The Islamic State Thread

US HITS ISLAMIC STATE GROUP IN BOTH SYRIA AND IRAQ

U.S. fighter jets and bombers expanded their aerial campaign against Islamic State targets Wednesday, striking the militants in both Syria and Iraq even as the extremists pressed their offensive in Kurdish areas within sight of the Turkish border, where fleeing refugees told of civilians beheaded and towns torched.

President Barack Obama, speaking at the United Nations, vowed an extended assault and called on the world to join in.

"The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force, so the United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death," he told the U.N. General Assembly in a 38-minute speech. "Today, I ask the world to join in this effort."

In Syria, hard-line rebels aligned with a faction fighting to oust President Bashar Assad, but considered too radical by the U.S., packed up their heavy weapons and evacuated their bases over fears the Obama administration would target all fighters deemed a potential threat to the United States.

Wednesday's strikes marked the second day of a broadened U.S. military operation against the Islamic State group, after a barrage of more than 200 strikes on some two dozen targets in Syria a day earlier. That campaign, which the White House has warned could last years, builds upon the air raids the U.S. has already been conducting for more than a month against the extremists in Iraq.

The ultimate aim of the Obama administration and its Arab partners is to destroy the Islamic State group, which through brute force has carved out a proto-state in the heart of the Middle East, effectively erasing the border between Iraq and Syria. Along the way, the extremist faction has massacred captured soldiers, terrorized religious minorities and beheaded two American journalists and a British aid worker.

On Wednesday, Algerian extremists aligned with the Islamic State group declared in a video that they had beheaded a fourth hostage - a Frenchman seized in Algeria on Sunday - in retaliation for France joining the aerial assault against the militants in Iraq. French President Francois Hollande said France would not be deterred by the act of "barbarity."

"This particular group ... they don't strike only those who don't think like they do. They also strike Muslims. ... They rape, they kill," a visibly upset Hollande told the U.N. General Assembly. "It is for this reason that the fight the international community needs to wage versus terrorism knows no borders."

Meanwhile, U.S. allies lined up in support of the aerial campaign. The Dutch government announced it would send six F-16 fighter jets along with 250 pilots and support staff to strike at Islamic State targets in Iraq, while British Prime Minister David Cameron's office said Parliament had been recalled to debate Britain's response to a request to support the airstrikes.

The latest U.S. strikes damaged eight Islamic State vehicles in Syria near the Iraqi border town of Qaim, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement. It also reported hitting two Islamic State armed vehicles west of Baghdad, as well as two militant fighting positions in northern Iraq.

In a separate statement, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said the strikes in eastern Syria hit a staging area used by the militants to move equipment across the border into Iraq.

He did not specify exactly where the air raids took place, but the Iraqi town of Qaim is across the border from the Syrian town of Boukamal, where Syrian activists reported at least 13 airstrikes on suspected Islamic State positions on Wednesday.

Kirby later told CNN that U.S. and coalition forces hit 12 targets, including oil refineries that were providing up to $2 million a day in income to the Islamic State Group. The Pentagon released no details on the strikes or which countries were participating.

Despite the start of the coalition campaign, Islamic State fighters pressed their advance against Syrian Kurdish militiamen around the town of Ayn Arab, known to Kurds as Kobani, near the Turkish border, where refugees fleeing into Turkey reported the beheading of captives and the torching of homes.

A Kurdish militiaman fighting to protect the city said Islamic State militants were less than half a mile (one kilometer) from the outskirts Wednesday.

Weary refugees arriving in Turkey described atrocities at the hands of the Islamic State militants. Osman Nawaf, 59, said he saw about 50 bodies hanging headless in the village of Boras when he passed it on his three-day walk from a village on the outskirts of Kobani.

The fighting near Kobani could be seen from hilltops in Turkey. Kurds from Turkey and Syria cheered on the Kurdish fighters from one hilltop, while the fighters signaled back with mortar fire.

Halil Aslan, a 48 year-old local villager in Turkey, recounted seeing Islamic State tanks roll into a village on the Syrian side.

"They shelled the place with tanks and mortars," he said. "We could hear them falling on those hills."

A video posted online showed what appeared to be Islamic State fighters toting assault rifles and fanning out across a dusty field in the Kobani area. A later clip showed a field cannon firing a shell toward a town located across a rolling expanse of brown fields, followed by a puff of smoke in the distance. The video appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting of the events.

In the opening salvo of the air campaign inside Syria on Tuesday, the U.S. also hit al-Qaida's Syria branch, known as the Nusra Front. American officials said the strikes targeted the so-called Khorasan Group, a cell within the Nusra Front made up of hardened jihadis they said pose a direct and imminent threat to the United States.

On Wednesday, the Nusra Front said it was evacuating its compounds near civilian areas in Idlib and Aleppo provinces in northern Syria, according to the Aleppo Media Center activist group. The decision followed a U.S. airstrike on a Nusra Front base in the village of Kfar Derian that killed around a dozen fighters and 10 civilians, activists said.

