Toxic fumes released by tons of waste at a chemical plant and sulphur mine near the Iraqi city of Mosul that were set on fire by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) have reportedly killed at least two people and injured hundreds more.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has announced that the battle to retake Mosul, the nation’s second-largest city, from the Islamic State has reached “an advanced stage.” Following the Kurdish Peshmerga announcement Tuesday that they had completed the mission Baghdad approved for them, however, the Iraqi army has stumbled on its way to the urban center.
Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) terrorists executed nine fellow jihadis who fled battle by tossing them in burning oil trenches used to impede the vision of U.S.-backed Iraqi military troops fighting to push the militants out Iraq’s second-largest city Mosul, reports the Arabic-language Al Sumaria News, according to various translations.
Islamic State group fighters were shaving their beards and changing hideouts in Mosul, residents said, as Iraqi forces moved ever closer to the city Wednesday and civilians fled in growing numbers.
The line of cars flying white flags kept on coming Tuesday as Iraqi forces began to evacuate residents of the last villages near the Islamic State group bastion of Mosul.
As Iraqi and Kurdish fighters move in on the city of Mosul, the United Nations says it is receiving reports of the “murderous” atrocities committed by ISIS, including extrajudicial killings and summary executions against women, children and male civilians in Iraq.
Authorities from the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq have reportedly forced about 250 displaced Sunni Arab families to leave Kirkuk after Sunni sleeper cells were accused of helping Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists carry out an attack in the Kurdish-controlled city.
The government of Turkey has warned that it is prepared for a ground invasion of northern Iraq if the Marxist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) does not vacate its camps in Sinjar. Turkey, present in Iraq against the wishes of Baghdad, has been training Kurdish Peshmerga militia units near Erbil, south of Sinjar.
Disturbing videos have emerged on social media that appear to show U.S.-backed Iraqi forces torturing children as they advance towards Mosul, the last major stronghold of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq.
Contents: In Iraq, Turkey’s artillery and possibly its jets are helping recapture Mosul from ISIS; In Syria, Turkey attacks both Kurds and ISIS near Aleppo
Bayda Muhammad Khalaf followed the government’s advice to stay in her home with her husband and seven children as Iraqi troops advanced near their remote village outside militant-held Mosul.
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have closed in to within five miles of Mosul, the Islamic State’s capital in Iraq, despite fierce ISIS counterattacks.
The U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State will “simultaneously” carry out operations in its de-facto capitals of Raqqa, Syria, and Mosul, Iraq, “as soon as possible,” declared U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.
Islamic State expanded its attacks on Monday against Iraqi army and Kurdish forces to relieve pressure on its militants confronting an offensive on Mosul, its last major urban stronghold in the country.
Both the Turkish government and Kurdish Peshmerga forces say the Turks participated in the liberation of Bashiqa, a town eight miles from the regional Islamic State (ISIS) capital of Mosul. The Iraqi government has vehemently denied a Turkish role in the Mosul operation.
The U.S. military has denied reports suggesting that fighters from Iran’s terrorist proxy Kataib Hezbollah, or Hezbollah Brigades, are fighting alongside U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and their allies in the offensive to retake Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
A dispute between Iraq and Turkey has emerged as a dramatic geopolitical sideshow to the complicated military campaign to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, from the Islamic State.
They burst into the house in the early hours of the morning and pointed a gun at Abu Mohammed’s head: “We are the Islamic State — give us your car!”
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declined on Saturday an offer from Turkey to take part in the battle to drive Islamic State militants from Mosul, a decision that could rile Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
An Iraqi cameraman was killed on Saturday covering a military offensive to wrest the city of Mosul back from the Islamic State group, his channel said.
The Latest on developments in Iraq where Iraqi forces and their allies launched a major offensive this week to retake Mosul, the country’s second-largest city from the Islamic State group…
The Iraqi army pushed into a town near the Islamic State-held city of Mosul on Saturday, a day after dozens of IS militants stormed into the northern city of Kirkuk, setting off two days of clashes and killing at least 80 people, mostly security forces.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter arrived in Iraq on Saturday to meet with his commanders and assess the progress in the opening days of the operation to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State militants.
An Improvised Explosive Device killed an American soldier in northern Iraq on Thursday, marking the first known U.S. combat death in the battle to eject ISIS from Mosul.
Turkey’s airstrikes against Kurdish targets north of Aleppo have not been received well by the Syrian regime. On Thursday, the Syrian Defense Ministry accused Turkey of “flagrant aggression, which targeted innocent civilians” and warned that Turkish forays into Syria are a “dangerous development that could escalate the situation.”
On Friday’s Breitbart News Daily, Breitbart News National Security editor Dr. Sebastian Gorka, author of the best-selling book Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War, talked about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s clash over Russia at the third presidential debate.
In a significant escalation of the battle for Mosul, elite Iraqi special forces joined the fight Thursday, unleashing a pre-dawn assault on an Islamic State-held town east of the besieged city, and the US military announced the first American combat death since the operation began.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had a phone call with leaders in Turkey and Iraq on Wednesday in which he “wished the Iraqi army and its allies complete success in their objectives” for Mosul, according to the Kremlin.
Iraqi security forces backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and in collaboration with Kurdish Peshmerga troops and a Christian militia have besieged the Iraqi Christian town of Qaraqosh as part of the offensive to liberate the nearby city of Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), reports CNN.
Former U.N. Ambassador and American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow John Bolton told SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily that he was a little surprised to see Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, become a central topic of the final 2016 presidential debate, given the conventional wisdom about Russia’s harmless irrelevance circa 2012.
Contents: Unrealistic expectations surround the battle to recapture Mosul from ISIS; Turkey views Iraq and Syria through the lens of World War I and the Ottoman Empire
Republican Nominee Donald Trump, when asked about the ongoing U.S.-backed offensive to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) during the final presidential debate, said terror-sponsor of terrorism Iran will ultimately “benefit” from the operation. “Iran
Once the battle of Mosul is complete and if the Islamic State eradicated, the Iraqi government plans to enhance ties with Russia, an Arab intelligence official told Breitbart Jerusalem.
During the third presidential debate, Donald Trump complained about telegraphing major military actions such as the invasion of Mosul for months, and said “these people have already left.”
American officials fear that Islamic State jihadists will use crudely-designed chemical weapons, primarily packed with a sulfur mustard gas agent, to defend their de-facto capital of Mosul in Iraq from advancing Iraqi forces, Kurdish troops and Iran-allied Shiite militias, backed by U.S. troops.
After an encouraging start, Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers on the ground have begun protesting that the Iraqi military is too slow and weak to effectively liberate Mosul, and that their penchant for flying Shiite militia flags makes ethnic Kurdish and Arab Sunnis fear they may impose themselves once the Islamic State has been eradicated.
Europe must brace itself for a new wave of Islamic State fighters following the offensive on Mosul by Iraqi and coalition forces, an EU Commissioner has warned.
The Islamic State’s news agency, Amaq, has produced an online video of “interviews with civilians,” one of which declares, “It is safe and life is normal. Satellite channels are lying. All their reports are lies.”
On the eerily quiet streets of Mosul, fighters from the Islamic State group are killing suspected spies, blocking roads and planting bombs ahead of a showdown with Iraqi forces.
An Iranian-backed commander in Iraq who is part of a group of Shiite militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) has said his group does not need “anyone’s” permission to fight to retake Mosul from the Sunni Islamic State.
