appealed for an end to conflicts in Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Gaza and parts of Africa.

"Humanity needs to weep and this is the time to weep," he said during a visit to Italy's largest war memorial in Redipuglia, Italy, a Fascist-era monument where more than 100,000 soldiers who died in World War One are buried.

(Additional reporting by Mehrdad Balali, Alistair Bell in Washington and Stefano Rellandini in Redipuglia, Italy; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

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Shocking that Abadi did nothing to prevent innocent Sunni civilians being bombed before he held talks with Kerry in Baghdad

Shows what an absolute F***ING NOT NICE PERSON Abadi is to have allowed bombing on Sunni civilians in the first place

Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Saturday that he had ordered his air force to halt strikes on civilian areas, following attacks by both Iraqi and U.S. jets in large areas of the country held by Islamic State fighters

...he had ordered his air force to halt strikes on civilian areas

Proof positive that Abadi had previously ordered air strikes on civilians

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Rudaw

Islamic State Militants Behead Iraqi Tribal Chief

KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region — Islamic State militants (IS, formerly ISIS) beheaded a tribal chief on the border of Kirkuk governorate, charged with conspiring against the Islamic State on Friday.

Sarhad Qadir, director of Police in Kirkuk governorate told Rudaw, “ISIS armed-men beheaded Ali Alyaf, the Chief of Alburiyash tribe, alongside three of his brothers”.

He went on to say, “Their bodies were dumped in Rashadi town, South of Kirkuk”.

“They were accused of forming an armed group against ISIS in Southern and Western parts of Kirkuk”, Qadir added.

In June, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) sent its Peshmerga troops into the province of Kirkuk to drive out IS militants.

Since Peshmerga forces began patrolling the city in June, Kirkuk has enjoyed relative stability and security under the protection of Peshmerga. Despite this, sporadic instances of violence are still rampant in the city.

http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/130920141

In August, three coordinated bomb attacks in Kirkuk city led to the closure of Southern Kirkuk border crossing, in strategic move by Peshmerga forces to curb IS militants activity.

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Cairo Review

Confronting the Islamic State

The Syrian opposition is in a rare position of power, at least internationally. In his September 10 address, President Barack Obama extended the war against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, into Syria. He said that the United States will lead a coalition to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS. There is a wide recognition that the opposition will be key in the fight against the radical group. But the opposition does not have a strategy to seize this opportunity. And at this critical juncture Syrian rebels have even alienated some of their allies.

Until Obama’s speech, the opposition was suspicious that U.S. strikes in Syria would be carried out in collaboration with the Assad regime, despite repeated statements from Western capitals to the contrary. On Wednesday, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood rejected the international coalition against ISIS “unless the first bullet is directed at [Bashar] al-Assad’s head.” Even though the opposition’s National Coalition welcomed the American move against ISIS, the political opposition is still waiting for an invitation to play a role, rather than proactively presenting a vision for a way out for the Syrian crisis.

Away from politics, however, a fairly different situation exists among opposition fighters. Significant rebel coalitions have already been formed to help in the fight against ISIS, and preparations for the zero hour seem to be in full swing. On September 10, seven groups affiliated with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), Free Syrian Army, and the Islamic Front, among them Kurdish and Arab fighters, announced a small yet symbolically significant coalition to fight ISIS in eastern Syria. On Monday, five sizable fighting groups in Idlib announced a merger, named al-Faylaq al-Khamis (The Fifth Legion), saying they would adhere to strict military discipline and use the Syrian revolutionary flag, which indicates a rejection of Islamist ideology. The Syrian Revolutionary Front, which was key to the expulsion of ISIS from much of the north earlier this year, also announced that it would send “convoys after convoys” to areas under ISIS control to defeat the jihadi group.

But even though rebels on the ground are willing and prepared to fight ISIS, the political opposition has a critical role to play. The areas tightly controlled by ISIS will require an assiduous effort to organize groups that could fill any vacuum left by ISIS as a result of the potential airstrikes. ISIS has made it much harder for armed groups from these areas, particularly Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa, to regroup and make a comeback or for local forces to stage an insurrection against the jihadi group. Rebel groups from outside these areas will also find it quite difficult to navigate, much less be welcomed in, these territories.

Rebel forces from the north can help fight ISIS from the ground, under air cover and intelligence and with logistical assistance, but local forces will be vital in retaking areas currently under ISIS control. Many of the fighters from Deir ez-Zor, for example, left the province to fight near Damascus after ISIS entered their areas in June. Local forces who have surrendered to ISIS have little appetite to rise up against the group unless they know that it will be too weakened to return to their areas and retaliate against them, as it did to several villages and towns in recent weeks.

These complexities will make the fight against ISIS that much more difficult. The dilemma is obvious: in areas currently ruled by ISIS, local forces are unwilling to initiate a ground-up uprising against ISIS unless the group is weakened, and it cannot be seriously weakened without help from local forces. The U.S.-led coalition will have to consider aligning with rebel groups from adjacent areas outside ISIS control, combined with effective air operations, before expecting a popular impetus against the group. A leadership role for the political opposition will be needed to make that happen.

