ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

[Anthea]

Mail Online

Islamic State has a 'dirty bomb' says British jihadi, amid claims 40kg of URANIUM was taken from Iraqi university

Chemical was stolen from Mosul University, northern Iraq, in July
UN ambassador wrote letter at time of theft fearing 'mass destruction'
Hamayun Tariq among jihadis to boast of explosives on Twitter
Hinted at the potential destruction of such a bomb if detonated in London
British 37-year-old had social media account suspended afterwards
By Jennifer Smith

Islamic State fanatics claim to have constructed a dirty bomb after stealing 40kg of uranium from an Iraqi university.

Militants boasted of the device on social media, with one even commenting on the destruction such a bomb would wreak in London, four months after the chemical was reported missing from Mosul University.

Among extremists making online threats to the West is British explosives expert Hamayun Tariq, who fled his home in Dudley, West Midlands, for the Middle East in 2012.

Using the Muslim name, Muslim-al-Britani, he posted on Twitter: 'O by the way Islamic State does have a Dirty bomb. We found some Radio active material from Mosul university,' the Mirror reports.

He continued: 'We’ll find out what dirty bombs are and what they do. We’ll also discuss what might happen if one actually went off in a public area.

'This sort of a bomb would be terribly destructive if went off In LONDON becuz (sic) it would be more of a disruptive than a destructive weapon,' before having his Twitter account suspended.

Other jihadis echoed the claims a destructive 'dirty bomb' had been made, with one writing: '

'IS has confirmed that we have acquired a dirty bomb from radioactive material from Mosul Uni! Mashallah #IS'.

In July nearly 40kg of uranium stored for scientific research went missing from Mosul University in northern Iraq.

In a letter to the United Nations, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim told Ban Ki-moon 'Terrorist groups have seized control of nuclear material at the sites that came out of the control of the state,' adding such materials 'can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.'

'These nuclear materials, despite the limited amounts mentioned, can enable terrorist groups, with the availability of the required expertise, to use it separate or in combination with other materials in its terrorist acts.'

Yesterday, as news the uranium had been used to construct a bomb, one jihadi taunted Iraq's reported plans to retake control of Mosul.

'Plan to retake Mosul from ISIS emerges, haha! Little do they know the resources of #IS! Good luck!' they wrote.

Earlier this year, Tariq claimed to have had his passport cancelled by the Home Office after travelling to the Middle East.

The former car mechanic fled to Pakistan almost immediately after being released from prison in 2012.

After pledging his allegiance to the Taliban, he claimed to have been recruited by IS fighters who paid for him to travel to Syria to join them.

The Home Office would not speak to Tariq's claims, saying it did not comment on individual cases.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rsity.html

[Anthea]

The Washington Post

Truckers run hellish highway through Islamic State areas
By WILLIAM BOOTH and TAYLOR LUCK

It might be the most hairy truck route in the world — a nail-biting, long-haul, “Mad Max”-style endurance race from the Jordan border through the heart of Islamic State territory.

Some days only dozens — some days hundreds — of truckers hungry for big paydays make the vital run to deliver everything from apples to antibiotics to Iraqi civilians, many of them living under siege in territory controlled by the radical Islamist group.

The truckers’ journey provides a window into a dangerous region that has become even more terrifying. Since the militants took over northern and western Iraq this year, the route has become, the wheelmen say, the highway through hell.

On the run to Baghdad, drivers face miles of empty, lawless road, prowled by brigands and militias, punctuated by rolling roadblocks operated by Islamic State militants in pickup trucks and purloined Hummers. The route to Mosul is worse, drivers say, following oil pipelines, narrow macadam roads and military tracks along the overrun Syrian border, with nobody left but Islamic State warriors and smuggling crews.

Sallah Ali Addin, an Iraqi driver from Fallujah, has been behind the wheel for a quarter-century in Iraq — from the Saddam Hussein era to the U.S. invasion and occupation, through a decade of Sunni rebellions, al-Qaida uprisings and, now, the Islamic State. He said he has never seen the highways so perilous.

“There are Iraqi government troops. They are dropping bombs out of the sky. The cities are under siege. Checkpoints. Detours. You can’t go. There are bandits — everybody wants a piece of your cargo. And between the Islamic State and the Shiite militias, you are taking your life in your hands,” he said in an interview near the Jordan border.

The border town of Ruwaished isn’t much to look at, but drivers such as Addin are happy to find refuge here on their way coming and going. It is a trucker’s town, dotted with military garrisons and a main drag of machine shops stacked with used spare tires and interspersed with stands selling liters of gray-market gas from Iraq. For as far as the eye can see, there is black basalt rock and sand and desert. It is freezing in winter. The drivers wear dishdasha robes and sandals, and their eyes are red with fatigue.

Another driver reminded Addin to mention the jets they hear streaking overhead, piloted by members of the U.S.-led coalition.

“Of course! The airstrikes scare us to death,” said Addin, who had just returned to Jordan after a 12-day run hauling fresh vegetables from the Jordan Valley to Baghdad.

A driver in his convoy, Nijm Mahmoud, called the Islamic State a “mafia.”

None of the Iraqi drivers interviewed had any firsthand knowledge of any trucker being kidnapped or killed, but they knew well the militants’ reputation for brutality.

