ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

[Anthea]

Reuters

Suicide bomber in Iraq kills 27 Shi'ite militiamen near Baghdad

A suicide bomber killed at least 27 Shi'ite militiamen on the outskirts of the Iraqi town of Jurf al-Sakhar on Monday after security forces pushed Islamic State militants out of the area over the weekend, army and police sources said.

The attacker, driving a Humvee vehicle packed with explosives and likely stolen from defeated government troops, also wounded 60 Shi'ite militiamen, who had helped government forces retake the town just south of the capital.

Holding Jurf al-Sakhar is critical for Iraqi security forces who finally managed to drive out the Sunni insurgents after months of fighting.

It could allow Iraqi forces to prevent the Sunni insurgents from edging closer to the capital, sever connections to their strongholds in western Anbar province and stop them infiltrating the mainly Shi'ite Muslim south.

The group has threatened to march on Baghdad, home to

special forces and thousands of Shi'ite militias expected to put

up fierce resistance if the capital comes under threat.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/ ... WN20141027

[Anthea]

Bas News

Shiite Militia Arrest Number of Peshmerga

Following clashes between Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Shiite Badr Militia in Khurmatu, Salahaddin province, the Militia arrested number of Peshmerga fighters and sent them to Baghdad where they may face trial.

On Monday, a security source from Khurmatu confirmed the news and told BasNews, “After the clashes of the past few days between Peshmerga forces and Badr Militia in Khurmatu, two Badr militants were killed and four injured.”

He continued, “As a result, Badr Militia group arrested eight Peshmerga fighters.”

“Later, two Peshmerga were freed and six remained in custody. Furthermore, due to a complaint made by the killed militants’ family against the Peshmerga as well as under the justification that the Khurmatu court has been dismantled in the area, the case of these Peshmerga fighters will be sent to Baghdad. The Badr Militia group will try the case,” said the source.

According to information obtained by BasNews, Peshmerga forces recently fired on a Badr militia vehicle in Duzkhurmatu area for not stopping at a Peshmerga checkpoint, leading to the clashes.

http://basnews.com/en/News/Details/Shii ... erga/39858

Anthea: I loathe the Shiite Militia almost as much as I loathe the Islamic State

From what I read they are just as vile - savage - violent - dangerous and untrustworthy as IS

[Anthea]

The Spectator

Never mind the Baghdad politics, Iraqi Kurds need help to fight Islamic State
By Gary Kent (Gary Kent is the director of the UK’s all-party parliamentary group on the
Kurdistan Region. He has visited Iraq 19 times since 2006, and writes in a personal capacity.)

The threat from Daish, the Arabic acronym for the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has gone from a side issue to a central imperative, judging by discussions with Kurdish leaders on my four fact-finding trips to the Kurdistan region in the last year.

Last November, I was told how Daish operatives were assiduously measuring building sites in Mosul in an extortion racket. In February, I learned of their external funding and their continuing growth. In June, they captured Mosul with a small force that immediately acquired thousands of adherents, and established a 650-mile border with the Iraqi Kurds.

The major shock, though, was how quickly the Iraqi Army had ‘disappeared in a puff’, as the governor of Kirkuk put it to me in his office in the city. Kurdish leaders knew that Daish would turn its guns on them, but were taken by surprise in early August.

Daish forces outgunned the Kurdish Peshmerga, who had to retreat in some places. Daish came within artillery range of the capital, Erbil, and sparked panic through deliberate and inadvertent confusion on social media. It is not surprising that roughly one-third the population of Erbil fled. Some Syrian refugees in the region even returned to Syria.

The threat to Erbil was so serious that the Americans finally undertook airstrikes that stemmed Daish. The threat has now abated but no one is complacent. A senior Kurdish figure explained to me the seriousness of the military and political strategy of Daish. They used game theory to provoke war, and turned themselves from a local into a global force with volunteers from 81 countries. Their branding of beheadings and brutality made them instantly recognisable above their would-be jihadi competitors.

Their tactics are novel and devastating, using explosive-laden vehicles to soften defences and then a charge of fighters. Having cleared villages of people, they retreat, leaving nests of booby traps in and around the villages. Over four-fifths of Peshmerga deaths have been caused this way. De-mining and first-aid training are essential.

