ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

[Anthea]

The house of HPŞ Commander Qasim Dirbo near Shingal city was prepared with a booby trap.

Dirbo shot at the door and his house blew up

[Anthea]

Worse than Islamic State? Concerns rise about Iraq's Shiite militias.

The Islamic State is a serious threat to Iraq from the outside, former military officials agree. But Shiite militias, which are gaining influence, threaten from within, they say.
By Anna Mulrine

Washington — A former aide to General David Petraeus warns that as the Pentagon prepares to send another 1,500 US troops to Iraq to help “destroy” the Islamic State fighters, there may be an even greater danger that forces face: Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

The power of these militias has been growing throughout the country this year after Iraqi security forces were unable to prevail – and in some cases shed their uniforms and ran – while battling Islamic State fighters.

The Shiite militias are well-trained, in many cases by Iranian military commanders, and battle-tested. During the height of the Iraq war, these militias were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US troops.

While the Islamic State is a potent military foe, it has comparatively little support from Iraqis. But Shiite militias play upon the worst fears of Iraq's Sunni and Kurdish minorities – that the Shiite majority is ruthlessly consolidating power. Indeed, some analysts say Iraqi Sunnis tolerate the Islamic State because it is seen as a counterweight to the Shiite militias.

In that way, Shiite militias could present a thornier problem to the future of a unified Iraq than does the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS.

Back in 2007, “when I was serving with Petraeus, I mentioned to him that although Al Qaeda in Iraq was the wolf closest to the shed, in the long run Shiite militias could be more dangerous to Iraqi sovereignty,” says retired Colonel Peter Mansoor.

“Not much has changed – Al Qaeda in Iraq has been replaced by ISIS as the wolf closest to the shed,” says Dr. Mansoor, who is now an associate professor of military history at Ohio State University.

This is a view seconded by a number of seasoned Iraq analysts.

“As significant as is the threat from the Islamic State – and it is very significant – the threat posed by Shiite militias may well prove to be the long-term threat to Iraq,” says a former senior US commander in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

This is because the Islamic State “has nowhere near the roots, numbers, nor attraction” to the Sunni population of Iraq that Al Qaeda in Iraq did at the start of the surge of US forces into Iraq in early 2007, the former commander explains.

What’s more, as US trainers come in with more intelligence and air attack assets, the security forces can be expected to engage the lslamic State with “increasing success,” he predicts.

And so the most significant challenge for Iraq may come later, “when Shiite and Sunni militia – and in some cases, Kurdish Peshmerga – clash over who will control areas of mixed sectarian populations.”

Shiite militias have displaced Sunni families from such areas for years. But those tensions could escalate and multiply in the months ahead if Islamic State fighters are cleared from such mixed areas, he adds.

In order to destroy the Islamic State, it’s going to be vital “to get Sunni tribes once again to turn on ISIS as they turned on Al Qaeda in Iraq,” Mansoor says. “I don’t think they’ll do that if they see the hidden hand behind the Iraqi government are these Shiite militias that are very sectarian.”

This “hidden hand” – which includes Iranian influence and, in some cases, command-and-control of operations – is increasingly apparent in the Shiite militias, says Kimberly Kagan, founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War.

“They ... going to erode Iraq’s sovereignty by taking the command-and-control of the security forces out of the hands of Iraqi officials, and placing that command-and-control into the hands of Iran.”

She cites photographic evidence of Iraqi security force (ISF) command centers “in which there are ISF commanders and Iranian-backed Shiite militias all sitting over a map evaluating plans.”

This has some implications for US troops headed to Iraq next month to train Iraqi security forces. The troops headed to Iraq will likely be deployed north of Baghdad and in Anbar province, where US officials are pushing to establish an “Iraqi National Guard” that would be composed of Sunni tribesmen.

“We must focus on training the Sunni tribes that actually stand a chance of providing long-term security in Anbar province,” the Sunni-dominated area of western Iraq, she adds.

The problem is that the Iraqi government continues to show “a preference for mobilizing Shiite militias rather than using the national guard force and mobilizing Sunni tribal leaders,” Kagan says.

The new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, who was elected to the job in August, has pledged to change not just tenor and tone, but the substance of politics.