“They can shoot you on the side of the road,” Mahmoud said. “No one can do a thing.”

http://columbiadailyherald.com/news/wor ... tate-areas

[Anthea]

CNN

Iraq's army weakened from within by 50,000 'ghost' soldiers
By Yousuf Basil and Ben Brumfield

In its fight against Islamist terror militia ISIS, the Iraqi army may be weakened from within by corrupt soldiers not showing for duty -- 50,000 of them. Maybe more.

The country's Prime Minister has found as many so-called "ghost" soldiers, he told Parliament on Sunday.

"Ghost" soldiers are members of the armed forces, who pay off their commanders with a portion of their salaries, so they don't have to man their posts.

"Only by checking paperwork, I managed during this month to eliminate 50,000 ghost soldiers in four Iraqi army divisions," Haider al-Abadi said.

Lawmakers erupted in shouts at his announcement.

Investigators are looking for additional cases, and al-Abadi expects many more to turn up.

"I feel sad that all that time we were paying salaries, and we don't have money, while other soldiers are fighting and getting killed, and some soldiers are getting paid without appearing," he said.

The Prime Minister vowed to punish those responsible.

ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has captured and held broad swaths of territory in Iraq's north and west.

Iraqi military forces have often appeared in disarray while doing battle against the extremists.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/01/world ... index.html

[Anthea]

The Telegraph

Iranian jets join allies in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq

First evidence of Islamic Republic forces fighting alongside the RAF to take control of towns from Isil in northern Iraq
By Richard Spencer

British, American and other allied forces are now fighting directly alongside their former rivals Iran, according to new footage of the war in Iraq.

An Iranian jet has been filmed for the first time bombing positions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), during a battle for the town of Saadiya, north-east of Baghdad.

United State Air Force jets have been flying missions over Iraq since August, and the RAF since September. Pentagon officials later confirmed that Iranian jets had taken part in bombing raids.

Iranian advisers are known to have been embedded with the Iraqi army and militia forces fighting Isil. But this is the first proof that the Islamic Republic and the countries it famously termed the “Great and Little Satan” - America and Britain - are taking part in missions on the same side.

The footage was filmed on Sunday by an Al-Jazeera crew reporting on the key battle for Saadiya and Jalula, two towns north-east of Baghdad not far from the Iranian border.

Saadiya was captured in the great surge Isil staged across much of Iraq in June and became a major jihadist base, while Jalula, a mostly Kurdish town with some Sunni Arab presence, has exchanged hands on a number of occasions.

Al-Jazeera claimed the jet belonged to the Iraqi air force, which was given half a dozen Russian-built Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack jets by Iran at the outset of the war in June.

However, analysts from IHS Jane’s Defence identified the jet as a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, a relic of America’s pre-1979 alliance with the Shah’s Iran. The Phantom was a staple of the US Air Force in the Vietnam war.

The only other country still using Phantoms in the Middle East, Jane’s said, was Turkey, which has pledged not to take a direct part in the fight against Isil.

“This footage is the first visual evidence of direct IRIAF (Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force) involvement in the conflict,” Jane’s noted.

After Jane’s claims were drawn to their attention, Pentagon and British defence sources both confirmed that US and RAF personnel operating in Iraq were already aware of the Iranian air force’s presence.

"We have indications that they did indeed fly air strikes with F-4 Phantoms in the past several days," said Rear Admiral John Kirby, Pentagon spokesman.

Iran is not part of the formal coalition drawn up to take on Isil in Iraq and Syria, in which France and several Gulf nations are flying sorties as well as Britain and the US.

The British and American governments have always been keen to stress that there is no direct co-ordination with Iran.

But earlier in the autumn, American jets bombed positions in the town of Amerli north of Baghdad shortly before it was retaken from Isil by Iraqi ground troops assisted by Iranian-backed Shia militia.

As if to emphasise the point that the US was effectively providing air cover for an old enemy - many of those Shia militia fought against the American and British presence in Iraq after the 2003 invasion - Qasim Suleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Al-Quds force, made a highly publicised victory tour of Amerli.

Mr Suleimani oversees all Iranian military assistance to Shia militias abroad, and is regarded as a powerful eminence grise of the regime.

Until his presence in Amerli, though, he rarely allowed himself to be photographed.

Despite the lack of formal collaboration, the Iranians, British and Americans seem to have an informal arrangement over zones of influence. According to regular Ministry of Defence and Pentagon releases, most coalition air attacks in Iraq are either in the north, in support of Kurdish forces fighting on a front line on the southern edge of the Kurdish autonomous region, or in western Iraq.

The Saadiya operation was near the Iranian border to the east.

“It is unlikely that Iran would become a fully fledged member of the coalition,” one defence source said. “But we hope that they would align themselves with the direction that the coalition are taking.” A Pentagon official was quoted by the Huffington Post website as saying that because the US was operating in Iraq with the permission of the Baghdad government, it could not put pressure on the Iraqis over the Iranian involvement.

“We’re there at the invitation of the Iraqi government, so it’s not for us to say what they should allow, what they shouldn’t allow,” the official said.

