At least 19 Taliban insurgents including two leaders of the group were killed during joint military operations of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said Saturday that the militants were killed in the past 24 hours in various provinces.
A statement by MoD said at least 15 Taliban insurgents were also wounded during the operations. The statement further added at least 6 militants were killed and two others were wounded in Tarinkot city of Uruzgan.
At least 4 of the militants were killed in Khashrod district of Nimruz and 2 others were wounded, MoD said, adding that 5 militants were killed and 9 others were wounded in Andar district of Ghazni.
According to MoD, the two top leaders were killed in Nahr-e-Saraj district of Helmand but no further details were given regarding their identities. The Ministry also added that two militants were killed in Tagab district of Kapisa province.
The anti-government armed militant groups including the Taliban insurgents have not commented regarding the report so far.
Things are heating up in Zabul
At least one policeman was killed in a roadside blast on Friday night, Zabul police said.
The blast occurred in Arghandab district of Zabul province.
According to officials the blast happened when the police vehicle, on patrol, hit a roadside mine.
Two policemen were also wounded.
No group including the Taliban has claimed responsibility.
[AA.TR] At least five people, including three soldiers were killed and 13 others maimed when twin kabooms targeted a busy restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Saturday, according to government officials.
Abdifatah Omar Hallane, a front man for Banadir region in Mogadishu, told Anadolu Agency by phone: "It was rush hour when the bomb went kaboom!...The maimed were rushed to Daru-shifa and Madina hospitals."
Mohamud Yousuf Hassan, a police captain, also confirmed the blasts.
"The kabooms were twin landmine kabooms," Hassan said, adding that three suspects linked to the attack had been held.
So far, no individual or group has grabbed credit for the attack; however, the Somali hard boy group, al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... , often claims responsibility for such attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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Jubbaland state troops have retaken control of Bulo-Gadud district, about 30Km north of Kismayo, the coastal city in Somalia’s southern Lower Jubba region on Friday.
Local residents said Jubbaland forces, along with AMISOM soldiers engaged Al shabaab a heavy gunfight with Al shabaab militants in the outskirts before taking Bulo-Gadud town.
The Al Qaeda-linked Al shabaab militants control large swathes of territories in Lower and middle Jubba regions in southern Somalia, despite being driven out of the most strongholds.
The African Union forces in Somalia have helped Somali federal government and regional states to push out Al shabaab from its main strongholds in south and central of the country.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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[Libya Herald] Security forces are fighting snuffies east of Ajdabiya thought to be survivors of yesterday’s coordinated breakout during which it is now known that 21 police and soldiers were killed.
The escape from the invested enclaves of Ganfouda and Sabri came during a power blackout which appears to have been caused deliberately. A GECOL control room engineer has been incarcerated Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! The main terrorist breakout was made by a column of vehicles that headed south towards Suluq. Libyan National Army front man Ahmed Mismari said that in the running battle that followed, involving grounds forces and aircraft, all the terrorist trucks were destroyed, the last of them south of Ajdabiya.
The announcement may have been premature since today there are reports that two soldiers have died and four been maimed in fighting with snuffies in Saunnu to the east of Ajdabiya not far from the B11 inland highway linking the town to Tobruk.
Another military source said that eight armed vehicles had been caught in a village south-east of Ajdabiya. A number of men was captured. At least one of them, named as Ashraf al-Ruq, was transferred to Marj. It is understood that reconnaissance flights in search of further vehicles have been conducted as far west as Harawa.
Details are less clear over the outcome of the two other breakouts, from the north side of Ganfouda and from Sabri. Early reports were that a boom-mobile failed to detonate in LNA lines when the snuffies broke through. In Sabri, an armour-plated vehicle was stopped and three terror suspects were killed but others managed to get through. In what may have been a separate incident at another Sabri checkpoint, jacket wallahs were shot down before they detonate their explosive vests, which were thereafter defused.
Later two coppers were rubbed out outside Benghazi Medical Centre but the identity and fate of the culprits has not been given.
