Kurdish Troops Advance on ISIS-Held Villages East of Mosul

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and TIM ARANGOOCT. 17, 2016

The New York Times

BADANA PICHWK, Iraq — Kurdish forces on Monday morning began advancing on a string of villages east of Mosul, the start of a long-awaited campaign to reclaim Iraq’s second-largest city from the Islamic State, which seized it more than two years ago, officials said.

About 4,000 Kurdish pesh merga troops are involved in the operation to retake 10 villages, the opening phase of a battle that could take weeks or months and could involve nearly 30,000 Iraqi and Kurdish troops, with American warplanes providing air support. Iraqi counterterrorism forces, which work closely with American Special Operations commandos in Iraq, are also expected to join the Kurdish forces in the coming days.

Syria war: Turkey hits out at US over Kurds comments

31 August 2016
BBC
Turkey has hit out at the United States over criticism of its ongoing role in the conflict in Syria.
Turkish forces have targeted so-called Islamic State (IS) inside Syria, but have also gone after Kurdish fighters in the same region.
The pursuit of Kurdish forces, whom Ankara considers terrorists, has led to criticism by the United States.

The Latest: US asks Turkey to focus on fight against IS

The Washington Post

By Associated Press August 29
BEIRUT — The Latest on the developments in the Syrian civil war (all times local):

10:20 p.m.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter says the United States is trying to “de-conflict” U.S.- backed actions against the Islamic State by Turkey and by the American-backed Syrian Kurdish rebels known as the Syrian Defense Forces.

Carter says some of the SDF fighters are affiliated with the so-called YPG, a Kurdish organization that Turkey considers a terrorist group. Carter says the U.S. works with all SDF fighters “in our common interest to defeat” the Islamic State group.

Islamic State Strikes Oil, Gas Facilities in Iraq

Attacks at AB2 gas compressor station, Bai Hassan oil field kill at least five local workers

The Wall Street Journal

By SARAH KENT and  GHASSAN ADNAN
Updated July 31, 2016 2:01 p.m. ET

BAGHDAD—Islamic State claimed twin attacks on oil and gas facilities in northern Iraq on Sunday that killed at least five local employees, the latest in northern Iraq by the extremist group, which relies on oil for a significant portion of its revenue.

Four suicide bombers hit the Bai Hassan oil field, prompting an hourslong standoff with local forces, said a colonel with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces that control the area. The field is one of the largest in the region of Kirkuk, producing more than 175,000 barrels a day, according to oil officials.

Three of the attackers were dead, he said, and one remained at large.

ISIS Expands Reach Despite Military and Financial Setbacks

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG, HELENE COOPER and NICHOLAS KULISHAPRIL 12, 2016

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — American airstrikes have killed 25,000 Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria and incinerated millions of dollars plundered by the militants, according to Pentagon officials.

Iraqi and Kurdish forces have taken back 40 percent of the militant group’s land in Iraq, the officials say, and forces backed by the West have seized a sizable amount of territory in Syria that had been controlled by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

But the battlefield successes enjoyed by Western-backed forces in the Islamic State’s heartland have done little to stop the expansion of the militants to Europe, North Africa and Afghanistan. The attacks this year in Brussels, Istanbul and other cities only reinforced the sense of a terrorist group on the march, and among American officials and military experts, there is renewed caution in predicting progress in a fight that they say is likely to go on for years.

A Quandary for Europe: Fighting a War on ISIS Within Its Borders

By STEVEN ERLANGERMARCH 23, 2016
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

The New York Times

LONDON — When the United States declared war on Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attacks, American leaders took the fight to the militant group’s hide-outs in Afghanistan, a faraway and failing state, with an invasion and occupation.

But for Europe’s leaders, who now consider themselves at war with the Islamic State after large-scale terrorist attacks at home, the challenge is more complicated: The enemy’s hide-outs are ghettoized parts of Paris, Brussels and other European cities that amount to mini failed states inside their own borders.

Belgium Warned of Attacks. It Wasn't Enough.

