The “courageous” American soldier who was fatally wounded in a rescue mission in Iraq sacrificed his life to save 70 hostages whose “graves had already been dug” and were about to be “brutally” executed by the “barbaric” Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS), U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters at the Pentagon.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, reacted “positively” to the idea of working with some rebel groups in the region against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), particularly the Kurds.
Contents: Joint US-Kurdish operation in Iraq rescues 70 hostages from ISIS, one American killed; Administration denies that combat use of American soldiers was ‘mission creep’
Iraqi and Kurdish officials have met to plan the long-delayed Battle of Mosul, an effort to push ISIS out of the city they have been using as their base of operations in Iraq.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq report this week that they have made significant gains against ISIS near Kirkuk, a northern oil city about an hour and a half south of the Kurdish capital of Erbil. This news follows reports that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has fled northern Mosul south to Ramadi.
Contents: Egypt’s army starts ‘The Martyr’s Right’ operation in North Sinai; Turkey’s troops enter northern Iraq to hunt PKK after terror attacks; Violence spreads in cities across Turkey; Pro-government mobs in Turkey storm Hurriyet offices for alleged Erdogan misquote; Turkey appears to be approaching civil war.
A Kurdish official claimed that 25 Kurdish prisoners escaped from an Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) prison in Mosul.
Small but growing numbers of American, British, Canadian, and Australian veterans are volunteering to assist in the battle against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) in Iraq and Syria. Motivated to help Christian and other minority groups defend against the spread of Islamist terrorism in the region, they have traveled to Iraq and Syria to take the fight to ISIS. On the front lines, they assist beleaguered people with training, guidance, and combat.
A recent report by the Iraqi parliament blamed former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for losing the vital city of Mosul to the Islamic State, going so far as to recommend criminal charges against Maliki and his colleagues.
Senior U.S. officials believe the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) deployed mustard gas against Kurdish fighters this week in what would be the first confirmed use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) by the terror state. There were also reports last month of possible chlorine gas deployment by ISIS in Iraq, but those reports have not yet been confirmed, and Reuters points out that “chlorine is not a banned chemical agent.”
Iraqi Peshmerga officials told Kurdish media outlet Rudaw that the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) is using chemical weapons against Peshmerga soldiers in Makhmur, Iraq.
A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter named Mamend Rasul claims that, while he was off fighting against ISIS, serving as a company commander, a force supported by the Western powers and heavily relied upon to keep the rapacious terror state in check, Turkish F-16s bombed the Iraqi village of Zergaly where his family lived, killing his 63-year-old sister, 61-year-old brother, and a cousin.
A grandfather from Tyne and Wear with no military experience has flown to Iraq and joined a front line unit fighting Islamic State. He said he was inspired to go as an example to his two grandsons, and because no
Iraq’s Assyrian Christian population is seeking to reclaim territory they have lost to the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) since they overtook the region last summer and to create an autonomous region for themselves–in a free Kurdistan.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) executed several Kurdish Peshmerga troops and took one hostage amid deadly clashes between the two groups near the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk, social media accounts linked to the jihadist group claimed, according to Rudaw
As a variety of Kurdish forces continue containing the Islamic State’s advance in Syria and Iraq, leaders are becoming increasingly vocal about the establishment of an independent Kurdistan, with some sources close to the ground telling Fox News that Kurds are dedicated to the formation of a new state “whether the U.S. likes it or not.”
Kurdish forces have successfully defeated Islamic State terrorists in a late Tuesday battle near the jihadi group’s headquarters in Raqqa, Syria. The Kurdish troops’s latest victory comes on the heels of a successful mission last week that saw its YPG-led forces capture a Turkish border town from ISIS, according to reports.
Germany is expected to train a Yazidi force in northern Iraq to seize back their homeland from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), German television channel N24 reports.
What is the best way to counter extremism? For Iraqi news anchor Ahmed Albasheer, the answer is comedy. After an eight-plus year career in news correspondence, Albasheer decided to leave the news desk to combat corruption and fight Islamic terror through humor.
The Islamic State’s conquests in Iraq and Syria– from the largest metropolitan areas to the most unassuming villages of both nations– have raised alarm around the world. And as the Kurdish forces on the ground lament a lack of resources necessary to finish the job, their call has summoned a broad coalition of Western military veterans using the internet to fund trips to the front lines of the war on ISIS.
