ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

UPDATE:
Police chief of Iraq's Anbar province killed in bomb



The police chief of Iraq's Anbar province, where Islamic State militants are advancing, has been killed in a roadside bomb, officials say.

Major General Ahmed Saddag was killed when the bomb targeted his convoy near the provincial capital Ramadi.

In a separate attack, 22 Kurdish soldiers died in a triple car bomb attack in the eastern Diyala province.

Islamic State militants have seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in recent months, pushing back Iraqi forces.

A security source told Reuters that the police chief was on patrol inspecting security forces in the Al-Bu Risha area of Ramadi when two roadside bombs went off.

Anbar province is the home of a growing insurgency by Sunni militants, including Islamic State.

On Saturday, a series of car bombs exploded in mainly Shia areas of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing at least 38 people.

At least 75 people have been killed in attacks in various Iraqi cities this weekend.

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

[Anthea]

Hewler Parliament condemns Turkey

The Federal Kurdistan Regional Parliament has condemned the violent treatment meted out to protesters in Turkey involved in solidarity actions for Kobanê and called on the Turkish authorities to listen to the demands of the protesters.

However, despite there being 63 deputies demanding that the parliament recognise the cantons of Rojava, the parliament announced that it did not have the authority to do this.

After hunger strike demanding that the Hewler (Erbil) parliament take a clear position within 48 hours, protesters have today blocked the road in front of the parliament building. A solidarity march with Kobanê took place on 8 October, while on 9 October the hunger strikers put their demands to parliament.

The hunger strikers demanded the following: "Parliament should assemble within 48 hours and take a joint position on Kobanê" and "It should formally recognise the cantons of West Kurdistan.” The protesters pointed out that 34 political parties have recognised the cantons and that these parties have 62 seats in parliament, a majority, and should therefore put their support into practice. The protesters also demanded that the Sêmalka border post be officially opened and that the embargo on West Kurdistan be totally lifted and that an urgent decision be taken to provide military support to West Kurdistan.

The PUK, KDP, Gorran Movement, Komela Îslamî ya Kurdistanê and Kurdistan Islamic Union (Yekgirtûya Îslamî ya Kurdistanê) had promised to put these demands to the Speaker of Parliament.

Due to the continuing silence of Parliament, today protesters have blocked the road by holding a sit-down protest in front of the parliament building.

Turkey condemned

In a statement issued today by the Speaker of the Hewler Parliament, the violent treatment of protesters in Turkey and North Kurdistan during solidarity protests with Kobanê that began on 6 October was condemned. Recalling that 39 people had died the statement said: "We condemn the attacks on and use of violence against the protesters. We call on the Turkish authorities to listen to the appeals for assistance of the heroic fighters of Kobanê who are opposing ISIS in line with the United Nations and coalition countries, instead of using lethal violence against protesters.”

The Parliamentary Speaker said they supported all the demands of Kurdish protesters and reiterating their solidarity with Kobanê.

Does parliament not have authority?

According to the recently-established RojNews agency, the Kurdistan Parliament has issued a written statement saying it does not have the authority to recognise the cantons of West Kurdistan. The statement was issued in reply to the 63 deputies who had called for recognition.

In the statement, dated 29 September 2014, is the following justification for its not having the authority to grant recognition: "a request for recognition by the Kurdistan Region is necessary from the Rojava autonomous administration”.

Gorran Movement deputy Adnan Osman told RojNews that: "the Parliamentary Speaker’s disregard of the will of 63 deputies is striking." Osman added that the Speaker was making statements in line with his own ideas.

http://ajansakurdi.com/2014/10/12/hewle ... se-rojava/

[Anthea]

I am now going to upset a lot of people

I have always viewed the Cantons as extensions of Northern Kurdistan rather than Western Kurdistan

The Cantons contain those Syrian Kurds most likely to speak Kurdish

Perhaps the people who formed those Cantons were misinformed as to the ethnicity of all the many small villages - towns and farming communities in the north of Syria simply because they speak only Arabic and not Kurdish

I have had it on GOOD AUTHORITY from Western Kurdish politicians and leaders

That the area of Western Kurdistan exceeds much further down into Syria than even the map below indicates



I am 100% against the formation of small Cantons in Syria that EXCLUDE the majority of well established and recognised Kurdish occupied land to the north of Syria

Were Turkey to close it's borders completely - something very likely to happen with the Islamic State knocking on ti's door - how was in envisaged that Kurds would move from one Canton to the next - aeroplanes

How did people think that Kurds have always travelled form one Canton (before it was called a canton) to the next?