Another Syrian rebel group, Ahrar al-Sham, was also clearing out of its bases, according to the Observatory. It said the group issued a statement calling for fighters to limit the use of wireless communication devices to emergencies, to move heavy weapons and conceal them, and to warn civilians to stay away from the group's camps.

Ahrar al-Sham has been among the most effective forces fighting to oust Assad in Syria's civil war, and has also been on the front lines of a 9-month battle against the Islamic State group. But the U.S. has long looked askance at Ahrar al-Sham, considering it too radical and too cozy with the Nusra Front.

An activist in Idlib who goes by the name of Mohammed confirmed the Ahrar al-Sham evacuations. He did not know of any strikes against the group, but said the fighters thought they would be targeted by the U.S.-led coalition because of their ultraconservative Islamic beliefs.


Source : Sapa-AP /nsm
Date : 25 Sep 2014 00:14
 
UN SECURITY COUNCIL TAKES AIM AT FOREIGN JIHADISTS

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday led the UN Security Council in approving a resolution demanding that countries take action to stem the flow of foreign jihadists to Iraq and Syria.

The resolution unanimously approved by the 15-member council requires all nations to adopt laws that would make it a serious crime for their nationals to join jihadist groups such as Islamic State (IS) and Al-Nusra Front.

Obama described the measure as "historic" at a special session of the Council, only the sixth time in UN history that the top world body was convening at the level of heads of state.

Obama however cautioned that "resolutions alone will not be enough" and urged governments to work towards choking off the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria "not just in the days ahead, but for years to come."

The US-drafted resolution demands that governments take action against nationals who travel or make plans to travel to a country to join jihadist groups and also makes it illegal to collect funds for recruitment.

About 15,000 foreign fighters from 80 countries have joined the ranks of jihadists in Syria, according to US intelligence estimates.

The call for action against foreign jihadists is fueled by fears that new terror networks will emerge from the Syria-Iraq front, much in the same way that the September 11, 2001 attacks were linked to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The binding resolution falls under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which means the measures could be enforced by economic sanctions or military force.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is considered the main transit point for foreign fighters to Syria, said the campaign to stem the flow of foreign jihadists must start in "source countries".

Turkey has drawn up a no-entry list of 6,300 foreign nationals and has deported 1,000 foreigners involved in fighting in Syria, he said.

"We can stop this flow of foreign terrorist fighters, but only if our friends show a spirit of cooperation as well," he said.

Turkey has been trading barbs with France in recent days after a series of blunders saw three suspected French jihadists waltz out of a French airport after being transferred from Turkish custody.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said that at least 500 British citizens had joined jihadist ranks in a conflict that "is sucking in our own young people, from modern, prosperous societies."

"Right now, thousands of misguided people from around the world are joining terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq because they claim Islam is under threat and because they are excited at the prospect of battle," said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

"It's hard to imagine that citizens of a pluralist democracy could have succumbed to such delusions -- yet clearly they have," said Abbott, whose country has 60 nationals fighting in IS ranks and 100 others supporting them.

Experts say the overwhelming majority of foreign fighters now in Syria and Iraq are from the Middle East and Arab countries, with Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Morocco topping the list.

In his remarks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed to the failure to solve the Israeli-Palestinian question as "one of the primary reasons why terrorists receive moral support and recruit new members within their ranks."

The flow of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq is the biggest such mobilization since the Afghan war of the 1980s, according to the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalisation.


Source : Sapa-AFP /nsm
Date : 25 Sep 2014 00:12
 
SAUDI, UAE JETS IN NEW SYRIA STRIKES: US OFFICIALS

Aircraft from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates took part in the latest round of US-led bombing raids against Islamic State jihadists in Syria, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The officials would not say exactly how many warplanes from each of the two Arab countries participated in the strikes, which included attacks on oil facilities controlled by the IS group.


Source : Sapa-AFP /aw
Date : 24 Sep 2014 23:47
 
F-22 RAPTOR MAKES DEBUT COMBAT FLIGHT
By JENNIFER C. KERR
Associated Press

Envisioned in the 1990s as crucial to U.S. military superiority in the next century - the sleek, radar-evading F-22 Raptor has finally seen its first combat.

Never used in Afghanistan or Iraq, the Air Force's newest fighter jet made its combat debut this week, taking part in the second wave of airstrikes over Syria, according to the Pentagon.

Here are five things to know about the F-22:

1. Its first combat mission involved dropping bombs on an Islamic State group command-and-control building in Raqqah. During a Pentagon briefing Tuesday, Lt. Gen. William Mayville showed before and after slides of the airstrike targets. The after-shot for the F-22 showed a successful mission, with the command-and-control center destroyed.

2. It was developed by Lockheed Martin, with major subcontractors such as Boeing, as a 21st century fighter jet to replace various models of the aging F-15. With its stealth design, the single-seat F-22 was built to evade radar and has twin engines that allow it to fly at faster-than-sound speeds without gas-guzzling afterburners. Production of the first F-22 Raptor started in 1999 and was delivered to Air Force in 2002. The last one was delivered in 2012.

3. The F-22 comes with a hefty price tag. Each costs an average of $190 million. More than 190 F-22 fighter jets were manufactured for the U.S. military, including eight test aircraft.