“In the short time he’s been in office he has succeeded in the former,” Mansoor says. “It’s unclear whether he’ll succeed in the latter.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2 ... e-militias

[Anthea]

Global Post

Kurdish women line up to take on the Islamic State
Richard Hall

Kurdish women join the PKK in droves to fight the Islamic State, which has captured and enslaved up to hundreds of Yazidi women.

QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq — The Islamic State’s rapid spread across Syria and Iraq and the brutality with which it was achieved has prompted a surge of new recruits for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish group currently fighting on the frontlines in Iraq.

Around 1,000 new members are signing up each month, according to the group’s military chief, Cemil Bayik — and most of them are women.

The PKK, which was founded to achieve autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds, has taken a leading role in the battle against IS in recent months, following attacks on Kurdish areas in both Syria and Iraq.

The PKK has long prided itself on its progressive view on gender equality, with women-only fighting brigades and commanders in its top ranks. But whereas in the past its fighters have been predominantly men, now it is women who make up the greater number among new recruits.

“Generally speaking I can say that 1,000 new recruits are joining the PKK every month. Now the number of women joining is higher than the boys,” Bayik said.

The Islamic State’s views on women’s rights could hardly be further apart from that of the PKK. The group has taken hundreds of women from the minority Yazidi sect as slaves since it overran Sinjar province in August, raping and trading them among each other.

A pamphlet recently released by its "Research and Fatwa Department" detailed how IS members should treat female slaves. Citing its own interpretation of Islamic law, the rules said fighters are permitted to rape and beat female slaves.

Yazidi women who managed to escape IS captivity speak of such horrors, and more. It is in part due to these these stories that women are now joining the PKK in such large numbers.

Twenty-year-old Sara Ronahi is one of those new recruits. Originally from Mardin, in southeast Turkey, she was studying at university when the Islamic State swept through Sinjar.

“When I watched the news about the atrocities of IS against the Kurdish people and their enslaving and selling of the Yazidi women, I decided to join the PKK,” she said in an interview conducted by email. ”I found [the PKK] sincere,” she added.

Sara, the daughter of a farmer, has recently finished her basic military training with the PKK in the Qandil, and will soon be sent to the front.

“I want to go and fight against ISIS. They are enemy to all people of the Middle East, especially women,” she said.

“I want to take revenge for the Yazidi women against ISIS. No matter if I lose my life in this fight. I know why I die. No matter. I should give ISIS the lesson they deserve.

There are many more like Sara, according to Bayik.

“Since ISIL’s attacks on the Kurdish women, the girls felt the need to protect themselves and others,” he said.

“They came to realise that the PKK is the most effective organization for protecting both the Kurds and Kurdish women. So that’s why we are witnessing such a rise in the recruitment of girls in the ranks of the PKK.”

The PKK — designated a terrorist organization by the US, EU and Turkey — is not the only Kurdish group whose ranks have been bolstered by volunteers eager to fight the Islamic State.

The armed forces of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government of northern Iraq — the Peshmerga — has also seen a boost, with people of Kurdish descent travelling from all around the world to join up.

Indeed, the various Kurdish forces have witnessed something akin to a national mobilization since IS launched a major offensive into Iraq, threatening the Kurdish north.

In Iraq and Syria, the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), PKK and Peshmerga have largely ignored the borders separating them and coordinated to protect Kurdish areas under threat — most notably in Kobani (Syria) and on Mount Sinjar (Iraq).

The rapid expansion of IS and the threat that poses to the Kurds has ushered in a period of unity rarely seen between the different groups, which have been prone to rivalry in the past.

That is something the PKK, which was founded with the aim to create an independent Kurdish state, is hoping to build on (the group has since tempered its demands, calling instead for greater autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds)

“We regard it as our duty to protect the gains of the Kurdish people everywhere,” said Bayik.

“ISIL is a great threat to the Kurds, but ISIL at the same time, unwillingly, served to unite us. Because despite our internal differences, the threat has brought together Kurds from all parts.”