A major lesson of early August is that the Peshmerga lack a unified command, and were stymied by being divided on political lines. Their bifurcation goes back to the bitter civil war of the 1990s, which is still very raw for supporters of various Kurdish factions, who do not trust the others for protection. Longstanding calls for reforming the region’s security forces are now accepted by all parties.

But the Peshmerga also need heavy weapons. I am no military man but some simple points are clear; A sniper rifle with a range of one mile cannot overcome one with two-miles range; AK-47s without armour-piercing shells will be trumped by guns that can slice through armour; The Kurds’ Toyota pick-ups and improvised-armoured cars are no match for armoured Humvees and tanks. The Kurds need heavy machine guns, better sniper rifles, artillery, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, anti-tank weapons and helicopters.

The Kurdistan parliament speaker told me that Western weapon-supplies are minimal. Baghdad, the nominally sovereign power in the region, resists such supplies, because the leaders there fear such firepower could advance Kurdish independence. The Americans had allocated military supplies to the Kurds when they left Iraq in 2011, but Baghdad refused to pass them on.

If Baghdad and Erbil solve their longstanding and outstanding disputes on land, oil, exports and budgets, then talk of independence will fade. Arguments about a revived federalism will come to a head in early December when the Kurds assess Baghdad’s willingness to reverse former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s punitive approach to the most successful part of Iraq, and to the Sunnis – who could be persuaded to turn on Daish.

There are some signs of change. The controversial office of the commander-in-chief of the Army, which Maliki used to centralise power, is being overhauled. There is also a strong case for ending the de-Baathification programme, seen as almost exclusively anti-Sunni, while retaining the right to pursue those who have blood on their hands. Without a breakthrough, a looser confederation or – maybe later rather than sooner – Iraqi Kurdish rights to self-determination will go live.

The Kurds have always been defensive and will not attack Baghdad. The pressing priority is to help the Kurds defend their homeland. See how Turkey has swallowed reservations and allowed arms from Iraqi Kurdistan into Kobane. First things first. Stop Daish.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/garykent/2 ... epeat=w3tc

[Anthea]

BBC News

Islamic State 'kills 30 Sunni tribesmen' in Iraq

Islamic State (IS) militants have shot dead 30 Sunni Arab tribesmen in a town west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, local officials say.

The killings reportedly took place in Hit, in Anbar province, which fell to the jihadist group earlier this month.

Residents said the men were paraded through the streets before being shot.

They belonged to the Al Bu Nimr tribe, which has allied with Iraqi government forces attempting to seize back territory claimed by IS since January.

Correspondents say the killings are most likely aimed at discouraging resistance from powerful local tribes, who will be key to any successful bid to retake Anbar province.

Islamic State militants have killed hundreds in the large areas of Iraq and neighbouring Syria they control.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29819665

[Anthea]

Mail Online

ISIS commit another massacre: 30 Sunni men are paraded through Iraqi town before being brutally shot dead

30 local tribal leaders were murdered by Islamic State militants in Hit
Men were thought to have been organising the local anti-ISIS resistance
Militants paraded the men through town centre before murdering them
Used loud speakers to brand men 'apostates' for fighting the terrorists
Hit has seen intense fighting by ISIS jihadis and local resistance groups
Militants took control of the town during an advance earlier this month
By John Hall

Militants from the Islamic State lined up 30 Sunni men in a town west of Baghdad and shot them dead this morning, an Iraqi official and residents said.

The slayings took place on a main street in al-Bakir district in the town of Hit, which has been the scene of intense fighting by jihadis and local resistance groups in recent weeks.

It is understood the murdered men were mainly local tribal leaders who had allied with the Iraqi government and were helping to organise anti-ISIS operations in the embattled town.

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

Link to Full Article - Photos and Lots of Blood

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -dead.html

[Anthea]

Reuters

Iraq's top Shi'ite calls on Baghdad to help Sunni tribes after killings
By Raheem Salman

Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric called on the government on Friday to rush to the aid of Sunni tribes battling Islamic State, after the militant group executed at least 220 tribesmen west of Baghdad this week.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's comments show how the threat posed by Islamic State, which follows an ultra-hardline version of Sunni Islam, has pushed some Shi'ites and Sunnis to overcome their sectarian differences and face a common enemy.

Some Sunnis, who feel marginalized or oppressed since the fall of Saddam Hussein, have sided with Islamic State, an al Qaeda splinter group that took swathes of Iraqi territory in a rapid offensive in June.