4. The Raptor program was beset by design and costs overruns. When the F-22 was unveiled in 1997, critics were complaining about the costly program. At the time, the Air Force sought an order of 438 F-22 fighter jets, at a cost of about $45 billion. That order was scaled back sharply. In 2010, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress he was willing to cut the F-22 fighter jet program as too expensive. Production was later capped.

5. Safety concerns were the issue in 2011 when the nation's F-22s were grounded for four months after pilots complained about getting dizzy and a lack of oxygen in the cockpit. Internal documents obtained by The Associated Press show U.S. military experts had raised concerns about the flow of oxygen into the pilot's masks years earlier. The Air Force blamed a faulty valve in the pilots' vests, said there was a fix and gradually returned to the aircraft to flight.


Source : Sapa-AP /aw
Date : 24 Sep 2014 23:29
 
US-LED STRIKES HIT IS-HELD OIL SITES IN SYRIA
By DIAA HADID
Associated Press

U.S.-led airstrikes targeted Syrian oil installations held by the militant Islamic State group overnight and early Thursday, killing nearly 20 people as the militants released dozens of detainees in their de facto capital, fearing further raids, activists said.

The latest strikes came on the third day of a U.S.-led air campaign aimed at rolling back the Islamic State group in Syria, and appeared to be aimed at one of the militants' main revenue streams. The U.S. has been conducting air raids against the group in neighboring Iraq for more than a month.

The Islamic State group is believed to control 11 oil fields in Iraq and Syria, and to earn more than $3 million a day from oil smuggling, theft and extortion. Those funds have supported its rapid advance across much of Syria and Iraq, where it has carved out a self-styled caliphate straddling the border, imposed a harsh version of Islamic law and massacred its opponents.

At least four oil installations and three oil fields were hit around the town of Mayadeen in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and two local activist groups. A third activist group loyal to the militants confirmed the reports. It wasn't immediately clear how important the refineries and fields were.

At least 14 militants were killed, said the Observatory, which gathers information from a network of activists on the ground. Another five people who lived near one of the refineries in the northeastern Hassakeh province were also killed, the Observatory said, adding that they were likely the wives and children of the militants.

Two activist collectives reported higher death tolls. Conflicting casualty figures are common in the chaotic aftermath of such events.

The planes came "with a terrifying sound and red lights before the explosions," one activist wrote, documenting each explosion.

The militants meanwhile freed at least 150 people from a prison in their de facto capital of Raqqa in northeastern Syria, fearing more strikes, according to activists there.

Other strikes hit checkpoints, compounds, training grounds and vehicles of the Islamic State throughout the territory they hold along the Euphrates River in northern and eastern Syria, with strikes hitting near the Turkish and Iraqi borders.

The raids targeted Syrian military bases seized by the Islamic State group, including the Brigade 93 and Tabqa bases. They also hit a building used as an Islamic court and a cultural center in the town of Mayadeen, the activists reported.

The Observatory said other airstrikes targeted the Nusra Front, a Syrian al-Qaida affiliate that has battled the Islamic State, and which is one of the most powerful groups fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad. The strikes against the Nusra Front suggest a wider operation targeting other Syrian militants seen as a potential threat to the United States.

It was not immediately clear where the strikes against the Nusra Front took place.

The Observatory also reported airstrikes near a northern Kurdish area that Islamic State militants have been attacking for nearly a week now, causing the flight of over 150,000 people to neighboring Turkey. But it was not immediately clear who was conducting the airstrikes southwest of the area known as Kobani, or Ayn Arab.

A senior Kurdish fighter, Ismet Sheikh Hasan, said there were three airstrikes on the outskirts of Kobani overnight, but that fighters were not able to approach the area to see the target of the strikes.

Elsewhere in Syria, forces loyal to President Bashar Assad wrested back a rebel-held industrial area near Damascus after months of clashes, according to the Observatory and pro-Assad Lebanese media.

The pro-government forces seized the Adra industrial zone after rebels accused them of using chemical explosives on Wednesday. Footage of the wounded from the incident, in which six people were killed, showed men jerking uncontrollably and struggling to breathe before they died.


Source : Sapa-AP /gf
Date : 25 Sep 2014 13:03
 
FRANCE: HUNT IS ON FOR EXTREMISTS IN BEHEADING

France's defense minister said Thursday that Algerian forces are hunting for the Muslim extremists who beheaded a French mountaineer over France's airstrikes on the Islamic State group.

Jean-Yves Le Drian also said France, which has limited airstrikes so far to Iraq, would continue to evaluate whether to extend them to Syria as the United States has done to thwart the extremists' advances. He said French jets were in flight as he spoke.

Asked about the 30,000 French citizens living in Algeria, Le Drian told RTL radio that the goal of the extremist groups is to "spread terror."

Herve Gourdel was seized Sunday while hiking in the Djura Djura mountains of northern Algeria. His Algerian companions were freed. A video appeared online Wednesday showing masked militants beheading him.

The Algerian military said a massive search for the "criminals" was underway and would continue until "they were totally eliminated and the country was purified of their abject acts."

For its part, the Algerian government reiterated its commitment last night to protecting foreign residents living inside the country.

