ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

[Anthea]

AP

Anthea: not forgotten Iraq but very little news coming out and Kobani is in dire need of support

Islamic State group downs another Iraqi helicopter

BAGHDAD (AP) — Officials in Baghdad say that militants with the Islamic State group have downed an Iraqi military helicopter near the refinery town of Beiji, killing the two pilots on board.

A military aviation official says the militants used a shoulder-fired missile to take down the Bell 407 helicopter north of Beiji on Wednesday. The town is home to Iraq's largest oil refinery and is located about about 200 kilometers (130 miles) north of Baghdad.

A Defense Ministry official confirmed the attack. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

This is the second Iraqi military helicopter shot down over Beiji by Islamic State militants in one week.

Militants shot down an Mi-35 helicopter near Beiji on Friday, also killing the pilot and co-pilot in that attack.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/6f1dc7c6 ... helicopter

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Islamic State: Rabia hospital 'reduced to rubble'

Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have been keeping up their drive to recapture the ground they lost to a lightning offensive by militants from the self-styled Islamic State (IS) two months ago.

Much of the fighting has been in the north-west near the border with Syria, where Kurdish Peshmerga troops recently recaptured the border town of Rabia, helped by British airstrikes.

Jim Muir visited the front there to see the damage inflected by the air strikes and the casualties suffered by the Peshmerga as a result of IS suicide bombers.

Link to Article and Video:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29546938

[Anthea]

Asharq Al-Awsat

ISIS on verge of seizing “complete control” in Anbar: tribal official

Anbar Tribal Council says Iraqi military has become “source of assistance” for ISIS

Iraq’s restive western province of Anbar is on the verge of completely falling into the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) unless urgent action is taken to address military failures, the Anbar Tribal Council warned on Wednesday.

The Anbar Tribal Council, the senior-most Sunni tribal organization in the province, is backing central government attempts to combat ISIS but has complained to Baghdad about the appointment of Lt. Gen. Rashid Fleih as head of the Anbar Military Command, calling for him to be replaced. In comments to Asharq Al-Awsat, Anbar Tribal Council member Faris Ibrahim said “[Fleidh] is unable to do anything.”

“The security situation in Anbar Province is going from bad to worse due to a lack of support, as well as the almost complete absence of security and military leadership. The military leadership is unable to devise new plans to address ISIS advances on the ground,” Ibrahim added.

“ISIS has strongly advanced in a number of areas in the province following the formation of the international alliance, as part of attempts to impose their position on the ground as a fait accompli.”

The Anbar Tribal Council member alleged that ISIS is also setting up sleeper cells in the province with the objective of entrenching its position and securing even more territory.

More than 500,000 residents of Anbar province have been displaced by fighting between Iraqi forces and ISIS since the conflict began in December 2013. Despite Iraqi military efforts and the formation of an international alliance to combat the terrorist group, ISIS has continued to advance in Iraq. ISIS forces most recently took over the town of Hit last week, leading to attempts by Shi’ite volunteer fighters backed by Iraqi military forces to recapture the western town.

“It is strange that while ISIS is developing its presence and capabilities on the ground in Anbar, military and security leadership are not doing anything new to address this. As a result of this, most parts of Anbar province are now completely in ISIS’s hands, including Ramadi city center,” Ibrahim told Asharq Al-Awsat.

It was Anbar’s police force that was protecting citizens from ISIS, he said, adding that military forces were actively hindering efforts to combat the extremist group. “Unfortunately, the military has become a source of assistance for ISIS because for the most part ISIS is able to attack and defeat the military, taking control of their arms and equipment,” said Ibrahim.

International efforts to combat ISIS in Iraq have focused on central and northern parts of the country, where ISIS is actively advancing. The terrorist group had initially advanced into Iraq from Syria through the western province, which had been the center of a Sunni-led protest movement against former Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s government over its perceived sectarian bias.

The government put together by the new premier, Haider Al-Abadi, has received a cautious welcome from Iraq’s Sunnis. However, the Anbar Tribal Council has called for Baghdad and the anti-ISIS international alliance to do more for Anbar.

Faris Ibrahim called on Baghdad to do more to tackle ISIS in Anbar, saying it was a critical front in the overall struggle, yet remained overlooked.