Others have fought back, but the discovery on Thursday of two mass graves in Anbar province showed the fate of those that do. At least 220 bodies of men from the Albu Nimr tribe, who had been seized by Islamic State days earlier, were found. They had been shot at close range.

“What is required from the Iraqi government ... is to offer quick support to the sons of this tribe and other tribes that are fighting Daesh (Islamic State) terrorists," Sistani said, in an address read out by an aide in the holy city of Kerbala after Friday prayers.

"This will offer the opportunity to the other tribes to join the fighters against Daesh," he said. Sistani, 84, is a reclusive figure and always delivers his public messages via a proxy.

Most of the dead in the mass graves were either police officers or members of a militia called Sahwa (Awakening) that was set up, with the backing of the United States during the its "surge" offensive of 2006-2007, to fight al Qaeda.

Washington hopes Iraq's Shi'te-dominated government can rebuild a shaky alliance with Sunni tribes, particularly in Anbar.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States was prepared to expand its limited mission in Iraq into Anbar province, but only if the government armed the Sunni tribesmen.

Asked by journalists about this week's killings there, he said: "That's why we need to expand the train, advise and assist mission into ... Anbar province.

"But the precondition for that is that the government of Iraq is willing to arm the tribes."

The United States no longer is waging a ground war in Iraq but has about 1,400 troops there, with about 600 of them acting in advisory roles to the Iraqis, mostly from joint operations centers in Baghdad and Arbil. None are in Anbar.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/ ... GP20141031

[Anthea]

BBC News

UK's role in Iraq to be boosted

The UK is to boost its military role in Iraq to help local forces in their efforts to halt the advance of Islamic State extremists.

Military trainers will be sent within weeks to work at a US headquarters that has been established in the capital.

Large swathes of Syria and Iraq are currently under the control of IS extremists.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said the limited mission would not lead to the deployment of combat troops.

British forces were pulled out of Iraq in 2011, eight years after the mission that brought down Saddam Hussein.

A dozen British trainers had already been deployed last month to work with Kurdish forces in the northern city of Erbil.
'Experience in Afghanistan'

The UK launched its first air strikes against IS targets in Iraq on 30 September - four days after Parliament approved military action.

Pressure to provide more support to new Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi to reclaim territory in the north and west has been growing.

The US has agreed to send around 500 soldiers to Iraq and elsewhere in the region, with the aim of retraining the Iraqi army.

Speaking during a visit to Baghdad, Mr Fallon told the BBC that Iraqi forces were making some progress in halting the advance of Islamic state, but they urgently needed more help from Britain.

He said: "We are going to be stepping up our training effort. I can't give you precise numbers. I'm here to evaluate training needs and there are areas of expertise, particularly in counter-IED [improvised explosive devices] and roadside car bombs, where we can help from our experience in Afghanistan.

Labour's Andy Burnham backed the move, saying: "It is an advisory role and that's right at this stage."

The UK is also preparing to increase the number of drones it is using in the region to provide further intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assistance to Iraqi forces.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29916620

[Anthea]

CNN EXCLUSIVE:

This Is How The ISLAMIC STATE Indoctrinates Children

phpBB [video]

[Anthea]

BAS NEWS

Kurds Warns of New Extremist Groups Similar to IS
Hoshmand Sadiq

Iraqi Kurdish authorities has cautioned International community to help Iraq and Syria solve their problems.

Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament Speaker Yousif Muhammad has warned that if the fundamental problems of Iraq and Syria are not solved, then there will be a real possibility of a new extremist group emerging in the region, similar to Islamic State.

On Tuesday, Muhammad met with an Italian delegation from the country’s Parliament as well as the Italian ambassador to Iraq and the Italian Consul General in Erbil. The Italian delegation promised to support Kurds in their fight against Islamic State.

“The continuing problems in Iraq and Syria are factors in the rise of Islamic State in both countries, so if the international community doesn’t help us solve those problems, then tens of new extremist groups will be created in the region,” added Muhammad.

The Italian delegation said that in his country, both the ruling parties and opposition parties have agreed to support Peshmerga forces, because today Kurdish forces are fighting the Jihadi group on behalf of the world.