There are fears that other radical Islamist groups may carry out copycat attacks on Westerners following calls by the Islamic State group on Sunday.

The kidnapping and murder of Gourdel, however, is believed to be a crime of opportunity, since Algeria's extremist have been confined to remote mountainous regions and the French mountaineer was one of the few foreigners to venture into this area.


Source : Sapa-AP /gf
Date : 25 Sep 2014 13:01
 
US WARNING ON POSSIBLE ATTACKS IN TURKEY AFTER SYRIA AIRSTRIKES

The United States has warned its citizens to be vigilant while in Turkey about the possibility of terrorist attacks, following airstrikes this week against the Islamic State militant group in Syria.

The statement from the US embassy in Turkey released overnight said that while there was no new specific threat information, citizens "should maintain a high level of vigilance."

"US citizens are reminded that there have been violent attacks in Turkey in the past, and the possibility of terrorist attacks against US citizens and interests, from both transnational and indigenous groups, remains high," the statement said.

Turkey has in the past been targeted by Kurdish separatists and Islamist radicals.

In 2003, al-Qaeda was believed to have been behind four truck bombings that targeted Jewish places of worship and foreigners, including the British consulate. The blasts left 57 people dead and hundreds injured, including many Turkish citizens.


Source : Sapa-dpa /gf
Date : 25 Sep 2014 12:58
 
IRAQI WOMAN ACTIVIST KILLED BY ISLAMIC STATE
By VIVIAN SALAMA
Associated Press

Militants with the Islamic State group publicly killed a rights lawyer in the Iraqi city of Mosul after finding her guilty of apostasy in a self-styled Islamic court, the United Nations said Thursday.

Samira Salih al-Nuaimi was seized from her home on Sept. 17 after allegedly posting messages on Facebook that were critical of the militants' destruction of religious sites in Mosul. Her Facebook page appears to have been removed since her death.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, al-Nuaimi was tried in a so-called "Sharia court" for apostasy, after which she was tortured for five days before the militants sentenced her to public execution.

"By torturing and executing a female human rights' lawyer and activist, defending in particular the civil and human rights of her fellow citizens in Mosul, ISIL continues to attest to its infamous nature, combining hatred, nihilism and savagery, as well as its total disregard of human decency," Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. envoy to Iraq, said in a statement, referring to the group by an acronym.

The militant group captured Iraq's second largest city Mosul during its rapid advance across the country's north and west in June, as Iraqi security forces melted away. The extremists now rule a vast, self-declared caliphate straddling the Syria-Iraq border in which they have imposed a harsh version of Islamic law and beheaded and massacred their opponents.

In the once-diverse city of Mosul the group has forced religious minorities to convert to Islam, pay special taxes or die, causing tens of thousands to flee. The militants have enforced a strict dress code on women, going so far as to veil the faces of female mannequins in store fronts.

In August, the group destroyed a number of historic landmarks in the town, including several mosques and shrines, claiming they promote apostasy.

The Gulf Center for Human Rights said Wednesday that al-Nuaimi had worked on detainee rights and poverty. The Bahrain-based rights organization said her death "is solely motivated by her peaceful and legitimate human rights work, in particular defending the civil and human rights of her fellow citizens in Mosul."

The militants' rapid advance eventually prompted U.S. airstrikes last month to aid Kurdish forces and protect religious minorities in Iraq. This week a newly formed U.S.-led coalition expanded the aerial campaign into Syria, where the Islamic State group is battling President Bashar Assad's forces as well as Western-backed rebels.


Source : Sapa-AP /gf
Date : 25 Sep 2014 13:41
 
[video=youtube;j8TLu514EgU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8TLu514EgU&index=1&list=PLw613M86o5o7q1cjb26MfCgdxJtshvRZ-[/video]
 
So much of retardedness :D

Poor kids have no idea what they got themselves into. Monkey see Monkey do :D
 
Garyvdh said:
F-22 RAPTOR MAKES DEBUT COMBAT FLIGHT
By JENNIFER C. KERR
Associated Press

Envisioned in the 1990s as crucial to U.S. military superiority in the next century - the sleek, radar-evading F-22 Raptor has finally seen its first combat.
Click to expand...

interesting (10 min) video on the f-22
[video=youtube;S660TKzoZ6g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S660TKzoZ6g[/video]
 
ROUHANI: US LEADERSHIP IN TERRORISM FIGHT A "STRATEGIC MISTAKE"

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday told world leaders at the UN General Assembly that the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group in the Middle East was a "strategic mistake."

Rouhani said his country was prepared to "play our permanent constructive and positive role," in fighting against the terrorism and extremism, but emphasized that Western leadership in the Middle East war was unwelcome.

"I believe if countries claiming leadership of the coalition, do so to continue their hegemony in the region, they would make a strategic mistake," Rouhani said.

"I warn that if we do not muster all our strengths against extremism and violence today, and fail to entrust the job to the people in the region who can deliver, tomorrow the world will be safe for no one," he said.

Rouhani was not the only leader who lashed out at the US and its allies for interference in their regions on the second day of the UN annual session.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe told the session that the United States and the European Union should remove their "unilateral and illegal sanctions," berating them for trying to achieve "regime change" through sanctions in his country.