Why were the Kurdish farms and small villages left isolated

Time to look at the bigger picture and take notice of ALL the small Kurdish villages and farming communities that the Islamic State have taken over or destroyed - but for the most part have been ignored because they were not in one of the cantons

Kurds only have strength in UNITY

Do not let others divide you

ONE NATION
ONE PEOPLE
ONE KURDISTAN

[Anthea]

Reuters

Islamic State suicide bombers kill 28 Kurds; police chief assassinated

Suspected Islamic State bombers assassinated an Iraqi provincial police chief and killed 28 people in an attack on a Kurdish security headquarters on Sunday, a second straight day of mass attacks that killed scores.

The two attacks, in the north of the country and the west, showed the jihadist group's ability to inflict damage on both the forces of the autonomous Kurdish region and the central government, despite U.S.-led air strikes.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of a Kurdish security compound in the north, saying it had sent three foreign bombers: a German, a Saudi and a Turk, according to SITE, a group that monitors jihadi announcements.

Hospital sources said Kurdish "Peshmerga" security forces and civilians were among the 28 killed in the attack in Qara Tappa, a mainly Kurdish town in the north of Diyala province, an ethnically and religiously mixed battleground area.

As many as 90 people were wounded in the attack, which hit an administrative compound of Kurds that control the area.

In the east, a blast killed the chief of police of Anbar province, the vast mainly Sunni region of the Euphrates valley that has been one of the main battlefields between government forces and Islamic State fighters for months.

The police commander, General Ahmad Sadak al-Dulaimi, was on patrol in an area where government forces have fought against Islamic State near a village 15 km west of the provincial capital Ramadi when a blast hit his convoy.

A security source said the attack was a shock because it took place in an area that had seemed to be under government control.

In a separate incident on Sunday, two bombs at a market in Diyala's provincial capital Baquba kill at least six civilians and wounded 10, a police source said.

Sunday's attacks came a day after militants killed at least 45 people in bombings in west Baghdad and its rural outskirts.

The United States and its allies are providing air support to help government forces and Kurds in Iraq fight against Islamic State militants who have controlled sections of Anbar province for most of this year and swept through northern Iraq in June.

The group also controls a swathe of Syria and has proclaimed a caliphate on both sides of the frontier, imposing a harsh interpretation of Sunni Islam, beheading and crucifying prisoners and ordering non-Muslims and Shi'ites to convert or die.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/10/1 ... 9S20141012

[Anthea]

The Daily Star

EXCLUSIVE: SAS team halt Islamic State attack in Iraq with just TWO shots

TWO shots from the world’s most powerful sniper rifle halted a jihadi attack.
By NEIL CHANDLER

An SAS team used the AW50 to blast a lorry ­taking Islamic State killers towards an undefended Iraqi village.

It is the first report of British ground troops in action in the region and comes after Prime Minister David Cameron said there would be no UK “boots on the ground” in a combat role.

Two SAS troopers spotted the Islamic State convoy from a hillside ­observation point in northern Iraq.

The elite troops feared the fighters were planning to target vulnerable civilians in a nearby village. They tried to call in an airstrike but no jets were in the area.

Instead, the SAS pair blasted the lead vehicle with a single round from their AW50 rifle fitted with a silencer.

The weapon fires the same huge bullet as a heavy machine gun and can cut a man in half from more than a mile away.

The first shot hit the truck’s engine and split it in two.