Nevertheless, the presence of Iranian, British and American forces fighting alongside each other is a sign of shifting alliances in the Middle East and warming ties, particularly as talks over the Iranian nuclear programme continue.

This closeness is causing unease in majority Sunni countries, particularly in the Gulf, which regards Iran as a major destabilising influence in the region - as do, officially, Britain and the US.

Until recently, both countries were insisting that the use of military force against Iran over its nuclear programme remained “on the table”.

Iran’s rivals, like Saudi Arabia, insist that there will be no solution to the Isil crisis until President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is removed.

Prince Turki bin Faisal, the influential former Saudi ambassador to both Britain and America, said yesterday that Iran should be forced to withdraw its support for Mr Assad.

Without Iranian support, Mr Assad would be gone in a few weeks, he said at a conference in London organised by the European Council on Foreign Relations on Tuesday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -Iraq.html

[Anthea]

Reuters

Iraq says woman detained in Lebanon is not Baghdadi's wife
(Reporting by Raheem Salman; Additional reporting by Laila Bassam; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Iraq's Interior Ministry said on Wednesday that a woman detained by Lebanese authorities was not the wife of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but the sister of a man convicted of bombings in southern Iraq.

Security officials in Lebanon had said on Tuesday the Lebanese army had detained a wife and daughter of Baghdadi's as they crossed from Syria late last month.

"The one detained by Lebanese authorities was Saja Abdul Hamid al-Dulaimi, sister of Omar Abdul Hamid al-Dulaimi who is detained by authorities and sentenced to death for his participation in ... explosions," ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan told Reuters.

"The wives of the terrorist al-Baghdadi are Asmaa Fawzi Mohammed al-Dulaimi and Esraa Rajab Mahel al-Qaisi, and there is no wife in the name of Saja al-Dulaimi."

Maan said Saja Dulaimi had fled to Syria where she was detained by authorities. She was part of a group of female detainees freed in exchange for the release of a group of nuns captured by Islamist insurgents in Syria, he said.

Lebanese security officials said their investigations still indicated the detained woman was Baghdadi's wife.

"We are surprised by the position of the Iraqi Interior Ministry in light of the fact (Dulaimi) said that she was married to Ibrahim al-Samarai, who is also known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," said a Lebanese security official.

The official said the authorities were still awaiting the result of a DNA test to verify whether the girl traveling with Dulaimi was in fact Baghdadi's daughter. A senior official had said on Tuesday the test had already shown her to be his child.

Officials said on Tuesday Dulaimi was detained in northern Lebanon after she was found with a fake passport. The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported she had been detained in coordination with "foreign intelligence".

A Lebanese security source said the arrest was “a powerful card to apply pressure” in negotiations to obtain the release of 27 members of the Lebanese security forces seized by Islamist militants during fighting along the Syrian border in August -- a view shared by other Lebanese officials who confirmed the arrest.

Baghdadi has three wives, two Iraqis and one Syrian, according to tribal sources in Iraq.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/ ... LW20141203

[Anthea]

Bloomberg

Here’s One Place Where Gasoline Prices Are Rising: Islamic State
By Zaid Sabah, Caroline Alexander and Jack Fairweather

When Islamic State seized Mosul in June, the militant group boasted it provided the cheapest fuel in the region as it tried to win over Iraqis to its cause.

Since then, the worldwide price of oil has fallen more than 30 percent. Yet in Iraq’s biggest northern city the cost of a tank of gasoline has more than doubled.

U.S. airstrikes against the extremist group’s oil facilities have severely reduced its ability to generate revenue. At the same time, eyewitnesses say the militants are finding the cost of governing their territory and mounting a war on multiple fronts is rising, straining its once-bulging coffers to finance military operations and pay recruits.

“The situation has changed tremendously for the group in terms of the volumes of crude it’s producing, but most significantly, the volumes of refined products it has,” said Valerie Marcel, an oil analyst specializing in Iraq at Chatham House in London. “That’s what underpins their war machine.”

If the fight against Islamic State has reached impasse on the ground as the group hangs onto swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, the dearth of fuel is evidence that there’s progress on the economic battlefront.

Previous estimates by U.S. intelligence officials and energy analysts put Islamic State’s oil revenue at more than $2 million a day. Now it would be more like $200,000 in Iraq if the group sold everything it pumped, or about $400,000 if it then refined the oil before selling it, said Marcel.

Syrian Imports

A liter of refined crude was going for about 1,750 to 2,000 Iraqi dinars ($1.45 to $1.66) last week in Mosul, northern Iraq’s biggest city, according to locals. It’s mostly sold from oil tankers from Syria and the quality is so bad, it’s damaging car engines and fuel pumps, they said. Before the city fell, the average price was about 400 to 750 dinars a liter and the crude on offer was from Iraq and of better quality.

Residents of Mosul spoke by telephone on condition of anonymity because of concerns about their security in a city where extremists mete out anything from public lashings to beheadings for not obeying their strict Islamic code.

The people said the high prices have made cars unaffordable so they rely on using minibuses to spread the cost. That situation is echoed in Tikrit, where the price of gasoline and kerosene has steadily risen, one local said.