"These evil sanctions violate the fundamental principles of the United Nations charter and should be condemned by the international community," the 90-year-old Mugabe told world leaders at the UN general assembly.

He called for "immediate and unconditional removal" of sanctions that the US and the EU imposed upon Zimbabwean state firms as well as the travel restrictions they imposed upon Mugabe and some of his associates following the elections in 2000.

During his address to the session, Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, said that the security of Europe "was at stake" after the "abrupt and illegal annexation of Crimea" by Russia in March.

"This violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity triggered the gravest threat to the European security order in decades," he said.

The 69th annual session of the United Nations began on Wednesday. More than 140 heads states and governments are scheduled to deliver speeches during the general debate that lasts through Tuesday.

During the first day of the session, US President Barack Obama and several other world leaders called for a global war against the Islamic State, a group that has captured large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in the recent months.


Source : Sapa-dpa /aw
Date : 25 Sep 2014 21:49
 
BRITISH MPS VOTE ON JOINING IRAQ AIRSTRIKES
by Naomi O'LEARY

British lawmakers vote Friday on whether to bomb Islamic State militants in Iraq, joining United States-led air strikes against a group that has seized control of swathes of the war-torn country.

The hours-long debate is to begin with a speech by Prime Minister David Cameron at 0930 GMT and the motion is likely to pass as it is backed by the main opposition parties as well as the government.

Cameron has urged Britain not to be "frozen with fear" about re-entering conflict in a country its last troops from the previous war left only in 2011.

"We are facing an evil against which the whole world must unite. And, as ever in the cause of freedom, democracy and justice, Britain will play its part," Cameron told a United Nations summit in New York, before flying home for the vote.

Press reports said that British jets were poised to begin raids on IS in the days following the vote, beginning a military campaign that Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has said could last years.

France on Friday became the first foreign ally to join US air strikes in Iraq, which Washington first began in August to support Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga forces battling IS advances.

Belgium and the Netherlands are expected to send fighter jets in the coming weeks.

Backed by five Arab countries, the US expanded its campaign this week to bomb IS targets in Syria, where jihadists have carved out areas of control during a bloody three-year civil war.

The Islamic State group's goal is to set up a "caliphate" straddling the Iraq-Syria border.

Mindful of a war-weary public and a previous motion on airstrikes on Syria last year that was voted down, the British governent has been careful to spell out its legal case and the limits of the campaign.

The parliamentary motion stresses that the government will not deploy soldiers on the ground in Iraq and that a separate vote would be required for Britain to join the military action in Syria.

"We will not be providing ground combat troops... we don't think, frankly, public opinion would support such involvement," said Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.

"If ground forces are needed they have to come from regional countries -primarily from Iraq itself."

But Tony Blair, who was prime minister when Britain went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, has urged the government not to rule out sending ground troops again.

"I accept fully there is no appetite for ground engagement in the West," Blair wrote in an essay published on the website of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation on Monday.

"But we should not rule it out in the future if it is absolutely necessary."

On the eve of the vote, about 200 protesters rallied near the prime minister's office chanting "1-2-3-4, don't want another war."

"I'm really disappointed that we have to come back here, after two wars," said Dave Gilchrist, a 57-year-old teacher. "The West doesn't seem to have learned anything at all."

Stop the War, a coalition of campaigners, has promised further protests if military action starts.

Cameron has said that the "murderous plans" of extremists pose a direct threat to British people, and on Thursday police in London arrested nine people suspected of extremist Islamist links.

Officials believe some 500 Britons have travelled to fight with IS, and a British-accented fighter is suspected of being the executioner of two captive US journalists and a British aid worker shown in gruesome videos in recent weeks.

IS has threatened the lives of further hostages, including a British man who travelled to Syria to deliver aid to internally displaced people, in response to Western military action in the region.


Source : Sapa-AFP /nsm
Date : 26 Sep 2014 03:43
 
US HAS IDENTIFIED MASKED MAN IN BEHEADING VIDEOS
By KEN DILANIAN

The U.S. believes it has identified the British-accented masked man in the videos depicting the beheadings of two American journalists and a British aid worker, the FBI director says.

FBI Director James Comey told reporters at the bureau's headquarters he would not reveal the man's name or nationality.

Comey did not address whether the U.S. believes the man actually carried out the killings himself. The beheadings are not shown in the videos.

In the three videos, the man speaks British-accented English. He holds a long knife and appears to begin cutting the three men, American reporters James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British aid worker David Haines.

In late August, British Ambassador Peter Westmacott said his country was close to identifying the Islamic State group militant.


Source : Sapa-AP /aw
Date : 25 Sep 2014 20:13
 
US-LED JETS TARGET JIHADIST-HELD OIL FACILITIES IN SYRIA FOR 2ND DAY

The United States and its Arab allies mounted airstrikes against oil refineries controlled by the Islamic State radical group in eastern Syria for the second straight day, a monitoring group said on Friday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added that the overnight strikes into Friday targeted at least two areas housing oil installations in the province of Deir.

