The Islamic State Thread

AUSTRALIA TO JOIN US IN ARMING KURDS IN IRAQ

Australia said Sunday it would help the United States in an international effort to transport weapons to Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq.

"The United States government has requested that Australia help to transport stores of military equipment, including arms and munitions, as part of a multi-nation effort," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in a statement.

"Royal Australian Air Force C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster aircraft will join aircraft from other nations including Canada, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and the United States to conduct this important task."

Albania, Croatia and Denmark have also committed to providing Kurdish forces with arms and equipment, the US said Wednesday.

Abbott said there was a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Iraq and Australia was working with other countries to alleviate it and "address the security threat posed by ISIL".

The decision followed Australia's involvement in airdrops earlier in August to refugees in northern Iraq to deliver humanitarian assistance.

The Iraqi government is struggling to retake large parts of the country after a lightning militant offensive led by the IS, also known as ISIL and ISIS, seized its second city Mosul in June and swept through the country's Sunni heartland, as security forces fled.

The US military said Saturday it had launched fresh attacks against IS forces in Iraq, with fighter aircraft and drones used to carry out strikes near the Mosul dam.

Source : Sapa-AFP /gm
Date : 31 Aug 2014 04:00
 
US AIRSTRIKES AND AID FOR IRAQI CITY UNDER SIEGE

The Pentagon says the U.S. military has conducted airstrikes and dropped humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Iraqi city of Amirli, where thousands of Shiite Turkomen have been cut off from food and water for nearly two months by Islamic State militants.

The Pentagon's press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, says aircraft from Australia, France and Britain joined the U.S. in the aid drop.
The U.S. military conducted airstrikes against the Islamic State militants in order to support the aid delivery.

Source : Sapa-AP /gm
Date : 31 Aug 2014 04:03
 
US CYBER-WARRIORS BATTLING ISLAMIC STATE ON TWITTER
by Nicolas REVISE

The United States has launched a social media offensive against the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, setting out to win the war of ideas by ridiculing the militants with a mixture of blunt language and sarcasm.

Diplomats and experts are the first to admit that the digital blitz being waged on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube will never be a panacea to combat the jihadists.

But US officials see social media as an increasingly crucial battlefield as they aim to turn young minds in the Muslim world against groups like IS and Al-Qaeda.

For the past 18 months, US officials have targeted dozens of social network accounts linked to Islamic radicals, posting comments, photos and videos and often engaging in tit-fot-tat exchanges with those which challenge America.

At the US State Department, employees at the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC), created in 2011, manage an Arabic-language Twitter account set up in 2012 (twitter.com/DSDOTAR), an English-language equivalent (twitter.com/ThinkAgain_DOS) and a Facebook page, launched this week, (www.facebook.com/ThinkAgainTurnAway).

A senior US State Department official described the strategy as a kind of cyber guerilla campaign.

"It is not a panacea, it is not a silver bullet," the official explained. "People exaggerate, people think this is worthless or they think it a magic thing that will make the extremists surrender. It is neither one of those. It is slow, steady, daily engagement pushing back on a daily basis.

"It is a war of thousands of skirmishes, but no big battles. America likes big battles but it is not -- it is like guerilla warfare," said the official.

The murder of US journalist James Foley, whose execution by Islamic State militants on August 19 was released in a video on the Internet, jolted the new breed of US cyber-warriors into a frenzy.

Since Foley's murder, the CSCC has ramped up its Twitter campaign, posting tributes to the slain reporter, opinion pieces and analyses on radical Islam from across the international media, along with cartoons and graphic photos.

The State Department last week tweeted about the death in Syria of Islamic State members, one of whom, Abu Moussa, had recently declared that the group would one day "raise the flag of Allah in the White House."

Another tweet congratulated militant Yazidis who claimed to have killed 22 Islamic State fighters in Iraq.

Another post was more in keeping with the sober diplomatic tone Washington is used to, a photo-montage showing Syria's leader Bashar Al-Assad alongside Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in front of a city in ruins.