He said: “These operations have not reached the required level. It is strange that Anbar province has been completely forgotten over the past three months with the focus being on Mosul and the northern provinces. However, everybody knows that Anbar is the main incubator of ISIS and it is expanding to Iraq’s other regions from here . . . Therefore ignoring Anbar has led to disaster, as we are seeing today.”

http://www.aawsat.net/2014/10/article55337356

[Anthea]

Washington Post

Islamic State fighters are threatening to overrun Iraq’s Anbar province
By Erin Cunningham

Islamic State militants are threatening to overrun a key province in western Iraq in what would be a major victory for the jihadists and an embarrassing setback for the U.S.-led coalition targeting the group.

A win for the Islamic State in Anbar province would give the militants control of one of the country’s most important dams and several large army installations, potentially adding to their abundant stockpile of weapons. It would also allow them to establish a supply line from Syria almost to Baghdad and give them a valuable position from which to launch attacks on the Iraqi capital.

The Islamic State’s offensive in Anbar has received less attention than its assault on the Syrian border city of Kobane, which has played out in view of news photographers standing on hills in nearby Turkey. But in recent weeks, Islamic State fighters have systematically invaded towns and villages in Anbar, besieged army posts and police stations, and mounted attacks on Iraqi troops in Ramadi, the provincial capital.

The Islamic State secured a major foothold in Anbar province in January when it seized the city of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi. It pushed farther into the province in June, but Iraq’s government was able to maintain small pockets of authority in the majority-Sunni region.

Iraqi forces have suffered numerous reverses­ in the latest jihadist offensive, including the loss of two army bases. U.S. warplanes and attack helicopters have hit Islamic State targets and provided support to Iraqi troops fighting in Anbar. The U.S. airstrikes helped fend off an assault last month on the Haditha Dam, part of the militants’ drive to control Iraq’s water supplies. But overall, the strikes have failed to curb the militants’ momentum.

“If the Islamic State controls Anbar, they would be able to threaten serious targets in Baghdad,” said an Iraqi security expert, Saeed al-Jayashi. “The government would lose the Haditha Dam, and the security forces would have to retreat,” he said. “There would be a blood bath.”

Anbar province — Iraq’s largest — was the epicenter of the Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces­ that raged after the invasion in 2003. In 2006, Anbar’s numerous Sunni tribes decided to back the U.S.-supported government against Iraq’s al-Qaeda affiliate, in what later became known as the Sunni Awakening. The insurgency was crushed.

But in recent years, the sectarian policies of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, alienated the Sunni tribes and their constituencies. The Islamic State, which had been founded as an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq, fed off the Sunni discontent. At the same time, the jihadists improved their military prowess by fighting in the civil war in Syria. They have seized large chunks of Syria and Iraq.

Since the beginning of the campaign against the Islamic State in August, U.S. warplanes and helicopters have struck more than 40 targets in Anbar province, according to U.S. Central Command data.

The Obama administration had expressed hope that Sunni Arab powers in the region, led by Saudi Arabia, would persuade the Anbar tribes to turn against the Islamic State and join Iraqi government forces­ or participate in a locally based national guard.

But although Maliki left office early last month, there has been little indication that Arab influence, if indeed it is being used, has had much of an effect. At the same time, Sunni tribesmen have said they feel threatened by the Shiite militias that are participating in Iraq’s fight against the Islamic State.

In talks this week with retired U.S. Gen. John Allen, the administration’s coordinator of the international coalition against the Islamic State, tribal leaders said that “they will not confront the Islamic State while Shiite militias exist in Sunni areas,” tribal chief Samil al-Muhammadi told the Saudi-owned London newspaper Al-Hayat.

Psychological meaning

Anbar province, a vast expanse of desert crisscrossed by truck routes leading to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, holds both strategic and symbolic significance for the Islamic State.

If the extremist group captures the territory, it could funnel weapons and fighters from areas it controls in Syria all the way to the western outskirts of Baghdad. Currently, that supply line is interrupted by government-held Haditha and Ramadi.

The militants would also extend their de facto border to just outside the Iraqi capital.

