Category Archives: Lands

With new recruits ISIS said to have 80,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq

Al Jazeera reports: The Islamic State group has an army of more than 50,000 fighters in Syria, and recruited 6,000 people in the last month, a monitoring group has said.

Ramu Abdel Rahman, the director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Tuesday that the group’s recruitment push was gathering pace every month.

“July saw the largest recruitment since the group appeared in Syria in 2013, with more than 6,000 new fighters,” he said.

“The number of IS fighters has passed 50,000 in Syria, including 20,000 non-Syrians,” he said.

Al Jazeera cannot verify the observatory’s figures. However, an Islamic State source backed the statement and told Al Jazeera that the group also had 30,000 fighters in Iraq.

Abdel Rahman said the new recruits in Syria included more than 1,000 foreign fighters from Chechnya, China, Europe and Arab countries. He said most had entered Syria from Turkey. [Continue reading…]

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Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) announces support for ISIS

Yemen Times reports: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) published a statement on its Al-Manbar website on August 14 announcing support for the operations of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which now calls itself the Islamic State, in Iraq.

“We announce solidarity with our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the crusade. Their blood and injuries are ours and we will surely support them,” the statement read. “We assert to the Islamic Nation [all Muslims worldwide] that we stand by the side of our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the American and Iranian conspiracy and their agents of the apostate Gulf rulers.”

Many observers note that AQAP and ISIL are using similar tactics and are exchanging strategy and advice.

“Based on our experience with drones, we advise our brothers in Iraq to be cautious about spies among them because they are a key factor in setting goals; be cautious about dealing with cell phones and internet networks; do not gather in large numbers or move in large convoys; spread in farms or hide under trees in the case of loud humming of warplanes; and dig sophisticated trenches because they reduce the impact of shelling,” read the AQAP statement. [Continue reading…]

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Saudi top cleric blasts Qaeda, ISIS as ‘enemy No 1’ of Islam

AFP reports: Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh on Tuesday blasted Al-Qaeda and Islamic State jihadists as “enemy number one” of Islam, in a statement issued in Riyadh.

“The ideas of extremism, radicalism and terrorism… have nothing to do with Islam and (their proponents) are the enemy number one of Islam,” the kingdom’s top cleric said.

He cited jihadists from the Islamic State, which has declared a “caliphate” straddling large parts of Iraq and Syria, and the global Al-Qaeda terror network.

“Muslims are the main victims of this extremism, as shown by crimes committed by the so-called Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and groups linked to them,” the mufti said, quoting a verse in the Koran urging the “killing” of people who do deeds harmful to Islam.

His stance reflects the Saudi clerical community’s hostility towards IS jihadists, known for their brutality. [Continue reading…]

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Israel strikes Gaza targets after rocket fire

Al Jazeera reports: Israel has launched air raids on “terrorism targets” in Gaza and recalled negotiators from Cairo after three rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, as efforts to agree a permanent ceasefire appeared to unravel.

The Israeli military said that rockets landed in open areas near the town of Beersheeva. Sources told Al Jazeera that they were fired from Shujayea in the Gaza Strip.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, ordered his army to attack targets in Gaza, and recalled from Cairo negotiators who were involved in indirect talks with Palestinians on a permanent ceasefire. [Continue reading…]

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Egypt trolls U.S. about Ferguson protests, forgets its own human rights record

Huffington Post: Egypt is no stranger to criticism from the U.S. and other countries for its violent crackdowns on protests. But as attention turns to protests raging in Ferguson, Missouri, over the police killing of an unarmed black teen, Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued some criticism of its own, sending out a statement to the press Tuesday urging “restraint and respect for the right of assembly and peaceful expression of opinion.”

It’s a bold statement, considering Egypt’s own bleak human rights record, as well as its now-shaky relationship with the U.S., a longtime financier of the Egyptian military.