Winter Fuel

Winter has already hit the mountainous northern Iraqi regions, with snow falling on parts of the Kurdish north. In Mosul, where temperatures can plunge as low as minus 15 degrees Celsius (5 Fahrenheit), residents unable to afford kerosene for heating are collecting wood for open fires.

A 200-liter barrel of Iraqi kerosene used for heating costs about 300,000 dinars. Two weeks ago, one resident said she paid 280,000 for Iraqi kerosene. Before the fall of Mosul, the price of kerosene was 50,000 dinars a barrel.

Islamic State declared a self-styled caliphate in northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq after seizing Mosul, and has sought to entrench its rule through a combination of brutal repression and provision of social services, including offering reduced prices for gasoline.

In one issue of Dabiq, its magazine published online, the group lists the benefits, including “pumping millions of dollars into services,” security and stability, “ensuring the availability of food products and commodities.”

Smuggler Network

Islamic State is almost entirely self-financing with much of its past income earned through illicit production, refining and sale of oil. The U.S.-led airstrikes that began in September, though, shut down Islamic State’s main refining capacity. Forces loyal to the Baghdad government also retook oil fields and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters tackled gangs who had been helping Islamic State smuggle oil out of the country.

The militants will have to rely more on ransoms, racketeering and the taxation of people and goods at border crossings, said Marcel. She estimates the group is pumping about 10,000 barrels a day in Iraq. That’s down from a high of about 70,000 barrels a day in August.

“Islamic State was making significant amounts for its budget size with its crude, and was creating a whole constellation of criminals and smugglers benefiting from the trade,” she said. “Those days of them selling at $60 a barrel are long gone. It has fallen back to about $20 a barrel.”

Islamic State consumes about half the oil it controls, Hamza al-Jawheri, an Iraqi economist and oil analyst, said from Baghdad. It’s used mainly to power Humvee military vehicles, tanks and trucks captured in its conquest of Mosul.

Oil Fields

More fuel-efficient motorcycles are increasingly deployed to make it harder for drone operators and pilots to differentiate them from civilians, a Mosul resident said.

Government forces took control of the 310,000 barrel-a-day Baiji refinery last month after fierce battles. Islamic State controlled the site for about a week in June, along with two other refineries and seven oil fields.

Among fields Islamic State has lost are Ain Zala, Batma and Zumar. They can’t access Ajil and Himreen fields in Salahuddin province because of nearby fighting, said al-Jawheri. That leaves the group with only a few oilfields, such as Qayyara, which produces heavy crude and maybe Qalak near Mosul, which makes a lighter crude, he said by telephone.

Qayyara can produce about 20,000 barrels a day of heavy crude, though makeshift refineries can’t be used to convert that into a usable fuel product, Marcel said.

The Syrian oil Islamic State is now relying on in Iraq comes mostly from the northeastern Hasaka province, Noura Salim, an Iraqi lawmaker from Mosul, said by phone. The fuel is trucked across old, unpaved roads and enters Iraq usually through one of three crossings, she said.

Back in Mosul, some residents have begun using camping stoves for heating, cooking and warming bath water.

One resident said the city was getting close to breaking point. The situation is getting grimmer by the day, people are losing patience and are broken, she said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-0 ... state.html

[Anthea]

Reuters

Islamic State cedes little ground despite air attacks
By Dominic Evans and Oliver Holmes

They have made enemies across the globe and endured three months of U.S.-led air strikes, but Islamic State fighters have surrendered little of their self-declared caliphate to the broad sweep of forces arrayed against them.

Across thousands of square miles in Syria and Iraq, the radical Islamists face an unlikely mix of Iraqi and Syrian soldiers, Shi'ite and Kurdish militias and rival Syrian Sunni Muslim rebels.

While they have lost towns on the edges of their Iraqi realm, especially in ethnically mixed areas where their hardline Sunni theology holds little appeal, they have consolidated power in parts of their Sunni Muslim heartland.

In August, Islamic State's attack on Iraqi Kurdish regions was repulsed and two months later its fighters were driven from the town of Jurf al-Sakhar, south of Baghdad. It was also pushed out of two towns near the Iranian border last month.

But with a few exceptions, such as the army's breaking of an Islamic State siege of the country's largest oil refinery in Baiji, the militants' hold over predominantly Sunni provinces north and west of Baghdad has not been seriously challenged.

Islamic State's opponents say the recaptured towns show the tide has turned in Iraq and the group is on the defensive.

"The best they can do now is to cut a road or attack a patrol, but any advances and gains of territory have been completely stopped." said Hadi al-Amiri, head of the Badr Organization, a Shi'ite militia which along with Kurdish peshmerga spearheaded the recapture of Saadiya and Jalawla, near the Iranian border.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, rallying his fighters three weeks ago, said the U.S. despatch of more military advisers to Iraq showed the opposite was true.

"The Crusaders' air strikes and constant bombardment day and night of Islamic State positions have not prevented its advance," he said.

In fact, since Islamic State's June offensive, it has had little success breaking beyond the solidly Sunni Muslim provinces of Anbar in the west and Salahuddin north of Baghdad, as well as the strongly Sunni province of Nineveh, home to the city of Mosul which the Islamists overran in June.

