Contents: Turkey and Iraq in dispute over Turkish participation in Mosul operation; Turkey views the Mosul operation as a security threat to Turkey; ISIS may be given a chance to escape to Syria
More is riding on the battle for Mosul than the recapture of the Islamic State group’s main stronghold in northern Iraq. Also on the line is the Obama administration’s theory that the extremists can be defeated in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere without American ground troops doing the fighting.
Contents: Iraq begins battle to recapture Mosul from ISIS; Sectarian violence may interfere with recapture of Mosul
Syrian rebels dealt a major symbolic blow to the Islamic State group on Sunday by capturing the town of Dabiq where the jihadists had promised an apocalyptic battle.
Sunni Saudi Arabia is reportedly investing nearly $600 million on erecting two higher education institutions in restive areas of Afghanistan.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and the Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah have reportedly weaponized low-tech drones that can be bought in stores and on Amazon, including Styrofoam model planes, by attaching improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on them and using them for surveillance and reconnaissance.
The international community has abandoned and forgotten survivors from the Yazidi religious minority group in the Middle East, including women and girls who escaped imprisonment and rape by Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists, according to Amnesty International, a human rights watchdog group.
Contents: Turkey’s Erdogan and Russia’s Putin sign TurkStream gas pipeline deal; Turkey-Russia TurkStream deal based on pragmatism rather than reconciliation
Jihadists, including aspiring suicide bombers, who have been recruited by the Islamic State are likely to be well-educated and relatively wealthy, according to a study by the World Bank.
A suicide vest detonated prematurely during a meeting held by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq, killing 16 jihadists, including senior figures, and wounding 16 others, according to Iraqi media.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) branch in Afghanistan, known as the Khorasan Province (IS-KP/ISIL-K), has claimed responsibility for planting the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that killed a U.S. service member, bringing the number of American military fatalities during the Afghan war to 2,241.
Contents: United States ends diplomatic talks with Russia over Syria; Russia accuses US of sabotaging ceasefire and ‘allying with terror’
Contents: France’s aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle begins assault on ISIS in Mosul; UN says Mosul could be ‘largest man-made disaster in many years’
Jihadi members of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) branch in Afghanistan are using civilians as shields and “dressing in female attire” to escape a counterterrorism offensive, U.S. forces in Afghanistan (USFOR-A) said in a statement.
A former Guantánamo prisoner released in 2006 after he was extradited to Spain has reportedly been sentenced to 11 1/2 years in prison by Spanish court for leading a recruiting cell for al-Qaeda out of the European country’s capital.
The government of Pakistan has failed to take “adequate” action against the al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked Haqqani Network, which poses the “primary threat” to the American military and its allies fighting in Afghanistan, declared a top U.S. commander.
Women and girls in a Nigeria-based camp for people who have been displaced by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) wing known as Boko Haram are trading sex for food, reports Reuters.
India has urged the United Nations to “isolate” its regional rival and nuclear-armed counterpart Pakistan if it continues to refuse to join the global fight against terrorism, noting that it was long past time to identify nations who sponsor and export terror.
Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists are “dead set” on using chemical weapons and are likely to try to use them in an attack as U.S.-backed Iraqi troops advance on Mosul, which is considered the terrorist group’s last major stronghold in Iraq, warned the Pentagon.
Contents: ISIS losing territory in Iraq and Syria; Pyrrhic victory over ISIS could create a ‘terrorist diaspora’
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL)-linked Cyber Kahilafah posted tutorials on the encrypted messaging app Telegram on using pressure cookers to create deadly bombs and modifying cell phones and Bluetooth devices to use as timers to detonate remotely, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM).
HOUSTON, Texas — A refugee who prosecutors say wanted to fight for the Islamic State is headed back to federal court on Wednesday. He is anticipated to change his plea to guilty at his rearraignment hearing.
Contents: Russian warplanes drop phosphorus bombs and bunker buster bombs on Aleppo; Comparisons of Syria civil war to Sri Lanka civil war; US, UK, UN officials accuse Syria and Russia of barbarism and war crimes
The leader of the Nigeria-based Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) wing Boko Haram is reportedly featured in a video recently posted on social media denying claims by the Nigerian military that he had been seriously wounded and warning, “you have not seen the worst yet.”
Over 250,000 Afghans who crossed into neighboring Pakistan illegally have been pressured into returning to their war and corruption-ravaged country along with their compatriots who were admitted into the country legally as refugees.
Contents: Writer Nahed Hattar, accused of blasphemy, gunned down in Amman, Jordan; Nahed Hattar shooting exposes Jordan’s secularist vs Muslim Brotherhood fault line
Contents: Syria’s al-Assad goes for the kill, turning Aleppo and civilians to bloody rubble; Responses to reader comments
The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned it will not participate in a U.S.-led coalition offensive to push the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) out of Raqqa, its de facto capital in Syria, if the Syrian Kurds are also involved in the operation.
The father of Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect linked to the bombings in New York and New Jersey last weekend, claims the FBI ignored his appeal to “keep an eye” on his “terrorist” son who was interested in jihadi groups like al-Qaeda, the New York Times (NYT) learned during a series of interviews with the elder Rahami this week.
The prime minister of Iraq, while addressing world leaders at the United Nations Assembly’s annual general debate, suggested that the U.S.-backed Iraqi military will liberate Iraq from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) “by the end of the year.”
The highest-ranking military officer in the U.S. confirmed that the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) used a potentially deadly “sulfur-mustard blister agent” to target a base in northern Iraq that houses American troops. This marks the first recorded chemical attack on the United States since the jihadist group conquered swaths of Iraq in 2014.
Contents: Turkey’s Erdogan blames the EU for reneging on the refugee deal; With Turkey ‘left alone,’ Erdogan announces refugee plan conflicting with US plans; A major new flood of refugees starting to flee from Mosul in Iraq
President Barack Obama is reportedly considering directly arming the Syrian Kurds who are fighting the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), a move that is certain to further strain or perhaps even fully disintegrate the relationship between the United States and its NATO Ally Turkey.
The vice president of Afghanistan, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, only once alluded to his country’s widespread and endemic corruption that an independent U.S. watchdog agency recently determined may pose a bigger threat to the future of the country and America’s mission than the insurgency.
Two cousins from Illinois, former U.S. Army National Guard Specialist Hasan Edmonds and Jonas Edmonds, have been sentenced to 30 and 21 years, respectively, the maximum prison term they were each facing for pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), in the latest edition of its weekly Arabic language newspaper al-Naba, praised the men behind last weekend’s Minnesota mall stabbings and the Orlando massacre in June, but they did not mention the suspect linked to the bombings in New York and New Jersey.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) warned that Muslims are now potential victims at risk of being harmed in the wake of the attack at a press conference addressing a Somali man who allegedly shouted “Allah” as he stabbed nine people at a Minnesota before he was shot dead by an off-duty officer.
Former U.S. representative to the United Nations General Assembly Robert C. O’Brien, co-chairman of the U.S. State Department’s Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan and author of the new book While America Slept: Restoring American Leadership to a World in Crisis, joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Monday’s Breitbart News Daily to talk about the weekend terror attacks.
Contents: New terrorist attack in Kashmir threatens India-Pakistan retaliation; Russia accuses US of intentionally striking Syria’s army to support ISIS
Al-Qaeda (AQ) has long used female suicide bombers and has even formed an all-female jihadi fighting force trained in using heavy weaponry in battle, but now, the terrorist group is lambasting its rival Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) for exploiting women to carry out terrorist attacks in the same manner.