The confused IS thugs jumped down from the open-top vehicle and radioed for another so that they could continue their advance.

When the insurgents climbed into the second lorry, the SAS team fired a second shot, destroying that too.

The fanatics then realised they were under attack and fled in their remaining ­vehicles.

A senior source last night told the Daily Star Sunday: “It was a classic special forces operation.

"The SAS sniping team didn’t want to engage the IS militants in a full-blown battle because they were part of a small patrol spread out over an area.

"But they knew they could not just let the convoy pass and start killing people in the villages.

"So rather than hitting the militants they destroyed their vehicles.

The jihadis had no idea who was firing at them or from where.

"They couldn’t even hear the shot. They panicked and basically ran away.

"It’s not always about killing the enemy but neutralising the threat – that’s what these guys did.”

The AW50 is a bolt-action rifle which can fire a .50 calibre round over 1,500m. It was designed to destroy radar units, ­aircraft on runways and cars, lorries or lightly armoured tanks.

The AW50 has been an SAS favourite for several years.

Its recoil is so powerful the rifle needs a special hydraulic buffer system in the butt to prevent damage to the firer and to increase accuracy.

It has a five-round magazine and at 15kg weighs four times as much as the average assault rifle.

One SAS source said: "This weapon in the right hands is phenomenal.

"A team could take out a squadron of aircraft or helicopters on a runway and it will obliterate lightly-armoured vehicles.

"Troops call it ‘The Cannon’ because they say it has a kick like one and weighs almost as much.”

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest- ... -TWO-shots

[Anthea]

ISIS captures Hiit military base in Anbar Province after the withdrawal of the Iraqi army.

(does that mean the iraqi cowards ran away again )

[Anthea]

Bloomberg

Islamic State Claims Suicide Bombs as It Defies U.S. Strikes
By Khalid Al-Ansary and Aziz Alwan

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a triple suicide bombing in northern Iraq that killed at least 58 people as militants defied U.S.-led airstrikes to stage attacks across Iraq and Syria. (was there any doubt - thought not)

The group said on a jihadist website that three foreign fighters carried out the attacks yesterday in Qara Tappah in the ethnically mixed province of Diyala, 75 miles north of Baghdad.

A roadside bomb also killed the police chief of the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, where security forces are struggling to repel militant attacks.

Islamic State has so far resisted efforts by the Iraqi military to wrest back control of Sunni areas of the country, while continuing its own offensive in Iraq and neighboring Syria. President Barack Obama’s senior military adviser warned that militants were blending with Sunni populations in communities near Baghdad, increasing the likelihood of attacks on the Iraqi capital.

“I have no doubt there will be days when they use indirect fire into Baghdad,” the adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey, said in an interview yesterday with “This Week” on ABC. Indirect fire can refer to use of mortars or artillery fire.
Intensified Attacks

Islamic State has already carried out attacks in the capital. The group claimed responsibility for Oct. 11 suicide strikes that targeted Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, according to a statement posted yesterday on a jihadist website. The suicide car bombs killed more than 43 people in the Shula and Kadhimiya districts of the capital, the pro-government al-Sumaria television channel reported. The attack wounded 91 people, it said.

International efforts against Islamic State have intensified as militants threaten to capture Ramadi in Iraq and the northern Syrian town of Kobani. Kurdish forces, backed by Yezidi fighters and tribal militants, on Oct. 11 started an offensive to retake the town of Sinjar in Iraq’s north, the al-Mada news agency reported, citing security officials.

As part of an international effort to improve the capability of Iraq’s forces, the U.K. sent a “small specialist team” of soldiers to Iraq to train Kurdish forces how to use heavy machine guns Britain supplied to them last month, the Press Association said, citing the Ministry of Defence.