A main setback for the political opposition is that its relationship with even its most committed backers has turned sour, mostly because of crippling infighting. Saudi Arabia, for example, has not held any official bilateral meetings with the National Coalition since the new leadership was formed in June, and did not invite it to recent meetings, which countries like Jordan and Egypt attended, even though the discussions were about Syria and the U.S. strikes.

The worsening relationship has led to two developments that might prove to be a turning point for the opposition. The first one is that the opposition’s sponsors now focus on working with individual, reliable figures, rather than the National Coalition or even the military councils. These individuals are currently taking a leading role in the effort against ISIS. This might signal a tendency to overlook the structures that have been resistant to inclusivity and change. In addition, the sponsors’ effort to provide funding only to loyal groups has already produced remarkable results, primarily the weakening of the Islamic Front, which turned to little more than a brand that has no operational reality. Ahrar al-Sham, for example, had been steadily weakening even before nearly all its top leaders were killed on September 9 in an attack at one of the group’s bases in Idlib’s countryside.

Such efforts to tighten the noose around extremist groups—at least for countries like Saudi Arabia—will be part of a long-term effort to build an organic army that would be part of a future Syria. According to sources1 in the Gulf region, the need for establishing a “Sunni peshmerga” is key to the regional countries’ current strategy. There are already reports that thousands of rebel fighters will be trained in Jordan and the Gulf; Saudi Arabia has reportedly agreed to host training for the rebels inside the kingdom. This force, despite its name, is not meant to have a sectarian agenda, but it would be designed as an army that can police and protect Sunni-dominated territories in Syria and Iraq. The plan to establish “Sunni peshmerga” will exclude Islamist groups, even if they project a moderate tone.

Such efforts have already led some of the Islamist factions in Syria to significantly moderate their ideological and political stances in recent months, primarily the Islamic Front, and individual groups such as Ahrar al-Sham. It has also led others, such as Harakat Noureddin al-Zinki, to either join more moderate forces or form new ones. An indication that Islamists are concerned about this approach is that the Syrian Islamic Council, along with the Muslim Brotherhood, have so far opposed the anti-ISIS coalition because it might potentially bypass the existing Islamist-dominated structures of the opposition.

The dwindling trust in the opposition, even from its most committed allies, drives them to do more to win back that trust. Airstrikes against ISIS will provide the opposition with an opportunity to work alongside countries that long doubted its ability to rule a post-Assad Syria. It is an opportunity that should not be missed.

This article is reprinted with permission from Sada. It can be accessed online at: http://carnegieendowment.org/sada/2014/ ... state/hoim

Hassan Hassan is an analyst with the Delma Institute, a research house based in Abu Dhabi, and a columnist for The National newspaper. Follow him on Twitter @hxhassan.

http://www.aucegypt.edu/gapp/cairorevie ... px?aid=648

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Al Arabiya

America can degrade ISIS, Arabs should destroy it

The last thing President Obama wanted is to bequeath to his successor the “dumb war” in Iraq he inherited from his predecessor George W. Bush. President Obama is painfully aware of the fact that he is the fourth president in a row to do battle in Iraq inconclusively. Before them President Ronald Reagan participated in the Iraq-Iran war, the longest conventional military conflict in the 20th century, but as a powerful proxy helping Iraq. Obama’s speech on Wednesday outlining his strategy to “degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy” and the formation of a “broad coalition” to do so, guarantees that the United States will likely remain a combatant in Iraq (and in Syria) for the next few years.

The strategy, however does not guarantee the destruction of ISIS, an objective that requires political, cultural and ideological tools, in addition to brute military force. Ultimately, the defeat of ISIS can be achieved, only when the Arabs exorcise the political and ideological demons that created Islamic extremism that metastasized over the years and morphed into ISIS. In this epic battle, the U.S. can and should help, since it did contribute its share to the environment that created ISIS following its invasion of Iraq.

From junior-varsity to a Hydra

In few months President Obama moved from minimizing the threat of ISIS, calling it in an interview in January an al-Qaeda junior varsity team, to the realization that ISIS is truly monstrous, and a Hydra-like serpent with many heads. Like the Greek myth, if you chop off one head, two more are grown in its place.

In addition to succeeding in describing the nature of the threat, one could say that the president appeared to have dropped his passivity on Syria and crossed his own self-imposed Rubicon to the other bank; where American jet fighters and bombers may now fly combat missions. In less than a month, the “evolution” of President Obama’s views on ISIS was very rapid. When Obama was talking about “containing” ISIS, his secretary of state John Kerry was talking about ‘destroying’ it. And, while Obama’s DNA is missing passion, his vice president Joe Biden who has a surplus of the stuff, assured us –instead of the Commander-In-Chief – that the US will chase ISIS “to the gates of Hell.”

Minimalist strategy

For all the talk about a new strategy, expanding the air strikes to Syria and the formation of an international coalition to destroy ISIS, the president’s approach is still minimalist. And while the stated objective now is to destroy ISIS, the Obama administration is still averse at describing its lethal duel with ISIS as a war. Secretary Kerry was struggling with semantics and the reporters accompanying him on his travels in the Arab world and Europe at the same time. He insisted that "What we are doing is engaging in a very significant counter-terrorism operation.” And to eliminate any lingering doubts, Kerry was blunt saying “and it's going to be a long-term counterterrorism operation. I think war is the wrong terminology and analogy but the fact is that we are engaged in a very significant global effort to curb terrorist activity."