Iraqi security expert Hisham al-Hashemi said the picture across Iraq overall was a stalemate, with government forces regaining some territory but Islamic State imposing itself more forcefully at its core.

He said Islamic State now controls 85 percent of Anbar province, where it is attacking the provincial capital Ramadi and has killed hundreds of Sunni tribesmen who opposed it.

"The tipping point for defeating them in my view is when we win over the Sunni Arab tribes in Anbar, Salahuddin and Nineveh ... that will be the beginning of the end of ISIS," said Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, using a former name for Islamic State.

SYRIAN "NON-STRATEGY"

While in Iraq there are clear areas where Islamic State is on the defensive, in Syria it is under less pressure because the U.S. has few allies on the ground backing up its air offensive.

Washington has been clear that its policy in Syria is modest compared to Iraq, focusing on preventing Islamic State moving across the border and on hitting its command and control.

But the militants in Syria, and Western analysts, say the air campaign has failed to weaken them.

Anthony Cordesman, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. is pursuing a "non-strategy" in Syria, hamstrung by conflicting priorities of dealing with Islamic State and President Bashar al-Assad.

The result was a "strategic mess" allowing Assad's forces to step up air attacks on other rebel groups, some sympathetic to Washington, while leaving Islamic State targets to U.S.-led coalition forces.

Islamic State supporters say the air strikes have helped the group win support among residents and also attracted more fighters.

"Do they think bombing us will scare us and we will just run home?" said a fighter in the IS-controlled city of Raqqa.

"When the whole world is trying to save Kobani we are expanding and growing in Iraq and Syria," he said, referring to the battle for the Kurdish border town in north Syria.

The Pentagon said last month the strikes in Syria had hit Islamic State resources including oil installations, command facilities and training camps.

"We know that they continue to attract people to their ranks," he said. "You don't wipe that out through air strikes, and you certainly don't do it in 90 days."

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that around 1,000 strikes in both countries were having a significant impact.

But an Islamic State fighter in Syria was scornful. "Before you defeat your enemy you must understand it," he said. "This is the first rule in combat and these idiots missed it."

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Michael Georgy and Saif Hameed in Baghdad, and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Giles Elgood)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/ ... EJ20141204

[Anthea]

The Wall Street Journal

Shiite Militias Win Bloody Battles in Iraq, Show No Mercy
By Matt Bradley And Ghassan Adnan

Fatwa-Inspired Fighters’ Take-No-Prisoners Tactics Deepen Worries About Sectarian Tensions;

'We Get Their Confessions, and Then We Kill Them’

JURF AL-SAKHER, Iraq—In a makeshift barracks about 40 miles south of Baghdad, Ahmed al-Zamili flipped through pictures on his mobile phone: an Islamic State fighter’s corpse hanging from a crude noose, a dead man on the ground clutching an AK-47 and a kneeling, blindfolded man uttering a confession.

Mr. Zamili says the men were captured when his militia of more than 650 Shiite fighters, known as Al Qara’a Regiment, drove Islamic State out of Jurf al-Sakher in late October. After briefly interrogating the enemy soldiers, Mr. Zamili ordered their executions, he says.

“We see them, we attack them, we get the weapons from them, we talk to them, we get their confessions, and then we kill them,” says Mr. Zamili, 35 years old, who ran five restaurants before forming Al Qara’a in June. “Of course, this is much better than the army strategy.”

Shiite militias like Al Qara’a have emerged as the most effective fighting force against Islamic State in Iraq, helping the battered army break a two-month siege and humanitarian crisis in Amerli in August and recapture the strategically important oil-refinery town of Beiji in mid-November.

Iraq’s new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, estimates that more than a million Shiite fighters are trying to fill the void left by failures of the U.S.-trained Iraqi military, which largely fled when Islamic State captured a large stretch of northern and western Iraq in June.

The Shiite militias, many of them formed in response to a fatwa calling for jihad against Islamic State, are likely to be essential even as the U.S. continues airstrikes in Iraq and Syria and sends as many as 1,500 additional troops to advise Iraq’s undermanned military.

Shiite militia leaders say their recent successes reflect their holy warrior zeal, superior training compared with Iraqi government troops, less corruption in the ranks and freedom from the legal, bureaucratic and human-rights restrictions on regular Iraqi forces. But some Sunni politicians, tribal leaders and human-rights advocates are worried that the take-no-prisoners tactics of many militia groups are turning them into a mirror image of the Sunni jihadists fighting on behalf of Islamic State.

Militia groups have been accused of a plethora of human-rights violations, including mass shootings of prisoners and Sunni civilians and the forced displacement of Sunni families on a scale approaching ethnic cleansing.

Shiite fighters boast about executing enemy soldiers after they surrender. In Jurf al-Sakher, some Al Qara’a members hurried out of a meeting with a reporter for The Wall Street Journal to deliver the severed head of an Islamic State fighter to relatives of a slain militia member before his funeral ended.

Each battlefield victory also wins Shiite militia groups more political power, which could deepen sectarian tensions across the Middle East and make it harder to hold Iraq together even if Islamic State is driven out. Some politicians in Baghdad already refer to the militia groups as a “Shiite Islamic State.”

