ISIL ‘uses Turkish Consulate in Mosul as headquarters’

July 19, 2014 By administrator

KIRKUK

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has started to use the Turkish Consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul as their headquarters, Al-Monitor reported, quoting an Iraqi official.

ISIL had recently renamed itself simply as the Islamic State (IS).

“It is absolutely true that IS has been using the Turkish Consulate as its main headquarters and that [ISIL leader Abu Bakr) Baghdadi spent several hours there,” Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Mosul, told Al-Monitor. “It is their office.”

ISIL had stormed the Turkish Consulate on June 10, taking all 49 there hostage, including Turkey’s Consul General Özturk Yılmaz.

Meanwhile, thousands of Christians poured into the territories of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), as they fled a July 19 ultimatum by jihadists who overran northwestern Iraq last month and proclaimed a caliphate.

As militants attempted to break government defences in strategic areas and edge closer to Baghdad, Christians joined hundreds of thousands of Shiite and other refugees into Kurdistan, AFP reported.

Their flight to the safety of the neighboring autonomous region coincided with the expected homecoming of Iraq’s Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, after 18 months of medical treatment in Germany.

The ISIL group running Mosul had already demanded that those Christians still in the city convert, pay a special tax or leave but messages blaring on mosques’ loudspeakers appeared to spark an exodus.

An earlier statement by Mosul’s new rulers had said there would be “nothing for them but the sword” if Christians did not abide by those conditions before noon (0900 GMT) on July 19.

“Christian families are on their way to Dohuk and Arbil” in Kurdistan, Chaldean patriarch Louis Sako, who heads Iraq’s largest Christian community, told AFP.

“For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.”

Most Christians in the northwestern Nineveh province fled in terror after jihadist-led militants enforcing an extreme version of sharia — or Islamic law — launched an offensive on June 9.

But many of the poorest families returned when the fighting stopped and IS started administering the city. Sako put the number of Christians who were still in Mosul on Thursday at 25,000.

ISIL “seems intent on wiping out all traces of minority groups from areas it now controls in Iraq,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement July 19.

Other minorities rooted in the same province of Nineveh have suffered even more than the Christians, according to crimes HRW documented against the Yazidis, as well as the Türkmen and Shabak Shiite communities.

The mass displacement was the latest in six weeks of turmoil which has forced more than 600,000 people from their homes, left thousands dead and brought Iraq to the brink of collapse.

Talabani’s return to his native Kurdistan July 19 was likely to spark celebrations among supporters from his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party.

He is widely celebrated as a skilled negotiator, who enjoys good relations with both the United States and Iran and has repeatedly mediated between Iraq’s fractious politicians in recent years.

But some observers warned there was little the avuncular 80-year-old head of state could do to ease spiralling ethno-sectarian violence and rhetoric and roll back the Islamic State’s expansion.

“I really do think this is a post-Talabani era. I’ve stuck my neck out there, but I haven’t heard any Iraqis talking about him in any way being president,” said Toby Dodge, director of the London School of Economics’ Middle East centre.

Federal forces collapsed, in some cases abandoning uniforms and weapons in their retreat, when fighters under the command of ISIL leader Baghdadi launched their assault.

The army has since regrouped, received intelligence, hardware and manpower from Washington, Moscow and Shiite militias, but nonetheless struggled to regain lost territory.

Security analysts have said Baghdad remains too big a target but the militants have in recent days repeatedly attacked targets that would expose the capital if captured.

On Thursday night, a jihadist commando stormed the Speicher air base north of ex-president Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, sparking a fierce battle.

“Last night, gunmen infiltrated the base. There were snipers and suicide bombers among them, they managed to reach the runway,” an intelligence officer who survived the attack told AFP.

He said the pilots managed to fly all but one of the base’s aircraft to safety but a statement posted on jihadist Internet sites said many were destroyed.

Many, including within his own Shiite alliance that comfortably won April elections, now see Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s departure as essential to national reconciliation efforts.

In a Friday sermon delivered by one of his spokesmen in Karbala, the Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani — Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric — appeared to lean in the same direction.

“The new government should have broad national acceptance and be capable of solving the crisis in the country and correcting the mistakes of the past,” he said.

Parliamentary blocs have until Sunday to submit nominees for the post of president, whose election is the next step in what has been a protracted and acrimonious process to renew Iraq’s leadership.