Benghazi Security Director Salah Huwaidi has insisted that security in the city is under control. A state of emergency is still in force but life on the streets has returned to normal.
Meanwhile the city’s Investigation Department head, Lieutenant-Colonel Ashraf Faydi has said that a Paleostinian woman has been arrested at her home near the port on suspicion of spying. Faydi alleged that the unnamed woman had links to the Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, party in Paleostine and had confessed to filming military movements and reporting them to the terrorists. Her laptop had been seized.
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01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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[Libya Herald] Benghazi krazed killer leader Wissam Ben Hamid is dead according to one of his colleagues who was tossed in the calaboose Please don't kill me! today near Ajdabiya by the Libyan National Army (LNA) while trying to flee.
Do we have a severed head?
Naizar Jalal Atwier, who was a front man for Ansar al-Sharia ...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libyaand Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet... in Benghazi, was caught east of Ajdabiya at a location named al-Bidan. It is believed that he managed to escape from Ganfouda in yesterday’s mass breakout.
It was thought at the time that Ben Hamid had also managed to escape.
Interrogated today, however, Atwier said that Ben Humaid had been killed in a recent Arclight airstrike. According to LNA front man, Colonel Ahmed Mismari, it was at the end of December. Some reports say 28 December.
Since then, Atwier stated in a videoed interview, the murderous Moslems in Ganfouda have been led by Jamal Makhzoum. He, apparently, is still there.
Ben Hamid who was originally commander of one of the main brigades in the city, Libya Shield ...a conglomerate of pro-Islamist militias deployed across Libya. It reports to the Libyan defense ministry and is organized like a real army unit. Its commander used to head a Benghazi brigade called Free Libya Martyrs... No. 1 Battalion, was widely regarded as one of the most dangerous and ruthless of Benghazi’s Islamist leaders. He was suspected of being behind a string of political liquidations and murders in the city, among them the gunning down in June 2013 of 32 protestors outside Libya Shield No. 1’s Kuwafiyah base. That October, he was accused of ordering the murder of Colonel Ahmed Mustafa al-Barghathi, the head of Benghazi military police, and his home in Kuwafiyah was burnt down by members of the Barghathi tribe. He then threatened Dire Revenge on the attackers.
In October 2015, evidence was produced suggesting that he had planned the murders of Mahdi al-Barghathi, now the Presidency Council’s defence minister but then the commander of the LNA’s main tank battalion fighting the murderous Moslems in Benghazi, and Salah Bughaib, the head of military intelligence unit in the city.
As the LNA offensive in Benghazi against the murderous Moslems slowly managed to throttle them, Ben Hamid created new forces loyal to himself ‐ a year and a half ago there was one called the Free Libya Martyrs Brigade. However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... by the end of 2015, he had left the city and was at various times in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , Misrata and Jufra. By mid-2016 he was a leading figure in the Benghazi Defence Brigades, based in Tripoli, which were linked to controversial grand mufti Sadek al-Ghariani and dreamed of wresting control of their city from the LNA.
In July last year, he accused Abdul Raouf Kara, the head of the Rada (Deterrance) units in Tripoli of being part of a "malicious clique".
He was reported to be in Tripoli in November. Last month, however, Mismari said that he was trapped in Ganfouda along with Makhzoum and another krazed killer commander, Salem Ben Shatwan.
Meanwhile late this afternoon, the bodies of 19 krazed killers, all thought to have taken part in yesterday’s Ganfouda breakout, were taken to Ajdbiya hospital. It is believed they include 13 who blew themselves up today when they were surrounded by LNA forces at the village of Saunau east of Ajdabiya.
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01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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[Libya Herald] Chadian prime minister Albert Pahimi Padacket has ordered the closure of his country’s border with Libya to prevent Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... Lions of Islam crossing over. The entire border zone has been declared a military area.
IS fighters, he said, were heading south in Libya and converging towards Chad.
There have been systematic reports in Libya of the bandidosmurderous Moslems moving south following their defeat in Sirte.