The president’s strategy has many components; targeted attacks on ISIS in Iraq and potentially in Syria, keep pushing Iraq to overcome its political dysfunction and create a truly inclusive polity – something that will not be achieved fully any time soon, assuming Iraq will remain a unitary state- while accelerating the process of vetting, training and equipping the “moderate” Syrian opposition. A key component for the success of such a counter-terrorism strategy, especially when it does not include deploying “boots on the ground” to counter ISIS’s “sandals on the ground,” is the emergence of a regional coalition willing to engage ISIS in a long struggle on multiple fronts: military, intelligence gathering, cutting off funding, tightening border control, and countering the propaganda machine of ISIS. And this list did not include the president’s rocky and complex relations with the congress, including with some members in his own party, few weeks before the mid-term elections.

Failed states as models

When President Obama was trying to reassure the American people that “this effort” (not war) against ISIS will not involve deploying combat troops fighting on foreign soil like Afghanistan and Iraq, he committed a faux pas. The president said “this strategy of taking out terrorists, who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”

Those who advised the president to include such a reference had in mind the American public opinion, as if in this wired world one can only design a message solely to the American public opinion. To begin with, the air raids, the targeted drone attacks have succeeded in degrading the al-Qaeda in Yemen and al-Shabaab in Somalia, but the terrorism cancer is still entrenched in the body politics of both countries. If this success in Yemen and Somalia, one wonders how failure will look. And while the president did not mean to tell the Iraqis and Syrians, that greater American military intervention in their countries will hasten their slide into the status of failed states, he sure sounded like that.

Climbing down the tree

For more than three years President Obama went out of his way to avoid intervention in Syria, including serious political intervention in the sense of using his leadership to influence the behavior and policies of those Arab states, and Turkey that became deeply involved in the Syrian conflict. But his single most political damage was his constant denigration of the Syrian opposition, and his willful disingenuous comments about the nature of the opposition, their capabilities and intentions.

The president claimed in disparaging remarks that members of the Syrian opposition are “former farmers or teachers or pharmacists… or dentists or maybe some radio reporters who didn’t have a lot of experience fighting.” The president conveniently forgot that most fighters in the opposition, particularly during the first year of the uprising were former regime officers and soldiers who defected and joined the opposition. The president rejected the criticism that had he armed the opposition earlier the battlefield realities would have been different. “The notion that they were in a position to suddenly overturn not only Assad but also ruthless, highly-trained jihadists if we just sent a few arms is a fantasy.” Now that accelerating the process of arming and training the moderate Syrian opposition is an imperative in the new strategy, the president finds himself trying clumsily to climb down that tree and eat his own words.

‘The long and winding road’

The long and winding road to degrade – let alone – destroy ISIS, is fraught with traps and mines and some of the fellow travelers may defect or conveniently become stragglers. Even the partial success of the strategy is contingent on many factors that are not under the control of the U.S. Can the flow of jihadists to Syria be stemmed without an all-out effort by Turkey to tighten control on its borders? Turkey participated in the recent Jeddah meeting but it declined to sign the joint communique. The Arab support for the strategy outlined to them by Secretary Kerry was described as “tepid.”

Will the Arab members of the coalition deliver on all their commitment, including military participation in any air campaign in Syria? Egypt’s reluctance to play a major role was plain to see. Egypt would like the United Nations to give its approval to any military action in Syria, knowing in advance that this will not happen. I believe Egypt also uses its disagreements with Washington over human rights violations, freezing delivery of military hardware to justify its cold approach to the coalition. But the reality is that Egypt has been considerably weakened in the last few years and is consumed with its own political and economic dysfunctions.

Ironically, the U.S. has some justifiable doubts about the staying power of some of the Arab coalition members, just as most Gulf Arab states have their own justifiable doubts about the stamina and staying power of President Obama, given his weak track record on Syria .

A problem from hell

The U.S. is entering into a new phase in the military confrontation with ISIS that could last for years, as was and is the case with al-Qaeda. But just as there was no clear and solid way of knowing that we defeated al-Qaeda, given its defused nature, ISIS will present an even harder challenge, given its battlefield experiences, control over large swaths of Syrian and Iraqi territories, its resources, savagery and its ideological appeal to some zealots to live in the “restored” Caliphate.

Degrading and ultimately defeating ISIS will take years, because its emergence took many years as a result of the depredations of the so-called secular Arab regimes, the alienated and radicalized Islamists, the festering Arab-Israeli conflict (which was used by Arab regimes to justify their failures) and finally the blunders of the U.S. in the region, such as the invasion of Iraq which hastened the unraveling of a country that was broken by the tyranny of the Baath regime. I believe ISIS is Arab made. And ISIS should be defeated by Arabs with a little help from their friends. The first step is for the Arabs to recognize this bitter truth and to own this problem from hell.