The Kurdish Parliament speaker also urged the Italian delegation to send humanitarian aid to the Kurdistan Region and the refugees in the region as quickly as possible, due to winter arriving and the refugees facing harsher weather.

http://basnews.com/en/News/Details/Kurd ... o-IS/41171

[Anthea]

Mail Online

EXCLUSIVE: ISIS threat to female fighters -

lay down your weapons or we will capture and MARRY you
(but they retaliate by vowing to kill as many jihadis as possible)

Col. Nahida Ahmad Rashid says the jihadis have issued a marriage threat
Commander of the 2nd Battalion Peshmerga Female says she is not afraid
Has vowed that she and her troops will 'clean Iraq of dirty ISIS' jihadis
Says that all fighters have been told to kill themselves if captured by ISIS
ISIS fear that they will not go to Paradise if killed by a female fighter

By Ruth Styles and Eric Lafforgue

ISIS jihadis have threatened to forcibly marry any female fighters they manage to capture in a message delivered to the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Colonel Nahida Ahmad Rashid, commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion Peshmerga Female, said that the jihadis even plan to wed women they are 'disgusted' by.

'The message said that whenever they catch any Peshmerga woman, they will marry them,' she explains.

'Even if they are disgusted by her, they will marry her. Even if they don't want to use them. Still, marriage.'

But Colonel Rashid says she and her troops have other ideas and revealed that she has asked fighters to keep a spare bullet to hand in case of capture.

'I have told all my frontline soldiers to keep one bullet in their pocket in case they are captured,' she reveals. 'I never want any of them to be captured by ISIS.'

So far, Colonel Rashid and her fighters have not needed to use their spare bullets, although she says that other PKK [Kurdistan Worker's Party] soldiers fighting in the Syrian town of Kobane have been forced to do so.

'Last week, one of the PKK fighters found herself alone and surrounded by ISIS after all her friends had been killed. She shot herself rather than let them take her.'

The Kurdish Peshmerga is famous for its use of female soldiers, all of whom battle alongside their male counterparts on the frontline.

As a result, they are on the sharp end of the fight against ISIS who, according to Colonel Rashid, are particularly terrified of women fighters because they believe that men dispatched by women won't go to Paradise.

'ISIS are real hypocrites,' she sniffs, disdainfully. 'They think if they are killed by women Peshmergas, they aren't going to go to heaven. '

'They want to make us submissive but they are afraid of us so they are real hypocrites.'

But if ISIS hope that their threats of forced marriage will make Colonel Rashid and her fighters rethink their participation in battle, she has a stern message for them - we will find you and when we do, we will kill you.

'It is a huge tragedy for me to see humans, in the 21st Century, torturing and beheading people like ISIS do,' she adds. 'Until the day I die, until the last drop of my blood, I will fight ISIS.

'I find them indescribably disgusting. How would you feel if it was women living near you who were being married off by force by ISIS? How would you feel? They are doing the most disgusting things I have ever seen in my life.'

She also hit out at men who think women make less impressive fighters. 'On the frontline, the only difference between a male peshmerga and us is in the machine guns we use.

'The heaviest weapon we use is the 14.7mm. The men use heavier guns. Other than that, there are no differences between us.

'When the enemy comes, you have a gun in your hand and you have to fight. If you run back, they will kill you. If you don't fight, they will kill you. You have to fight to survive.'

What's more, she says, she has no shortage of volunteers willing to join her force - including her own 10-year-old daughter.

'She is just 10 but she wants to become a Peshmerga,' she chuckles. 'She says she wants to take revenge on ISIS for all the things they have done to children.'

One who feels the same is a 22-year-old fighter named Sevres. A newcomer to frontline life, she says she is hugely proud of her country and will fight to defend it whatever the cost.

She too has little time for ISIS and describes their thoughts on female fighters as 'freakish', saying that along with her husband, she plans to kick them out of Iraq.

'I feel very sad about the things they [ISIS] do and the threats they have made against us women if they capture or kidnap us. But my priority now is to defend my country, not listen to what they say.'

Ominously, she adds: 'I am so happy that I am going to defend my country. I am going to clean the place of dirty ISIS.'

Link to Article - Video - Photos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... sible.html

[Anthea]

The Future of Kurdistan

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152102618138247

[Anthea]

BBC News America

Islamic State crisis: US to send 1,500 more troops to Iraq

The US is to send 1,500 more non-combat troops to Iraq to boost Iraqi forces fighting Islamic State (IS) militants, the White House says.

The Pentagon said the troops would train and assist Iraqi forces.