“This fight has proven that if the Kurds are united, and if they cooperate militarily, the can defeat any threat. This has been proved in practice. And that is a great thing for the Kurds.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news ... amic-state

[Anthea]

Associated Press
Iraq: Suicide attack kills 24 people near Baghdad
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN

A suicide bomber detonated his payload among a group of pro-government Sunni militiamen near the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 24 people.

The attacker mingled with the militiamen as they gathered at a military base in the town of Madain, about 20 kilometers (14 miles) south of Baghdad, to receive their monthly paychecks, two police officers said. At least 15 of the dead were Sunni militiamen and the rest were soldiers, while 55 others were wounded, they said.

The Sunni militias, known as Sahwa or Awakening Councils, were formed at the height of Iraq's sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007, and allied with U.S. troops against al-Qaida in Iraq, a precursor to the Islamic State extremist group. They are viewed as traitors by Sunni extremists fighting to overthrow the Shiite-led government.

In another attack, four civilians were killed and seven wounded when a bomb tore through an outdoor market in the town of Youssifiyah, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Baghdad, a police officer said.

Four medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information to the media.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for Wednesday's bombings, but they bore the hallmarks of the Islamic State group, which captured large swaths of western and northern Iraq in a summer blitz.

http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-suicide-atta ... 23763.html

[Anthea]

FOX News

Iraq seeks Turkish help in fight against IS, including arms and intelligence sharing

The Iraqi prime minister says Iraq and Turkey have discussed cooperation in fighting the Islamic State group, including possible Turkish military and intelligence assistance.

Haider al-Adabi told reporters during a visit to the Turkish capital on Thursday that he had provided a list of things Iraq was requesting from Turkey to help fight the militant group, including training Iraqi forces and providing intelligence and arms.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey was ready to support Iraq but did not elaborate. He said the countries' defense ministries were holding discussions.

Turkey has declared it is willing to train and equip forces fighting IS, but has been reluctant to provide greater support to the U.S.-led coalition. Turkey insists that the coalition must also aim to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/12/25 ... elligence/

[Anthea]

The Washington Post



IRBIL, Iraq — For three years, he worked closely with U.S. forces in Iraq. Now Ammar Younes sits in his frigid tent in a camp in Iraq’s Kurdish region, using a scalpel to gouge pieces of shrapnel out of his mangled legs as his young children look on.

A trainer in the Iraqi army, the 34-year-old was wounded when Islamic State extremists placed a bomb under his car in Mosul in June, just a week before the northern city fell to the militants. He was forced to flee his hospital bed, still wearing his medical gown, when the city was overrun.

Younes is one of more than 2 million Iraqis uprooted this year by the advance of the Islamic State, an exodus that has compounded this country’s massive displacement crisis.

About 1.7 million Iraqis fled their homes for other parts of the country from 2006 to 2008, the worst days of sectarian conflict after the U.S. -led invasion of 2003. Most have yet to return to their homes. Meanwhile, the war in neighboring Syria has spawned more than 3.2 million refugees, some of whom have sought shelter in Iraq.

The speed and scale of the latest Iraq crisis have stunned communities, international humanitarian organizations and the Iraqi government, which is poorly equipped to help displaced people as it fights a war against Islamist militants and struggles to balance its books amid diving oil prices­. Adding to the misery of the displaced, the winter has set in, sending temperatures below freezing.

Almost half of the Iraqis fleeing their communities this year have crowded into Iraqi Kurdistan, already home to more than 200,000 Syrian refugees.

With resources scarce, a scramble for survival is underway. The displaced say their sects, ethnicities and whether they have crossed an international border and legally qualify as refugees can determine their level of access to the scant aid available.

Younes has spent more than $2,000 on surgeries to remove shrapnel from his legs. But he said that he’s struggling to afford further care and that free clinics lack the specialized treatment he needs.

He complained that his plight is made worse by his being a Sunni Arab, like the Islamic State fighters, and thus deemed a security risk. He said he sometimes finds it difficult to get permission to leave the camp, even for medical treatment.

“We are at the bottom of the pile,” he said. “We are blamed for helping the terrorists, but we are the ones who have suffered most from them.”

Younes said he had been injured five times by extremists, including once when he was shot as he drove to work on a U.S. Army base, where he was a trainer for Iraqi officers. He said he never considered applying for a visa to go to the United States and still does not want to leave his country.