In official Iraqi media, militias are celebrated as heroes, and their leaders make televised victory speeches next to Iraqi army generals. One of the deputies to Hadi al-Ameri, leader of the Iranian-backed Badr Corps, recently was elected Iraq’s interior minister. He oversees police and a government office responsible for monitoring militia groups.

Link to Full Interesting and Rather Worrying Article:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/shiite-m ... 1417804464

[RomaMater]

3 Americans fighting alongside Kurds in Syria against ISIS, official says

Three Americans are fighting alongside Kurdish forces against the Islamic State terror group in northern Syria, a spokesman for the Kurdish group told CNN on Thursday.

One of the Americans was identified by the Kurdish People's Protection Units, also known as the YPG, as Jordan Matson of Wisconsin.

Matson is fighting in Haska province near the town of Jazaa, close to the Iraqi border, YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said by telephone.

Intense fighting between ISIS and YPG has been reported in the region in recent weeks.

Xelil declined to provide further details about Matson and the other two Americans, and he did not say if they were fighting in the same area.

A photo has been posted by a Kurdish news agency purporting to show Matson, and the picture of the man appears to resemble Facebook photos of a man identifying himself as Matson.

Twitter posts, purporting to have taken messages from Matson's Facebook page, say he left for Syria in September and that he suffered a minor wound while fighting ISIS. The Facebook page says he attended Case High School in Racine.

CNN cannot confirm the validity of the posts, but the report of his injury was confirmed by Xelil, who said Matson was injured a few days ago and was fine.

A person claiming to be a friend of Matson's told Reuters that Matson told people he was being hired by a private army to fight ISIS.

"He sent me a personal Facebook message on the 16th of September saying 'Hey boss, I'm heading to Syria,'" Miguel Caron told the news agency.

Matson was previously in the U.S. military, Caron said.

Caron did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.

The U.S. military confirmed a man by the name of Jordan Matson enlisted in the Army in Sturtevant, Wisconsin, and served from May 2006 to November 2007.

"We're certainly aware of these reports," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters during a briefing on Thursday. "Because of privacy concerns we can't speak to it further."

Psaki said she was not aware of a specific law barring Americans from going abroad to join military organizations that have not been designated a foreign-terror organization.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/02/world/mea ... ria-kurds/

[RomaMater]

The 'hogs will be raining death on ISIS- these things are flying tanks that can take a hell of a beating. It's main role is blasting tanks and other vehicles and close-air support for ground forces- I can imagine it'll be providing such for the Iraqi forces and the Peshmerga.

A-10 Warthog Gets One Last Mission



A combat plane the U.S. Air Force has been trying to kill is now headed off to war once again.

The A-10 Thunderbolt, a Cold War-era plane known by the nickname Warthog, is being sent from the Indiana National Guard to the 20-country military region known as U.S. Central Command, which includes Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. A statement released by the Indiana National Guard said the 122nd Fighter Wing would send about 300 personnel on a deployment that is “historic for its length and size.” The statement didn’t specify if the warplanes would be used in the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State fighters and other militants.

The A-10s were designed to destroy Soviet tanks and provide close air support for combat troops. The plane’s most notable feature is a Gatling gun in the nose that fires 30-millimeter armor-piercing rounds.

For more than a year, the A-10 has been the subject of one of the Pentagon’s fiercest budget fights with Congress. The Air Force wants to retire the jet in favor of funding the newer F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. By eliminating the A-10, the Air Force brass believes it could save more than $4 billion. The military also says the plane—the newest of which was built in 1984—cannot survive or operate effectively in combat missions against advanced defenses. “The time has come to move forward,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said in a July interview with Breaking Defense, an online magazine that covers the military and defense industry.

The jet has survived—so far, at least—due to staunch political support led by Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican whose husband is a former A-10 pilot. A year ago, Ayotte placed a hold on James’s nomination due to the planned retirement of the A-10.

The plane has also endured due to its proliferation with National Guard units and, to some extent, its periodic cameos in Hollywood blockbusters, most notably in Michael Bay’s first Transformers, even if the Warthog wasn’t terribly effective in that fictional fight.

The A-10 is an aircraft with a unique look and mission. The Army has long appreciated its ability to protect ground troops, complicating the issue for military budget planners. And it has legions of highly vocal fans among veterans of both aviation and infantry units, former service members who don’t hesitate to urge Congress to keep the Warthog in service.

Among its many acts, Islamic State may have provided the A-10 a new mission.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... amic-state

phpBB [video]

The buzzing sound in the video is the 'hog's 30mm cannon.

[RomaMater]

French ISIL fighters want to return home, plead for clemency



Letters from disillusioned French fighters in Syria published by a French newspaper this week have revived a contentious debate in Europe about what to do with radicalized recruits to foreign wars who wish to lay down their arms and return home.

In excerpts published by Le Figaro on Monday, several of the estimated 376 French fighters with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) reveal that they were bored, terrified or otherwise "fed up" with the grueling reality of their jihad in Syria.

Fighters complain of difficult conditions, especially as the winter cold sets in. Their concerns range from the practical, including a couple worried that their child, born in Syria, would not enjoy French citizenship, to the trivial. “I'm sick and tired. My iPod doesn’t work anymore,” one writes. “I have to return.”