This latest move would, Padacket explained, "would put a stop to all attempts by Lions of Islam groups to infiltrate the national territory".
It is not clear how realistic is the assertion. The Chadian-Libyan border is extremely porous. Efforts to prevent people smuggling across it have proved extremely ineffective.
Two weeks ago, supposedly nervous about the reports of growing numbers of bandidosmurderous Moslems in southern Libya, Chad’s interior minister banned Chadians from heading there.
There are, however, allegations that the real reason for the border’s closure is not so much concern about IS Lions of Islam moving into Chad as of Chadian rebels based in Libya doing so.
A group opposed to President Idriss Deby, called the Front pour l’Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad, and which has been operating out of southern Libya is said to be growing in strength and recruiting young Chadians to its ranks.
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01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
If the remnants of ISIS in Libya meet up with the remnants of Boko Haram/ISIS, they would be less of a remnant. There's still the Arab-black African problem to make life interesting in the camp, though...
[Libya Herald] One of the Death Eaters killed yesterday in the fighting to the east of Ajdabiya has been identified as a 36 year-old Egyptian on whose body were found some US dollars as well as Saudi and Turkish currency and a quantity of jewellery.
Sources say that he was Mahmoud Kamel who joined Ansar al-Sharia ...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libyaand Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet... in Benghazi in December 2013 and took the nom de guerre Abu Rabiei al-Muhajir.
There have been press reports today that Benghazi krazed killer leader Wissam Ben Hamid is not in fact dead. Ansar al-Sharia front man Naizar Jalal Atwier reportedly told his Libyan National Army captors yesterday that Ben Hamid had been killed in an Arclight airstrike at the end of December.
Sources in the Benghazi Revolutionaries’ Shoura Council were quoted by the Libyan Express saying that Ben Hamid was alive and well and still fighting in Benghazi.
Meanwhile the front man for the Bunyan Marsous ...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, Solid Base) An operation carried out by Misratan forces loyal to the Libyan Goverenment of National Accord to dislodge ISIS forces from Sirte. 2,500 turbans were reported killed in the operation, which lasted from May through December.GNA's Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj officially announced the end of military operations on 18 December 2016... operation, Brigadier Mohammed al-Ghasri has said on television LNA chief Khalifa Hafter had colluded in the escape of IS from Benghazi. Ghasri said that he had information that clearly showed that Hafter had facilitated the withdrawal of the Death Eaters from the city to Bani Walid. He did not reveal any details.
However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... LNA forces have yet to occupy the remaining Benghazi terrorist enclaves of Ganfouda, Sabri and Suq al-Hut where, according to the BRSC statement, Ben Hamid is still fighting and has not apparently taken advantage of any deal struck with Hafter.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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[Libya Observer] The sudden escape of ISIS bandidos bad boys from Benghazi’s Ganfouda and al-Sabri districts was a big surprise for the residents of east Libya who have been repeatedly assured by Dignity Operation Command that security situations in Benghazi are fully controlled.
After more than 2 years of fighting, Dignity Operation keeps confirming that all of its enemies (Benghazi Shura Council and ISIS) are besieged inside their strongholds and that defeating them has become imminent.
But the escape of an ISIS convoy from Benghazi at the dawn of Thursday has raised several questions on how did they manage to leave the city into the desert without being thwarted despite the presence of several Dignity Operation checkpoints on the way.
Some Dignity Operation media outlets have accused Saiqa Forces Captain Mahmoud al-Wirfally, the commander of western Benghazi front line, of coordinating their escape from Sabri and Ganfouda. Saiqa denied the accusations and called in a statement to set up an investigation into the ISIS escape and bring the controllers to justice.
The Commander of Air Operations of Dignity Operation Brigadier General Mohammed al-Manfoor declared that the escape of ISIS convoy was a big surprise for them. He confirmed to Libya News TV that al-Sabri and Ganfouda districts are under tight siege and it is very difficult for anyone to flee without being noticed.