To contact the reporters on this story: Khalid Al-Ansary in Baghdad at kalansary@bloomberg.net; Aziz Alwan in Baghdad at aalwan1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net Jack Fairweather, Mark Williams


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-1 ... ghdad.html

[Anthea]

Tyhe Islamic State are vermin - and as the rats they are - they seem to be getting everywhere

[Anthea]

Zee News

Iraq pulls troops from IS-held western city

Baghdad: Iraqi government troops stationed on the edge of Heet in beleaguered Anbar province have withdrawn to another base, leaving the city under full jihadist control, security sources said on Monday.

Islamic State (IS) fighters had assaulted and eventually seized the centre of the western city on the Euphrates river, but a sizeable contingent of government forces remained holed up in a nearby base.

"Iraqi forces evacuated Heet training camp last night (Sunday) on the orders of the military command," a senior police official in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, told AFP.

"Our military leaders argued that instead of leaving those forces exposed to attacks by IS, they would be best used to shore up the defence of Asad air base," he said.

Ahmed Hamid, who heads the Anbar provincial council`s security committee, said around 300 members of the security forces pulled out of the Heet training academy a few kilometres (miles) northwest of the city.

Asad is a large base northwest of Heet and one of the last still under government control in the restive western province. It is surrounded by desert and a tougher target for IS fighters.

Other security officials said military aircraft picked up senior officers from the Heet base, and the rest of the force drove in a convoy to Asad.

They set fire to trailers and other infrastructure before abandoning the base. Witnesses told AFP IS fighters took over what was left of the camp on Monday morning.

"Heet is now 100 percent under IS-control," the police colonel said.

Government forces have suffered a string of setbacks in Anbar in recent weeks, and officials have warned that their grip on the capital Ramadi was increasingly tenuous.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/ira ... 83983.html

[Anthea]

'Iraq is now like a drowning man'
Suadad al-Salhy

Amid fresh ISIL gains, officials in Anbar province have urged the Iraqi government to request foreign ground troops.

Baghdad - Despite the inability of Iraqi forces to stop the advance of fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) west of the capital Baghdad, the Iraqi government has reconfirmed it will not ask for foreign ground troops.

Instead, it will rely on making further reforms to the country's beleaguered military, officials said - which could presage the fall of more towns and cities to ISIL.

On the weekend, the local government in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province sent a written request to the Iraqi parliament, asking it to request US ground troops in an effort to save other towns and cities near Baghdad. ISIL fighters last week overran the town of Hiit in Anbar, and have since besieged dozens of villages around the nearby town of Haditha, which remains under the control of Iraqi forces and anti-ISIL Sunni tribesmen.

Anbar's police chief, Lieutenant General Ahmad Sadak al-Dulaimi, was killed alongside four bodyguards when their convoy was hit by roadside bombs on Sunday, military officials said. He had been fighting ISIL members who were trying to gain control in northern Ramadi.

"There is no solution but to get the US military to intervene on the ground," a senior security adviser to the federal government told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity. "Iraq is now like a drowning man who has no choice but to ask for help."

Although there are 53,000 Iraqi soldiers in Anbar, along with several strategic military bases, "they could not stop the militants' advance… What we really need are US elite troops," the adviser added.

Since August, a US-led military coalition has been bombing ISIL fighters who hold swaths of territory in northern and western Iraq, but military and local officials in Anbar told Al Jazeera that progress has been stymied by a recent influx of new ISIL fighters.

Located just outside Baghdad, Anbar is a key strategic province and ISIL would gain a big advantage over Iraqi forces by overtaking the area. ISIL currently controls more than 70 percent of Anbar, with the rest under the control of Iraqi security forces and anti-ISIL Sunni tribes, Sabah Karhout, the head of Anbar's Provincial Council, told Al Jazeera.

"The air strikes are not working, as [ISIL's] numbers are more than you can imagine," Karhout said, noting intelligence information shows that ISIL has tens of thousands of fighters operating in Anbar.

Karhout and other local officials in Anbar blame the shortage of security personnel, weapons and money, warning the province may fall into the hands of ISIL within days.