Le Figaro reports that the fighters were stationed mostly in Aleppo and Raqqa, ISIL's de facto capital in Syria. ISIL, which has declared a restored Islamic “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq, has drawn thousands of recruits from across the globe thanks in part to a sophisticated propaganda machine touting jihad as an adventure and life under ISIL rule as paradise.

The reality described in many of the letters — days filled with disappointingly menial work — is a far cry from the dramatic violence that featured in ISIL’s YouTube videos. "I've done practically nothing but hand out clothes and food. I also clean weapons and transport dead fighters’ corpses," wrote one. "The winter is here. It's become very difficult."

Another had the opposite complaint: “They want to send me to the front even though I don’t know how to fight."

But while all were ready to return home, they worried about the consequences. “If I return to France, what will happen to me?” wrote one fighter. “Can I avoid prison?"

A group of French lawyers working on behalf of the fighters’ families have reportedly mounted an effort to answer those questions. Seeking guarantees of clemency for the fighters, they have repeatedly sought to make contact with French intelligence and the interior minister, Bernard Cazaneuve, but to no avail. The response to the fighters, the lawyers told Le Figaro, is always the same: "Present yourself at the French consulate in Istanbul or Erbil. Then we will see."

French authorities have so far taken a hard line, incarcerating 76 of the 100 French citizens who have returned from the front lines in Syria and Iraq and imposing travel restrictions on those believed to be considering a trip. That policy reflects, in part, a fear that veterans of the wars in Syria and Iraq may seek to carry out attacks at home. Earlier this year, a French national who fought in Syria gunned down four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium.

That incident is one of only a few instances of returned fighters attacking in their home countries. Many counterterrorism experts say hawkish officials in the West have exaggerated the domestic threat these fighters pose.

In any case, many counterterrorism experts support leniency, arguing that the cautionary tales of disaffected fighters are a government's most powerful tool against extremism. “For many radicals, there’s this romantic dimension in jihad, but they may be disappointed,” said Olivier Roy, an expert on extremist violence who has consulted for France’s foreign ministry. He also noted that returned fighters could prove to be valuable wells of intelligence about ISIL tactics.

One proposal cited in Le Figaro calls for governments to grant clemency only to fighters between the ages of 17 and 23, who are thought to be more receptive to de-radicalization efforts. According to Magnus Ranstorp, who heads a European Union task force on returned fighters, community-based deradicalization programs have had some success in identifying and reducing at-risk cases in several European countries.

“If we want to fight jihadism, the best way is not to put people in jail, but to discredit it," Roy adds. "We must show it’s a farce."

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... eturn.html

"My iPod doesn’t work anymore."

[Anthea]

I do not support leniency

People who leave their countries to go and join the Islamic State know they are joining a group of cold bloodied murderers

They know that by joining them they will be expected to fight - those returning to their home countries will have already taken part in the training and probably already killed - they should be treated like the murderers they are and locked up

[RomaMater]

Some bit of hyperbole in the article- but sheesh. The ISIS idiots live in mortal terror of 'Crusaders.' I hope, pray, and so on that the Pope will issue the Bull of the Crusade. The outrages against Christians and Muslims who do not agree with the fanatical doctrines of ISIS deserve a swift response.

The Fifth Crusade ? – Pope Francis Calls For Armed Christian Crusades Against Islam…. (ISIS)

You know a situation is bad when a pope calls for an armed response. Pope Francis, widely appreciated as a practical and realistic man, is not just calling for a cease-fire or negotiations. Instead, he is inviting an armed response to the terrorism of the Islamic State.

Such a call is virtually unprecedented for a pontiff in modern times, but our age is an extraordinary one and the Islamic State has no interest in a bargaining table. Instead, the Islamic State is bent on genocide and barbarism, ruthlessly exterminating anyone who opposes them.

On Sunday, Pope Francis said he held “dismay and disbelief” over what is happening in Iraq. He called the Islamic State fighters terrorists and said there was a need for “a professional, well-equipped army.” “The situation is going from bad to worse,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad said, “There is a need of international support and a professional, well-equipped army. The situation is going from bad to worse.”

Pope Francis and Patriarch Sako are not the only clerics calling for swift and decisive action to end the genocide in Iraq. The Episcopal Vicar of Iraq, Canon Andrew White, managed to visit the town of Qaraqosh under cover and personally assess the situation in that community following Islamic State capture.

His words are chilling. “Today, Qaraqosh stands 90 per cent empty, desecrated by the gunmen of the fanatical Islamic State terror group now in control. The majority of the town’s 50,000 people have fled, fearing that, like other Christians in this region, they will be massacred.

“The militants, in a further act of sacrilege, have established their administrative posts in the abandoned churches.”

Canon White reported that one woman had her finger hacked off after she could not remove her wedding ring fast enough. A caretaker of one of White’s parish churches in the community said his youngest son, aged five, was hacked in half as he watched.

A child, just five years old, hacked in half alive, before his father. The boy happened to be named Andrew, after the vicar himself.