"Don’t ask me how did this convoy manage to escape from this siege? There must be strict procedures to identify the controllers," he told the news presenter.
Benghazi Security Chief Col. Salah Huwaydi confirmed the mass escape of ISIS and said investigations into this security breach are ongoing.
Benghazi Shura Council said all ISIS bandidosbandidos bad boys in al-Sabri and Ganfouda districts were given a safe corridor by Dignity Operation fighters to leave from the western gate of the city.
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01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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[al-Manar] Yemeni army and Popular Committees fought off a major advance by Saudi-led aggression forces towards Thobab city in Taez, killing a large number of militiamen as 8 cars used to evacuate the corpses and the injured were seen in the area, according to a military source.
A number of Saudi-led mercenaries were killed or injured by the Yemeni army and popular committees who repelled their attack on Kahbub area in Lahj province.
Yemeni army and Popular Committees destroyed a Saudi military vehicle in Al-Nashma post in Assir, inflicting casualties among its crew members.
The Saudi warplanes raided a number of Yemeni areas in support of their mercenaries.
Yemen has been since March 26, 2015 under brutal aggression by Saudi-led coalition.Thousands have been martyred and injured in the attack, with the vast majority of them are civilians.
Riyadh launched the attack on Yemen in a bid to restore power to fugitive ex-president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi who is a close ally to Saudi Arabia.
[al-Manar] Saudi security forces on Saturday shot and killed two suspected terrorists including an explosive belt maker during a police operation in the north of the capital, the interior ministry said.
Suspect Tayeh al-Saihari, who had been wanted by authorities for his alleged involvement in terrorist attacks, was spotted in a house in a northern Riyadh neighbourhood, a ministry spokesman said.
In a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, the spokesman said that Saihari was with Talal al-Saidi, also wanted by the authorities on suspicion of belonging to terrorist groups.
Security forces surrounded the house at dawn and ordered the suspects to surrender but they refused and opened fire on the police who then launched an assault, killing them both, he said.
The interior ministry said two explosive belts “ready to be activated” were found in the house, as well as a homemade bomb and material that could be used to make explosives.
It said that Saihari had “prepared the explosive belts that were used in suicide attacks”, including the deadly bombing of a headquarters of the special forces in 2015 and near the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina last July.
ADEN, Yemen: Yemeni government forces attacked rebel positions on the Red Sea coast on Saturday sparking clashes in which six soldiers and 11 rebels were killed, a loyalist commander said.
The assault on the coastal district of Dhubab, just 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the Bab Al-Mandab Strait where the busy shipping lane enters the Arabian Sea, came after the government sent reinforcements from its headquarters in Aden.
The government and its allies in a Saudi-led coalition recaptured the strait in October 2015.
But the rebels still control nearly all Yemen’s Red Sea coast to the north, posing what the coalition says is a threat to international shipping.
In September and October, two US warships and a United Arab Emirates vessel contracted to the coalition were targeted by missile fire from rebel-held territory.
The loyalist offensive failed to dislodge the rebels from their positions as they put up fierce resistance, leaving many wounded on both sides, the commander said.
The Yemeni conflict has killed more than 7,000 people since the coalition’s military intervention began in March 2015, according to the United Nations.
[AA.TR] Pakistain’s controversial military courts will no longer be functioning from Saturday after completing their two-year term, officials said.
"The military courts’ two-year term has been completed on Friday. The government has no plans to extend their tenure," Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ...Currently the Interior Minister of Pakistain. He is the senior leader of the Pak Moslem League (N) and a close aide to Nawaz Uncle Fester Sharif. He is noted for his vocal anti-American railing in the National Assembly. However (comma) Khan told the U.S. ambassador that he was in fact pro-American but he and the PML-N would have to be critical of US actions in order to remain publicly credible. Khan cited his wife and children's US citizenship as proof, which means he's lying to one side or the other and probably both. He wears a wig, but you probably guessed that. since hair doesn't grow naturally in that shape or texture... was quoted as saying by local channel Geo TV. The military courts were instituted because the civilian courts were a) slow b) subject to witness intimidation c) subject to judicial intimidation. Pakistain being what it is, I'm guessing none of those problems have been rectified.