Despite his unexpected return, there is little expectation that Talabani, who has been president since 2005, will seek another term.

Christians flee Iraq’s Mosul after Islamists issue ultimatum

July 18, 2014 By administrator

AFP

1:21AM BST 19 Jul 2014

Iraqi Christians leave city en masse after Islamist militants threatened to kill them unless they converted to Islam or paid a ‘protection tax’

Christians were fleeing Iraq’s jihadist-held city of Mosul en masse on Friday after mosques relayed an ultimatum giving them a few hours to leave, the country’s Chaldean patriarch and witnesses said.

Iraq is home to one of the world’s most ancient Christian communities, but their numbers have plummeted as attacks against them mounted after the US-led invasion in 2003, which unleashed a wave of sectarian violence.

“Christian families are on their way to Dohuk and Arbil,” in the neighbouring autonomous region of Kurdistan, Patriarch Louis Sako told AFP. “For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.”

Before 2003 the city’s Christians numbered some 60,000 people, but that dropped to some 35,000 by June this year, Sako said.

Another 10,000 fled Mosul after Sunni Islamist militants took control in a sweeping offensive led by Islamic State (IS) insurgents that began on June 9, and has since spread to other parts of northern and western Iraq.

‘ISIL sells captured oil to Turkey’

July 18, 2014 By administrator

Press TV has conducted an interview with Matar Matar, political commentator from New York, about the issue of ISIL Takfiri terrorists.

Press TV: How much has infighting amongst insurgents groups in Syria been detrimental to the terrorist groups themselves?

Matar: Since September the area in eastern Syria surrounding Dair al Zawr and Raqqa has become an attacking point for the jihadists to fight for oil fields and these oil fields are becoming the main sources for funds for their activities and to fund their missions.

Recently the big advance that happened in Mosul and before last week ten days ago, ISIL or the new Islamic caliphate captured the biggest oil field in Mosul, which has the power productivity of about 30,000 barrels per day.

There are issues that they started selling these barrels, they started selling them since the beginning to Turkey and some reports mentioned that Turkish businessmen are selling these barrels of oil to Turkey as well for as cheap as 20 dollars per barrel.

So in summation the whole month of selling for about a month is about 50 million dollars. So here is the big question – of course they need funds and they need arms – so the big question is if you wanted to counter terrorism we should counter the arming and funding. The funding is coming from oil selling so we have to follow the Turkish government to whom they are selling this oil.

Some reports from the Turkish opposition mention that about one thousand Turkish nationalists are helping the Jihadists in their selling.

And also if we go back to the beginning of the crisis in Syria when the European Union sanctioned the Syrian government with the embargo on the Syrian oil… now where are those European countries to counter terrorism and make pressure on the Turkish government for further investigation and further measurements to stop selling this oil because these funds are going to the hands of terrorists. They might attack Turkey in the future or even Europe.

So this area is becoming a very strategic point between the ISIL and the other Islamic groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra. Recently they fled the area and ISIL captured them.

According to Kurdish PYD many Turkish police officers from elite units are said to be fighting with the terrorist group ISIL.

July 15, 2014 By administrator

Report TODAYSZAMAN

Officials from the Syrian pro-Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) have claimed that Turkey ignores illegal border crossings conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in order to attack Syria’s Kurdish-populated Rojava region.

According to Turkish media reports, Abdulsalam Ahmad — co-chairman of the PYD-led People’s Council of Western Kurdistan (PCWK) — has claimed that not only some villages in Rojava but also some Turkish villages close to the Turkey-Syria border are under ISIL’s sway and are used for medical treatment for the group’s militants who attack Rojava.

The clashes with Kurdish groups have increased since ISIL — which now calls itself the Islamic State — seized territories straddling Syria and neighboring Iraq and declared a self-styled Islamic caliphate. Most of the land was seized in June during a push across Iraq.

The PYD executive council member Bashira Darwis said in remarks to media outlets that there are many groups fighting with ISIL against Kurdish militants in Syria and that Turkey ignores the fact that these groups illegally cross through Turkish territory.

He noted that many ISIL members killed in Rojava had Turkish identity cards and further claimed that they are professional fighters with military training. Darwish also said there are fighters from the UK, Germany and many other countries.

In remarks to the Taraf daily, Darwis said that ISIL and other similar groups kill children, the elderly and the unarmed, rather than only combatants. “This is a strategic massacre. The main aim of those groups is to fight against Kurdish people, since none of them are fighting against the [Assad] regime,” she said, adding that many Kurdish people have been forced to flee.