Sunni Arabs’ plight

Some of the displaced cannot make it into the semi­autonomous Kurdish region. Aid agencies say the Kurdish authorities have tightened entry, particularly for Sunni Arabs, since a suicide bombing killed five people in Irbil last month, a rare event in that part of Iraq. Kurdish officials claim the borders are open.

Those fleeing Mosul say checkpoints run by the Iraqi army or Shiite militias near Baghdad and Shiite provinces of the south also turn them away, leaving them with nowhere to run.

A Sunni Arab medical student from Mosul, who declined to give his name out of concern for his safety, spoke of fleeing the city this month only to be turned away at a checkpoint controlled by Kurdish peshmerga security forces­ near the city of Kirkuk. He decided to return home, despite fearing that he would be targeted by Islamic State militants for having left.

In some ways, Younes is one of the lucky ones, able to find a space on the edge of Irbil in a United Nations-administered camp that is home to 3,100 displaced people. Still, even there, the camp management was scrambling in mid-December to finish preparations for winter — distributing kerosene and extra plastic sheeting.

U.N. officials acknowledge that the assistance is insufficient. The U.N. response plan for displaced Iraqis remains only 31 percent funded, while the World Food Program has stopped procuring supplies for the displaced because of a lack of money. That means the distribution of boxes of food to families, the only assistance many get, will end by February unless emergency funding is found.

“It’s not that we can do more with less; it’s that we don’t have anything and the needs on the ground are immense,” said Barbara Manzi, the outgoing Iraq representative for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which is overseeing the organization’s response to the displacement crisis.

With so little relief available, families turn wherever they can for help. Displaced Christians get some additional assistance from local ­churches, but their independently administered camps are poorly equipped for winter.

Refugees vs. the displaced

“Whatever the church has, they give us — carpets, blankets, heaters, shampoo,” said Raja Mati, 35, who lives with 11 members of her extended family in a small plastic cabin with a tarpaulin roof erected in an unfinished Irbil shopping mall, still barely more than a construction site. Her husband finds occasional work as a day laborer to support their three children. “Still, life is so hard,” she said.

Ismail Mohammed, the assistant governor of Dahuk province, said that the Kurdish province, once one of the smallest in Iraq by population, is now the fourth-largest because of the influx of displaced people. He conceded that the Kurdish regional government has been able to provide little help as it wrangles with the central government in Baghdad over its budget. He hopes that will change as the country’s new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, improves relations with the Kurdish authorities. He complained that the United Nations has been slow to act.

“The system is very famous for being slow,” he said. “They have to do a lot of paperwork.”

Not far from Mohammed’s office in the concrete shell of an unfinished building along the highway into Dahuk city lives Ismail Khalaf, a member of the minority Yazidi sect. He said he has not been able to find a space in a camp, even though 25 facilities of various sizes have been set up across Iraq since June to accommodate displaced people.

Khalaf, 49, crammed his 14 family members into his car and raced for safety when Islamic State fighters advanced on his village near Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq in August. A former translator for U.S. troops — he named his 5-year-old daughter Kevin after his male American team leader — he said he’s lucky to be alive after running into an Islamic State checkpoint while fleeing with his family. But he wishes he’d left for Syria rather than remaining in Iraq.

“It’s a lot better to be a refugee,” Khalaf said. “We are still strangers here, but we get nothing. At least, if someone visited sometimes and shook our hands and said, ‘We are trying to help,’ that would be something.”

Ironically, the legal situation of Iraqis in the country’s Kurdish region can be more problematic than that of people who have fled Syria. Lacking residency in the semi­autonomous north, Iraqis from elsewhere in the country are not authorized to work.

As a Syrian refu­gee, Karzan Hussein had no difficulty finding space in a camp in northern Iraq, despite arriving more recently than Khalaf. And the conditions for his family at Gawilan refu­gee camp are relatively good. The family’s tent is elevated on a concrete platform to prevent it from being flooded in winter rains, and every family has a brick kitchen and bathroom.

