Free Republic

The leader of Lebanese Shia group Hizbullah described the radical Islamist movement that has seized territory in Iraq and Syria as a growing “monster” that could threaten Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf states. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, whose group has been helping Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad fight a Sunni Islamist-dominated insurgency, said Islamic State could easily recruit in other areas where its hardline ideology exists. “Wherever there are followers of the ideology there is ground for [Islamic State], and this exists in Jordan, in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait, and the Gulf states,” Nasrallah said in an interview with the...

BAGHDAD: Tribal leaders and preachers from Iraq's Sunni heartland who staged a revolt against outgoing Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government would be willing to join the new administration if certain conditions are met, a spokesman for the group told Reuters Friday. The incoming prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, faces the daunting task of pacifying Anbar province, where Sunni frustrations with Maliki's sectarian policies have pushed some to join an insurgency led by Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) militants. The spokesman, Taha Mohammad al-Hamdoon, said Sunni representatives in Anbar and other provinces had drawn up a list of...

Erbil, Asharq Al-Awsat—Leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and self-proclaimed caliph Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi fled the northern city of Mosul to return to Syrian territory after the US authorized airstrikes on ISIS positions in Iraq, a Kurdish official said. In comments to Asharq Al-Awsat, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) spokesman Saeed Mamo Zinni said: “Caliph of the Islamic State Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi left Mosul for Syria a few days ago.” “According to our intelligence sources, Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi traveled to Syria as part of a convoy of 30 Hummer vehicles after fearing being targeted by US airstrikes,” Zinni said. He...

WASHINGTON—The U.S. military is turning its focus toward helping Kurdish forces launch a counteroffensive against Sunni militants now that the refugee crisis in the northern Iraqi mountains has abated, American officials said Thursday. American military planners are building a coalition of countries that have agreed to take part in the effort to fly in ammunition, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades the Kurdish fighters need to uproot extremist forces that call themselves the Islamic State, the officials said. The focus on arming Kurdish fighters represents the next stage of U.S. military operations in Iraq. Earlier, the U.S. military essentially declared victory in...

The United States has asked European countries to supply arms and ammunition to Kurdish forces fighting jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, signalling a widening of the international role in the conflict. The US has requested the arms in telephone calls with several European countries, seeking help for Peshmerga fighters of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region who are outgunned by IS militants. Several European countries have announced plans to send arms or ammunition, with France saying it will supply arms in response to a request from Iraq's Kurdish leadership.

ISIS is the most serious threat to American interests in a decade. Why we must counter it Ryan Crocker, who probably knows the Middle East better than any other living American diplomat, recently cut to the chase about the situation in Iraq. “This is about America’s national security,” he told the New York Times. “We don’t understand real evil, organized evil, very well. This is evil incarnate. People like [ISIS leader] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi have been in a fight for a decade. They are messianic in their vision, and they are not going to stop.” We’ve been in the fight...

Kurds mobilise to fight Islamic State Thursday, August 14, 2014 By Dave Holmes Kurdish YPG fighters in Rojava. The Kurdish people are facing an unprecedented challenge. Across a vast swathe of northern Syria and Iraq, the region’s Kurds are locked in a desperate and heroic struggle with the genocidal forces of the so-called Islamic State (IS). Fighting is raging across a huge front hundreds of kilometres wide, from Aleppo and Kobane in Syria to Mosul and Kirkuk in Iraq — and all points in between. Flush with money seized from banks in Mosul and armed with US-supplied heavy weapons abandoned...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State militants are massing near the Iraqi town of Qara Tappa, 122 km (73 miles) north of Baghdad, security sources and a local official said, in an apparent bid to broaden their front with Kurdish peshmerga fighters. The Sunni militants have made a dramatic push through the north to a position near Arbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. The movement around Qara Tappa suggests they are getting more confident and seeking to grab more territory closer to the capital after stalling in that region. "The Islamic State is massing its militants near Qara Tappa," said...

PKK fighters near Qandil Mountain in Northern Iraq News / Kurdistan PKK and YPG Hinder Peshmerga and US in Attacking Sinjar 14.08.2014  Mewan Dolamari BasNews, Erbil   On the night of August 13th, Kurdish Peshmerga forces with the support of US military advisers met near Sinjar Mountain, intent on forming a plan to attack Sinjar town which lay far below, crawling with IS militants that have since taken over the city.   However according to Peshmerga sources, their efforts have been hindered, , by guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Kurdish Communities Protection Units (YPG), who requested...

If Kurds Fall, Chaos in Iraq and Abroad to Follow REUTERS/Stringer a a   Type Size: Small By David Francis, The Fiscal Times August 11, 2014 Since the start of the Iraq war in 2003, the autonomous area of northern Iraq known as Kurdistan has stood as the lone bastion of stability throughout the entire country. Now, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has its sights firmly set on conquering the Kurds, a move that would send Iraq and much of the Middle East into chaos. The good news is that American airstrikes have helped the Kurds to...