President Barack Obama authorised the deployment following a request from Iraq's government, the Pentagon added.

IS militants control large areas of Iraq and Syria but have been targeted by hundreds of air strikes by a US-led coalition since August.

The 1,500 additional US troops will join several hundred military advisers that are already in Iraq to assist the country's army.

A statement from the Pentagon said the troops would be establishing several sites to train nine Iraqi army and three Kurdish Peshmerga brigades.

The US military would also be setting up two "advise and assist operations centres" outside Baghdad and the northern city of Irbil, the statement added.

"US troops will not be in combat, but they will be better positioned to support Iraqi security forces as they take the fight" to IS, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

He said President Obama would also be asking Congress for $5.6bn (£3.5bn) to support the ongoing operations against IS fighters in both Iraq and Syria.

The announcement came hours after Mr Obama met congressional leaders in Washington for the first time after the Republicans won control of the Senate in Tuesday's elections.

The Obama administration has said its aim was to "degrade and ultimately destroy" Islamic State militants, who control large parts of the country after launching an offensive in the north in June.

A US-led coalition has launched more than 400 air strikes on the group in Iraq since August, and more than 300 across the border in Syria.

The strikes have destroyed hundreds of the group's armed vehicles and several of its bases, but Islamic State has continued its campaign to establish a caliphate.

Last week, officials in Iraq's western Anbar province said IS militants had killed at least 322 members of a Sunni tribe who had tried to resist the jihadists.

Analysis: Tom Esslemont, Washington Correspondent

In the eyes of the Pentagon, the Iraqi armed forces are responding well to the training they have already been given.

Its spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said they had "stiffened their spine". So the expansion of the training programme to the north, south and west of Iraq is designed to build on what is being labelled as progress.

But others may see this deployment differently. There are those who recall how, earlier this year, the US-trained and equipped Iraqi armed forces simply crumbled in the face of Islamic State militants.

Rear Adm Kirby blamed the previous Iraqi government for that, and said that the Iraqis were now making gains and that the situation was completely different this time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29961084

[Anthea]

The Guardian

Iraq returns to risk of splitting along sectarian lines

The soldiers at the west Baghdad checkpoint know who to look for. “It’s a black four-wheel drive,” said Captain Ahmed Mousawi of the Iraqi army, describing the Shia militia men who routinely test their resolve. “They come every day and, if we let them in, it is a problem for the Sunnis.”

The captain is a Shia member of Iraq’s national army. He is guarding a Sunni neighbourhood in what eight years ago was the heart of insurgent territory.

From 2008, when violence ebbed for a while, until early this year, when it returned with a vengeance, Ghazaliyah had been held up as a symbol of how things were getting better in Iraq, a place where people from both sects could again move freely, and maybe even overcome the wretched, recent past.

Not anymore. Ghazaliyah, like much of Baghdad, is a cantonment, where communities are again splintering along sectarian lines, families are hunkering down and reconciliation – the buzzword of the past five years – is openly scorned.

Not far away, behind blast walls, Iyad Allawi, the man tasked with bringing Iraqis back together, readily acknowledges that his job description is fraught. “This is the last chance for this country to survive as a single entity,” said the newly named vice president for reconciliation, who admitted to the Guardian that he had reluctantly been sworn in. “I believe reconciliation has a role now. I am trying to convince people to take part in it. Nobody can feel as though they’re outside the net anymore.”

In the Ghazaliyah living room where Ahmed Jabouri and his brother Haithem have sat and smoked through the worst of the past decade, they say the renewed uncertainty is, for the first time, making them want to leave the country for good.

“How can people live together again,” said Ahmed. “I had stayed because there was hope. Even in the darkest days, there always seemed like there would be something better, some day. Now the horizon is black. It’s not easy being Sunni in Baghdad anymore. Every checkpoint (where the brothers’ identifiably Sunni name is checked on their ID cards) means delays, or even detention.

“Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq are looking for us,” he said of the much-feared militia unit that lurks near the main checkpoint leading into his neighbourhood. “It’s only because the officer is strong that they don’t cause havoc here. But they have taken away some Sunnis. We don’t know what happened to them.”

Nearby, in another former flashpoint area, Hai al-Jamea, which before the war was a co-existent hub of Sunnis and Shias, an elderly Shia resident described his ordeal at the hands of kidnappers whom he believes were Asa’ib.