With the 2011 revolution a thing of the past, it is now illegal for Egyptians to protest without prior permission from authorities. Thousands of people — suspected supporters of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, revolutionary activists, Egyptian and foreign journalists and academics alike — have been locked up, often without fair trials. Protesters have been targeted and killed en masse (Aug.14 marked the one-year anniversary of the Rabaa massacre, in which security forces killed at least 800 demonstrators). Human Rights Watch, whose staff were deported from Egypt last week, said the killings likely amounted to crimes against humanity. [Continue reading…]

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Egypt: The anatomy of an unfair trial

Amal Alamuddin writes: Sentencing a political opponent to death after a show trial is no different to taking him out on the street and shooting him. In fact, it is worse because using the court system as a tool of state repression makes a mockery of the rule of law. Egypt’s constitution guarantees the right to be presumed innocent. And yet in a recent case, an Egyptian judge — after a “trial” lasting 100 minutes — sentenced 529 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death. Egypt’s constitution also guarantees freedom of speech, yet many journalists languish behind bars.

Three journalists working for the Al Jazeera English news network — Canadian Mohamed Fahmy, Australian Peter Greste and Egyptian Baher Mohamed — are among them. Mr. Fahmy used to work for CNN and the New York Times. Mr. Greste worked for the BBC and had only been in Egypt for a few days before his arrest. I am Mr. Fahmy’s lawyer and have had contact with him in Egypt. I have studied the case file, read the reports of trial observers who were at each court session, and read the judgment that sentences the journalists to lengthy prison terms of seven years or more. It is clear beyond doubt that their trial was unfair, and their conviction a travesty of justice.

What does the Egyptian state, through its prosecutors and judges, charge? That these three men promoted and gave material support to the Muslim Brotherhood group that they are members of; and that they produced false news that harms Egypt’s reputation and its national security. The judgment convicts them on all counts and finds that “through their actions, [they] had compiled audiovisual film material and falsified untrue events to be broadcast by a satellite channel in order to stir conflict within the Egyptian State.” More specifically, the judges condemn them for betraying “the noble profession of journalism” by “portraying the Country — untruthfully — to be in a state of chaos … internal strife and disarray.” This sinister plot was apparently orchestrated “upon the instructions of the … terrorist Muslim Brotherhood Group” headquartered at a Marriott hotel suite off Tahrir Square.

The story is completely fabricated. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS recruits at record pace in Syria

Reuters reports: Thousands of new fighters joined Islamic State in Syria last month in its fastest expansion to date, a body monitoring the war said on Tuesday.

Now in control of roughly a third of Syria and large areas of Iraq, Islamic State has been seizing territory from rival Islamist groups in a belt of territory north of Aleppo, threatening rebel supply lines into the city where President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are seeking to encircle the insurgents.

Islamic State recruited at least 6,300 men in July, Rami Abdelrahman, founder of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Reuters – a big expansion from early estimates suggesting the group numbered around 15,000. Around a thousand of the new fighters were foreign, and the rest Syrian, he said. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS fighters show strength as they repel Iraqi army’s attempt to retake Tikrit

The Guardian reports: Islamic State (Isis) fighters have repelled an Iraqi army attempt to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in a battle that underlines the group’s continuing strength despite losing control of the strategically important Mosul dam.

Boosted by Monday’s recapture of the dam, Iraqi forces launched an assault on Tikrit, 80 miles (130km) north of Baghdad, with helicopter gunships and mortar and artillery fire. When troops entered the town from near its main hospital they faced heavy machine gun and mortar fire from the militants, forcing the military to pull back. It was the third failed attempt to retake Tikrit since it fell to Isis fighters more than two months ago, when Isis made sweeping gains in five provinces. Since then Tikrit has been controlled by Sunni militants and former members of Saddam’s Ba’ath party.

A local official and a resident told Associated Press that the clashes began early on Tuesday on the south-western outskirts of the city. Isis landmines and snipers prevented Iraqi forces reaching the town from the west, officials told Reuters. By early afternoon residents in central Tikrit told the agency Isis fighters were firmly in control. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS kills hundreds of tribesmen in eastern Syria

The Associated Press reports: The extremist Islamic State group shot and beheaded hundreds of tribesmen from eastern Syria over the past two weeks after crushing an uprising they led against the jihadi fighters, activists said Monday.

The killing of members of the Shueitat tribe come as Islamic State group fighters close in on the last government-held army base in the region. Syrian warplanes bombed the extremists’ positions Monday in an attempt to halt their advance.