Pakistain had established military courts in January 2015 through a constitutional amendment following a gruesome gun-and kaboom on an army-run school in northwestern Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. city in December 2014, which killed over 140 people, mostly students.
All the terrorism related cases, which were being tried in the military courts, will now be taken up by the anti-terror courts, the interior minister said.
The army courts -vehemently opposed by the human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... and lawyers associations- were set up to try the hardcore Lions of Islam who, according to the government, otherwise avoid punishment due to weak and cumbersome judicial system.
The country’s Supreme Court, while rejecting the appeals from human rights organizations against army courts, had also upheld the government’s decision.
The military courts tried some 275 cases in last two years, in which 161 Lions of Islam were handed down death penalties, while over 150 were given varying jail terms. Only 12 out of total 161 death row prisoners were executed during this period, while others’ appeals against their convictions are pending in the supreme and high courts.
Pakistain also lifted a 6-year long de facto ban on capital punishment in December 2014 following the deadly attack on a Peshawar school.
Over 300 convicts have been executed since December 2014, whereas nearly 7000 death-row prisoners are languishing in jails.
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Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi army forces recaptured on Saturday one more district in eastern Mosul as a second phase of security operations continue to clear the region from Islamic State militants.
Abdul-Amir Yarallah, the top commander of the joint forces operations in Nineveh, said in a statement that elite Counter-Terrorism Service forces have retaken al-Ghofran district, southeast of the city, raising Iraqi flags above its buildings.
Marking the 96th anniversary of the establishment of the Iraqi army, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said forces had, so far, recaptured two thirds of Nineveh, the province embedding Mosul.
Military officials were quoted recently as saying that government troops became in control of 70 percent of the city’s eastern section. Advances made on Friday put the forces one more step closer to the Tigris River, which bisects the city.
Iraq’s defense ministry media has put the number of Islamic State fighters killed this week at 1757 since a second phase of operations kicked off after weeks of recess.
IS remains in control over most of the western side of the city, which is close to its strongholds in Syria.
The conflict in Mosul has forced at least 160.000 to flee homes to refugee camps since October, when operations launched to liberate the city.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi security forces seized on Saturday an Islamic State command center and two prisons run by the extremist group in eastern Mosul, a senior military official said.
Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Yarallah, who commands joint forces operations seeking to retake Nineveh from militants, said in a statement that Federal Police’s “rapid response” forces also became in control of al-Salam, al-Shefa and the Faculty of Medicine in the eastern section of Mosul.
Iraqi government forces, backed by a US-led military coalition, began on December 29th a second phase of an operation that launched in October 2016 to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and IS largest stronghold in the country.
Marking the 96th anniversary of the establishment of the Iraqi army on Thursday, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said forces had, so far, recaptured two thirds of Nineveh, the province embedding Mosul.
Military officials were quoted recently as saying that government troops became in control of 70 percent of the Mosul’s eastern section. Advances made on Friday put the forces one more step closer to the Tigris River, which bisects the city. IS remains in control over most of the western side of the city, which is close to its strongholds in Syria.
Iraq’s defence ministry media has put the number of Islamic State fighters killed this week at 1757 since a second phase of operations kicked off after weeks of recess.
The conflict in Mosul has forced at least 160.000 to flee homes to refugee camps since October, when operations launched to liberate the city.
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) Forces from Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) liberated the first and second neighborhoods of al-Ataba, east of Mosul.
Commander of We Are Coming, Nineveh Operations, Major General Abdel Amir Yarallah, said in a press statement, “Forces from Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service managed, at noon today, to liberate the first and second neighborhoods of al-Ataba, east of Mosul, and raised Iraqi flag over their buildings.”
“The Counter-Terrorism forces also recaptures the road leading to the 4th bridge in Mosul,” Yarallah added.