"Baghdadi and Assad in a race to destroy Syria - don't make it worse," reads a message.

The US-managed Twitter accounts are also not squeamish about reproducing images distributed by jihadists depicting mass executions, drawing historic parallels between Islamic State militants and the Nazis.

One post showed armed Islamic State fighters standing over a ditch filled with executed people, alongside another almost identical image of Nazis killing people in similar circumstances.

"Then & Now: Nazis - like ISIS - murdered out of intolerance, hatred, zeal," read a comment alongside the two images.

Satire is also used to undermine militants, with one re-tweeted cartoon referring to the "ISIS bucket challenge" featuring a participant named as "the civilized world" being drenched by a bucket of blood.

The US officials say the social media offensive is an attempt to "contest space" on social networks which had previously been dominated by Islamist radicals.

"This is an area, a field, where before we came along the adversaries had this space to themselves," the official explained.

"You had English language extremists that could say any kind of poison and there will be very low push-back against them," he added. The ultimate aim is to make youths in the West or Muslim nations think twice before embarking on a journey to Syria or Iraq to join Islamic State fighters.

US officials are also mindful of striking the right tone as they troll Islamists.

"Twitter is unfortunately or fortunately a platform which is suitable for what we call snark, sarcasm, for insulting people," the official said. "This is something also we are trying to do, we try to attack.

"We are respectful about things, the loss of human life of innocent people, victims of AQ or victims of ISIS, that is not something for sarcasm.

"But when you are mocking them, it is effective to draw the comparison between what they say and what they do. The hypocrisy of this group is a weakness."

William Braniff, executive director of National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, said the US online strategy was a step in the right direction but would take a while to yield results.

"For a decade the government is criticized for not engaging in the world of ideas online," Braniff said.

"The department of State eventually created this program in part to address that criticism.

"This is a just a drop in a bucket -- there is so much extremist propaganda online and so many formats for extremists to dialogue that this is really just spitting into the wind.

"We have to give these sort of programs time to build momentum."

Source : Sapa-AFP /gm
Date : 31 Aug 2014 03:57
 
AIRSTRIKES AND AID PROVIDE RELIEF FOR IRAQI TOWN

By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press

Aircraft from the United States, Australia, France and Britain dropped food and water to the beleaguered Iraqi town of Amirli, which has been under siege by Islamic State militants for nearly two months, the Pentagon said Saturday night. U.S. airstrikes supported the humanitarian mission.

Thousands of Shiite Turkmen have been stranded in the farming community about 105 miles (170 kilometers) north of Baghdad. The aid came at the request of the Iraqi government, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said in a statement.

Military operations will be limited in scope and duration as needed to address the humanitarian crisis in Amirli and protect the civilians trapped in the town, Kirby said.

Instead of fleeing in the face of the Islamic State drive across northern Iraq, the Shiite Turkmens have stayed and fortified their town of 15,000 with trenches and armed positions.

While Amirli fought off the initial attack in June, it has been surrounded by the militants since mid-July. Some residents have said that the Iraqi military's efforts to fly in food, water and other aid have not been enough amid oppressive heat, lack of electrical power - the town's power station was destroyed weeks ago - and shelling from the militants.

The U.S. had been watching the area closely in case a slaughter of the Turkmen appeared imminent and air support was needed, said Michael Knights, who studies Iraq and the Persian Gulf as a fellow of The Washington Institute. U.S. airstrikes will hasten the success of the relief effort on the ground, he said.

About half of the town's population is age 15 and under while many others are elderly, sick or wounded, Knights said.

"They are remarkably vulnerable, and ISIS is determined to kill as many of these people as possible," Knights said, referring to an acronym for the Islamic State group. "As the Nazis felt about the Jews, so ISIS feels about the Shia Muslims."