Hisham Melhem is the bureau chief of Al Arabiya News Channel in Washington, DC. Melhem has interviewed many American and international public figures, including Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, among others. Melhem speaks regularly at college campuses, think tanks and interest groups on U.S.-Arab relations, political Islam, intra-Arab relations, Arab-Israeli issues, media in the Arab World, Arab images in American media , U.S. public policies and other related topics. He is also the correspondent for Annahar, the leading Lebanese daily. For four years he hosted "Across the Ocean," a weekly current affairs program on U.S.-Arab relations for Al Arabiya. Follow him on Twitter : @hisham_melhem

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/n ... oy-it.html

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BBC News Middle East

Islamic State crisis: Australia to send 600 troops to UAE

Australia says it is sending 600 troops to the Middle East ahead of possible combat operations against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the deployment, initially to the United Arab Emirates, was in response to a specific US request.

Nearly 40 countries, including 10 Arab states, have signed up to a US-led plan to tackle the extremist group.

France is hosting a regional security summit on Monday.

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Paris late on Saturday after a four-day tour of the Middle East trying to drum up support for action against IS.

Last week, US President Barack Obama presented a strategy to fight the group in both Iraq and Syria.

Speaking on Sunday, Prime Minister Abbott said Iraq had made it clear that it would "very much welcome" a military contribution to restore security.

He said the force, which will also include up to eight Super Hornet fighter jets, was part of "an international coalition" not simply an "American-Australian operation".

Mr Abbott said no decision had yet been taken to commit the forces, which will begin deploying next week, to combat action.

The announcement comes two days after Australia raised its terrorism threat level from medium to high.

Security officials are thought to be concerned by the growing number of Australians "working with, connected to or inspired by" Islamist groups, Mr Abbott said on Friday.

Islamic State is now in control of large parts of Iraq and Syria and the CIA estimates that the group could have as many as 30,000 fighters in the region.

US air strikes have targeted IS in Iraq in recent weeks and President Obama has vowed to "hunt down" the group after it beheaded two American journalists.

Late on Saturday a video was also released appearing to show the beheading of UK hostage David Haines.

On Monday, French President Francois Hollande will welcome diplomats from up to 20 countries for a conference on Iraqi security.

The talks come ahead of a UN Security Council meeting next week and a heads of state meeting at the UN General Assembly later this month.

Iran unimpressed

One country not attending is Iran, which voiced its unhappiness at not being on the "selective guest list" by dismissing the talks as "just for show".

"What would interest Iran is a real fight against terrorism in the region and around the world, not this selective one," deputy foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told state television.

On Friday, Mr Kerry said the US would not be seeking the involvement of Iran in its coalition because of its "engagement in Syria and elsewhere".

Iran has backed the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, while the US and several European and Gulf countries have supported the rebel factions fighting to overthrow him.

The US stance was attacked in Iran, with one senior official accusing the US of playing a "central role" in "arming and training terrorist groups to topple the legal Syrian government".

"In taking a big jump ahead of international bodies, America seeks to emerge as a Hollywood-style hero battling a crisis of its own making," Admiral Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told state news agency IRNA.

In recent months IS has expanded from its stronghold in eastern Syria and seized control of more towns, cities, army bases and weaponry in Iraq.

The US has already carried out more than 150 air strikes in northern Iraq. It has also sent hundreds of military advisers to assist Iraqi government and Kurdish forces, but has ruled out sending ground troops.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29195689

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Middle East Eye

Free Syrian Army will not join US-led coalition against IS

FSA says it will NOT join American anti-IS coalition, while new ceasefire between SRF rebels and IS militants in Syria may break down

The Free Syrian Army has announced that it will not sign up to the US-led coalition to destroy Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq and Syria.

The group’s founder, Colonel Riad al-Asaad, stressed that toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is their priority, and that they will not join forces with US-led efforts without a guarantee that the US is committed to his overthrow.

"If they want to see the Free Syrian Army on their side, they should give assurances on toppling the Assad regime and on a plan including revolutionary principles."

The announcement appears to be reversing an earlier satement on Thursday by the National Coalition opposition, the Free Syrian Army’s political wing, which said it was ready to work with the coalition against IS.

Saying they had "long called for this action", the coalition called on US politicians to authorise the training and equipping of the Free Syrian Army "as soon as possible".

The Free Syrian Army, mostly composed of military personnel who have defected from Assad’s armed forces, had already been engaged in battles against IS militants.

IS-rebels truce breaks down?

The announcement comes a day after a ceasefire was signed between another rebel group, the Syrian Revolutionary Front (SRF), and IS fighters in Damascus.

The details of the truce agreement, published by Arabic news site Orient Net, showed that the two sides had agreed not to target each other.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that IS and the SRF had agreed that Assad’s government and the forces allied to it are the principal enemy.

However, there were reports on Saturday that SRF fighters in Idblib province, over 300 kilometres north-east of Damascus, had killed two would-be IS suicide bombers.

News site el-Dorar alleged that SRF fighters had foiled an attempt by four IS fighters to blow up a car packed with explosives in Jebel al-Zawiyeh in the south of the province.

Two IS fighters were killed in the thwarted explosion, while the other two were killed by the SRF.

According to el-Dorar, their bodies were then strung up in a public square "as a warning to others."

Anti-Israel stance

Meanwhile, the National Coalition opposition reiterated its rejection of any co-operation with Israel in the fight against IS.