Kurdish pop star Helly Luv tells interviewers of her new single, “Revolution,” that she refused to imitate or fabricate any of the suffering in the war against the Islamic State in Syria. Wanting to depict the realities of the battlefield for the Peshmerga and ISIS refugees, the golden-heel-clad artist filmed her music video less than two miles from the front lines with ISIS.
American Keith Broomfield has been killed while fighting against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) as a volunteer with Kurdish units, according to reports on Kurdish social media. The U.S. State Department has confirmed Broomfield’s death and has been in contact with his family.
Reports from Kurdish fighters on the front lines in Iraq and Syria allege that the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) is offering anyone within lands the group has conquered $150,000 for the capture or killing of a foreign national fighting against ISIS, whether with the Kurdish Peshmerga or another anti-ISIS militia.
SINJAR, Iraq– Yazidi men and women are taking up arms and joining the Peshmerga to help in defeating Islamic State, as thousands of refugees continue to take shelter on Sinjar Mountain, ten months after President Obama declared the mountain had evaded humanitarian disaster.
A communist organization in Spain has been filtering Spanish citizens into Iraq and Syria to fight with the communist Kurdish PKK against the Islamic State. The fighters, most serving as snipers protecting Kurdish and Yazidi areas, assert that they have a responsibility as communists to “further the advancement of this region’s proletariat.”
Observers have known Islamic State terrorists have managed to get their hands on Iraqi equipment, but on Sunday, the Iraqi Prime Minister revealed the stunning numbers. “In the collapse of Mosul, we lost a lot of weapons… We lost 2,300 Humvees in Mosul alone,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told Iraqi state television.
A battle broke out on the Iran-Iraq border between armed Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) militants and members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), resulting in fatalities on both sides, news reports reveal.
While the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) has made major inroads in the city of Ramadi and territories increasingly close to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Kurdish forces backed by American airstrikes have reported major progress in the north of the country, with the Iraqi government reporting that an American airstrike has killed the ISIS governor of Mosul.
While Americans digest the reality of Iraqi army units fleeing from battle against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) despite months of rhetoric from the Obama administration about their improved performance, the Kurds are still very much in the game.
A Syrian news outlet is reporting that Kobani, the Turkish/Syrian Kurdish border town that became the focal point of the war against the Islamic State before the terror group was ousted in January, is once again being targeted for capture now that the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga have evacuated.
The White House, Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful Iraqi Shiite Cleric, and the Iraqi government have come out against a proposed U.S defense bill that authorizes sending arms and funds directly to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Sunni tribal fighters in Iraq.
Five men, who reportedly confessed to playing a role in detonating a car bomb on behalf of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) outside the U.S. consulate in the capital of northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, have been arrested by Kurdish authorities.
“It is clear from talking with front line Kurdish Peshmerga that Canadian special forces have done more on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant than their coalition partners, including the U.S., and are going to play a critical part in the coming action to expel these fanatical hardliners from Mosul,” writes the Canadian National Post.
A dispute between the central Kurdistan government and its Iraqi counterpart in Baghdad has left some Kurdish security troops without pay for months.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) has released a new video showing members of the terrorist group killing a Peshmerga soldier execution-style.
A new ISIS propaganda video shows three Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, evidently captured in the Nineveh province of Iraq, beheaded with knives before a large crowd of onlookers, some of them small children.
According to a statement from the Kurdish Regional Security Council, the Islamic State has crossed that fabled WMD “red line” by deploying chemical weapons against Kurdish peshmerga forces fighting along the Iraqi border with Syria, near the captive city of Mosul.
Kurdish news agency Rudaw tells the poignant story of Teleskof, a Christian town of some 4,000 souls in the Nineveh Plains evacuated last August before the advance of ISIS, save for two elderly women named Sarya Matto and Madi Salim, who adamantly refused to leave their home.
NBC News reports the latest ISIS recruitment video features “two deaf and mute fighters communicating in sign language in what analysts said was an attempt to demonstrate ‘normal’ life for everyone under the brutal terrorist group’s domination.”
The prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, during a press conference in Italy, cited the fight to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL) as a “top priority” for his government.