U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, which began earlier this month, have targeted Islamic State militants attacking Yazidi Iraqis on Mount Sinjar and the militant forces operating in the vicinity of Ibril and Mosul Dam. The beleaguered Yazidis received several humanitarian drops of tons of food and water as well as military support aimed at protecting them.

Earlier Saturday, U.S. Central Command said five more airstrikes had taken place against Islamic State militants near Mosul Dam. Those attacks, carried out by fighter aircraft and unmanned drones, brought to 115 the total number of airstrikes across Iraq since Aug. 8.

---
AP Radio reporter Jackie Quinn in Washington and Vivian Salama in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Source : Sapa-AP /gm
Date : 31 Aug 2014 05:24
 
I really hope that the Kursds get a homeland after all of this trouble, they got the worse deal from the decline of the Ottoman empire, it is long over due.
 
It just shows whats to come for the rest of Europe and the world in fact.
ISIS or not, we have been at war with these countries for a long time now, Iraq, Iran, Syria......now its just a new group taking control.
Same agenda, different names.

This is going to be the next world war IMO.
 
marine1 said:
It just shows whats to come for the rest of Europe and the world in fact.
ISIS or not, we have been at war with these countries for a long time now, Iraq, Iran, Syria......now its just a new group taking control.
Same agenda, different names.

This is going to be the next world war IMO.
Click to expand...

Read this article, that place is seriously messed up:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.613245

Choosing between Hezbollah and the Islamic State

Trying to work out which groups the West will befriend in Iraq and Syria is almost as difficult as reaching a consensus on how to tackle Islamic State.

Although Islamic State’s homepage declared that the organization, along with other opposition groups, had taken over the Quneitra crossing between Syria and Israel on the Golan Heights, and even though its flag was hoisted nearby, IS isn’t there yet. Rather, it is the Nusra Front, along with the Syria Revolutionaries Front – an alliance of a dozen Islamist organizations working together with the Free Syrian Army – that control the border crossing.

This mishmash of organizations, some of which are deemed moderate by the U.S. State Department while others, such as the Nusra Front, are affiliates of Al-Qaida, makes it difficult for the United States and Europe to formulate a strategy to deal with them.

In contrast to Iraq, in which IS controls a continuous territory – making it easy to conduct an aerial bombardment campaign – the complexity of organizations in Syria and their territorial dispersion prevents any concentrated effort against them. The American dilemma is clear: should one view President Bashar Assad and his army as allies, part of the solution in the dismantling of IS? Should the Free Syrian Army receive sophisticated weapons so it can effectively fight IS, in light of its failures on other fronts, and amid justifiable concern that these weapons would pass into the hands of more radical organizations, as they did before?

How should one relate to the fact that the Free Syrian Army is collaborating with the Islamic Front, not noted for its pro-Western stance, and with the Revolutionaries Front, some of whose members used to belong to the Nusra Front? Adding to the mix of deliberations is the unknown reaction of Iran if the United States starts bombing targets within Syria, as well as the unclear reaction of Russia, whose relations with the Americans have recently deteriorated to an unprecedented low in modern times.

This dilemma does not exist in Iraq, where Iran and Russia concur with the need to forcibly remove IS. One possible solution, which may not be practical, lies in an initiative by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, who is expected to propose the establishment of an Arab and international coalition of states under the aegis of the Arab League, which will take action to remove IS. The condition for establishing this coalition is the removal of Assad in Syria. This idea meets with approval in Washington, D.C., which also favors an international coalition.

Russia and Iran are expected to oppose this idea. As long as this coalition is not formed and as long as the United States does not give opposition groups quality armaments, IS can continue with its plans.

The working hypothesis regarding Iraq is that IS will be content with solidifying its control over the Sunni areas it took possession of in June and will not advance southward and toward Baghdad, where there are large formations of Iraq’s military forces, as well as armed Shi’ite militia groups.

Things are different in Syria. The concern is that IS units will advance southward toward Daraa in order to remove Assad’s forces from that region, as well as removing the Nusra Front, which already has some strongholds in the south. From there, IS could continue toward Jordan.