The opposition group issued a statement on Saturday disowning Kamel Lubnani, who was dismissed in early 2014, for travelling to Israel last week to attend a counter-terrorism conference.

His visit was described by the coalition as having "no relation to the stance of the Syrian people, the coalition or the Syrian opposition."

Israel on Wednesday praised the US efforts to "take action and form a coalition against the Islamic State".

A Western diplomat revealed on Monday that Israel has already provided satellite imagery and other intelligence in support of US-led airstrikes against IS in Iraq.

Rebels seize Syrian-held Golan

On the Syrian side of the border fence in the Golan Heights, rebels announced that they had established control over the whole area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation monitoring Syria’s ongoing war, said on Saturday that forces allied to President Assad had lost control over the Syrian side of the Golan Heights in its entirety.

The rebels include al-Nusra Front, who on Thursday released a group of UN peacekeepers who had been working in the demilitarised zone between Syrian-held territory and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Analysts say that Israel is alarmed by having Syrian rebels on its doorstep, after enjoying a relative calm for over 45 years on its borders with Syria when they were under the control of Bashar al-Assad, his father Hazfez before him.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/syria-1651994714

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BBC News UK

David Haines: PM says Britain will 'hunt down' IS killers

Britain will take "whatever steps are necessary" to keep the country safe, following the killing of hostage David Haines by Islamic State militants, the prime minister has said.

David Cameron said the UK would "hunt down" the killers of the aid worker, whom he called a "British hero".

He said Britain had to confront and "ultimately destroy" the "menace" of IS in a "calm, deliberate" way.

"They are not Muslims, they are monsters", he said.

Mr Haines was seized in Syria in 2013. He was being held by Islamic State militants who had already killed two US captives, and a video of his death came shortly after his family appealed to his captors to make contact with them.

Born in Holderness, East Yorkshire, Mr Haines went to school in Perth and had been living in Croatia with his second wife, who is Croatian, and their four-year-old daughter. His parents live in Ayr.

A video of the 44-year-old's beheading was released on Saturday night. A masked man who appears to have a British accent was pictured beside Mr Haines holding a knife.

The footage also includes a threat by IS, also known as Isil and Isis, to kill a second British hostage.

'Despicable' killing

Speaking after a meeting of the UK emergency committee Cobra, Mr Cameron said: "We will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice, however long it takes."

He also said the country was "sickened" that a Briton could have carried out the "despicable" killing.

"We cannot just walk on by if we are to keep this country safe," he said.

"Step by step, we must drive back, dismantle and ultimately destroy Isil and what it stands for.

"We will not do so on our own, but with working with our allies, not just in the United States and in Europe, but also in the region."

He said the organisation posed a "massive threat" to the entire Middle East and said it would be defeated through a "comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy".

He added: "This is not about British combat troops on the ground. It is about working with others to extinguish this terrorist threat."

During his statement, Mr Cameron outlined steps that Britain would take against IS:

Work with the Iraqi government to ensure it represents all of its people, and support the Kurdish regional government which has already received British ammunition and training
Work at the United Nations to mobilise the broadest possible support to "bear down" on IS
Support the United States in its direct military action, which is currently air strikes
Continue to use the RAF to supply humanitarian aid to the millions who have fled IS
Maintain and continue to reinforce the UK's counter-terrorist effort

He also said IS extremists "have planned, and continue to plan, attacks across Europe and in our country", adding that it would take time to "eradicate a threat like this" and would require action at home and abroad.

"It falls to the government and to each and every one of us to drain this poison from our society and to take on this warped ideology that is radicalising some of our young people," he said.

He has previously not ruled out air strikes against IS but said any action must not be "Western intervention over the heads of neighbouring states".

Islamic State is now in control of large parts of northern Iraq and Syria, and the CIA estimates that the group could have as many as 30,000 fighters in the region.

Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga, have been involved in heavy fighting with IS.

US air strikes have targeted IS militants in Iraq in recent weeks and President Obama has vowed to "hunt down" the group after it beheaded two American journalists.

The UK has donated heavy machine guns and ammunition to authorities in Iraq to help fight IS militants, the Ministry of Defence has previously said.

Australia says it is sending 600 troops to the Middle East ahead of possible combat operations against IS in Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the deployment, initially to the United Arab Emirates, was in response to a specific US request.

US President Barack Obama said: "Our hearts go out to the family of Mr Haines and to the people of the United Kingdom."

He said the US would work with the UK and a "broad coalition of nations" to "bring the perpetrators of this outrageous act to justice".

Militants from the extremist group have killed two US hostages in recent weeks, posting videos on the internet.

They had threatened to kill Mr Haines during a video posted online showing the killing of US journalist Steven Sotloff earlier this month. They also released a video of the killing of US journalist James Foley last month.

Analysis
Frank Gardner, BBC security correspondent

Strip away the ghoulish theatre of this latest beheading video from the so-called Islamic State and one thing emerges very clearly.

The jihadists of IS are angry and frustrated that their earlier blitzkrieg advance across Iraq has been stopped in its tracks, and even reversed in places, thanks to US air strikes and arms supplies rushed to the Kurds.