Joint security forces, backed by Army Aviation and international coalition air force, continue the battle to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State’s control.
(Reuters) Iraqi special forces closed in on the Tigris river that runs through central Mosul on Saturday, advancing in parallel with other troops and forcing Islamic State to retreat in its last major stronghold in the country.
Turkey and Iraq meanwhile came to an agreement over a demand for the withdrawal of Turkish forces from an area close to Mosul, Baghdad said, as the two regional powers sought to improve ties after a spat last year over Ankara’s military deployment.
Turkey’s prime minister did not say a deal had been reached, but that the issue was discussed and would be resolved.
Advances by Iraqi forces in recent days, including Saturday’s push to within several hundred meters (yards) of the Tigris, involved an unprecedented nighttime assault by elite forces and have driven the ultra-hardline militant group out of several areas east of the river.
The U.S.-backed operation to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, which began in October, initially progressed well before slowing towards the end of the year amid fierce IS resistance and the presence of large numbers of civilians. It has picked up momentum again in a new phase launched last week.
Counter-terrorism service (CTS) forces were the closest they had been to the Tigris inside Mosul and closing in on a strategic bridge, supported by new tactics and better coordination, their spokesman said.
“Counter-terrorism forces have been sent about 500m from the fourth bridge,” Sabah al-Numan told reporters east of Mosul.
CTS seized the Ghufran district, previously known as al-Baath, and entered neighboring Wahda, he said.
A separate military statement said Iraqi federal police had recaptured a hospital complex in Wahda in southeastern Mosul, a significant turnaround after army units were forced to withdraw from the site last month.
CTS and federal police “are now moving in parallel on both axes” in southeastern Mosul, Numan said.
“We are proceeding side by side … and advancing at the same level. This is a very important factor, thanks to which Daesh (Islamic State) has not been able to move its fighters. It has to support one axis (front) at the expense of another.
“We have worn down the terrorist organization with this type of advance.”
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[AA.TR] Coalition warplanes killed 27 civilians in Arclight airstrikes in Iraq’s djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... city on Saturday, an Iraqi doctor said.
Dr. Ahmed Raid al-Hamadani, an official with Mosul operations' mobile hospitals unit, told Anadolu Agency: "As far as we have learnt from eyewitnesses, a civilian convey of 10 vehicles was targeted by coalition forces in eastern part of Mosul, where ISIS has no connection."
Al-Hamadani said at least 15 people were killed in the attack.
In a separate operation, coalition planes also hit Ibn al-Haysum, a civilian residential neighborhood in southeastern Mosul, killing 12 civilians, including women and kiddies, he added.
The coalition operation command did not make any official statement regarding the allegations.
The Iraqi military, backed by U.S.-led coalition warplanes and local allies on the ground, is currently engaged in a major offensive aimed at ousting ISIS from Mosul, which the group overran in 2014.
Since the operation began last October, Iraqi forces have reportedly recaptured more than a quarter of Mosul, once considered Iraq’s second largest city in terms of population.
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Salahuddin (IraqiNews.com) A security source in Salahuddin Province revealed that 19 civilians, including women and children, were wounded in a bomb blast that targeted families while fleeing from the IS-held areas, in eastern the province, Alsumaria reported on Saturday.
The source said, “An improvised explosive device exploded, before noon today, in the area of Hamrin, in eastern Salahuddin, targeting families fleeing from the IS-held areas in Hawija District.”
“The blast wounded 19 civilians, including women and children,” the source explained.
“Civilians fleeing from the IS-held areas are attacked on daily basis using improvised explosive devices,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
The areas of Hawija, Rashad, Zab, Riyad and Abbasi, southwest of Kirkuk, were captured by the Islamic State extremist group since June 10, 2014.
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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Five people were either killed or wounded when an explosive device exploded in southern Baghdad on Saturday, police sources have said.
“An IED exploded this morning near a popular marketplace in Qarghoul, Youssefiya, south of Baghdad, killing one person and wounding four others,” the sources told Alsumaria News.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said recently that violence in Iraq had left 19000 casualties in 2016, but said the count excludes deaths in Anbar during three months of that year.