This leaves Assad and Western countries with a terrible paradox. Is it preferable that the Nusra Front and Islamic groups acting alongside it control Quneitra, preventing IS from moving southward? Or should the intentions of Assad – along with Hezbollah – to take control of the border crossing be ignored?

This is also a difficult Israeli dilemma. While the Syrian army controlled the Golan border, there was quiet for four decades. Now the choice is between Assad and Hezbollah forces sitting on Israel’s northeastern border, and between the Nusra Front and other organizations controlling it.

Israel Defense Forces assessments are that neither Hezbollah nor the Nusra Front wishes to open a new front with Israel at this time. This assessment also contends that IS, despite its loud verbal campaign directed at Israel, is a group that acts with military logic and will not risk dragging Israel into its conflicts. IS is overstretched in Iraq and Syria, and must now collaborate with others in order to maintain control. It must cooperate, willingly or from necessity, with civilians, tribal and other local leaders in order to rule.

However, there is a difference between maintaining control of a town or region and the conquest of new objectives, which requires moving fighters between different areas. The political objectives of IS are unclear. Will it make do with controlling the wide swaths of land it conquered, including most of the oil fields in Syria and some in Iraq? Or does it plan to adopt the Taliban model in Afghanistan?

According to this model, a decade after they were removed from power by the American invasion, their “moderate” wing – to use that vague and meaningless term – became desirable and even crucial partners for dialogue in the eyes of the new Afghani regime, following American encouragement. In the absence of any other strategy, Syria and Iraq could find themselves in the same situation.
Click to expand...
 
'RECRUITER' FOR SYRIAN JIHAD ARRESTED IN FRANCE

A 22-year-old man suspected of acting as a recruiter for jihadist groups in Syria has been arrested at an airport in the south of France, the interior ministry said Sunday.

The man, who is said to be of Chechen origin, was stopped at the Nice airport on Saturday and taken into custody.

He is suspected of having paid in cash for a 16-year-old girl to fly to Turkey with the intention of then crossing the border to Syria, a statement by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

Turkish Airlines contacted the border patrol, who unconvinced by her explanation that she was planning on visiting her grandmother in Istanbul, called the security services.

When investigators rang her father, he had no idea of her plans and said the family had no relatives in Turkey.

A source close to the case said the girl's father had "objected to her leaving the country", while another source said the family, who live in Nice, were "taken by complete surprise" by her plans.

Further investigations later led police to the suspect, who is believed to live in France and was already known to intelligence officers.

Like a number of European countries, France has expressed concern over radicalised young people leaving the country to fight in Iraq and Syria, and who could pose a risk to domestic security on their return.

According to official estimates, around 800 French nationals or residents -- including several dozen women -- have travelled to Syria, returned from the conflict-ridden country or plan to go there.

Across the channel, police in Britain have asked the public to identify "aspiring terrorists" amid government concern over people who go to fight with extremist groups in the Middle East could return to carry out attacks on home soil.

Source : Sapa-AFP /mm
Date : 31 Aug 2014 17:54
 
37 CHILDREN KILLED IN STRING OF SYRIA ATTACKS: NGO

At least 37 children have been killed in government air strikes and shelling across Syria in the last 36 hours, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Sunday.

The Britain-based Observatory said 20 children had been killed between midnight on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, with 17 more killed between Friday and Saturday night.

The deaths came in regime shelling and air strikes across the country, though most took place in the northern province of Aleppo and northwestern Idlib, Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman said.

Many of the deaths came in raids involving the use of explosive-packed barrel-bombs, a weapon that has been criticised by rights groups as indiscriminate.

Among the dead on Sunday were at least five children killed along with five adults in a barrel bomb attack on the town of Hobait in Idlib province, said the monitor.

In northern Aleppo province, another five children and three adults were killed in an air raid in the west of the province, it added.

In the capital Damascus, meanwhile, regime planes continued to pound the eastern rebel-held district of Jubar, where the government began a fierce offensive earlier this week to wrest back control.