“It will be a base for their movements. It would take a very long time to get it back,” said Anbar’s police chief, Ahmed Saddak al-Dulaimi.

The capture of Anbar would also be a psychological victory for the jihadists.

Anbar “is really the birthplace of ISIS’s predecessor organization, al-Qaeda in Iraq,” said Jessica D. Lewis, research director at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, using a common name for the Islamic State. “So taking the cities of Anbar province is quite important to ISIS.”

Security officials in Anbar say the Islamic State has been bolstering its fighting force in the province.

In the past few days, the militants have wrested control of the Anbar town of Hit on the Euphrates River, as well as the nearby town of Kubaisa. Both are close to the Ayn al-Asad military base, one of Iraq’s largest. It sends reinforcements and supplies to troops defending the Haditha Dam just northwest of the camp.

According to a recent assessment by the Institute for the Study of War, the Islamic State has conducted a “sophisticated campaign” in Anbar in the past four weeks, which has enabled the group to control most of the territory from the Syrian border to Abu Ghraib in the western suburbs of Baghdad.

The militants have severed the Iraqi army’s supply lines, cut off troops’ communications and consolidated gains that would not be easily disrupted by an air campaign, the report said.

Perhaps most alarming is the jihadists’ advance on Ramadi, 80 miles west of Baghdad.

Iraqi news media outlets reported Monday that security forces­ had withdrawn from central Ramadi, a claim that Dulaimi, the police chief, later denied. But attacks over the past week have left the militants in control of new neighborhoods in the city.

Local officials have warned the central government that Ramadi may soon fall.

“All of the areas around Ramadi are controlled by the Islamic State,” said Ahmed Abu Risha, a prominent tribal sheik who commands pro-government fighters in the area.

Abu Risha said his forces­, who are lightly armed, have received no air support while fighting off the Islamic State.

“If Ramadi falls, all of Anbar falls,” he said. “Ramadi is the head. If you cut the head, the rest of the body will die, too.”

One of the most important losses­ for the Iraqi security forces­ was the military camp at Saqlawiyah. Islamic State fighters surrounded the base west of Fallujah last month. Some of the soldiers there fled, while the jihadists are believed to have massacred many others, according to survivors. Between 300 and 500 soldiers were missing, they said. The militants subsequently seized a military base at Albu Aytha, 50 miles from Baghdad.

“For days we begged for airstrikes and they never came,” said a 38-year-old soldier who survived the onslaught at Saqlawiyah and gave his name only as Abu Ali for fear of retribution.

Now, he says, he doesn’t believe there is anything worth fighting for in Anbar.

“The leadership doesn’t care about us, the people there [in Anbar] don’t care about us. They called us Shia dogs,” he said. “How can I fight for any of them after this?”

Jayashi, the analyst, said that Anbar residents needed to support the Iraqi security forces­.

“Otherwise,” he said, “we will lose all of western Iraq.”

Karen DeYoung in Washington and Mustafa Salim in Baghdad contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mid ... ml?hpid=z1

[Anthea]

War Of Flags: Extremists in Mosul Disguise Civilian Houses To Fool Air Strikes

Members of the Sunni Muslim extremist group, Islamic State, have been raising their flags on houses of locals who have not pledged allegiance to them. Their aim: fooling the international alliance into striking civilians and hiding themselves. They refuse to let locals leave their flagged, and dangerous, homes either.

Abu Omar decided to leave his house in Mosul and take his family to other accommodation. The reason? A member of the Sunni Muslim extremist group known as the Islamic State climbed onto the roof of his home recently and planted one of the group’s distinctive black flags there. The flag makes his family and his home a target for allied air strikes, Abu Omar, as he wished to be known for security reasons, told NIQASH.

But when his family tried to leave, they were shocked to find that fighters from the Islamic State, or IS, group told them that they couldn’t leave.

At a meeting in Abu Omar’s house in the Al Arabi neighbourhood of Mosul, he says he feels sure that his family will be killed now.

Sadly, Abu Omar and his family are not the only ones to get a black IS flag on their property. There are dozens of other families who are facing a similar situation around Mosul.