Attacks across Baghdad in the past week, some claimed by the ultra-hardline Sunni group, have killed more than 60 people, Reuters said.
Observers believe Islamic State have begun to escalate attacks outside the city of Mosul, where the group has been losing ground and personnel since October, so as to relieve pressure on that front by government forces, and to divert attention from losses. Government forces, assisted by a US-led military coalition and popular militias, are battling the extremist group since October to recapture cities the group occupied since 2014 to establish a self-styled “Islamic Caliphate”.
Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi army forces recaptured two regions around Islamic State stronghold towns in Anbar province as operations launched two days ago to clear western regions from militants.
Qassem al-Mohammadi, commander of the army’s al-Jazeera Operations, said Saturday that security forces had isolated the regions of Sakra, in the southwest, and Zawia , in the northwest, from IS stronghold towns of Annah and Rawa, adding that the two areas are being combed.
Mohammadi said 30 Islamic State militants were killed in the operation, while 300 explosive devices had been defused.
Islamic State fighters have used regions of western Anbar, near the borders with Syria, as launching points for attacks against civilians and security forces. Iraqi security and coalition forces responded with occasional strikes on those locations.
Military commanders and local officials said Friday troops recaptured nearly 11 villages in western Anbar.
The most outstanding battle against IS in Iraq has been running since October at the city of Mosul, the country’s second largest city and the formerly proclaimed capital of the militants’ self-styled “Islamic Caliphate”. Generals say they have become in control over 70 percent of the city’s eastern section and hope to advance towards the western section on the borders with Syria.
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[NYT] JERUSALEM -- A truck rammed into a group of Israeli soldiers who were disembarking from a bus in Jerusalem Sunday, killing four people and wounding 15 others, Israeli police and rescue services said.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the truck veered off course and rammed into the group. She said the attacker was shot dead.
The attack comes amid a more than yearlong wave of Palestinian shooting, stabbing and vehicular attacks against Israelis that has slowed of late. Sunday's incident marks the first Israeli casualties in three months.
Since September 2015, Palestinian attackers have killed 40 Israelis and two visiting Americans. During that time, 229 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were attackers while the rest died in clashes.
Israel says the violence is driven by a Palestinian campaign of incitement, while Palestinians say it's the result of nearly 50 years of Israeli occupation and dwindling hopes for an independent state.
Update from the article at 12:15 p.m. ET:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the driver was a supporter of the Islamic State group, and suggested the attack was inspired by similar assaults in Europe.
The attacker came from the east Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, near the attack site. Police barred publication of his name.
Neighbors said he espoused an ultra-conservative version of Islam, known as Salafism, but that he did not have a known affiliation with any Palestinian political faction. Salafism is split into peaceful and violent streams, with the latter promoting ideas that are close to those of IS.
Neither IS nor any other group claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack.
Netanyahu said Israel had blockaded Jabel Mukaber and was planning other steps, but did not elaborate. He said the dead were all soldiers — three women and a man. The Israeli military said three were cadets and one was an officer.
Palestinian media reports named him as Fadi al-Qanbar, 28. Channel 2 said he was in his late 20s, married with four children, and had served time in Israeli prison. It said he purchased the truck recently.
[AnNahar] A senior member of former al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham ...formerly al-Nusra, the current false nose and mustache of al-Qaeda in the Levant... Front was killed by a drone in northern Syria Friday, a monitor said, in the latest strike against the group's leadership.
"A leading member of the Fateh al-Sham Front, Abu al-Hassan Taftanaz, died in a drone attack" in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
An Islamic legal scholar belonging to the group, Taftanaz's son, also died in the raid, it said.
It did not identify the drone that carried out the strike, but the Pentagon on Thursday said it had killed about 20 snuffies this week in air strikes in Idlib province.
The Observatory said Friday at least 35 members of the group had been killed since Sunday, including fighters and commanders, in international coalition air raids and dronezaps.