In addition to the claims that Turkey supports ISIL by providing medical treatment to fighters, many police officers from elite units are said to be fighting with the terrorist group.

In addition, some Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members and sympathizers in Turkey are reported to have crossed into Syria to join the People’s Protection Units (YPG) — a Kurdish militia based in Syria — to support the YPG against ISIL, the Cihan news agency reported on Sunday.

According to the report, when ISIL insurgents attacked the Kurdish-populated Syrian town of Ain al-Arab — known as Kobani in Kurdish and strategically located on the border with Turkey — with heavy weaponry last week, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and PKK operatives in the Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq called on Kurds to join the YPG.

http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_pyd-claims-turkey-turns-blind-eye-to-isil-attacks_353011.html

Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri Saddam deputy praises jihadist ‘heroes’ in unverified message as Iraq’s Sunnis pick speaker

July 13, 2014 By administrator

BAGHDAD – Agence France-Presse / The Associated Press

An image made available by Jihadist media outlet Welayat Raqa on June 30, 2014, allegedly shows a member of the IS militant group parading with a tank in a street in the northern rebel-held Syrian city of Raqa. AFP Photo

The wanted deputy of executed dictator Saddam Hussein praised the Islamic State jihadists who took over large swathes of the country last month as “heroes” in an unauthenticated audio message released on July 13.

The recording features a 15-minute speech in a raspy, quavering voice purported to be that of 72-year-old Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, who was Iraq’s vice-president when US-led coalition forces invaded in 2003.

The voice in the recording, which AFP could not immediately confirm to be that of Duri, praised “some groups of (insurgents) Ansar al-Sunna and, in addition to these, the heroes and knights of Al-Qaeda
and the Islamic State.”

The Islamic State (IS) has been fighting in Syria and Iraq and on June 29 proclaimed a “caliphate” straddling both countries and headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who now calls himself Caliph Ibrahim.

Its fighters spearheaded a devastating military offensive by a coalition of Sunni militant groups that swept through large swathes of northern and western Iraq.

The onslaught was contained barely 50 miles from the capital Baghdad, exacerbating sectarian tensions nationwide and pushing Iraq to the brink of disintegration.

“We give them a special salute with pride, appreciation and love,” said the man in the recording, introduced by another voice as the great commander of the Baath party.

“A dear salute to their leaders, which issued a general amnesty on every one who betrayed himself, betrayed God, betrayed his country but then atoned.”

He then went on to list several, sometimes obscure, Sunni militant groups believed to have rallied behind the Islamic State for last month’s offensive.

Saddam’s regime was secular and Izzat al-Duri is believed to be the leader of Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshbandi (JRTN), or Naqshbandiya order, a group of Sufi inspiration long seen as a rival to jihadist groups such as IS. The latest such message attributed to Saddam’s red-haired right-hand man, one of the former regime’s most recognisable figures, was released in January 2013.

After the December 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein, the wiry general nicknamed “Red Moustache” by some became the most senior figure, the King of Clubs, in the U.S. army’s infamous deck of cards of wanted Iraqis. He was best known to Iraqis as “The Iceman” for his humble origins selling blocks of ice on the streets of Mosul, Iraq’s second city and now a key jihadist hub.

His name resurfaced in unverified recordings linked to the JRTN, which appears to have evolved from a network of influential Sunnis akin to freemasonry into a fully-fledged armed rebel group bent on undermining the Shiite majority’s stranglehold on power.

Sunni blocs agree on speaker

The Iraqi parliament’s Sunni blocs have agreed on a candidate for the post of parliament speaker, paving the way for the legislature to take the first formal step toward forming a new government.

The legislature is scheduled to meet Sunday amid pressure to quickly agree on new leadership that can hold the country together in the face of a Sunni militant offensive. Lawmakers failed to make any progress in parliament’s first session on electing a new speaker, president and prime minister, and deadlock prompted the second session to be postponed until July 13.

Sunni lawmaker Mohammed al-Karbooli said in a statement late Saturday that Sunni parties decided on Salim al-Jubouri as their nominee for speaker. He said al-Jubouri promised not to support a third term for embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is under pressure to step aside.

Under an informal arrangement that took hold after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the speaker’s chair goes to a Sunni, the presidency to a Kurd and the prime minister’s post to a Shiite.