The home of Abu Mohammed – as he wished to be known for security reasons - and his family is under similar threat in the Ghazlani neighbourhood; they also have a flag on their property now and they also fear that this will make them a target for international air strikes.

When he complained to a cousin who joined the IS group, Abu Mohammed was told him that his property has a flag because he did not pledge allegiance to the leader of the IS group and the group’s fighters have instructions to put the flags on the rooftops of all those who have not done this. The flags would not be used to decorate the homes of “real Muslims” who did pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-styled leader of the IS group, thus supposedly hiding them from planes flying overhead.

US planes flying overhead have dropped a lot of leaflets in Mosul asking the city’s people to stay away from the IS group’s headquarters, training camps, hospitals and even from houses where leading members of the group are known to live.

Another Mosul man who wished to be known as Ammar told NIQASH that he had begged IS group members to allow him and his family to leave their home, which is near the Turkish embassy in Mosul and which is now being used as the IS group’s main headquarters. He has already sent his sons to stay at a relative’s house.

“Three IS group members knocked on all the doors of the houses around here, near the embassy,” Ammar told NIQASH. “They told them not to leave their homes. They said if any person does leave their property they will be considered an enemy and the IS group will confiscate his property.”

With an ironic smile, Ammar said that the IS group members left after telling all the families there, “you are not better than us. If we die, you die too”.

All of the Mosul locals NIQASH spoke with were extremely worried that the IS group’s flag-raising tactics were working, saying they had heard rumours of aerial raids in Heet, in the Anbar province, where planes had apparently targeted buildings with the IS flag on and mistakenly caused civilian causalities.

This method of confusing matters and using camouflage on the ground is part of the IS group’s new set of tactics, developed after it was announced that an international coalition, including the US, would began air strikes on IS group targets in Iraq. Avoiding civilian casualties is known to be of great concern to the international alliance but this is also difficult because the IS group is well hidden inside a number of cities, both in Iraq and Syria.

The IS group managed to take control of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in early June this year, after years of having a presence and developing allies there already.

“The international alliance depends heavily on aerial pictures taken by surveillance aircraft and by satellites in order to determine targets for airstrikes,” Hisham al-Hashimi, a researcher into armed militias in Iraq who also advises the Iraqi government, told NIQASH. “There is no effective intelligence effort on the ground.”

Obviously this increases the chance that there might be civilian causalities, al-Hashimi says. Especially when the IS group are using their flags to complicate things further. Al-Hashimi believes that many of the flags are being posted on the houses of members of other Sunni Muslim militias in the area who had worked together with the IS group to start with but who now refuse to pledge allegiance to al-Baghdadi.

With its “war of flags” it is certain that the IS group, which is cunning with its use of propaganda, is trying to kill two birds with one stone. It hopes to escape aerial bombardment and cause errors that would see civilians killed or injured. The latter will allow the IS group to accuse the international alliance of waging war against innocent Iraqis and gain more support from disgruntled locals in Sunni Muslim-majority areas.

“It is obvious what the IS group is trying to do with their flags,” says Ali al-Saray, a local journalist who specialises in writing about politics. “It’s trying to stop armed individuals inside their areas from confronting them and also give foreign intelligence false information. If the international alliance bombs civilian sites carrying the IS flags, the organization will use that in its media war.”

http://www.niqash.org/articles/?id=3554

[Anthea]

ISIS blows up "Church of Resurrection" in Assyrian city of
Baghdida (Qaraqosh) in Nineveh Iraq Source: Ishtar TV

Unconfirmed but hardly the sort of this someone woule lie about - so I believe it to be true

[Anthea]

Al Arabiya

ISIS militants execute Iraqi journalist, 12 other people
By Agence France-Presse | Samarra, Iraq

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants executed an Iraqi news cameraman and 12 other people on Friday in several towns and villages north of Baghdad, officials, relatives and witnesses said.

The militants shot dead Raad al-Azzawi, a 37-year-old cameraman for local news channel Sama Salaheddin, his brother and two other civilians in the village of Samra, east of the city of Tikrit, relatives of the journalist said.

“ISIS executed him, his brother and two other people in public today,” one relative said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the militant organization.

According to the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the father of three was detained by ISIS on September 7.