The atrocities are real. The genocide is real. That the press barely reports on them is absolutely baffling. However, even the most religious, peace-loving figures are recognizing that this is not a usual evil. Normally, conflicts arise because of ancient grievances and they can be talked over and hashed out. Warring factions tire of burying their sons and eventually dialogue and other pressures forces peace.

However, the Islamic State has recruited fighters from most of the world’s nations and more arrive every day. They are motivated by an aggressive, rabid interpretation of Islamic scriptures. Most notably, they are consumed with bloodlust and willing to commit and publicize every atrocity. This attracts sadistic men from across the Islamic world to their cause who commit even more atrocities.

http://theconservativetreehouse.com/201 ... nst-islam/

[Anthea]

Reuters

Islamic State executes Shi'ite militia fighters north of Baghdad

Islamic State fighters executed 12 Shi’ite militiamen north of Baghdad after heavy fighting for control of a rural village, security sources said on Sunday.

Army and police officials said Iraqi security forces and the Shi'ite militia fighters launched an attack on Friday against Islamic State militants on Tal al-Thahab, near the town of Balad, 80km (50 miles) north of the Iraqi capital.

They managed to drive the militants from their base in Tal al-Thahab police station on Friday, but hours later the Islamic State fighters returned and surrounded it, trapping dozens of security forces and militiamen inside.

"Supporting troops with cover from army helicopter reached the area and managed to break the siege. We have confirmation from our sources that 12 volunteer fighters were executed on Saturday by terrorists,” said an army intelligence officer on condition of anonymity.

Balad's mayor, Amir Abdul Hadi, confirmed that some of the Shi’ite militiamen were executed by Islamic State near Balad and others were missing after Friday's battle, but said he did not have details. Officials said 10 militiamen were missing.

Sources at Balad hospital said they had received at least six bodies of militia fighters believed to have been killed in the first wave of fighting on Friday.

Balad, which houses a shrine to a revered Shi'ite imam, is one of several towns north of Baghdad which has seen heavy fighting between Islamic State fighters, who control large parts of north and west Iraq, and Iraqi security forces and pro-government Shi'ite militia.

Security and local officials said more Shi’ite militia fighters were gathering in Balad to try to drive out Islamic State militants from areas surrounding the town.

"We have asked the residents to stock food and basic material to prepare for an imminent military operation against the terrorists around Balad," one official said.

In the town of Tarmiya, between Balad and Baghdad, militants detonated a car bomb overnight at a security checkpoint before attacking with guns. Five police and three civilians were killed, security and medical sources said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/ ... KG20141207

[Anthea]

The Mail Online

British jihadi 'dies setting off suicide car bomb at police gathering in Iraq killing dozens of people'
By Lucy Crossley

Bomber named as Abu Abdullah al-Britani reportedly caused deadly blast
Car bomb said to have targeted police officers near city of Samarra
City was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2007
Reports of the suicide bomb attack have not been verified
Comes after a police station was attacked in village 60 miles away
Nine people killed and 11 wounded in car bomb in al-Salman

A British jihadi has died after setting off a suicide bomb in Iraq killing 'dozens' of people, according to pro-Islamic state reports.

The bomber, named as Abu Abdullah al-Britani, was said to have caused the blast near the city of Samarra, around 78 miles north of the country's capital Baghdad.

He reportedly detonated a bomb in a car, targeting a group of police officers in the city's Al Mu'tasim district.

Samarra, which was once the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate was named as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007, has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent days between Iraqi Security Forces and ISIS supporters. Militant bases nearby were the focus of US air strikes on Friday.

However, pro-ISIS sources were claiming that the part of the city where the bombing is said to have taken place was now under the control of the Islamic militants.

Reports of the blast, and of the district being under ISIS control have not been verified.

The ISIS-linked Al-Battar Media Foundation tweeted: 'Dozens of apostates killed in the operation of Abu Abdullah al-Britani in al-Mu’tasim area near #Samarra#IS #ISIS.'

Other reports said that the source of the blast had been a car bomb and the targets had been police officers.

Charlie Winter, a researcher with anti-extremist think thank the Quilliam Foundation, tweeted: '#Iraq: Another Briton dies in #IS VBIED op - Abu Abdullah al-Britani targeted a police gathering near #Samarra.'

A British jihadi with the same name was reported as being killed in an airstrike in Syria last month and a number of IS fighters from the UK are believed to use the moniker.

Some 32 British nationals are known to have died fighting for IS forces in Iraq and Syria.

Reports of the blast came after at least nine people were killed after militants attacked a police station the village of al-Salman, around 60 miles away from Samarra.

The attack started at dawn with a suicide car bomber hitting the blast walls that surround the police station in the village, just outside the town of Tarmiyah, a police officer said. An assault by armed militants then followed.

The attack killed five police officers and four civilians, leaving 11 other people wounded.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Iraqi forces, backed by US-led airstrikes, are fighting the extremist Islamic State group, which now controls about a third of the country.

The al-Salman attack came a day after a string of bombings targeting Shia areas around Baghdad killed ten people amid tight security measures to protect pilgrims heading to the holy city of Karbala to attend the religious commemoration known as Arbaeen.

The event, which draws hundreds of thousands of Shia pilgrims, marks the passing of 40 days after the anniversary of the seventh century martyrdom of the revered Shia saint Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... eople.html