“They stopped me under the bridge,” he said. They put cotton wool on my eyes and a blindfold and they forced me down on the back seat of my own car. We drove around the city for 60km and were waved through every checkpoint.

“They wanted to know my sect. When they believed I was Shia, they released me and gave me my car back. If I was a Sunni, I was finished.”

About 20 miles to the west, where the Islamic State (Isis) insurgency laps at Baghdad’s doorstep, entry to the capital is forbidden to all but a few. The road to Anbar province is blocked by soldiers and militia men west of Abu Ghraib, meaning Fallujah and Ramadi, most of which were overrun by Isis last December are, for now, severed from the rest of the country.

Here and on Baghdad’s southern outskirts, which share Anbar’s predominantly Sunni demographics, community leaders openly say they believe that Iraq within its current borders is no longer viable.

“We fought al-Qaida before,” said Mustafa al-Samarie, a teacher from the town of Latifiya, south of the city. “When the awakening started, we paid a huge price and we have been killed by the terrorists ever since. Now we are being called terrorists by the Shia government that abandoned us and the fight [we fought] for them.”

“How can there be trust when there is no justice,” said Ahmed Abu Risha, the Anbar tribal leader who led the awakening movement in 2007, which at the time was credited with saving Iraq from splitting along sectarian lines. “We have been asked to help them win this fight, but on their terms,” he said of the new Iraqi government.

“There is a long way to go in this country before people can ever start to reconcile with each other. There is no real power sharing. There is no inclusiveness.”

Iyad Allawi said re-empowering Sunnis, and giving the Kurds of the north a stake in the country, was essential if Iraq was to remain a nation state within its current borders.

“There has to be parallel schemes, to abolish or freeze some of the (discriminatory) laws, especially de-Ba’athification and article 4 of the counter terrorism laws (both of which had previously been applied disproportionately to Sunnis). “There has to be measures of trust among the people. Some deserve compensation.”

Allawi says he supports talking directly with former Ba’athist leaders who are playing prominent roles in the insurgency alongside Isis. Some former senior members of Iraq’s military are credited with giving the insurgency a steel and military rigour that it would have lacked if left solely to the jihadis.

“We have to talk on a bilateral basis with those who are making the problems,” he said. “Because they have been severely disenfranchised.

“With the Kurds, either we consider them part and parcel of Iraq, or as an enemy. I look at them as brothers, I don’t see them as outcasts.”

Allawi said he planned to organise a conference backed by the United Nations to reinvigorate reconciliation in Iraq and reintegrate the country within the region. “We have work to do with everyone,” he said. “Neither Iran, or any country, can feel secure while the rest of the region is boiling. Isis has been manufactured by the political realities here and elsewhere. We have to do something fast.”

To many in Baghdad, co-existence has been shredded. At a money change office in the east of the city, the Guardian watched as the owner refused to give a Sunni woman $400 that had been sent from her family in Dubai. After she left, despondent, he said: “She can go and pick it up from Fallujah.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/n ... nciliation

[Anthea]

Reuters

Air strikes target Islamic State leaders in Iraq: TV report
By Michael Georgy, Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Philip Stewart and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Dominic Evans and Kevin Liffey

U.S.-led air strikes have targeted a gathering of Islamic State leaders in Iraq in a town near the Syrian border, possibly including the group's top commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Al-Hadath television channel said on Saturday.

Iraqi security officials were not immediately available for comment on the report from the station, part of Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television, but two witnesses told Reuters an air strike targeted a house where senior Islamic State officers were meeting, near the western Iraqi border town of al-Qaim.

They said Islamic State fighters had cleared a hospital so that their wounded could be treated. Islamic State fighters used loudspeakers to urge residents to donate blood, the witnesses said.

Residents said there were unconfirmed reports that Islamic State's local leader in the western Iraqi province of Anbar and his deputy were killed.

U.S. officials would not confirm or deny whether Baghdadi, the group's overall leader, had been targeted.

One U.S. official said that air strikes were carried out against a convoy near the northern city of Mosul, about 280 km (170 miles) from al-Qaim, and against small Islamic State units elsewhere, but the U.S.-led air strikes had not targeted an Islamic State gathering.

An Islamic State supporter contacted by Reuters said the strike hit a local market, killing at least eight people.