If parliament has a quorum July 13, it could vote on al-Jubouri’s nomination. But in the past, Iraq’s Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political blocs have agreed to all three posts ahead of time as a sort of package deal. It was unclear whether political leaders would insist on a similar arrangement this time around.

According to the constitution, parliament will have 30 days after choosing a new speaker to elect a president, who will have 15 days to ask the leader of the majority in the 328-seat legislature to form a government. Then a prime minister will be picked.

July/13/2014

ISIL militants execute 10 in Iraq Kurdish village & Six Shiite mosques in Mosul have also been destroyed.

July 6, 2014 By administrator

Takfiri militants from the al-Qaeda-linked group, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), have executed at least 10 people in a village in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

According to independent Kurdish sources, the executions took place in the village of Zur Maghar, in western Kurdistan region, following the ISIL’s capture of three Kurdish villages in the area on Friday.

The sources further noted that the victims – local tribal chiefs and the elderly – were either killed by hanging or shooting. The Takfiri militants left three of the bodies hanging from posts at a crossroad for hours, with the aim of intimidating local residents.

On Saturday, ISIL members demolished several holy shrines and mosques belonging to Shia and Sunni Muslims in the militancy-riddled regions of Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh. Latest reports say the militants have razed at least four shrines belonging to revered Sunni or Sufi figures. The extremists also leveled six Shia mosques to the ground.

Local residents and witnesses say the militants have occupied two Orthodox cathedrals and replaced crosses with their black flags. They had previously demolished several churches.

All destructions have taken place in and around the volatile region of Mosul.

Meanwhile, ISIL militants have blown up a bridge on an international highway linking the capital, Baghdad, to the city of Ramadi, blocking the roadway between Jordan and Iraq.

More than one million Iraqis have fled their homes over the past month as the ISIL terrorists seized Mosul and other cities in northwest Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said Saudi Arabia and Qatar are responsible for the security crisis and growing terrorism in his country.

Sheikh Fathi’s shrine – one of Mosul’s most important, dating back to 1760, was among those destroyed.

Source: presstv

Families say 163 Turkish citizens have joined ISIL

June 27, 2014 By administrator

Fevzi KIZILKOYUN ANKARA

This image posted on a militant website on June 14, 2014 appears to show militants from the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leading away captured Iraqi soldiers dressed in plain clothes after taking over a base in Tikrit, Iraq. AP Photo

The families of 163 Turkish citizens have recently applied to the security forces, reporting that their relatives have joined the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to fight in Syria.

According to the latest Turkish intelligence reports, there are currently around 600-700 Turks in ISIL. Reports claiming that around 3,000 Turkish citizens have joined ISIL militias have been rejected by the Turkish government.

Those reported missing by their families joined the battle after training in ISIL camps on the Syrian side, reports stated.

Seven Turks fighting with ISIL in Syria have died so far and six others have been wounded and are being treated in hospital, according to sources.

There have been reports that ISIL has set up armored training camps near the border with Turkey as the first stops for people attempting to join ISIL. These camps are also reportedly run by Turkish citizens,

Security measures have recently been intensified along the border against illegal crossings, and thousands of European jihadists were recently blacklisted by Turkey.

Ankara has long championed robust support for Syria’s fragmented opposition, but the growing influence of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in the war-torn country has left it open to accusations that it is backing radical Islamists.

June/27/2014

source: hurriyetdailynews

14-year-old Turkish ISIL militant found at border, injured

June 26, 2014 By administrator

A 14-year-old Turkish child who joined Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants was found in a serious condition at the Akçakale border gate with Syria, daily Milliyet has reported.

It was revealed that the young teenager, identified as Taylan Ö.Y., left his home in Ankara for Syria with five other friends, some 45 days before being delivered to Turkish soldiers at the border gate in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa.

He was immediately rushed to the district hospital on June 22, where he underwent an eight-hour operation.

Crosses border for 20 Liras

According to daily Milliyet’s report, Taylan dropped out from school and was working as a garlic vendor in the streets of Ankara, like many members of his family.

Along with his five friends, he paid 20 Turkish Liras (9 U.S. dollars) to smugglers in the southeastern Kilis province to cross the border into the Syrian region controlled by ISIL militants. His friends then returned to Turkey after they were brought to Raqqa, but Taylan was taken into intensive training by the militants. He reportedly said they received military training and Quran lessons in the morning, while they played sports in the afternoons. He had also contacted his father, telling him that he did not intend to return to Turkey.