A Turkey-based activist who is originally from Deir el-Zour and is in contact with people in the province told The Associated Press that the Islamic State killed as many as 200 members of the Shueitat tribe. On Saturday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll among the tribesmen at 700. [Continue reading…]

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Yazidis haunted by cries for help as ISIS bury victims alive

Reuters reports: Refugee Samo Ilyas Ali has nine children to feed but he can’t focus on the future because the sounds of women and children crying out for help while being buried alive by Islamic State militants in northern Iraq often consume his mind.

Tens of thousand of Yazidis fled their ancient homeland of Sinjar and other villages to escape a dramatic push by the Sunni militants who regard the ethnic minority as devil worshippers who must embrace their radical version of Islam or die.

The refugees sit idle in camps in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Traumatized by Islamic State militants notorious for beheadings and mass executions, they have simply given up on Iraq and want to go as far away as possible; to countries like Germany, worlds away from their mysterious customs.

U.S. air strikes against Islamic State positions and vows by Kurdish commanders to recapture Yazidi villages provided no reassurances.

It’s easy to see why.

Ten days ago, Ali and his fellow villagers were suddenly surrounded by Islamic State militants with machine guns at night. They had long beards. Some had face masks and Arabic writing on the sides of their heads.

Absent from the scene were Kurdish peshmerga, or “those who confront death”, fighters who had held parts of the north and were seen as the only force that could stand up to Islamic State after thousands of U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers fled their advance, leaving them with heavy weapons including tanks

Suddenly the men began digging ditches – soon to become mass graves. [Continue reading…]

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Yemeni victims of U.S. military drone strike get more than $1 million in compensation

The Washington Post reports: The Yemeni government paid the families of those killed or injured in a U.S. drone strike last year more than $1 million, according to documents that provide new details on secret condolence payments seen as evidence that civilians with no ties to al-Qaeda were among the casualties.

The documents, which are signed by Yemeni court officials and victims’ relatives, record payouts designed to quell anger over a U.S. strike that hit vehicles in a wedding party and prompted a suspension of the U.S. military’s authority to carry out drone attacks on a dangerous al-Qaeda affiliate.

The records reveal payments that are many times larger than Yemeni officials acknowledged after the strike. The $1 million-plus figure also exceeds the total amount distributed by the U.S. military for errant strikes in Afghanistan over an entire year.

The documents also contain other details, including the identities of those killed or wounded in the Dec. 12 operation by the U.S. military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Among them were a father and son with identification cards listing them as associates of a Yemeni organization working to curb Islamist militancy. [Continue reading…]

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Syrian hackers use WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook and YouTube to spread malware aimed activists

IB Times reports: A group of pro-Assad hackers in Syria are using activist websites, WhatsApp, Viber, YouTube and social media to spread malware which claims to help protect privacy.

The group of hackers has infected more than 10,000 victims using sophisticated techniques to hide the malware they are sharing on websites visited by activists, social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Skype and even on instant messaging services WhatsApp and Viber.

The news comes from a report from Kasperksy Lab entitled “Syrian Malware – the ever-evolving threat” which says the group of hackers is highly organised and is targeting victims inside as well as outside of Syria.

The group is playing on the fears of victims in the worn-torn country by spreading fake messages (via email, Skype, Viber etc) which claim to give details about imminent cyber-attacks. [Continue reading…]

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Pope Francis supports international effort to ‘stop’ ISIS

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis on Monday said efforts to stop Islamic militants from attacking religious minorities in Iraq are legitimate but said the international community — and not just one country — should decide how to intervene.

Francis was asked if he approved of the unilateral U.S. airstrikes on militants of the Islamic State group, who have captured swaths of northern and western Iraq and northeastern Syria and have forced minority Christians and others to either convert to Islam or flee their homes.

“In these cases, where there is an unjust aggression, I can only say that it is licit to stop the unjust aggressor,” Francis said. “I underscore the verb ‘stop.’ I’m not saying ‘bomb’ or ‘make war,’ just ‘stop.’ And the means that can be used to stop them must be evaluated.”

Francis also said he and his advisers were considering whether he might go to northern Iraq himself to show solidarity with persecuted Christians. But he said he was holding off for now on a decision. [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: The Islamic State militant group that has seized large parts of Iraq and drawn the first American air strikes since the end of the occupation in 2011 has warned the United States it will attack Americans “in any place” if the raids hit its militants.