"The air strikes are not enough to redeem Anbar from Daesh's [ISIL] grip and without the intervention of the coalition forces, Anbar will fully be under the control of the militants within 10 days," Falih al-Essawi, deputy of the Anbar Provincial Council, told Al Jazeera. "The [Iraqi] government should consider our request [for international ground forces] because Daesh threatens not only Anbar, but Baghdad will be under threat in the coming days."

The US has used Apache attack helicopters to provide close air support to Iraqi forces. General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US chiefs of staff, said the decision to use Apaches was taken to halt fighters who might otherwise have been able to attack Baghdad's airport on the city's western outskirts.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi has repeated many times that there will be no need for foreign ground troops, noting in a recent television interview with the al-Hurra channel: "Any foreign ground troops on Iraqi soil will be treated as enemy troops."

In the same interview, Abbadi said Iraq does not need international ground troops because it has more than one million security personnel, plus a half-million volunteer anti-ISIL fighters. What Iraqi security forces need, he said, is more reforms, training, and coordination.

On Tuesday, Iraq will participate in a US-led military coalition meeting in Washington, during which participants will discuss how best to support Iraq in its fight against ISIL. Babiker Zebari, the chief of the Iraqi army staff, will be present.

"We do not need troops. What we need is weapons and to reorganise our troops," said a senior Iraqi defence ministry official. "We already started to restructure the dissolved military divisions and rehabilitate the deserters who returned to the service by sending them to short basic courses and redeploying them."

Thousands of deserters have returned to the service after the government issued an amnesty last August, the official said.

Abbadi's military team believes that while local reforms would take months, this is the only available option, as more significant foreign intervention would cause internal divisions. Shia fighters have on many occasions, threatened to withdraw from the front lines if the Iraqi government brings in foreign ground troops. Washington has also ruled out the option.

"We'll do our part from the air and in many other respects in terms of building up the capacity of the Iraqis and the Syrian opposition, the moderates. But we are not going to be in a ground war again in Iraq," National Security Adviser Susan Rice told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.

Abbadi and his team, meanwhile, have said the battle with ISIL could last for months, if not years, but they maintain Baghdad is secured - even as more than 100 people were killed amid multiple explosions in the capital in the last two days.

"The belt of Baghdad is secured, but the problem is the sleeper cells which are able to carry out daily explosions," a military official in Abbadi's office told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity. "We have so many sleeper cells [inside Baghdad]. These cells are able to hide among the civilians and this makes hunting them very difficult."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas ... 14516.html

Anthea:

Although there are 53,000 Iraqi soldiers in Anbar, along with several strategic military bases, "they could not stop the militants' advance

53,000 Iraqi soldiers whay sort of wimps are the Iraqis - does anyone know how many HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of fighters the Islamic State have facing the Iraqi wimps?

Perhaps they need a handful of Kurdish women to show them how to fight

[Anthea]

BBC News UK

UK funding Kurdish bomb disposal training, says Hammond



The UK is to fund bomb disposal training for Kurdish forces in conflict with Islamic State (IS), Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has said.

Up to 18 students from the forces, known as the Peshmerga, will be trained to counter Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

Mr Hammond said the Peshmerga's battle with IS extremists is "our fight too".

He is in Iraq to meet its new prime minister Haider al-Abadi, discuss IS and the creation of national unity.

Speaking from Erbil, in the Kurdistan region, Mr Hammond said the Peshmerga are on the front line of the battle against Isil - which IS is also known as.

"It is vital that the UK and all in the international community support them in this fight, which is our fight too," he said.

"Given the scale of the threat faced from IEDs, this assistance could prove life-saving for the Peshmerga forces and civilians, and serves as one small but vital part in the package of support being provided by the UK to Iraq to tackle the threat from Isil."

The training course lasts four weeks and will cost £230,000. It is being delivered by a UK firm in the Kurdistan region.

'Brutal group'

A team of UK troops is also helping to train Kurdish forces in northern Iraq in the use of heavy machine guns supplied by the UK.

And Royal Air Force Tornado jets based in Cyprus have been flying combat missions over Iraq since September.