Taylan was then taken to the fighting grounds, where he was heavily injured after being hit by shrapnel. Due to his life-threatening condition Taylan was brought back to the Turkish border. The people delivering him to the soldiers had identified him as Syrian citizen Mehmed al-Ahmad, born in 1998.

The police only learned Taylan’s real identity after his father came to the hospital a day after the surgery, after being contacted by his son.

The father said the police even brought translators in order to interrogate the young teenager when he arrived at the hospital, adding that Taylan had been afraid to speak until he arrived. Taylan’s condition is reportedly improving, doctors have said.

Reports claiming that around 3,000 Turkish citizens, mainly from Istanbul’s suburbs, have joined ISIL militias have been rejected by the Turkish government.

June/26/2014

Syria, Desecrated relics of Kessab

June 25, 2014 By administrator

Jabhat al-Nusra extremist group militants raided the Armenian Evangelical Holy Trinity Church and Missakian Cultural Center in Kessab.

L’observatoire de la Christianophobie French website posted the photos of destroyed and desecrated churches of Kessab after liberation of the town.

June 25, 2014

On March 21, 2014, Turkish forces shelled Armenian-populated villages of Syria in violation of international laws, further opening the border for militants to seize the region. Along with the surrounding Armenian-populated villages, Kessab, a home to 2,5-3000 Armenians, is located near the Syrian-Turkish border. After Kessab was seized, militants tore off the cross from an Armenian church, replacing it with a black Islamist flag.

On June 16, the top commandment of Syrian armed forces stated that stability in Kessab and adjacent province of Latakia was restored and the extremist militants pushed out, with the terrorist attempt to form a springboard for attacks with a sea outlet at the Turkish border thwarted.

At present, houses and streets of Kessab are fully demined, with utility services operating and electricity supplies restored. According to mayor Vasken Chaparian, 250 out of 600 Armenian families who left the town are back, restoring Armenian presence in the lands of the historic Cilicia. Earlier, at the meeting with the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad promised that Kessab Armenians will return to their homes and was true to his word.

Following the Kessab tragedy, Armenians and Alawites accused the Prime Minister Erdogan-led Turkish government of triggering the attack. Armenians who fled to Latakia told the BBC Turkish Service about the attack which forced them to leave their homes.

“One morning we were woken up by loud explosions and had to flee to Kessab at once, with no clothes, money or passports. We just wanted to survive,” a female resident of Kessab recalls. Some Armenians stayed in Kessab, only sending women and children to Latakia.

“We’re afraid to go back, though we’ve been told its safe now. Still, 7 Armenians and 2 Alawites went missing, with their fates unknown. Who will give us safety guarantees? I saw an Armenian church raided, stripped of decorations, icons and burned down. All the museum artifacts were destroyed,” a priest named Gevorg reminisced.

Kessab self-defense units and Hezbollah Syrian Shiite group participated in the liberation of the town, Ora Pro Siria reported citing the patriarch of the Armenian Catholic Church Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni.

At his visit to a church of St. Michael, the patriarch saw ruined icons, broken crosses, burnt liturgy books, with the place rendered unusable for religious services. According to the patriarch, Islamists’ only goal was to prevent the church from being used as a house of prayer. The parochial school was also demolished.

Jabhat al-Nusra extremist group militants raided the Armenian Evangelical Holy Trinity Church and Missakian Cultural Center in Kessab.

Nerses Bedros XIX hopes that the majority of refugees will return to their homes in Kessab.

Karine Ter-Sahakian / PanARMENIAN.Net, Photo: Fraternità Maria Gabriella

Sunni militants seize a second Iraqi town in Anbar

June 21, 2014 By administrator

The mayor of a town northwest of Baghdad says it has fallen into the hands of Sunni militants, the second to be captured by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the mainly Sunni Anbar province, The Associated Press reported.

Mayor Hussein AIi al-Aujail said the local army and police force in Rawah pulled out when the militants took control.

He said government offices in the town, along the Euphrates river 175 miles (275 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, were being sacked by the militants.

The fall of Rawah, and the border town of Qaim on Friday, appears to be part of a new offensive. It comes as thousands of heavily-armed Shiite militiamen paraded through several Iraqi cities Saturday in a show of force, signaling their readiness to fight the Islamic State.