The video, which shows a photograph of an American who was beheaded during the U.S. occupation of Iraq and victims of snipers, featured a statement which said in English “we will drown all of you in blood”.

U.S. airstrikes on Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have helped the fighters take back some territory captured by Islamic State militants, who have threatened to march on Baghdad.

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How ISIS seized Peshmerga territory so easily

Vice News reports: In the initial stages of its Iraq offensive, the Islamic State had tried to make good on its threat of marching south to the capital of Baghdad, leaving Kurdish territory unthreatened. When progress stalled, leaders decided to push north, catching a complacent peshmerga off-guard. “ISIS in the beginning wanted to attack Baghdad, but changed their mind to Kurdistan,” Hikmat told VICE News. “That caught us by surprise.”

Islamic State tactics were another unpleasant shock. While the peshmerga had fought in counter-insurgency operations alongside US troops after the 2003 invasion, they had, for the most part, been trained to deal with a large organized army like Hussein’s. The fanatical and well-equipped Islamic State is very different, and while not numerically superior to the Kurds, has a fleeting, but important advantage against them: The militants can concentrate wherever they want — usually a weak spot — and quickly launch an attack. The peshmerga, meanwhile — which are showing no inclination to expand beyond their already overstretched borders — cannot. Basic logistics means that by using such tactics, the Islamic State is able to achieve at least a period of concentrated battlefield superiority before reinforcements arrive.

The strategy has made the militants difficult to handle, says Ali Faté, a peshmerga veteran who now commands the front at the town of Makhmour, which was seized by IS last week, then retaken by Kurdish forces. “The Islamic State war is something new and very different, it’s neither a gang war nor highly organized… Until we get an idea of weapons and tactics, we expect some losses… and even the weapons used are very different from those used by [Saddam Hussein’s] Iraqi army.”

The weapons are also vastly superior. Islamic State fighters are well armed with heavy modern weaponry and armored vehicles, partly as a result of the ease with which they routed the US-trained and supplied Iraqi army and plundered their gear, along with significant sums of money. That equipment, much of it American-made, includes tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, and huge supplies of ammunition. The group had already appropriated Syrian army munitions via the same process.

“I want to stress this point, the Iraqi government left weapons and money for ISIS to get strong,” Hikmat says. “The same happened in Syria — so many weapons were left there for them by the Syrian army.”

Peshmerga forces, meanwhile, are mainly equipped with Soviet-era weapons looted from the Iraqi army during the 2003 US-led invasion. And ammunition is short. “We have had many promises and pledges of help, but we are short of bullets. We are not generous with them to our fighters or when firing at our enemies,” a source close to senior peshmerga commanders who spoke on the condition of anonymity told VICE News.

The Islamic State gained more than weapons from its fighting in Syria though. Its men are battle-hardened and experienced. The peshmerga, meanwhile had not faced a major test since Hussein was removed from power. Iraqi Kurdistan even remained peaceful while sectarian violence gripped the rest of Iraq in 2006 and 2007.

As a result, most of the veterans are gone. Newer recruits have, for the most part, little or no experience in battle. [Continue reading…]

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In Iraq, captured Yazidi women fear ISIS will force them to wed

The Washington Post reports: Hundreds of Yazidi women who were captured by Islamic extremists during their sweep through the town of Sinjar are being incarcerated at scattered locations across northern Iraq in what increasingly looks like a deliberate attempt to co-opt them into service as the wives of fighters.

As the militants with the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State surged into the area from surrounding Arab villages two weeks ago, snaring those who had not managed to flee, they showed a marked interest in detaining women, notably the youngest and prettiest, according to witnesses, relatives and in some instances the women themselves.

Women were separated from men, then younger women were separated from older ones and most were shunted off in buses or trucks.

Once in custody, the women are presented with a bleak choice.

Those who convert to Islam can be promised a good life, with a house of their own and — implicitly — a Muslim husband, because the extreme interpretation of Islam promoted by the Islamic State does not permit women to live alone.

Otherwise, they have been told, they can expect a life of indefinite imprisonment — or, they fear, death. [Continue reading…]

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Iraqi, Kurdish forces claim defeat ISIS at strategic Mosul Dam

The Washington Post reports: Iraqi and Kurdish forces claimed Monday that they ejected Islamic State fighters from a strategically vital dam in northern Iraq, after waves of U.S. airstrikes scattered the radical Islamist militants in the biggest push yet to reverse their blitz through the country.