The Observatory said at least 15 air raids hit the district on Sunday, but there were no immediate details about casualties.
Jubar has been in insurgent hands for a year, and is considered strategic because it provides a gateway to the centre of the capital and opens onto the key rebel stronghold of Eastern Ghouta.

In mid-August, the army took Mleiha some 10 kilometres (6 miles) southeast of Damascus, and capturing Jubar would allow a two-pronged advance on Eastern Ghouta.

Rebels arrayed around the capital regularly fire mortar and rockets into Damascus.

More than 190,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began there in March 2011, according to the UN.

Source : Sapa-AFP /mm
Date : 31 Aug 2014 17:54
 
13 KILLED IN BOMB ATTACKS ON IRAQ FORCES IN RAMADI

Two suicide bombers detonated explosives-rigged vehicles near positions of security forces in the city of Ramadi on Sunday, killing 13 people and wounding 17, Iraqi police and a doctor said.

One blast hit an under-construction building manned by Iraqi special forces in the city west of Baghdad, while the second struck a joint special forces-police checkpoint, the sources said.

Iraqi forces have struggled to regain control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, from militants who have held shifting areas of the city since early this year.

Fallujah, a city east of Ramadi, has been completely out of government hands since January, while militants also seized other parts of Anbar during a sweeping jihadist-led offensive launched in June, when they overran chunks of five provinces.

The blasts in Ramadi came as Iraqi security forces, Shiite militias and Kurdish fighters broke a months-long jihadist siege of the town of Amerli, the government's biggest offensive victory since the militant drive began.

Source : Sapa-AFP /mm
Date : 31 Aug 2014 19:42
 
GERMANY TO SEND ANTI-TANK WEAPONS, RIFLES TO IRAQI KURDS

Germany will send anti-tank rocket launchers, rifles and hand grenades to support Iraqi Kurds battling jihadist militants fighting for the Islamic State, the defence ministry announced Sunday.

The move followed a meeting of ministers led by Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin to discuss what Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen described as an "extremely critical" situation in Iraq.

Islamic State (IS) militants are acting with "merciless brutality", she told a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, adding the international community had to support the persecuted.

The equipment, which will be delivered in three stages, will include 30 anti-tank missiles, 16,000 assault rifles, 8,000 pistols as well as portable anti-tank rocket launchers, the defence ministry said.

As well as weapons, Germany plans to send other items such as tents, helmets and radio equipment, according to a list from the defence ministry.

The first deliveries of German weapons will be able to equip about 4,000 soldiers by the end of September, von der Leyen said.

The equipment, which has been taken out of German army reserves, is valued at 70 million euros ($92 million), the defence ministry said on its website.

"The terror group, Islamic State, is a deadly threat for hundreds of thousands," Steinmeier told reporters.

Germany said on August 20 that it was ready to send weapons to support the Iraqi Kurds.

The Sunni IS and its allies control swathes of both northern and western Iraq and neighbouring northeastern Syria, where they have committed a spate of atrocities that have shocked the world.

Sending military hardware is unusual for Germany which, burdened by its past aggression in two world wars, often shies away from foreign military engagements and as a rule does not export weapons into live conflict zones.

Critics oppose the idea of sending weapons to a warzone where fighters and arms can quickly change sides.

Germany's decision follows similar moves by several other countries, including the US, Italy, France and Britain.

Chancellor Merkel will address a special session of the Bundestag lower house of parliament on the issue Monday, after which lawmakers will hold a non-binding vote.

The government shift has been politically difficult in Germany, where recent opinion polls have shown broad opposition to arms shipments to Iraq.

A total of 60 percent of respondents were against the idea, and only 34 percent in favour, in an Infratest dimap poll for ARD public television taken on August 26 and 27, and published Friday.