The targets included the major al-Tanak oilfield on the eastern edge of Deir al-Zour bordering Iraq, according to the Observatory's head, Rami Abdel-Rahman.

The Islamic State seized the field along with others in the area in July when the al-Qaeda splinter group established a foothold in eastern Syria.

US Central Command has said that hitting the fields successfully choked off a source of revenue, said to generate about 2 million dollars a day.

Jets early Wednesday hit military facilities manned by the Islamic State and other militant groups on the outskirts of the town of Mayadeen in Deir al-Zour, the Britain-based Observatory said.

The Observatory estimated that 73 new jihadists, mostly foreigners, have joined the Islamic State in the northern province of Aleppo since the US-led air campaign started earlier this week.

The extremist Sunni group has been pressing for more than a week to capture the Kurdish town of Kabone near the Turkish border to consolidate its gains in northern Syria.

The Islamic State already controls considerable swathes of territory in Iraq, raising international fears of the emergence of a regional militant enclave.

The British parliament is expected to vote later on Friday to join the American-led air campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq, but not Syria.

Analysts say the result in not in doubt - unlike in August last year, when the House of Commons rejected a plan to join allied airstrikes against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.


Source : Sapa-dpa /ar
Date : 26 Sep 2014 10:43
 
NEW US-LED RAIDS HIT SYRIA'S DEIR EZZOR, HASAKEH: MONITOR

Fresh air strikes by a US-led coalition fighting jihadists hit two provinces of Syria overnight, targeting oil facilities for a second day, a monitoring group said Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported new air strikes in eastern Deir Ezzor province and northeastern Hasakeh province, both of which were targeted a day earlier by the coalition.

The Britain-based group said at least two areas in Deir Ezzor were struck, with the strikes appearing to target oil facilities.

The group subsequently reported additional strikes on Friday morning on a command centre of the Islamic State group on the outskirts of the town of Al-Mayadin.

The target of the strikes in Hasakeh was not immediately clear, the group's director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

There were no immediate details of any casualties from the strikes.

They came on a fourth night of bombing by the coalition Washington has assembled to tackle the jihadist Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The strikes have killed at least 140 jihadists and 13 civilians so far, according to the Observatory, though Washington has yet to acknowledge any civilian casualties.

Raids overnight between Wednesday and Thursday also targeted some of the makeshift oil refineries operated by IS and others in Deir Ezzor and Hasakeh.

Black market sales of illegally extracted Syrian and Iraqi oil are believed to account for a large part of the Islamic State group's funding.

Experts say the group could be earning between $1 million and $3 million a day from oil sales alone.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ar
Date : 26 Sep 2014 10:24
 
NEW COALITION RAIDS IN SYRIA AS UK VOTES ON IRAQ ACTION

A US-led alliance launched new air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria Friday, targeting oil facilities for a second day, as Britain weighed joining the campaign in Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported fresh strikes in the oil-rich eastern province of Deir Ezzor, and northeastern Hasakeh, both of which were also targeted a day earlier.

Both sets of raids included strikes on oil facilities in the two provinces, where IS jihadists extract crude for sale on the black market.

Experts say sales of oil from Syria and Iraq are among the group's biggest source of funding, netting it between $1 million and $3 million a day.

In Britain, meanwhile, lawmakers were preparing to vote on whether the country would join air strikes against the group in Iraq, though participation in the strikes on Syria is not on the table.

"We are facing an evil against which the whole world must unite. And, as ever in the cause of freedom, democracy and justice, Britain will play its part," Prime Minister David Cameron told a United Nations summit in New York, before flying home for the vote.

Cameron has urged Britain not to be "frozen with fear" about re-entering conflict in a country that its troops only left in 2011.

Washington is eager to build the broadest possible coalition to tackle IS, which has seized large swathes of territory in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, declaring an Islamic "caliphate".

Speaking at the UN this week, US President Barack Obama urged greater participation in the alliance against what he dubbed a "network of death".

If, as expected, the British parliament votes to take part, the Royal Air Force will join jets from the United States, France, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Jordan hitting IS targets.

Both France and Britain have ruled out carrying strikes in Syria however, unlike the Arab allies taking part in the aerial campaign.

Belgium and the Netherlands also plan to send six F-16 fighter bombers to take part in the campaign in Iraq.

The Netherlands will also deploy 250 military personnel and 130 trainers for the Iraqi military, and Greece said it would send arms to Kurdish forces battling the jihadists.

Turkey has so far declined to take part in military action, and denied claims its airspace or airbases have been used by coalition forces.

But Obama spoke to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday and in New York the Turkish leader suggested for the first time that his country could offer logistical, intelligence or even military support to the operations.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, however, blamed Western "blunders" for creating extremist havens, and said outside interference would not solve the problem.

"The right solution to this quandary comes from within the region... with international support and not from outside," he told the UN General Assembly, warning otherwise there would be "repercussions for the whole world".

IS's brutal abuses against civilians, rival fighters and Arab and Western hostages, as well as its success in recruiting Western members, have raised fears in the international community.

On Thursday, police in London arrested nine people suspected of links to Islamic extremists, including a notorious radical preacher.