Fighting continued on the western bank of the lake at the head of the Mosul Dam, and government troops were unable to enter the facility because it was booby-trapped by the retreating militants, officials said.

But the officials claimed that Islamic State fighters were on the run after the offensive launched by Iraqi special forces and Kurdish pesh merga fighters backed by U.S. air support on Sunday.

The U.S. military’s Central Command said the airstrikes continued Monday, with a mix of fighter jets, bombers and drones successfully conducting 15 strikes against Islamic State targets near the Mosul Dam. It said the airstrikes damaged or destroyed nine fighting positions, a checkpoint, six armed vehicles, a light armored vehicle, a vehicle-mounted antiaircraft gun and an “emplacement belt” for improvised explosive devices, known as IEDs.

“All aircraft exited the strike areas safely,” the Central Command said in a statement. It said U.S. forces have carried out a total of 68 airstrikes in Iraq since Aug. 8, of which 35 have been in support of Iraqi forces near the Mosul Dam. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. police have become more violent as the public has become less violent

New York magazine reports: The story of Michael Brown’s death has in no small part been a story of police overreaction. The local force evidently killed an unarmed teenager, and then suited up as if going to war to police the generally peaceful protests that followed. And it’s revealed an irony: Over the past generation or so, we’ve militarized our police to protect a public that has broadly become less and less violent.

It all starts back in 1990, a time when the country found itself with less demand for military equipment abroad and new use for it back home. Within our shores, the drug wars were escalating; gang violence was surging; and sociologists were warning of sociopathic child “superpredators.” At the same time, the military was starting to shrink as the Cold War ended. Put two and two together and you get the 1033 program, which transferred assets from the military to the police. (Here’s a capsule history.)

A bigger flush of money and equipment followed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the Times reports, when the federal government equipped local police outfits to be the front line of the Global War on Terror:

Department of Homeland Security grant money paid for the $360,000 Bearcat armored truck on patrol in Ferguson, said Nick Gragnani, executive director of St. Louis Area Regional Response System, which administers such grants for the St. Louis area.

Since 2003, the group has spent $9.4 million on equipment for the police in St. Louis County. That includes $3.6 million for two helicopters, plus the Bearcat, other vehicles and night vision equipment. Most of the body armor worn by officers responding to the Ferguson protests was paid for with federal money, Mr. Gragnani said.

“The focus is terrorism, but it’s allowed to do a crossover for other types of responses,” he said. “It’s for any type of civil unrest. We went by the grant guidance. There was no restriction put on that by the federal government.”

But here’s the thing. Since 1990, according to Department of Justice statistics, the United States has become a vastly safer place, at least in terms of violent crime. [Continue reading…]

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Gruesome tales surface of Israeli massacres against families in Gaza neighborhood

Max Blumenthal reports: As the five-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took hold on August 15, residents of Shujaiya returned to the shattered remains of their homes. They pitched tents and erected signs asserting their claim to their property, sorting determinedly through the ruins of their lives.

Those who managed to survive the Israeli bombardment have come home to bedrooms obliterated by tank shells, kitchens pierced by Hellfire missiles, and boudoirs looted by soldiers who used their homes as bases of operations before embarking on a series of massacres. Once a solidly middle-class suburb of Gaza City comprised of multi-family apartments and stately homes, the neighborhood of Shujaiya was transformed into a gigantic crime scene.

The attack on Shujaiya began at 11pm on July 19, with a combined Israeli bombardment from F-16s, tanks and mortar launchers. It was a night of hell which more than 100 did not survive and that none have recovered from. Inside the ruins of what used to be homes, returning locals related stories of survival and selflessness, detailing a harrowing night of death and destruction.

Outside a barely intact four-level, multi-family home that was hardly distinguishable from the other mangled structures lining the dusty roads of Shujaiya, I met members of the Atash family reclining on mats beside a makeshift stove. Khalil Atash, the 63-year-old patriarch of the family, motioned to his son heating a teapot above a few logs and muttered, “They’ve set us back a hundred years. Look at us, we’re now burning wood to survive.” [Continue reading…]

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