Tag: Iraq (page 7)

Yesterday I expressed my doubts about the Lebanese Army's claim to have captured "a wife" of ISIS leader al Baghdadi.

Iraq’s Interior Ministry now says the detained woman, who it confirms is Saja Abdul Hamid al-Dulaimi, is not and has never been a wife of al Baghdadi.

“The one detained by Lebanese authorities was Saja Abdul Hamid al-Dulaimi, sister of Omar Abdul Hamid al-Dulaimi who is detained by authorities and sentenced to death for his participation in ... explosions,” ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan told Reuters.

“The wives of the terrorist al-Baghdadi are Asmaa Fawzi Mohammed al-Dulaimi and Esraa Rajab Mahel al-Qaisi, and there is no wife in the name of Saja al-Dulaimi,” he said.

[Video removed from You Tube] ...This is a news video from Lebanon( with English subtitles) on the detention of Saja al-Dulami, who may or may not be an ex-wife of ISIS leader al Baghdadi. There is still a lot of conflicting information as to whether she was ever married to al Baghdadi, and whether she was with her son or her daughter. Al-Dulami's family has ties to both ISIS and al Nusrah.

ISIS supporters on Twitter deny she is al Baghdadi's wife, and say that the Lebanese army knows this but released the information as part of a propaganda campaign. [More...]

Charles Lester of Brookings has a new paper on the Islamic State (ISIS) and a "Who's Who" chart of its leadership.

ISIS struck the al Waleed border crossing near Rutbah in the Anbar province of Iraq early today, killing 16 Iraqi border guards and capturing 4. They also seized weapons -- and the border trucks, which they drove into Syria. [More...]

ISIS has released a lot of videos the past few days. In one, Race Towards Good (link removed),ISIS takes us inside a training camp for Kazakh children. They are purposely indoctrinated from a young age (There's even a toddler holding a toy gun.) It shows a class teaching very young males how to write Arabic and the kids receiving receiving fighter training. There's also an adult class on how to be a sniper.

It's fascinating to watch, but horrifying that they would encourage young kids to kill those who do not share their religion. [Update: Photos removed at the request of the Government of Kazakhstan]

ISIS has released Issue #5 of its English publication, Dabiq Magazine. You can read it here.

There's nothing in it about Peter Kassig or other ISIS beheadings. It's mostly about the other groups which recently announced their allegiance to ISIS leader al Baghdadi. There's also an article about its new currency and about Kobane. And a four page essay by hostage John Cantlie, titled "If I were U.S. President Today," in which he again criticizes the policy of the U.S. and its allies. [More...]

ISIS has released Episode 6 of prisoner John Cantlie's "Lend Me Your Ears" video messages. In it, he discusses the failed U.S. rescue attempt of James Foley. He excoriates the U.S. and British governments for not negotiating with ISIS, for threatening James Foley's mother with prosecution if she participated in ransom negotiations, and for abandoning him and the other foreign hostages recently executed.

He says ISIS was holding six foreign hostages, presumably referring to Foley, Sotloff, Haines, Henning, Kassig and himself. He doesn't mention the female U.S. aid worker who reportedly is being held by ISIS. Hopefully, she's just being held in a different place.

Cantlie blasts the hypocrisy, arrogance and lies of the U.S. and Great Britain, saying they treated his life and those of the other English and American hostages like a "roll of the dice" while the other hostages all went home. He is not angry at ISIS.

You can watch the video here, but it probably won't stay up long.

When Iraq announced last week that airstrikes had killed and wounded some ISIS leaders in Mosul and al Qaim, possibly including ISIS Caliph al-Baghdadi, articles began to re-surface identifying ISIS leaders.

Most of the information cited seems to come from a disclosure in June, 2014, days before ISIS took Mosul. Iraqi forces arrested an ISIS member named Abu Hajjar. Under interrogation, he caved, and not only told him about the planned takeover of Mosul, but gave up the location of the safe house being used to plan it. Iraqi police intelligence went out to safe house, and the raid ended with the shooting death of ISIS military commander Abdul Rahman al-Bilawi who was in charge of the operation. During a subsequent search of the safe house and al-Bilawi and Hajjar's homes, Iraqi police recovered 160 thumb drives with incredibly detailed information about ISIS, including financial information, military operations information and even the names of its leaders and fighters. Intelligence agencies have been pouring over the data ever since. (It didn't prevent the takeover of Mosul, which went off as planned, mostly because the Iraq forces ran off.)

Yesterday, as I was re-reading reports on ISIS leadership, I came across an interesting article, "The Islamic State Prisoner and the Intelligence Chief" published November 1, a week before the recent strikes that supposedly hit ISIS leaders, by Paul McGeogh, chief foreign correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, who just days before, had interviewed the still incarcerated Abu Hajjar at a secure Baghdad jail facility. [More...]

All day Saturday, ISIS supporters were teasing the release of a new video with English translations. They finally released it sometime after midnight. It's called "Although The Disbelievers Dislike It" and is 15 1/2 minutes long. I've watched it, and will not link to it, so please don't include a link in comments. I found a copy on Daily Motion. Here's my recap:[More...]

ISIS leader al-Baghadi has released an audio and written version of a new speech, titled, "Even if the Disbelievers Believe Such." The English written version is here.

In the speech, he refers to Obama's decision to send 1,500 more advisers to Iraq. Assuming he is the speaker, it appears he is alive.

Obama who has ordered the deployment of 1,500 additional soldiers under the claim that they are advisors because the Crusaders' airstrikes and constant bombardment - day and night - upon the positions of the Islamic State have not prevented its advance, nor weakened its resolve.

He also urges more beheadings of the enemy: [More...]

President Obama wants Congress to fund his request for additional training and weapons in Iraq. What will he have to give up to get it, from those in Congress and at the Pentagon who think his plan isn't hawkish enough? Without Congressional approval, apparently there will be no funding for arming and training since executive authority doesn't cover that. That may not be easy:

Some Democrats have said they’re concerned that U.S. forces will become mired in ground combat in Iraq, despite Obama’s pledge that won’t happen. Some Republicans say Obama should take more aggressive action, such as moving more quickly to arm non-Islamic State rebels in Syria and enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria near the Turkish border.

From news reports, it sounds like Obama is under pressure to modify his "Iraq first" policy, under which helping the rebels fight Assad takes a back seat to defeating ISIS in Iraq. Obama is asking his advisers to review U.S. policy on Syria. But the two cited unnamed sources seem to say different things:
[More...]

Iraq's Speaker of the Council of Representatives, Salim Al-Jabour, traveled to the Ain Asad military base in Anbar and gave a speech to the assembled tribal leaders and members. Shorter version: We gave you the arms you asked for, now do your part.

"We have honored our promise by providing you with arms as we are also confident of your abilities to free Anbar within days," Al-Jabouri said in a special conference held at Ain Asad military base in Anbar. "We are also confident of your solidity and resilience in using these weapons to defend yourselves, your country, and the world from this evil group, and avenge the innocent who were killed by IS, particularly victims of Al-Bunimr tribe and others.

50 U.S. military personnnel arrived at the Ain Asad base in Anbar yesterday. They are not there to fight ISIS, but to assess the facility's capabilities for future "assist and training" operations. They do have the means to defend themselves, if attacked.

The U.S. says it is not arming the tribes in Anbar: [More...]