Source : Sapa-AFP /mm
Date : 31 Aug 2014 22:25
 
BRITAIN TO OUTLINE TOUGHER ANTI-JIHADIST MEASURES

Prime Minister David Cameron was to outline tougher measures against jihadist suspects Monday after Britain raised its security risk assessment to a level where an attack is thought "highly likely".

Cameron was to give a statement to the House of Commons after 3:30 pm (1430 GMT) on fresh steps against suspects when there is insufficient evidence to charge them with a crime.

British media reported that the measures could include a "temporary bar" on Britons suspected of fighting in Syria and Iraq from returning home.

Other measures could include making it easier to strip suspected would-be jihadists of their passports in Britain and giving more data on airline passengers to the intelligence services.

Britain raised it terror threat risk level to "severe" on Friday due to fears over the situation in Iraq and Syria.

The move, which means an attack is considered "highly likely", came after the killing of US journalist James Foley, apparently by a man with an English accent who belonged to the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).

The threat level is now at the second highest out of five possible categories, its highest since July 2011.

Cameron has warned that the advance of IS raises the prospect of "a terrorist state on the shores of the Mediterranean."

"What we're facing in Iraq now with ISIL is a greater and deeper threat to our security than we have known before," he said at a Downing Street press conference Friday.

The centre-right Conservative prime minister was facing a struggle to persuade his coalition partners the Liberal Democrats to back his plans.

Negotiations were reportedly still going on Monday morning, just hours before Cameron was due to deliver his statement.

Civil liberties are a key part of the centre-left Liberal Democrats' political philosophy and the party will be reluctant to back steps it sees as too draconian ahead of next year's general election.

In an indication of the unease felt by some, former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell, a member of Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committe, said it could be illegal to stop British citizens returning home.

"To render a citizen stateless is regarded as illegal in international law. To render them stateless temporarily, which seems to be the purpose of what's been proposed, can also, I think, be described as illegal," he told the BBC.

"At the very least it's the kind of question which will be tested here in our own courts and perhaps also in the European Court of Human Rights."


Source : Sapa-AFP /mr
Date : 01 Sep 2014 10:04
 
UN RIGHTS BODY MULLS SENDING MISSION TO IRAQ TO PROBE IS ABUSES

The UN Human Rights Council was set Monday to debate demands for an emergency mission to Iraq to investigate "atrocities" committed by Islamic State (IS) jihadists which "may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity".

The special session, due to begin at 10:00 am (0800 GMT), comes at the request of Iraq itself, with support from countries and blocs including the Arab Group, the European Union, Iran and the United States.

Diplomats from the council's 47 member states are to discuss a draft resolution condemning "in the strongest possible terms systematic violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law resulting from the terrorist acts committed by ISIL (IS) and associated groups."

The jihadists, who already occupied parts of Syria, launched an offensive in Iraq in June and rapidly seized much of its Sunni heartland, declaring a "caliphate" in a region straddling the two conflict-torn countries.

Their actions since then in several provinces of Iraq "may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity," the draft resolution said, condemning "all violence against persons based on their religious or ethnic affiliation as well as violence against women and children."

The text calls on the office of the UN's brand new High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jordan's Prince Zeid al-Hussein, to dispatch investigators to Iraq to probe abuses carried out by the group that shocked the world last month with its filmed beheading of US journalist James Foley.

Among these atrocities are "unlawful killing, deliberate targeting of civilians, forced conversions, targeted persecution of individuals on the basis of their religion or belief (and) acts of violence against members of ethnic and religious minorities."

The investigators would be required to give an update to the Human Rights Council at its next regular session which starts next week.

A full report would be expected at the council's most important annual session, scheduled for next February and March.

The text also urges the international community to "strengthen their efforts in assisting Iraq in restoring peace, stability and security in the areas controlled by ISIL and associated groups."

More than 1.6 million people have been displaced so far this year by the violence ravaging Iraq, with 850,000 fleeing their homes in August alone, according to UN figures.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mr
Date : 01 Sep 2014 10:18
 
IRAQ RETAKES TOWN FROM MILITANTS

Iraqi Kurdish forces and Shiite militiamen retook the town of Sulaiman Bek from militants on Monday, removing a key stronghold they have held for over 11 weeks, officials said.