The muddled borders of the Middle East also mean that people pouring out of Syria — largely ethnic Kurds — often have more in common with their host community in northern Iraq than the Sunni Arabs who have fled to Iraqi Kurdistan from elsewhere in their own country.

Hussein said he initially escaped to Turkey after an Islamic State assault on his town in October. He then spent $350 for the nine members of his family to be smuggled into Iraq’s Kurdish region. “We came here because we are Kurds, [and] they are Kurds,” he said. “But it still feels like a prison. We are all refugees.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ira ... srcref=rss

[Anthea]

Associated Press

Iraq: Suicide attack on funeral kills 15
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN

A suicide bomber struck a funeral north of the Iraqi capital on Monday, killing at least 15 mourners, a government official said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan told The Associated Press that the bomber blew himself up inside a funeral tent in a farming area outside the mainly Sunni town of Taji, about 22 kilometers (12 miles) north of Baghdad.

He said another 26 mourners were wounded in the attack.

The funeral was for the father of two members of pro-government Sunni militias, known as Sahwa or Awakening Councils. The Sahwa militias began forming after the outbreak of Iraq's sectarian fighting in 2006, and allied with U.S. troops against al-Qaida in Iraq, a precursor to the Islamic State extremist group.

The government later took over the militias, integrating some members in the security forces and disbanding others.

Iraq hopes to revive the militias in order to fight the Islamic State group, which has exploited widespread Sunni discontent with the Shiite-led government. The extremist group seized much of northern and western Iraq over the summer, and also controls large swaths of neighboring Syria.

No one has claimed responsibility for Monday's attack in the Taji area, but it bore the hallmarks of the IS group, which frequently targets Sunnis allied with the Shiite-led government.

http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-suicide-atta ... 24988.html

[Anthea]

L A Times

Iraq's holy city of Karbala becomes a haven from sectarian fighting
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske

When millions of Shiite Muslim pilgrims descended last month on the shrine with twin gold domes in this holy city, many Iraqis expected sectarian fighting to erupt.

Instead, the largely peaceful gathering of more than 17 million Shiites provided a place of refuge from violence, with some pilgrims speaking hopefully of an end to this nation's sectarian clashes.

The road from Baghdad to Karbala, 50 miles to the south, was busy late last week, with army checkpoints crowded and the roadsides littered with stands catering to pilgrims. Many had traveled across the country — some on foot — the week before to mark Arbaeen, the end of the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, the 7th century Shiite martyr slain and buried at Karbala.

The bearded image of the imam, a key figure in the historic split between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, is everywhere in Baghdad these days: on signs, flags, billboards and banners posted in residential neighborhoods, outside businesses, police stations, even the morgue.

Those flags also flew last week from roadside stands along the highway south. Nearby buildings pocked with bullet holes were a reminder that a few years ago this area was known as the "Triangle of Death," the scene of fierce battles between the U.S. military and insurgents.

In the Euphrates Valley farming town of Jurf Nasr, 40 miles south of Baghdad, more images of Imam Hussein appeared, as well as billboards honoring hometown heroes killed battling the Islamic State insurgent group. Baghdad has remained relatively peaceful in recent weeks, but here in the belt of towns surrounding the capital, Iraqi forces and Shiite militias are still fighting the Sunni extremists who seized large sections of Iraq during the summer.

Jurf Nasr was once a Sunni town known as Jurf Sakhr, or "rocky bank," a haven for militants. But for the Ashura holiday during the fall, with Islamic State threatening to slaughter Shiite pilgrims as they passed through town toward Karbala, Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias launched a two-day assault that chased Sunni families away and left the town a battered and burned outpost. The government renamed the town Jurf Nasr, "the bank of victory."

On the far side of the Baghdad Belt, Karbala is thriving. There's a new mall, high-rise hotels and signs advertising expensive developments. The shrine is expanding, as is the one in the nearby Shiite holy city of Najaf.

Scores of pilgrims and residents filled the courtyard between the gold domes last week, the women wearing the required head scarves and ankle length gowns, or abayas. Many families slipped off their shoes to sit together on massive rugs, picnicking on falafel and sticky coconut sweets from nearby stands as their children played.