“They came to his home and took him and his brother,” the relative said. “He did nothing wrong, his only crime was to be a cameraman, he was just doing his job.”

“There must have been some people in the village who accused him of working for the government and tipped him off to the militants... He always had his camera with him,” he said.

According to an RSF statement issued last month, ISIS had threatened to execute Azzawi on the grounds that he had refused to work for them.

After targeting religious and ethnic minorities in the areas it took control during its broad Iraqi offensive four months ago, ISIS has recently executed dozens of people it suspects of any connection with the Shiite-dominated government.

ISIS executed nine other people north of Tikrit on Friday, all of them on suspicion of ties to anti-militant Sunni grassroots organizations, according to security officials and witnesses.

In the town of Az-Zab, 90 kilo meters west of the oil hub of Kirkuk, six people were executed in public.

“ISIS executed four residents of the lower part of Az-Zab and two from villages near Az-Zwiya,” a few miles further to the west, a local security official said.

Witnesses said the six were accused of being involved in efforts to organize Sunni resistance to IS in the Hawija region. They were executed on a marketplace, they said.

It was in the same area that residents of the village of Tel Ali burned an ISIS flag last month.

In retaliation, the militants abducted 50 residents and put up flags across the region, even booby-trapping some of them to stop locals from removing them.

In Baiji, about 35 kilo meters to the south, three men were beheaded on Friday, a security official in the region said.

The official said the three men had been abducted a few days earlier and were former members of the Sahwa organization funded by the U.S. military to combat Al-Qaeda in 2007

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/media/p ... ople-.html

[Anthea]

International Business News

ISIS Extends Gains In Iraq's Anbar As Kurds Battle For Control Of Kobani
By Avaneesh Pandey

Even as Kurdish forces in the Syrian border town of Kobani continue to battle militants of the Islamic State group in an attempt to regain lost territory, the Iraqi army has come under severe attack by the militant group formerly known as ISIS in the western province of Anbar, BBC News reported.

Anbar’s provincial council has asked the Iraqi central government led by Haider al-Abadi to request U.S. ground troops to help fight the Islamic State group, BBC News said Saturday, citing Iraq’s al-Sharqiyah TV.

The Islamic State group captured the city of Fallujah in Anbar province in Jaunary and has reportedly been carrying out sustained attacks on the provincial capital of Ramadi. The group has seized a number of army bases in the region, according to media reports.

The Times of London reported that Faleh al-Issawi, vice president of the provincial council, said the province -- vast swathes of which are already under the control of the Islamic State group -- could “fall in 10 days.” He added the battle over Kobani had diverted international attention from the advance of ISIS in Iraq.

Meanwhile, fighting in Kobani continued Saturday after ISIS seized control of almost 40 percent of the town Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. U.S.-led coalition warplanes carried out two airstrikes south and east of the town early Saturday to aid Kurdish fighters, who are struggling to halt the advance of the militants toward the center of the town, the Associated Press reported.

http://www.ibtimes.com/isis-extends-gai ... ni-1703378

[Anthea]

Iraq News

URGENT: ISIS sends 10,000 fighters to al-Anbar says head of PC. Governor issues warning.

Anbar (IraqiNews.com ) On Saturday the head of the Anbar Provincial Council, Sabah Karhoot said that ISIS sent about 10 thousand fighters from Syrian territory and Mosul to Anbar province.

The Anbar Council addressed the Iraqi central government requesting it for “fast and urgent intervention” to protect Anbar from an ISIS takeover.

The governor of Anbar, Faleh al-Issawi said in a statement to CNN followed by IraqiNews.com “ISIS controls about 80% of al-Anbar Province. If they were able to control the remaining 20%, the areas under their control would extend from the Syria city of Arriqa to the outskirts of Baghdad.”

http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/urgen ... s-warning/

[Anthea]

CNN

Leaders of Iraq's Anbar province call for U.S. ground forces to stop ISIS

Baghdad (CNN) -- Leaders in Iraq's western Anbar province pleaded Saturday for U.S. ground forces to halt the relentless advance of ISIS, while hundreds of kilometers away in the city of Kobani, Kurdish fighters desperately struggled to hold off the advancing extremist group.