And the FBI said it identified the Islamic State jihadist who has appeared in videos showing the beheading of two US journalists and a British aid worker, though it declined to give further details.

In France, Muslims groups were planning a Friday demonstration outside Paris's main mosque to denounce the group.

The coalition strikes in Syria are reported to have killed at least 140 jihadists as well as 13 civilians, though the Pentagon said it was still investigating reports of civilian casualties.

Fighting between regime troops and rebels has continued on the ground in Syria alongside the international air strikes, with the army recapturing a key strategic town near Damascus on Thursday.

The conflict that began in Syria in March 2011 as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime has spawned a massive refugee crisis, with more than three million Syrians now taking refuge from the war abroad.

Many have sought to reach Europe by boat, including hundreds aboard a ship that ran into trouble off the coast of Cyprus on Thursday, forcing a nearby cruise ship to rescue them.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ar
Date : 26 Sep 2014 10:52
 
MOST TURKS READY TO FIGHT AGAINST ISLAMIC STATE AS ALLIES UP PRESSURE

More than half of Turkey's voters apparently want the country to take part in military operations against the Islamic State extremist militia in neighbouring Iraq and Syria, according to a poll published in the local media Friday.

The data from the Metropoll survey group comes as Turkey weighs up whether to join the international coalition bombing Islamic State positions.

Turkey signed up to the coalition at the recent NATO summit but hesitated to take part in military activity, in part because it had 49 hostages being held by the Sunni extremist group.

Those hostages were released last week and Turkey's allies are putting pressure on the country to join the campaign.

US President Barack Obama spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan overnight and the two discussed "steps we can take to advance our already strong cooperation," according to the White House.

Erdogan has said he would not rule out stepping up support and the matter would be discussed by the government next week.

Fifty-two per cent of the people polled in the survey said they want Turkey, a NATO member, to take part in operations. The figure was slightly lower among supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Kurdish citizens, in particular, want the army to join the US-led coalition carrying out airstrikes.

Kurdish towns in Syria and Iraq have been some of the hardest hit by Islamic State assaults, including the ongoing campaign against Kobane, in northern Syria, which has pushed 160,000 refugees into Turkey over the past week.

Overall, 67 per cent of Turks support international airstrikes against the Islamic State group and about 80 per cent view the militia as a terrorist organization.

Turkey shares borders with the extremist militia, which controls about a third of Iraq and Syria, sparking increasing concerns about potential blow-back inside the country.

More than half of those surveyed believed the radical organization would try to carry out a terror attack inside Turkey. Opposition voters in particular were concerned about such attacks.

The US and its allies are hoping Turkey will also help stop the flow of foreign fighters going to Syria through the lengthy, porous border.

There are signs Turkey has begun to crack down on the border areas, but analysts say there is still more to be done.

According to the Metropoll data, which is based on a survey of 1,876 adults, 1.9 per cent of Turks said they knew someone who had gone to fight in Syria.

While just over half of all Turks in the poll believe the Islamic State is trying to recruit inside Turkey, the number is smaller among religious voters, including AKP supporters.


Source : Sapa-dpa /ar
Date : 26 Sep 2014 11:38
 
FRENCH MUSLIMS HIT BACK AT PRESSURE TO DENOUNCE JIHADISTS
by Fran BLANDY, Charlotte PLANTIVE

Imams and ordinary Muslims in France have reacted with fury to the beheading of a fellow citizen by jihadists, but many warn they too are being "held hostage" by pressure to denounce such acts.

Muslims nationwide have rallied to condemn the execution of 55-year-old mountaineer Herve Gourdel this week by Algerian militants with ties to the Islamic State jihadists sowing terror in Iraq and Syria.

"It's heartbreaking, I couldn't sleep. Those who did this are wild animals," said Chagour Khaouther, an Arabic teacher in the Parisian suburbs.

"I can't accept that they claim to do this in the name of Islam."

Gourdel was kidnapped on Sunday by Algerian group Jund al-Khilifa shortly after a chilling call by IS militants for Muslims to kill citizens from countries involved in a US-led coalition fighting the extremists, "especially the spiteful and filthy French."

The threat raised national security jitters throughout France, where authorities are already battling to prevent would-be jihadists from going to fight in Iraq and Syria amid fears they will return to commit attacks on home soil.

Gourdel's execution also ratcheted up the pressure that has been mounting on leaders of Europe's largest community of Muslims -- numbering some five million -- to take a public stand against IS jihadists.

In an unusual move, the French Council of the Muslim Faith -- an official representative for the country's Muslims -- called for a rally against the "horrific and bloody barbarism of the (IS) terrorists" in Paris on Friday afternoon.

And leading Muslim figures signed a message published in French newspapers Friday condemning "atrocities committed in the name of a murderous ideology hiding behind the Islamic religion."

"We are also the 'filthy French'," said the statement.

There were also calls on social media for displays of solidarity in several other French cities, including Nantes in the west and Lyon in the east.

Kamel Kabtane, head of the Lyon mosque, said he plans a large interfaith gathering on October 1 "to oppose violence of any kind".