"Sulaiman Bek is under the control of the combined forces," but there is still danger from bombs the militants may have left behind, said Shallal Abdul Baban, the official responsible for the nearby Tuz Khurmatu area.

Fighting to retake the village of Yankaja, also located in Salaheddin province, northeast of Baghdad, was ongoing, Baban said.

A colonel in the Kurdish peshmerga forces and Talib al-Bayati, the top official from Sulaiman Bek, both confirmed that it had been retaken, adding that it had been an important position for the militants.

The town is located near Amerli, where thousands of mainly Shiite Turkmen civilians were trapped by a jihadist siege until Iraqi forces broke through on Sunday.

The Amerli operation was the government's biggest offensive success since militants led by the Islamic State (IS) captured a huge chunk of northern and north-central Iraq in June.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mr
Date : 01 Sep 2014 10:20
 
Nice to see that IS are taking a bit of a beating on a few fronts lately....
 
IRAQ VIOLENCE KILLED AT LEAST 1,420 PEOPLE IN AUGUST: UN

Violence in Iraq killed at least 1,420 people during the month of August, as Iraqi forces fought to regain areas overrun by jihadist-led militants, the United Nations said on Monday.

At least 1,370 people were wounded during the same period, the UN's Iraq mission said in a statement, adding that the figures do not include Anbar province, and that there were difficulties in verifying incidents in areas where there was fighting or which were outside government control.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mr
Date : 01 Sep 2014 12:10
 
MERKEL SAYS ARMS AID FOR IRAQI KURDS IN EUROPE'S INTEREST

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday defended a watershed decision to send arms to Iraqi Kurds battling jihadist militants, saying Europe's own security was at stake.

Merkel told parliament that Germany's decision to break with its post-war tradition of refusing to send weapons into conflict zones was crucial in strife-torn Iraq, the scene of "inconceivable atrocities" against civilians.

"We have the opportunity to save lives and stop the further spread of mass murder in Iraq," Merkel said during an impassioned 25-minute speech.

"We have the chance to prevent terrorists from creating another safe haven for themselves. We must take this chance."

The German government announced late Sunday that it would send military equipment including anti-tank rocket launchers, rifles and hand grenades, to Iraqi Kurds fighting to stop Islamic State (IS) militants.

Merkel said that an estimated 400 German nationals had travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight on the side of the jihadists, who were threatening the stability of an entire region.

"We must fear these fighters could return one day" and mount attacks in European cities, she said.

"The enormous suffering of many people cries to the heavens and our own security interests are threatened."

Merkel firmly dismissed opposition accusations that the weapons could fall into the wrong hands, or that Germany was embarking on a slippery slope toward "militarism".

"What about the acute risks posed by the terror group of IS? What is happening is more grave than what could happen," she said.

"We are faced with the choice of not taking a risk and thus accepting the spread of terror, or doing something to help those fighting vicious... terror."

The German equipment, which will be delivered in three stages, will include 30 anti-tank missile systems, 16,000 assault rifles, 8,000 pistols as well as portable anti-tank rocket launchers, the defence ministry said.

As well as weapons, Germany plans to send other items such as tents, helmets and radio equipment.

The first deliveries will be able to equip about 4,000 soldiers by the end of September.

The equipment, which has been taken out of German army reserves, is valued at 70 million euros ($92 million).

The Bundeswehr army also plans to bring a small group of Kurdish peshmerga fighters to southern Germany for a week's training with the equipment.

Supplying military hardware is unusual for Germany which, burdened by its past aggression in two world wars, generally shies away from foreign military engagements and as a rule does not export weapons into war zones.

After the debate in the Bundestag lower house, lawmakers were to hold a non-binding vote on the military assistance later Monday.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mr
Date : 01 Sep 2014 16:39
 
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