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's top cleric has condemned the extremist Islamic State group, describing it as a "terrorist" organization that poses a danger to Islam and Muslims. Grand Mufti Shawki Allam, Egypt's highest religious authority, said the extremist group is "violating all the Islamic principles and the intentions of the Shariah (Islamic law)." In his remarks, which were carried by Egypt's state news agency late Tuesday, Allam also said the "bloody extremist group" had tarnished the image of Islam and paved the way for the destruction of Muslim nations.

The Peshmerga, whose name translates as "those who face death", are the Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. In recent weeks, they have been fighting Islamist militants of the Islamic State - formerly known as Isis - who seized large swathes of territory in the north. Now thought to number around 190,000, the Peshmerga have their roots in groups of loosely organised tribal border guards in the late 1800s, but were formally organised as the national fighting force of the Kurdish people after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War One. As the Kurdish nationalist movement...

Franch government calls of immediate arms to Kurds News / World France Calls for Immediate Shipment of Arms to Kurds 12.08.2014 BasNews, Erbil France Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius again asked for an urgent meeting of  European countries’ Foreign Ministers to discuss immediate arms shipments to the Kurdistan Region for use against Islamic State (IS) militants. “It is necessary to help Kurds and Iraqis and give them help to fight IS insurgents. It needs to be impressed on them that IS insurgents wish to kill all those that don’t have the same ideology, thinking and religion as them,” said Fabius....

Vatican UN envoy says military action justified to save Christians in Iraq The Vatican’s representative at UN headquarters in Geneva has said that “military action in this moment is probably necessary” to curb the slaughter of Christians in Iraq. Archbishop Silvani Tomasi told Vatican Radio that in the long run, the only solution to Iraq’s problems will come with “a dialogue of reconciliation and the acceptance of diversity,” with a regime that ensures equal rights for all. But in the immediate future, the crucial question is the survival of the country’s Christian minority. The archbishop said that it has been...

Smokes rise from US shelling near Khazir in Northern Iraq News / Kurdistan US Airstrikes Done With Peshmerga Coordination 10.08.2014   Hawar Abdulrazaq BasNews, Erbil   The Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga Ministry has said that from now on they will have a daily press conference to inform the Kurdistan public of new developments to prevent the circulation of propaganda and false information.   Halgord Hikmat, the spokesman for the Peshmerga Ministry told BasNews from Erbil, that the recent US airstrikes in the Makhmur and Mosul regions against Islamic State (IS) Militants had inflcited huge loses on the extremist group.  ...

Peshmerga forces fighting IS Militants near Mosul News / Kurdistan Mosul MPs: Peshmerga Will Liberate The City Soon 10.08.2014    BasNews, Baghdad   Representatives of Mosul in the Iraqi Parliament have declared that with Peshmerga assistance, their city will be freed soon from Islamic State (IS) Militants.   In a press conference in Baghdad, Iraqi MPs from Mosul in Northern Iraq, talked about the current crisis and the clashes between Kurdish Peshmerga forces and IS Insurgents.   The also criticized the Iraqi central government for remaining silent on the situation of their city and not providing assistance to the...

Calls to arm Peshmerga forces from western officials News / Kurdistan US and European Countries to Arm Kurds 11.08.2014    Nuwar FaqieBasNews, Erbil   United States and European countries are thinking about directly arming Iraqi Kurds to fight extremist group Islamic State (IS).   According to Associated Press, a senior official from the Obama administration has revealed that Washington has started arming Kurds.   This comes after the France foreign minister Laurent Fabius stated that soon France and other European countries would discuss the possibility of giving heavy weapons to Iraq, especially Kurdish Peshmerga Forces.   In an interview...

Peshmerga regains key towns seized by ISIS THE KURDISH GLOBE Peshmerga forces control both Gwer and Makhmour towns from the control of the Islamic State ISIS insurgents after a fee days of heavy confrontations between the two sides. Peshmerga forces control both Gwer and Makhmour towns from the control of the Islamic State ISIS insurgents after a fee days of heavy confrontations between the two sides. The well-organized operation by Peshmerga forces backed by air strikes, started early Sunday, August 10, 2014 and in the afternoon of the same day both Gwer and Makhmour were completely retained by Kurdish...

The United States conducted new air strikes on Islamic State targets near Arbil, the capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, the U.S. military's Central Command said on Sunday. The strikes, launched by drone aircraft and U.S. fighter jets, were aimed at protecting Kurdish Peshmerga forces as they face off against Islamist militants near Arbil, the site of a U.S. consulate and a U.S.-Iraqi joint military operations center, Central Command said in a statement. "At approximately 2:15 a.m. EDT, U.S. aircraft struck and destroyed an (Islamic State) armed truck that was firing on Kurdish forces located in the approaches to Arbil,"...

At least 20,000 Iraqis have safely fled Mt Sinjar: officials IRBIL, Iraq: At least 20,000 civilians who had been besieged by jihadists on a mountain in northern Iraq have safely escaped to Syria and been escorted by Kurdish forces back into Iraq, officials said Sunday.The breakthrough coincided with US air raids on Islamic State fighters in the Sinjar area of northwestern Iraq Saturday.Shawkat Barbahari, an official from the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq put the number of people who escaped the siege and crossed back into Iraqi Kurdistan at 30,000."The Kurdish peshmerga forces have succeeded in making 30,000...