Incapable to date of shooting down America's F/A18 jets, this is the group's way of hitting back at a distant enemy through the medium of public information.

David Cameron, to whom much of the video is addressed, has had 3 choices: 1) back away from confronting IS, which he has ruled out, 2) continue as before, giving arms, ammunition and training to the Kurds to fight IS, and 3) step up the UK role, which now looks inevitable.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29197931

[Anthea]

Guardian

Isis videos 'excite' group's supporters
Robert Booth

Research suggests brutal films, such as that of the killing of David Haines, are inspiring potential jihadis

Graphic videos showing British and American hostages being murdered by Islamic State (Isis) fighters are stirring support among foreign jihadis who are excited by a new confrontation with the west, monitoring of Islamists' social media activity suggests.

Barbarous online films, such as the two-and-a half-minute video showing the killing of British aid worker David Haines released on Saturday night, are "turning on" jihadists in countries such as Tunisia and Libya who had previously reacted coolly to the civil war between the Sunni fundamentalists of Isis and the Shia minorities in Syria and Iraq.

Evidence from the Twitter, Facebook, Ask.fm and Instagram accounts of 450 foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq and others who follow them suggests the filmed murders and speeches attacking Washington and London appear to have made Isis's cause more glamorous to extremists abroad, according to the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King's College London.

The response may explain why Isis fighters have released the videos and have threatened to kill another Briton, Alan Henning. Some analysts have asked why Isis leaders would invite stronger military intervention from the west, but postings on social networks used by jihadis suggest the tactic could be aimed at widening support for Isis.

"We have been monitoring the social media reaction and you can already see that the wannabe foreign fighters are excited by these killings," said Peter Neumann, director of the ICSR. "People in Tunisia and Libya are particularly interested in the prospect of fighting American and now British enemies. This is turning on people who were radicalised before this conflict started but weren't particularly excited by the Sunni-Shia battle. There are three types of reaction. There is pure jubilation, comments that America and now Britain are getting what they deserve, and the thought that this is not pretty, but that this is the kind of thing that happens with revolutions."

The man who beheaded Haines, a father of two born in Yorkshire and raised in Scotland, directly addressed David Cameron in the film, ridiculing him as "an obedient lapdog" of Washington.

"Your evil alliance with America, which continues to strike the Muslims of Iraq and most recently bombed the Haditha dam, will only accelerate your destruction," the masked man said.

There are already estimated to be more than 2,000 Isis fighters from Tunisia in Syria, but Neumann said the direct challenges to western leaders in the beheading videos were "an even stronger incentive for people who were sitting on the fence and thinking about going to fight".

Other analysts claimed the latest video was a sign of Isis's weakness after US air strikes. It drew a measured response from Cameron who promised "a calm, deliberate" process of driving back, dismantling and destroying Isis. But a former senior government adviser on terrorism said it should be met with immediate military strikes by British forces.

"I despair at the stupidity of these three beheadings," said Afzal Ashraf, a former senior Foreign Office official in Iraq, now a consultant fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. "There is no rationale to this. They are annoyed and upset they are being killed and so they are wheeling these poor guys out who they have held in some cases for two years and who they were hoping to get a ransom for. This tells me they are really hurting and the only thing they can do is kill an unarmed hostage in a very, very cowardly act, which shows just how weak they are."

He argued that paratroopers and special forces should be sent in to kill Isis fighters manning the remote checkpoints that guard the group's recently claimed territory.

"We have to send out a message that must be understood by not very smart people," he said. "I would get a few of our guys who would be only too happy to deliver David Cameron's compliments to those outposts. They could be there by supper, out by breakfast and be home in time for dinner."

But Julian Lewis MP, a member of parliament's intelligence and security committee, said such a response would be to grant Isis's wish for the west to launch "crusader-style attacks in Muslim lands".

"These disgraceful performances are acts of deliberate provocation," Lewis said. "The reason they are doing this is they are seeking to consolidate their position in the vanguard of political Islam … The very fact they are going to such lengths … shows they know the position they are trying to carve out is not secure."

Lewis called for an ideological counterattack in the form of a mass public information campaign aimed at rubbishing claims that the brutality of the Isis militants has any root in Islam. "We need a greater national effort to identify the doctrine and undermine it," he said.

That was echoed by Ghaffar Hussain, managing director of the counter-extremism thinktank the Quilliam Foundation, who called for a "multi-agency and cross-departmental approach to countering all forms of extremism and preventing radicalisation, whether violent or not, stemming from the acceptance that jihadist organisations recruit from a much larger pool of non-violent extremists".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/s ... ines-syria

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Barbarous online films, such as the two-and-a half-minute video showing the killing of British aid worker David Haines released on Saturday night, are "turning on" jihadists in countries such as Tunisia and Libya who had previously reacted coolly to the civil war between the Sunni fundamentalists of Isis and the Shia minorities in Syria and Iraq.