1268 MAR 22, 2016 9:17 AM EDT
By Josh Rogin
Bloomberg
Only days ago in Brussels, as Western leaders celebrated the arrest of a key terrorist suspect, Belgian officials warned that there were dozens more jihadists at large in the city and that more attacks were being planned. They couldn’t have known how right they were.

I traveled to Brussels on March 16, to attend the German Marshall Fund's Brussels Forum, a meeting of U.S. and European officials, foreign policy experts and journalists, where the fight against terrorism was at the top of the agenda. Two U.S. senators and several Obama administration officials who attended had just passed through the main terminal of the Brussels airport. On Tuesday morning, it was hit by what Belgian authorities described as a suicide attack. At least 26 were killed and many more wounded at the airport, and in a parallel attack on the city's subway system.

Brussels Rocked by Deadly Attacks With Blasts at Airport, Subway

Bloomberg
By James G Neuger and  Jonathan Stearns

Explosions ripped through the Brussels airport departure hall and a downtown subway station on Tuesday morning, causing deaths and injuries and spurring fears of imminent follow-up attacks in the capital of the European Union.
Belgium’s military sent reinforcements to Brussels after two bombs went off in rapid succession at the airport around 8 a.m., the peak check-in hour for morning flights within Europe. RTL news reported as many as 13 dead and 25 injured. An hour later, an explosion hit a subway station a short walk from EU headquarters, with conflicting reports of casualties.

U.S. confirms death of ISIS operative Omar al-Shishani

Barbara Starr-Profile-Image
By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent
Updated 2224 GMT (0624 HKT) March 14, 2016

CNN International

Washington (CNN)Two U.S. officials told CNN that the Obama administration has confirmed that ISIS senior operative Omar al-Shishani is dead.

The officials said he was injured in a U.S. airstrike last week and then died subsequently, though they wouldn't say how they know he is dead.

The initial U.S. assessment was that he was "likely killed" in the strike, but further assessments led them to understand he had been injured and only later died.

He was killed along with 12 additional ISIS fighters in a wave of strikes by drones and manned aircraft.

Since then, CNN has learned that Shishani was at a "shura," or meeting with other officials, at the time of the strike. U.S. officials had emphasized at the time it was publicly announced that they were not certain of his death and were assessing whether the strike killed him.

U.S. Captures ISIS Operative, Ushering in Tricky Phase

By HELENE COOPER, ERIC SCHMITT and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDTMARCH 1, 2016

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — An elite American Special Operations force has captured a significant Islamic State operative in Iraq and is expected to apprehend and interrogate a number of others in coming months, ushering in a new and potentially fraught phase in the fight against the extremist Sunni militant group.

American defense officials described the capture as a crucial development in battling the Islamic State but said it also raised questions about handling what is likely to be a growing group of detainees.

Army's Delta Force begins to target ISIS in Iraq

Barbara Starr-Profile-Image
By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent
Updated 2227 GMT (0627 HKT) February 29, 2016

CNN

Washington (CNN)The U.S. Army's elite Delta Force operations to target, capture or kill top ISIS operatives have begun in Iraq, after several weeks of covert preparation, an administration official with direct knowledge of the force's activities told CNN.

The official said the group has spent the last several weeks preparing, including setting up safe houses, establishing informant networks and coordinating operations with Iraqi and Peshmerga units. It's the same strategy that Special Operations forces have used in previous deployments to combat zones.

Several Pentagon and military officials declined to discuss specifics of the so-called Expeditionary Targeting Force with CNN.

But Defense Secretary Ash Carter seemed to confirm in comments made at the Pentagon on Monday that the Special Operations forces had begun missions.

Britons held in Greece over large guns stash

14 February 2016

BBC

Three men have been arrested in north-eastern Greece on suspicion of trying to smuggle weapons and ammunition into Turkey, Greek police say.

Two are British citizens - the third a UK resident. At least one of them is reported to be of Iraqi Kurdish origin.

The men were in possession of 22 firearms and more than 200,000 rounds of ammunition, police say.

They are suspected of being part of a "criminal gang". They are due to be charged on Tuesday.

They have reportedly asked to speak in court in Kurdish.

The UK Foreign Office says it is "urgently looking into the reports".