Al-Hadath said dozens of people were killed and wounded in the strike in al-Qaim, and that Baghdadi's fate was unclear. Al-Qaim and the neighboring Syrian town of Albukamal are on a strategic supply route linking territory held by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

BOMBINGS

The hardline Sunni Islamic State's drive to form a caliphate in the two countries has helped return sectarian violence in Iraq to the dark days of 2006-2007, the peak of its civil war.

It has also created a cross-border sanctuary for Arab militants, as well as foreign fighters whose passports could allow them to evade detection in Western airports.

On Saturday night a car bomb killed eight people in Baghdad's mostly Shi'ite Sadr City, police and hospital sources said, bringing to 28 the day's toll from bombs in the Iraqi capital and the western city of Ramadi.

Two bombs exploded in separate attacks in Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite Amil district, said a police source. "A driver parked his car and went to a cigarette stall, then he disappeared. Then his car blew up, killing passers-by," the source said, describing one of the two attacks in Amil.

In the mostly Shi'ite al-Amin area of Baghdad, another car bomb killed eight people, medical sources said.

The attack by a suicide bomber on a checkpoint in Ramadi in Anbar killed five soldiers. "Before the explosion, the checkpoint was targeted with several mortar rounds. Then the suicide humvee bomber attacked it," said a police official.

There was no claim of responsibility for the bombings, but they resembled operations carried out by Islamic militants.

In the town of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, a gunman killed a Shi'ite militiaman, and a car bomb targeting a police officer killed his 10-year-old son, security sources said.

U.S. TROOPS

Western and Iraqi officials say U.S.-led air strikes are not enough to defeat the al Qaeda offshoot and Iraq must improve the performance of its security forces to eliminate the threat from the group, which wants to redraw the map of the Middle East.

President Barack Obama has approved sending up to 1,500 more troops to Iraq, roughly doubling the number of U.S. forces on the ground, to advise and retrain Iraqis in their battle against Islamic State.

The Iraqi prime minister's media office said the additional U.S. trainers were welcome but the move, five months after Islamic State seized much of northern Iraq, was belated, state television reported.

The United States spent $25 billion on the Iraqi military during the U.S. occupation that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and triggered an insurgency that included al Qaeda.

Washington wants Iraq's Shi'ite-led government to revive an alliance with Sunni tribesmen in Anbar province which helped U.S. Marines defeat al Qaeda.

Such an alliance would face a more formidable enemy in Islamic State, which has more firepower and funding.

Police Colonel Shaaban Barazan al-Ubaidi, commander of a rapid reaction force in Anbar, said security forces retook eight villages. His account could not be immediately confirmed.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/ ... EJ20141108

[Anthea]

Al Jazeera

Scores killed in attacks across Iraq

At least 48 people killed in explosions in Shia neighbourhood of Baghdad, central city of Ramadi and oil town of Baiji.

Two cars have exploded in seperate attacks in southwestern Baghdad's Shia al-Ameen neighbourhood, killing seven people and injuring 21 others, a police source has said, as hospital officials confirmed the casualties.

"A driver parked his car and went to a cigarette stall then he disappeared. Then his car blew up, killing passersby," said the police source.

The second car bomb blew up south of Baghdad in the Shia neighborhood of Zafaraniyah, killing five people and injuring 15 others.

Police sources have confirmed two other car bombs on Saturday , one car bomb blew up on al-Sinaa street in central Baghdad killing ten people and injuring 27.

In the Shia neighborhood of Sadr, another car bomb exploded, killing four people and injuring 12.

Another six people were killed and eight injured when explosives were detonated inside a house in Ramadi, west of the capital.

Authorities also announced on Saturday that a suicide truck bomber targeting a senior police officer's convoy in the town of Baiji killed eight people on Friday, including the ranking official.

Baiji, home to Iraq's largest oil refinery, is located 250km north of Baghdad.

The attack killed police General Faisal Malik, who was inspecting troops in the town, and injured at least 15 people, hospital officials and police officers said.

No one immediately claimed responsibilty for the attack, which comes as US-led air strikes battle the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who now control a third of the country.

On Friday, US President Barack Obama authorised the deployment of up to 1,500 more American troops to strengthen Iraqi forces, including in Anbar province, where fighting with ISIL has been fiercest.

The plan could boost the total number of US troops in Iraq to 3,100. There now are about 1,400 US troops in the country, out of the 1,600 previously authorised.

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