Earlier, when in Baghdad, Mr Hammond said Islamic State "makes no distinction between the cultures, countries and religions it attacks".

He called IS a "brutal terrorist group unrepresentative of the people of Iraq, the Middle East, or of the Islamic faith".

"If it is left unchecked, we will face a terrorist and criminal cabal with a declared and proven determination to attack anyone who doesn't agree with its twisted ideology," he said.

"The action the UK has taken to date, including airstrikes and surveillance flights, shows the UK will play its part in standing with the Iraqi people in their fight against Isil."

UK assistance

Mr Hammond wrote on Twitter that he and Mr al-Abadi would "discuss support to government in Iraq in fight against terrorism and need for national reconciliation."

He later also said the UK was taking various steps to help the Iraqi authorities counter IS.

These, he said, consisted of the supply of military equipment and training to the Kurdish security forces, providing political support to the new Iraqi government and leading diplomatic action in the UN to disrupt flows of finance to IS.

Also, the UK has supplied £23m in humanitarian assistance to people affected by IS's "barbaric brutality".

"The formation of a new Iraqi government was a critical first step to addressing the serious security, political and humanitarian challenges facing Iraq," he added.

"It is now vital that all communities in Iraq work together to overcome those challenges.

"To do this, it will be important for interior and defence ministers to be appointed quickly and for Kurdish ministers to take up their positions in Baghdad."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29599564

Anthea: could somebody tell me exactly why the Kurds have to rescue Iraq

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Iraq crisis: 180,000 flee IS advance in Anbar, UN says


Iraqi troops have already clashed with IS fighters on the outskirts of Ramadi

As many as 180,000 people have fled fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State (IS) militants in and around the city of Hiit in western Anbar province, the UN says.

The civilians - many of whom were already displaced - have headed east towards the war-torn city of Ramadi.

The UN says the refugees are in need of food, blankets and medical supplies.

IS captured Hit earlier this month in an advance across Anbar that has alarmed Iraqi leaders.

Analysts say seizing Anbar would enable IS to establish a supply line to launch possible attacks on the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

In other developments:

At least 12 people are killed in a spate of bomb blasts in predominantly Shia areas of the capital, Baghdad
UK Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond, on his first official visit to Baghdad, says Iraqi forces will have to take the lead in fighting IS on the ground
The US says Turkey has agreed to allow moderate Syrian rebels to be trained on its soil in its bid to combat IS

The US-led coalition that is battling IS has carried out air strikes on the area around Hiit.

However, Iraqi security officials said on Monday that IS had overrun a military base the Iraqi army had abandoned about 8km (five miles) west of the city.



They took military vehicles, including tanks, and then set the camp ablaze, they said.

On Saturday, officials in Anbar appealed for military help, saying the province was in danger of falling to IS.

Anbar's provincial council asked the Iraqi government for US ground troops, Iraq's al-Sharqiyah TV reported.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has repeatedly ruled out any foreign ground troops in Iraq.

US Secretary of State John Kerry also said in Cairo at the weekend that Iraqis would have to do the fighting on the ground.

"Ultimately it is Iraqis who will have to take back Iraq," he said. "It is Iraqis in Anbar who will have to fight for Anbar."

The province is home to Iraq's second-largest dam, the Haditha, which controls the flow of the Euphrates to southern Iraq.

IS already controls large swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq.

Sold into slavery

"Reports indicate that 30,000 families, or approximately 180,000 individuals... many experiencing their second, third or fourth displacement, have left the city (Hiit) in the past few days," a statement from the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OHCA) says.

"The displaced dispersed to Ramadi, Khaldiya, Hajaj and Amiryah Rahaliya. Many fled in vehicles taking basic household items and found refuge with other IDPs (internally displaced persons) in public buildings, such as schools."

Meanwhile, an article in IS's online magazine Daqib said that Yazidi families have been sold into slavery by the group.

The Yazidi people lived in an area of north-west Iraq overrun by IS fighters in August.

The article says the people were divided among IS fighters "according to Sharia law" and goes on to describe slavery as a type of pathway to Islam.