An interior ministry source involved in Muslim issues, speaking on condition of anonymity, described these reactions as "spontaneous" and a rare occasion in which all Muslim leaders were speaking with one voice.

He said the momentum was largely due to the massive population of some 1.3 million Algerians in France who were "traumatised" by the execution, which recalled the violence suffered by their own people at the hands of extremists.

But the demand for a homogenous Muslim response has not gone down well in all quarters.

On Thursday the conservative Le Figaro newspaper prompted an outcry when it ran an online poll asking readers whether they thought the Muslim community's reaction to Gourdel's killing was "sufficient".

Internet users hit back at the "nauseating" and "illogical" question, prompting Le Figaro to withdraw the poll entirely.

"What madness!" said the Rue89 news website, offering up a satirical list of occasions in which people "should have publically distanced themselves" from an issue.

"We did not ask Christians to distance themselves from the Ku Klux Klan. We did not ask pop singers to distance themselves from Miley Cyrus," read an article on the site.

Fateh Kimouche, founder of popular Muslim website Al Kanz, said it was unacceptable that Muslims be "ordered" to react to terrorist acts.

"These summons disgust me, it implies that we are suspect," she said.

"We are held hostage by terrorists, because Muslims are their first victims, and we are held hostage by an Islamophobic fringe which takes advantage of these crimes to spill its hate."

French anti-Islamophobia group CCIF urged Muslims not to respond to the calls to protest.

"Muslims must not play the Islamophobia game, which consists of ... incessantly pushing them to justify themselves regarding the acts of third parties."

Mohamed-Ali Adraoui, an Islam expert at Sciences Po university in Paris, said the debate had pushed Muslims into two corners: the evil jihadists and the good Muslims who condemn them.

"When it suits us, we want Muslims just to be French, we reject communities. But now, they must go on crusade as a single unit," he told AFP.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ar
Date : 26 Sep 2014 14:07
 
Last edited:
BRITISH PM URGES PARLIAMENT TO BACK 'YEARS' OF IRAQ ACTION
by Katherine HADDON

British Prime Minister David Cameron warned that military action against Islamic State (IS) militants could last for "years" Friday as he urged lawmakers to back joining US-led air strikes in Iraq but not in Syria.

Kicking off a crunch debate in the House of Commons, Cameron said the "hallmarks" of the campaign would be "patience and persistence, not shock and awe".

"This is going to be a mission that will take not just months but years but I believe we have to be prepared for that commitment," he said, between a barrage of questions from lawmakers about the length and scope of the mission.

The debate has awakened memories in Britain of its role in the deeply unpopular US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 under then prime minister Tony Blair.

But Cameron argued that the situation then was entirely different and the government has emphasised that lawmakers will not vote on sending combat troops.

"This is not 2003 but we must not use past mistakes as an excuse for indifference or inaction," he added.

Six British Tornado fighter jets based in Cyprus are poised to begin raids on IS within days or even hours if the vote, due at 5:00 pm (1600 GMT), is passed.

Britain would join the US and France in launching targeted strikes on the IS group in Iraq, where it controls swathes of territory, as in neighbouring Syria.

IS fighters have beheaded a British aid worker, David Haines and two US journalists, and are holding two other Britons, Alan Henning and John Cantlie.

Britain does not propose, as yet, joining US-led air strikes on Syria, which are backed by five Arab states. Cameron said a separate parliamentary vote would be needed for that to happen.

He admitted there was "no consensus" on action in Syria, although he said that "Britain should do more" there.

Some lawmakers, for whom the 2003 invasion remains a painful memory, are expected to oppose military action because of fears that the mission is ill-defined.

Between 2003 and 2009, 179 British personnel died in Iraq and the last British troops left the country only in 2011.

"I believe there's a big danger of mission creep with this and no-one can tell us what the endgame is," Labour lawmaker Diane Abbott told Sky News before the debate.

Blair, prime minister when Britain went to war in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, has urged Cameron not to rule out sending ground troops again "if it is absolutely necessary".

The Stop the War Coalition -- which helped organise a million-strong demonstration against the 2003 Iraq war -- staged a protest of around 200 people Thursday and has vowed further demonstrations if the vote passes.

Mindful of a war-weary public and a damaging parliamentary defeat last year over military action against President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, Cameron's government has prepared the ground carefully for Friday's vote.

The parliamentary motion, released in advance, stresses that the government will not deploy ground forces and that Iraq's government had requested assistance to fight the IS group, making it legal under international law.

Cameron has also argued for weeks that the "murderous plans" of extremists pose a direct threat to British people.

On Thursday, police in London arrested nine people suspected of extremist Islamist links and another two were held Friday.

Officials believe 500 Britons have travelled to fight with IS and may include a militant with a British accent who is thought to have killed Haines and two US journalists.

The family of Henning, a taxi driver captured while delivering aid in Syria, has voiced fears that air strikes against IS group targets could put his safe return in jeopardy.

"If they're going to do air strikes on them, they'll just run away. They'll take him with them and no-one will know where he is again," his brother-in-law Colin Livesey told ITV television this week.


Source : Sapa-AFP /ar
Date : 26 Sep 2014 12:44
 
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