U.S. Broadens Fight Against ISIS With Attacks in Afghanistan

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and ERIC SCHMITTJAN. 31, 2016

WASHINGTON — The United States has carried out at least a dozen operations — including commando raids and airstrikes — in the past three weeks against militants in Afghanistan aligned with the Islamic State, expanding the Obama administration’s military campaign against the terrorist group beyond Iraq and Syria.

The operations followed President Obama’s decision last month to broaden the authority of American commanders to attack the Islamic State’s new branch in Afghanistan. The administration — which has been accused by Republicans of not having a strategy to defeat the group — is revamping plans for how it fights the terrorist organization in regions where it has developed affiliates.

How ISIS runs its economy

By Financial Times

From the site of the World Economic Forum

Dec 16 2015

This article is published in collaboration with The Financial Times.

Even under jihadi rule, death and taxes remain the two great certainties of life. Some learn that the hard way.

As Isis officials announced a religious tithe known as zakat last summer, Mansour, a 26-year-old grocery storekeeper in eastern Syria, stalled payment while he tried to cook his books.

Russia to Target Syria Jihadists as Hollande Seeks Diplomacy

 Andrey Biryukov  Helene Fouquet  Henry Meyer

November 26, 2015 — 10:48 PM EET Updated on November 27, 2015 — 9:02 AM EET

Bloomberg

France and Russia agreed to coordinate strikes in Syria to increase the focus on jihadist militants, as French President Francois Hollande seeks to rally support against Islamic State before hosting world leaders in Paris next week.

Team Obama’s latest ISIS ‘oops’

By Post Editorial Board November 20, 2015 | 9:25pm

The New York Post

When it comes to US intelligence failures on ISIS, it turns out President Obama’s dismissing the Islamic State as a “JV team” was only a minor blip.

As Bloomberg Businessweek reports, the Obama administration realized just days ago that ISIS is one of the richest organizations in the world — with assets totaling billions.

Kurds enter Sinjar 'from all directions' - Kurdistan security council

Fri Nov 13, 2015 7:52am GMT Related: WORLD

NEAR SINJAR TOWN

Reuters

Kurdish peshmerga forces entered Sinjar "from all directions" on Friday to begin clearing the northern Iraqi town of Islamic State militants, the Kurdistan regional security council said in a tweet.

U.S. targets 'Jihadi John' in Syria air strike

Fri Nov 13, 2015 5:57am GMT Related: WORLD, UK, SYRIA, MIDDLE EAST

WASHINGTON | BY PHIL STEWART AND MARK HOSENBALL

Reuters

The United States on Thursday carried out an air strike in Syria targeting the Islamic State militant known as "Jihadi John," who participated in gruesome videos showing the killings of American and British hostages, officials said.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strike likely killed Mohammed Emwazi, a British citizen, but cautioned that it was too soon to make any determination.

ISIS’s Harrowing Sexual Violence Toward Yezidi Women Revealed

Tessa Berenson @tcberenson  Dec. 22, 2014

ΤΙΜΕ

ISIS is capturing Yezidi women and keeping them in sexual slavery

Militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have enslaved and sexually brutalized scores of women, selling them into marriage or giving them as gifts to militant fighters, according to a new report.

Since August, ISIS has captured hundreds, if not thousands of Yezidi women and girls and taken them into sexual slavery as part of an ethnic cleansing movement, the Amnesty International report says. The Yezidis are a Kurdish ethnoreligious minority group that has been historically oppressed by Sunni extremists.

Peshmerga forces heave Isis away from Mount Sinjar

As many as 300 militants are believed killed as US-led airstrikes assist the Kurdistan regional government in northern Iraq

Fazel Hawramy on Mount Sinjar

The Guardian, Sunday 21 December 2014 21.55 GMT

Kurdish peshmerga forces backed by US-led air strikes pushed Islamic State militants out of a large area around Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq, according to Kurdish officials.

“We have managed to free 3,000 sq km during the last 24 hours,” Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, told reporters on top of Mount Sinjar. “Most of Sinjar is under our control now and with the help of God, we will free all of it.”

The Kurdistan regional government mobilised close to 10,000 peshmerga fighters last week in an ongoing operation to drive Isis from the Sinjar area, which is near the Syrian border.