A recent Human Rights Watch report said IS had systematically separated captured women and girls from their families and forced some to marry its fighters.

Reports of atrocities have also come from the northern Syrian town of Kobane where IS fighters are battling Kurdish forces.

Witnesses have reported IS fighters beheading civilians trying to flee to safety.

Kurdish forces say they urgently need more weapons and ammunition to push back the militants' advance in the town.

Link to Article & Videos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29606089

[Anthea]

BBC News Middle East

Shia militias 'killing Iraqi Sunnis in reprisal attacks'

Shia militias in Iraq have kidnapped and killed scores of Sunni civilians in recent months, a report by campaign group Amnesty International has said.

The killings were in apparent revenge for attacks by Islamic State (IS).

Amnesty said the militias had been supported and armed by the Iraqi government and operated with impunity.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who took office last month, has admitted to previous "excesses" by security forces and vowed to govern for all Iraqis.

He has not yet commented directly on allegations contained in the Amnesty report but has previously said Iraq faces an "existential" battle against militants from Islamic State, also known as Isis or Isil.

Mr Abadi has also acknowledged, in what is believed to be a reference to Sunnis, that his government must address the "legitimate grievances" of the Iraqi people.

Yazidis enslaved

The accusations against Shia militias in Iraq come two days after IS confirmed, in the latest issue of its propaganda magazine Dabiq, that it had captured and enslaved women and children from the Yazidi minority.

It said the women and children were seized around the town of Sinjar in northern Iraq and "were then divided according to the Sharia amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the... operations".

Some of the women were subsequently "sold", the magazine said.

The Amnesty report, based on interviews conducted in Iraq in August and September, provides details of what it says were sectarian attacks carried out by militiamen in the cities of Baghdad, Samarra and Kirkuk.

It says scores of unidentified bodies have been found, many still handcuffed and with gunshot wounds to the head, suggesting execution-style killings. Many others who disappeared remain unaccounted for.

Amnesty says that in Samarra, a mainly Sunni city north of Baghdad, it obtained details of more than 170 Sunni men abducted since June.

More than 30 were taken from or near their homes in a single day - 6 June - shot dead and their bodies dumped nearby.

"The killing spree seems to have been in reprisal for a brief incursion into the city the previous day" by IS fighters, Amnesty says.

'Blind revenge'

Amnesty says the militias - including Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, the Badr Brigades, the Mahdi Army and Kata'ib Hizbullah - have become more powerful since June, when the Iraqi army fell into disarray in the face of IS advances.

Correspondents say much of the fighting against IS since then has been carried out by militias, who were able to recruit thousands of volunteers, rather than the army.

There are now "tens of thousands" of militiamen, who "wear military uniforms but operate outside any legal framework and without any official oversight", Amnesty says.

The report quotes an unidentified Iraqi government official as saying that militias "mostly... kidnap Sunnis, because the victims can easily be labelled as terrorists and nobody is going to do anything about it".

Another unnamed government official said some Sunni men were considered to be "terrorists or terrorist supporters" because of where they lived. Others were killed "in blind revenge".

"I'm afraid that we're regressing back to the situation as it was seven or eight years ago, when this behaviour was very widespread," he said.

Militiamen have also tried to extort ransoms, sometimes killing their captives even after payments have been made, Amnesty said.

"I begged friends and acquaintances to lend me the ransom money to save my son but after I paid they killed him and now I have no way to pay back the money I borrowed, as my son was the only one working in the family," one mother said.

Amnesty says the militias have taken advantage of an "atmosphere of lawlessness" but the Iraqi government, which has armed and supported them, bears responsibility for their actions.

"By granting its blessing to militias who routinely commit such abhorrent abuses, the Iraqi government is sanctioning war crimes and fuelling a dangerous cycle of sectarian violence," said Amnesty's senior crisis response adviser, Donatella Rovera.