The situation in Anbar, just to the west of Baghdad, is "very bad," the president of Anbar Provincial Council told CNN by phone on Saturday.

Sabah Al-Karhout said the council has intelligence that ISIS has dispatched as many as 10,000 fighters to Anbar from Syria and Mosul in northern Iraq.

The council's deputy head, Falleh al-Issawi, told CNN that it had asked the central government to intervene immediately to save the province from imminent collapse -- and to request the deployment of U.S. ground forces there.

That would be a significant shift, since the Iraqi government has until now been adamant that it does not want U.S. forces on the ground. President Barack Obama has also previously ruled out the use of U.S. ground troops.

The Iraqi government said it has not received any official request from Anbar province for U.S. military intervention and ground forces to help in the fight against ISIS, Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi's media office said Saturday.

"If we receive any request, we will look into it and we will give our recommendation, but thus far we have not received any request," the office said in a statement.

Meanwhile, ISIS militants are also tightening their grip on the holdout Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani despite coalition air strikes in the area.

U.S. and allied warplanes hit ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq Friday and Saturday, striking a command and control facility, a staging building, a fighting position and two small units north of Kobani, the U.S. Central Command said Saturday. Airstrikes also hit three ISIS trucks south of the city.

Still, fighters on the ground say, ISIS kept advancing.

Fighter: 'We cannot stop the ISIS advance'

ISIS fighters controlled about half of the Syrian city on Friday, significantly more than even a day earlier, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

A fighter in Kobani who spoke to CNN by phone Saturday said those defending the besieged city, also known as Ayn al-Arab, are in a grave situation.

Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG) and Free Syrian Army (FSA) troops are greatly outnumbered by ISIS militants and lack firepower, he said.

"We cannot stop the ISIS advance from the east because they have artillery, many fighters and a good supply of ammunition," he said, adding that YPG and FSA fighters are worried because they are close to being completely encircled by ISIS forces.

He put the location of the ISIS forces at between 700 meters and one kilometer from the official border crossing at Mursitpinar.

If the crossing fell to ISIS, the group would control three official border crossings between Turkey and Syria and a border strip with Turkey stretching approximately 100 kilometers (62 miles.)

A CNN team by the border saw plumes of black smoke rise from the city Saturday afternoon as artillery fire appeared to rain down on targets deep in the west of the city.

A civilian who has been in Kobani since fighting began told CNN by phone Saturday that the situation is worse than ever.

Civilians remaining in the city endure mortar fire from ISIS positions and live in fear of being beheaded by ISIS should the group take the city.

The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, warned at a Geneva news conference Friday that if Kobani falls, the civilians trapped in Syria "will most likely be massacred" by ISIS.

"You remember Srebrenica? We do," de Mistura said, referring to the 1995 massacre of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian war after Dutch U.N. peacekeepers failed to protect them. "We never forgot. And probably we never forgave ourselves for that."

Reports: Haditha under threat

In Iraq, ISIS apparently is targeting a string of cities along the Euphrates River where most of the population is concentrated.

Reports Saturday suggest the latest place to be encircled is Haditha, the last large town in Anbar province to survive outside ISIS control.

A coalition airstrike Saturday afternoon killed more than 30 suspected ISIS militants who were part of an armed convoy heading toward the Ein al-Assad military base west of Ramadi, police Capt. Bahjat al-Hamdani in the town told CNN.

ISIS, the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" which also is referred to as ISIL, is now in control of 80% of Anbar province. If the Sunni extremists seize the rest of the province, their territory will extend from Raqqa in Syria to the perimeters of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, al-Issawi said.

Iraqi army forces and Anbar tribesmen fighting alongside them have threatened to abandon their weapons if the U.S. military does not intervene to help them, he said, because they are faltering before the ISIS onslaught.

The army soldiers are not capable of defending themselves against ISIS because of a lack of training and equipment, he said. Already, some 1,800 tribesmen in the province have been killed or injured in the struggle.

Threat to Baghdad?

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Friday that Anbar province was in trouble.

A senior U.S. defense official also told CNN that Iraqi forces are "up against the wall" in Anbar. Some units are in danger of being cut off by the advancing militants, who say they are members of ISIS.