Nahedh Shaheed, 38, said he and his Shiite family were forced to flee to Karbala nine years ago from Baghdad's mixed sect neighborhood of Dora after his brother was shot and killed. They still own a house in the capital, but the area is now mostly Sunni and he is afraid to return.

"We feel safe here," he said as he shared butterscotch candy with his five children in the shadow of the shrine.

Shaheed, who works at the Interior Ministry, said the government can take credit for protecting the millions who flocked to Karbala during December. "We consider it a strike against the enemies," he said, referring to Islamic State.

He doesn't want to see Iraq divided by sectarianism, splitting off into independent states of Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. He sees Karbala not as a Shiite city but as a refuge for the persecuted.

"I wish religious minorities would come to Karbala — it's safer. We can show the world that Daesh is not the face of Islam," he said, referring to Islamic State by an Arabic acronym. "This place is like psychological relief for people. When they leave, they feel more secure."

Many of those displaced by Islamic State have poured into Karbala, including religious and ethnic minorities from northern Iraq.

Seated on the rug nearby was one of the displaced: Mohammed Khalil, 48, whose Shiite Turkmen family of 10 was forced to flee the northern town of Tal Afar in June after Islamic State invaded. He said their home was later seized by Sunni neighbors.

He knows at least 10 Turkmen neighbors killed by Islamic State as they made their way south. More than 30 members of his tribe disappeared, he said, including a day-old baby and a 91-year-old man.

A former employee of the Health Ministry, Khalil has not been paid in months. But in Karbala, he said, his family found an apartment and support from the Shiite community.

"The people helped us more than the government," he said, "Our government is weak. We don't have hope that the government can get us back into our homes."

Seated near him was Hussein Zaid, 38, of Baghdad, who had volunteered during the summer with the Shiite brigades that routed Islamic State in Jurf Nasr. His captain was among the dead memorialized in roadside billboards.

There have been reports in recent days of Shiite fighters deserting the front lines because of economic hardship, but Zaid said he and others were decommissioned after the victory in Jurf Nasr and are prepared to return if needed. "If they ask us, I will fight again," he said as he sat fingering a set of prayer beads.

Zaid said he doesn't support sectarianism, that he fought to rid Jurf Nasr of Sunni extremists, not all Sunnis.

Just then, a group of Shiite men passed, chanting and praying. Behind them, the sun was setting, reflected on the golden domes. The shrine would remain open until midnight without incident.

Zaid said he has faith that the peace maintained here will triumph over sectarianism in the long run.

"I am hopeful. A lot of countries are investing in Iraq, and there is peace in Baghdad and the south," he said, "We don't want different states inside Iraq. We want one Iraq."

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast ... story.html

Anthea: correction

I am hopeful. A lot of countries are investing in Iraq

Should read

"A lot of countries are investing in KURDISTAN"

[Anthea]

LA Times

New Islamic State video has hostage giving tour of Iraqi city
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske



A new video released Saturday shows a British photojournalist held captive by Islamic State giving a stylized media tour of the embattled northern Iraqi city of Mosul -- visiting a market, a hospital and even climbing on a police motorcycle to refute reports that the city’s infrastructure has been crippled.

The video provides a window on a city that has largely been off-limits to the media since Islamic State seized control in June, although reports have trickled out through residents and those who have escaped.

“The media likes to paint a picture of life in the Islamic State as depressed, people walking around as subjugated citizens in chains, beaten down by strict, totalitarian rule,” hostage John Cantlie says as he appears to be driving to the souk, or market.

“This isn't a city living in fear, as the Western media would have you believe. This is just a normal city going about its daily business.”

Saturday’s video, lasting just over eight minutes, is one of a series in which Cantlie, 43, has faulted Western governments while praising Islamic State and their new “caliphate.” Its authenticity was still being examined late Saturday. It was not immediately clear under what circumstances he made the video.

The date of the recording could not be independently verified, but Cantlie references news reports from the fall and notes the “sunny December weather.”

In the video, Cantlie stops at the market, which he describes as “bustling.” He notes that the city’s merchants, contrary to media reports, have more than a few hours of electricity a day.

Later in the video, Cantlie visits a hospital where he says children are being treated for “psychiatric problems as a direct result of bombs and explosions falling from above” -- a reference to U.S.-led airstrikes.