"The new Iraqi government... must act now to rein in the militias and establish the rule of law."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29603272

[Anthea]

CNN

Despite airstrikes and international outrage against ISIS militants, the terror group is overrunning Iraqi forces and slowly marching on toward a province on Baghdad's doorstep. And as alarming developments piled up over the weekend, Iraqi forces threatened to flee if the U.S. military does not intervene.

Here are where things stand:

On Baghdad's doorstep

ISIS fighters are making headway against poorly equipped local forces. The Islamist extremists appear set to take Kobani, a key Syrian town along the Turkish border. Next up: a province on Baghdad's doorstep.

Iraq's Anbar province pleaded for U.S. ground troops to halt the group's rapid, relentless assault.

The terror group came within 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) of Baghdad's airport, according to the leader of U.S. military efforts to fight ISIS in Iraq.

The United States brought in low-flying attack helicopters to keep ISIS at bay, Gen. Martin Dempsey told ABC on Sunday.

"You're not going to wait until they're climbing over the wall," Dempsey said. "Had (ISIS forces) overrun the Iraqi unit, it was a straight shot to the Baghdad airport."

Anbar province at risk

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is moving -- fast.

The group, which calls itself the Islamic State, controls about 80% of the province, according to Sabah Al-Karhout, president of Anbar Provincial Council.

If the province falls, the Sunni extremists would take over an area from the perimeter of Iraq's capital to Raqqa in Syria, according to Falleh al-Issawi, the provincial council's deputy head.

Iraq's military abandoned a strategically important base in Anbar after heavy fighting with ISIS militants, provincial security force sources told CNN on Monday.

The base outside Hit was one of the Shiite-led government's few remaining military outposts in the predominantly Sunni province.

Targeting law enforcement

No one is safe from the militants. The police chief of the province was killed over the weekend when a blast targeted his convoy, authorities said.

The attack is just one of the things sending shock waves among forces fighting the militants.

Iraqi army forces and Anbar tribesmen have threatened to abandon their weapons if the U.S. military does not intervene.

The army soldiers lack training and equipment, according to local authorities. Already, some 1,800 tribesmen in the province have been killed or injured in the struggle.

Iraqi officials have been adamant that they don't want U.S. forces on the ground. President Barack Obama has not shown any intent to deploy any.

Family of ISIS captive speaks

Meanwhile, the family of an ISIS captive, British journalist John Cantlie, is begging ISIS -- also known as IS -- to re-establish direct contact.

"This is frustrating for all parties, including those who are trying to assist us. We had previously been in contact through a channel started by you, but then this stopped for reasons best known to you," Cantlie's sister, Jessica Cantlie, said in a statement.

"We strongly challenge those holding John to return to your previously opened channel, to which we continue to send messages and await your response so that in keeping with everyone's wishes, we can restart dialogue. We implore IS to reinitiate direct contact."

Offensive against ISIS in Syria

ISIS is still advancing in Syria, where it emerged during that country's civil war. Its focus is on Kobani, a Kurdish enclave a stone's throw from Turkey.

The militants are gradually taking control of a large chunk of Kobani.

Monday was one of the most violent days since ISIS launched its assault on the city, with sounds of fierce fighting, including gunfire and explosions, CNN staff on the Syria-Turkey border said.

A fighter from the Kurdish People's Protection Unit, or YPG, told CNN's Arwa Damon that the battle was focusing on the main border crossing into Turkey. If ISIS took control, he said, "it's over."

On Saturday, ISIS fighters also clashed with local troops over the official border crossing into Turkey at Mursitpinar.

If they're successful, the militants would control three official border crossings between Turkey and Syria and a stretch of the border about 60 miles (97 kilometers) long.

The U.S. military said it and its allies had attacked ISIS on Sunday and Monday, launching four airstrikes southwest of Kobani, three northeast of the city and one northwest of Raqqa.

Link to Article & Video:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/13/world ... ?hpt=hp_t3

[Saipul]

I was so wrong about ISIS that it makes me sick. I said 'let the Arabs fight amongst themselves.' I was a fool.

Send every single one of them to hell.