The Iraqis' ultimate goal is to take back some of the vast areas, in both Iraq and Syria, that ISIS controls.

But right now, Iraqi forces appear to be mostly trying to survive -- taking defensive positions and using Apache helicopters again, even after two were shot down in the area this week, according to the U.S. official.

A CNN team on the defensive perimeter of Baghdad in recent days saw that the Iraqi army has very significant defenses there.

ISIS appears to be conducting "hit-and-run" attacks rather than making any kind of frontal assault on the capital.

On Saturday, two car bombs exploded at separate checkpoints in northern Baghdad, killing 30 people and wounding 44, according to medical officials. It wasn't immediately known whether the attacks were the work of ISIS.

But gains by ISIS in an area near Baghdad airport, from which U.S. Apache helicopters operate, may heighten concern.

Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Francona, a CNN military analyst, said: "I think at some point, there's going to be the need for an additional ground force in western Iraq."

It remains to be seen whether those troops need to be American, or can be provided by other coalition nations, he said, but the Iraqi army, even after coalition airstrikes, has not been able to blunt the momentum of ISIS.

"The Iraqi army has virtually evaporated. The command structure doesn't exist. Although they have some good soldiers, they have no leadership. So additional ground forces are going to be necessary."

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/11/world ... =allsearch

[Anthea]

Baghdad blasts kill at least 34 in Shiite districts



Baghdad (AFP) - Car bomb blasts in two Shiite neighbourhoods of the Iraqi capital killed at least 34 people and wounded 54 on Saturday, police and medical sources said.

A suicide car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint guarding Kadhimiyah, a neighbourhood in northwestern Baghdad that is home to one of the holiest shrines in Shiite Islam.

A police colonel said at least 10 people were killed and 31 wounded, a toll confirmed by a medical source.

Farther west, in the district of Shoala, a car bomb went off in a busy commercial street, killing at least 24 people and wounding another 23, a medical source said.

There were conflicting reports as to whether the carnage in Shoala might have been caused by two consecutive explosions, but a source at the interior ministry gave a similar toll.

On Thursday, at least 12 people died in another car bomb attack on the sprawling Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City.

The United Nations said more than 1,110 people were killed in acts of violence across Iraq in September. According to an AFP count, more than 250 have already been killed this month.

While the bloodshed has been mainly on the frontlines where federal, Kurdish and allied forces battle the Islamic State jihadist group, blasts and executions in Baghdad continue to take a heavy toll.

http://news.yahoo.com/baghdad-blasts-ki ... 35836.html

[Anthea]

CBS News

BAGHDAD -- Militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have infiltrated one of Baghdad's outer suburbs, Abu Ghraib which is only eight miles from the runway perimeter of Baghdad's international airport.

It's cause for serious concern now that the Iraqi Defense Ministry has confirmed ISIS has MANPADs, shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles.

The Iraqi army is still patrolling Abu Ghraib, but they play cat and mouse with the ISIS fighters who stage hit and run attacks on security forces.

It's a mixed picture around the city. ISIS took over the city of Fallujah -- only about 40 miles west of Baghdad -- in January, and the Iraqi security forces have fought in vain for a year to force them out.

Instead, and in spite of weeks of U.S.-led airstrikes, ISIS has gradually extended its reach. The extremist group is now either present or in control of a huge swath of countryside, forming a 180-degree arc around the Iraqi capital from due north around to the west, and all the way to the south.

Around this zone there have been skirmishes, and occasionally heavy fighting, with Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias battling ISIS.

American jets have carried out more than two dozen airstrikes in the area, mainly near Fallujah and the city of Ramadi, further to the west.

Inside Baghdad itself, there are ISIS sleeper cells that carry out almost daily bombings and assassinations.

An Iraqi officer told CBS News that the airstrikes are helping to clear an ISIS-free buffer zone around the city, where there are Iraqi boots on the ground. In fact, there are 60,000 men assigned to defend the capital, and CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that there are 12 teams of American advisers deployed with the Iraqi brigades. The estimate is that the Iraqi army will fight for the capital and there is no real concern that Baghdad is in imminent danger, Martin says.