There are some extremely sick dangerous people out there

Bombing them will just give them more martyrs

If they really believe that when they die killing non-fundamentalist Muslims and other non-Muslims - they go to heaven and receive 72 virgins - then bombing them will not discourage them - bombing will kill more innocent people

Having an enormously powerful country such as America go up against them will only help them to gain more support

The Islamic State should be contained and ignored - brushed off like a dirty insect NOT even acknowledged

Other countries ignored the plight of Kurds in Syria - ignored the infiltration of Islamic groups into the area - even supported many of those groups - ignored the plight of the Sunnis in Iraq

There is no point in trying to shut the stable door the proverbial horse has bolted - the only way forward is containment - prevent supplies and arms reaching them

[Anthea]

The National

Iraqi Kurds feel sidelined as US assembles anti-IS/ISIL coalition

ERBIL // Iraqi Kurds were once considered the one domestic force that could stop ISIL’s onslaught, but recent battlefield losses to the Sunni militants have called that theory into question.

Now, with the Obama administration assembling an international coalition to rout ISIL from its strongholds in Iraq and Syria, Kurdish officials are feeling left out of the deliberations. The plan has ruffled feathers in Erbil, the capital of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, where the regional government is grappling with an ailing economy and anger from Baghdad over its moves towards independence.

“We don’t know what Obama wants from us, but it’s clear the Americans don’t have a plan except to provide more weapons to the people here. But that won’t solve Iraq’s political problems, which is what needs to be addressed,” said an adviser to Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Details of Mr Obama’s plan for an escalated campaign to defeat ISIL will be thrashed out at a meeting in Paris on Monday, including arming and training Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga soldiers. In a visit to the Middle East over the past few days, the US secretary of state John Kerry has received commitments of support from Sunni Arab allies, including the training of certain Syrian rebel groups in Saudi Arabia, which has endorsed the plan along with the UAE and the four other GCC members, as well as Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon.

The need for bolstering the Kurdish forces was made clear last month when an ISIL offensive captured several Kurdish-held villages and came within striking distance of Erbil. Dashing notions of Kurdish military invincibility, the attack exposed the peshmerga forces as poorly equipped, hobbled by factional divisions and dependent on outside support.

Even Kurdish officials are acknowledging some of the shortcomings thata also led to the disintegration of Iraq’s national army during the initial ISIL onslaught in June, which began with the capture of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in June.

“We need more weapons and we need training from the Americans,” said Dler Mustafa, the deputy head of the Kurdistan Regional Government parliamentary committee for peshmerga affairs.

“Da’ash [ISIL] uses advanced American weapons against us that it captured from the Iraqi army and so we need more weapons, not just machine guns and bullets to defend ourselves.”

He said about 200 US soldiers and a number of French military personnel had arrived to train peshmerga forces in Kurdistan, but both countries had declined to provide heavy weapons such as anti-tank and anti-aircraft defences.

He attributed their refusal to fear of angering the Iraqi government, which considers such moves as steps towards Kurdish independence.

The Kurds’ near-defeat by ISIL was followed by another setback last month, in the negotiations that led to the formation of a new government in Baghdad.

The replacement of the divisive Shiite-led government of Nouri Al Maliki with a more inclusive one, prodded on by the international community, was seen as a last resort to halt the sectarian infighting that hastened the rise of ISIL and threatened to dismember Iraq.

But the Kurds had little say in that process, which replaced Mr Al Maliki with Haider Al Abadi, a Shiite who has promised to reach out and unite Iraq’s Sunnis and Kurds and end the partisan discord that defined the Al Maliki era.

They agreed to participate in the government primarily because of pressure from the US, said the adviser to the KRG prime minister.

“Everyone knows this new government will fail because the reality is, Iraq cannot be governed under the current system. We need a confederation, not a central government that rules in its current form,” the adviser said.

The apparent strong-arming of the Kurds to acquiesce to the Abadi government is a sign of their declining influence, which has been hastened by a sluggish economy, said Kawa Hassan, an expert on Kurdish politics and a visiting scholar at the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Centre.

“Against this backdrop, US and Iranian pressure pushed Kurds to participate in the new government without getting clear-cut guarantees that Baghdad will meet their demands,” he said.

Those demands include receiving billions of dollars from the national budget that Baghdad has refused to disburse over the past eight months. That refusal is driven by disputes that include control over Kurdistan’s vast petrochemical wealth, a move that has plunged the Kurdish region into economic crisis, leaving scores of civil servants without salaries.

Backed by Washington, officials in Baghdad also have sought to stop Kurdish attempts to sell oil independently of the central oil ministry. They also feud over control of territories, such as Kirkuk, which are claimed by Kurds, Arabs and other ethnic-religious communities.

Mr Hassan said the economic turmoil was a result of “massive corruption at the highest levels and mismanagement of economy by KRG”.

Kudsish officials say their participation in the new government will end in three months if thee demads are not met by Baghdad.

Kurdish officials such as Sirwan Zahawy, a former member of the Iraqi parliament, also think the peshmerga could play a vital role in helping the US defeat ISIL. But saving Iraq’s government from failure is another matter.

“We are participating in this government because of international pressure and because we want to resolve the disputes of the budget” and disputes over territory,” he said. “We don’t participate because we want ministerial posts or because we expect the government to succeed. We know it won’t.”

http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle- ... -coalition

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BBC News Middle East

Iraq's Falluja hospital 'hit by shelling'

A hospital in the Iraqi city of Falluja, mainly controlled by Islamic State (IS) fighters, has been hit by government shelling, reports say.

