[Rudaw] Islamic State
 ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS) murderous Moslems burned lands of Sunni fighters and Yazidis in Nineveh, on the Iraqi border with Syria, in early June, the group said on Thursday. ISIS’ claim comes amid regular reports of fires spreading in areas with security vacuums.
Security vacuum - is that like an armed Roomba?
| Go to your room, Frank G! That's absolutely dreadful! |
The terrorist group announced in the 187 edition of al-Naba, their propaganda newsletter released on June 20, that their murderous Moslems "burned a number of crops of Hashd al-Ashairi", referring to Sunni members of the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMFs), paramilitias founded five years ago to combat ISIS.
ISIS wrote that they started fires last week in the town of Rabia in Nineveh by planting improvised bombs (IEDs) on farms.
They also claimed to have "burned a fire truck and killed its driver and a number of Hashd [al-Shaabi] fighters", referring to the Arabic name for the PMFs.
After years of drought, Iraqi farmers had high hopes that the heavy rainfall in winter and spring would lend to a strong and profitable harvest season. However,
if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well...
these hopes for the harvest season have been marred by fires engulfing agricultural fields, with most people blaming ISIS for the flames.
Iraq’s harvest season began in April. Since then, crop fires have sprung up across the disputed areas between Erbil and Baghdad, including in Nineveh, Kirkuk , Saladin, and Diyala provinces.
Over 600 dunams of wheat fields in Khanaqin, Qaratapa, Jabara and the plains of Qamishalan were set ablaze in Diyala province within one week in May.
The head of the Kirkuk Agriculture Directorate, Zuhail Ali, told Rudaw English on June 15, that "8,500 dunams of land have burned across Kirkuk province.
Ali added that the sources of the blazes vary, ranging from unidentified perpetrators to electrical fires.
Adil Abdul-Mahdi, the Iraqi prime minister, has downplayed ISIS’ role in the fires.
"We have fires every year. Not all fires are the work of ISIS or hostility...some of them are internal feuds between landowners, between farmers," the Iraqi PM said last month, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
Hassan Ibrahim, deputy head of Iraqi Civil Defense General Directorate, told al-Mawsleya TV on June 18 that the fire incidents had been investigated and they had concluded that some of the blame lay with ISIS, but some cases were also because of a lack of awareness from farmers.
"There is also a shortcoming from the farmers. Farmers used to protect their lands as well as participate in trainings."
ISIS claimed in al-Naba last month that a "hot summer" is awaiting "the rejectionists and apostates," using two terms it often employs for Moslems who don’t adhere to the group’s interpretation of Islam. 
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