Still, questions remain as to whether the Iraqi are disciplined enough to put up a sufficient fight if ISIS launches a major offensive.

As at least three major Iraqi military debacles have shown over the past five months -- the most stunning being the quick fall of Mosul in the north -- the army is plagued with problems of poor leadership and endemic corruption that undermine their effectiveness as a fighting force.

As Martin reported from the Pentagon on Thursday, due to the relatively poor performance of the Iraqi troops west of Baghdad, the airstrikes are having a limited impact.

In a clear indication of both the urgency of stopping any advance on Baghdad from the West, and in the need for precision strikes around the densely populated city, the U.S. used Apache attack helicopters -- for the first time in the fight against ISIS -- in Anbar province on Sunday.

Last week, the fighting in Anbar verged on a rout of the Iraqi army, Martin reports. In the past few days the ISIS offensive has slowed, but analysts aren't sure if that's because ISIS is overextended or are simply taking an "operational pause" while they reposition for the resumption of the offensive.

The militants largely control the main highway between Baghdad and the border with Jordan, to the west, and the desert surrounding it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/isis-within ... h-manpads/

[Anthea]

The Guardian

British soldiers are training peshmerga forces in Iraq, says MoD

‘Small specialist team’ working on ground near Kurdish capital of Irbil to provide instruction in use of heavy machine guns

British soldiers are in Iraq and working close to the frontline of the fight between the Islamic State (Isis) and Kurdish fighters, the Ministry of Defence has said.

A “small specialist team” is based near the Kurdish capital of Irbil in northern Iraq after their deployment was approved by the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, a spokeswoman confirmed.

They are in the war-torn region training peshmerga forces in the use of heavy machine guns that the UK supplied to them in September. The Sunday Times reported that the soldiers were from the 2nd Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment, which is based in Cyprus.

The spokeswoman said: “The government has previously made clear its intention to provide training to the peshmerga as part of the continued effort to assist in the fight against Isil (Isis).

“The defence secretary has approved the deployment of a small specialist team of non-combat army trainers, which is now in the Irbil area providing instruction on operating, employing and maintaining the heavy machine guns that were gifted by the UK last month.”

British troops invaded Iraq in March 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The last combat troops with Operation Telic, as it was called, left in April 2009, with a small number staying on to train the Iraqi armed forces until 2011.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... kurds-isis

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Police chief killed in Iraq's Anbar

Police chief of Iraq's Anbar province, scene of offensive by Islamic State, is killed by one of series of car bombs

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29587928

[Anthea]

Al Jazeera

Triple suicide attack hits Kurds in Iraq

At least 29 members of the Kurdish security forces, who are battling ISIL, killed and 88 injured, officials say.

A triple suicide attack tore through a Kurdish compound in eastern Iraq, killing at least 29 members of the security forces and 88 injured, according to hospital and security officials.

The attack happened in Qara Tappah, in the eastern Diyala province about 120 kms northeast of Baghdad.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Erbil, said the attack was a triple car bombing.

"They targeted three different locations in close proximity to each other - two of them were used as bases by Kurdish security forces, a third by the PUK political party," Khodr said.

"The Kurds are at war and definitely this is a major blow, especially as of late Kurdish forces, with the help of US-led aistrikes, have been able to capture back territory from ISIL in recent weeks."

Kurdish sources told Al Jazeera that the death toll was likely to rise.

Police chief slain

In a separate incident, officials say a bomb killed the police chief of Iraq's Anbar province.

Councilman Faleh al-Issawi told the Associated Press news agency that the bomb went off on Sunday morning near a convoy carrying Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Dulaimi in the vast province west of Baghdad.

The convoy had been traveling through an area to the north of the provincial capital, Ramadi.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said that authrorities had responded to the attack by imposing a curfew.

"This is seen as quite a major attack," Khan said. "Enforcing the curfew will be difficult because ISIL are in control of much of the province."

It was not immediately clear if others were killed. The councilman said Iraqi security forces had recaptured the area from the rebels a day earlier.

Anbar has seen a growing rebellion since early this year. Groups led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, have fully controlled the city of Fallujah, parts of Ramadi and rural areas.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas ... 14574.html