“We're told that just two days ago an ambulance was hit by a bomb or a missile that fell from an aircraft,” Cantlie says as he stands inside the hospital. “Despite these things the doctors are getting what they need and the Islamic State is prevailing - they can take it.”

Moments later, Cantlie appears standing outside as a plane passes overhead, shouting and apparently mocking Western powers.

“Here! Here! Over here! You've come to rescue me again? Do something! Useless! Absolutely useless!” he shouts, waving his arms.

Cantlie, who has been held for two years, appears healthier and cleaner shaven than in the last video, wearing blue jeans and a Western winter coat instead of the black shirt and trousers from the last video, an outfit that replaced the orange U.S.-style prison jumpsuit he and other hostages had been forced to wear in prior videos.

His previous propaganda video made in the Syrian border town of Kobani appears at the end of the latest video, playing on a screen behind Cantlie as he stands outside.

“It just goes to show the stretch of territory the Islamic State holds all the way from Kobani (and there I am in the background) to all the way here in Mosul (and here I am on the streets),” Cantlie says. “That was me then and this is me now. It just shows how much territory the Islamic State are controlling.”

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast ... story.html

[Anthea]

Rudaw

Peshmerga part of multipronged attack on Mosul
By HÊVÎDAR EHMED

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish Peshmerga forces launched a major offensive against Islamic State (ISIS) forces west of Mosul Wednesday morning to assist Iraqi troops in their effort to retake the city from the radical group.

Iraqi and coalition fighter jets led the fight by bombing ISIS positions, while the Peshmerga pounded the militants with heavy artillery on the ground.

In the early hours of the offensive the Peshmerga forces controlled the villages of Tel Reem, Tel Khidir and Jamrud, where they killed six of the insurgents and took another prisoner.

Iraqi officials had earlier said that the Mosul operation might be launched in spring. But today’s heavy, multipronged attack on ISIS appears to indicate the plan is underway.

Kurdish leaders have said that their forces would not get involved in the liberation of Mosul, as they want to avoid igniting an Arab-Kurdish war, but they pledged to assist the Iraqi army in the effort.

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/21012015

[Piling]

[Anthea]

All I see is yet more death and destruction

Most of the Sunnis inside Mosul felt that they were liberated from oppressive regime when the Islamic State moved in

Granted the so-called Muslims of Mosul might not have been ready to give up their cigarettes and other non-Islamic ways but they have to decide for themselves which group of bloodthirsty murdering bastards they want to alien themselves with

On average - over the past couple of years - I would estimate that the murdering Shia Regime treated the Sunnis worse than the also savage Islamic State

Question is: Do the Sunnis in Mosul want to be liberated AGAIN

[Piling]

I am not sure that Peshmergas want to enter in Mosul, which is a trap and a hell especially for non Arab or non Muslims. Perhaps they will liberate and protect areas inhabited by minorities.

[Anthea]

Iraq News

Urgent: Leaflets promoting for ISIS found south of Baghdad

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) On Wednesday, the Department of Defense announced that an ISIS den, with explosive and adhesive devices and leaflets promoting for the “Islamic State” inside it, was found south of the capital Baghdad.

The ministry said in a statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “Battalion II – Brigade 42th of the Eleventh Infantry Squad managed to find an ISIS den in al-Madain area,” noting that, “The den was used as a factory to manufacture explosive and adhesive devices used by terrorists in their criminal operations against security forces and innocent citizens.”

The ministry added, “The den also had leaflets promoting for the so-called Islamic State inside it,” pointing out that, “The operation was carried out in accordance with accurate intelligence.”

http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/urgen ... h-baghdad/

[Anthea]

ISIL deploys all its elements in Mosul

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) The ISIL started to deploy all its elements in the streets of Mosul.

One of the witnesses stated to IraqiNews.com “The ISIL deployed all its elements in the streets of Mosul coincided with the continued security operations and the airstrikes from the early morning.”

“The ISIL terrorists are wearing a uniform to recognize each other in case they were directly attacked,” the witnessed concluded. /End/

http://www.iraqinews.com/features/isil- ... -in-mosul/