It comes a day after PM Haider al-Abadi ordered the Iraqi army to stop shelling civilian areas in towns seized by IS.

A member of staff was seriously injured in the shelling, medical officials at the hospital have told the BBC.

Many residents of Falluja and Ramadi have said they are more at risk from army air raids than from the jihadists.

The extremist group overran the two cities, which are both in the mainly-Sunni Anbar province, in December 2013.

IS, also often referred to as Isil or Isis, has since taken over large swathes of Iraq and Syria and declared the land it controls a "caliphate".

A medical source at Falluja hospital told BBC Arabic it was hit by four missiles launched from a military base some 5 km (3 miles) east of the city at 11:00 local time (08:00 GMT).

However, there are conflicting reports in Iraqi media over the source of the shelling.

It comes a day after Prime Minister Abadi instructed the Iraqi army to stop air strikes on residential areas under IS control, to avoid more civilian victims.

The new Iraqi leader is trying to win back the trust of the Sunni minority in Iraq, which sees itself as having been victimised under his predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29198489

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Huffington Post

Islamic State: Call Them 'Unislamic State,' Leading Muslims Plead, As Terror Group Murders David Haines

Politicians and the media should stop referring to the extremist group controlling parts of Syria and Iraq as "Islamic State" in a bid to discourage Britons from joining them, leading Muslims have warned.

A group of prominent civic and religious figures have written to Prime Minister David Cameron urging him to "refuse to legitimise" the terror group by switching to an alternative such as "Un-Islamic State".

Their claim comes after the group released a video showing the beheading of British aid worker David Haines, the third western hostage to be killed this way.

The policy would help address the "falsehood" that joining the jihad was acceptable in the eyes of the faith, they told him, and show the vast majority of British Muslims did not support it, they argued.

Security services believe at least 500 Britons have travelled to the region to fight and the potential return of radicalised jihadis to Britain's shores was behind the recent the decision to raise the UK's terror threat level.

The letter has been signed by the presidents of the Islamic Society of Britain and the Association of Muslim Lawyers - as well as several imams and representatives of other groups.

It welcomed an "every growing chorus of rejection" by British Muslims of the group and its actions.

But it said more could be done and called on Mr Cameron to help by changing the way it is referred to.

"We do not believe the terror group responsible should be given the credence and standing they seek by styling themselves 'Islamic State'," they wrote.

"It is neither Islamic, nor is it a State. The group has no standing with faithful Muslims, nor among the international community of nations.

"It clearly will never accept the obligations that any legitimate state has, including the responsibility to protect citizens and uphold human rights.

"So we believe the media, civic society and governments should refuse to legitimise these ludicrous Caliphate fantasies by accepting or propagating this name.

We propose that 'Un-Islamic State' (UIS) could be an accurate and fair alternative name to describe this group and its agenda - and we will begin to call it that."

It appealed for a "consensus on an alternative label" as part of the debate over how to tackle the threat.

"We believe that it would send a powerful message in Britain and around the world if you would join us, as our prime minister, in leading a national debate to seek a suitable alternative way to refer to this group and further challenge its legitimacy and influence.

"This could be especially powerful because everybody at home and abroad can see that you are being asked to do so by British Muslims themselves who want to be clear about why this group is so vehemently rejected.

"We are sure that most British Muslims would agree that 'Un-Islamic State' is a considerably more fitting label for this poisonous group - and hope that our fellow citizens will join us in that."

Sughra Ahmed, president of the Islamic Society of Britain, told The Observer: "These extremists aren't us. This isn't the Islam that we recognise.

"But we need to do more than just say 'not in our name, not for our faith'. We need to work together and make sure that these fanatics don't get the propaganda that they feed off.

"This isn't going to fix the problem of some young people in our community being radicalised by extremists. There's more we need to do, together, to tackle that.

"But confronting this falsehood, that it's somehow 'Islamic' to go off to Iraq or Syria and murder people, is a step in the right direction."

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/09 ... ostpopular

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Bas News

Baghdadis Call for Maliki to be Put on Trial

The Residents of Iraqi Capital not happy with Former Iraqi Prime Minister.

On Sunday Sept 14th 2014, a large crown of people in Harsia, Baghdad held a protest appealing for Nouri al-Maliki, the former Iraqi prime minister and current vice-President of Iraq, to be put on trial.

The citizen’s slogans made demands for al-Maliki to be put on trial.

Baghdadi people condemned Maliki for being responsible for the bombing of civilians along with attacking demonstrations in Hawija province back in 2013. The protest ended with many casualties from clashes between Maliki forces and protestors.

In the last two years of Nouri al-Maliki’s rule, there were many protests calling for Maliki to step down. Maliki crushed the protests using security forces.

Kurds and Sunnis were never satisfied with Maliki’s rule. The reason behind the demonstrations against him is that Maliki was reluctant to fulfill the demands of Kurds and Sunnis and that he discriminated between different factions of the country.

Maliki was Iraqi Prime Minister from 2006 until 2014, and during his tenure, most Iraqi Sunnis and Kurds felt alienated by Maliki and his government.

http://basnews.com/en/News/Details/Bagh ... rial/34023