The US-led coalition is striking Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're 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 the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group targets in Syria, but has also targeted leaders from other groups including the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which has renamed itself Fatah al-Sham.
The Pentagon has repeatedly targeted the group's leadership in recent months.
In November it said it had killed Abu Afghan al-Masri, a senior commander who previously operated in Afghanistan.
In October, the Pentagon said a US air strike near Idlib had targeted a Nusra big shot, Ahmed Salama Mabrouk, an Egyptian also known by his nom de guerre Abu Faraj.
[ARA News] Qamishli – Subsequent to clashes with Islamic State’s (ISIS) militants, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Saturday captured eight villages in Syria’s northeastern Raqqa Governorate, military sources reported.
Renewed clashes hit the western countryside of Raqqa, where the SDF continued their operations against ISIS as part of the battle for Raqqa.
Supported by an air cover from the US-led coalition, the SDF troops expelled ISIS militants from at least eight villages on Saturday, including al-Tallaj, al-Nasiriya, Um Hajra and Bir Ardai.
At least 19 ISIS militants were killed and several others were injured during the clashes.
The Kurdish-Arab alliance of SDF also seized a large deal of ammunition and light weapons after pushing ISIS out of large areas in western Raqqa.
The SDF reported the liberation of more than 120 villages in the western countryside of Raqqa Governorate since the launch of the second phase of the battle for Raqqa last month.
Habun Osman, an SDF officer, told ARA News: “We have liberated 122 villages in western Raqqa since the launch of the second phase of Euphrates Wrath Operation on December 10.”
“The clashes are now centred in the vicinity of the strategic Suwaydiya town in Raqqa suburb,” the Kurdish officer said.
The US-backed forces also reported the death of more than 300 ISIS jihadists in the past few weeks of military operations.
Supported by the US-led coalition, the SDF has so far captured more than 1550 km² in western Raqqa within the second phase of the Euphrates Wrath Operation, that started on December 10. During the first phase of Euphrates Wrath, that was launched on November 6, the SDF captured roughly 560 km² of land in northern Raqqa.
The SDF launched the second phase of the Euphrates Wrath Operation with the objective of securing Raqqa’s western countryside and Tabqa Dam, which bridges the Euphrates River. The long-term objective of Euphrates Wrath is the elimination of the Islamic State in its de facto capital, Raqqa city.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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Aleppo – Airforces of the US-led coalition on Saturday conducted dozens of airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, targeting key strongholds of the Islamic State (ISIS).
The coalition launched 27 airstrikes in Syria, targeting ISIS tactical units, supply routes and facilities in the governorates of Deir ez-Zor, Idlib and Raqqa, according to an official statement by the coalition’s central command.
In Raqqa, the coalition conducted 12 airstrikes, destroying eight ISIS tactical unit, two supply routes, 14 oil refinement tanks, seven fighting positions, a vehicle bomb facility, a vehicle bomb, an ISIS-held building, an artillery system, and a bunker system.
Two other strikes hit ISIS strongholds in Ayn Issa town in northern Raqqa and destroyed an artillery system, a fighting position and a tactical unit.
The US-led coalition also reported that it struck ISIS-held oil facilities in Deir ez-Zor in eastern Syria with nine air attacks, and destroyed 18 oil refinement stills, 15 oil pump jacks and an oil well head.
Al-Bukamal city in Deir ez-Zor Governorate was also hit by a coalition airstrike that engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a vehicle.
“Near Idlib, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit. Near Manbij, two strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a command and control node,” the US coalition added.
Also on Saturday, the anti-ISIS coalition reported that its warplanes conducted 11 air raids in Iraq, targeting ISIS tactical units and weaponry centres in Mosul, Haditha, Tel Afar, Huwayjah and Rawah.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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A fuel truck exploded in the busy center of a rebel-held town near Syria's border with Turkey on Saturday, killing dozens of people and wounding dozens more, several sources said, Reuters reported Jan. 7.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 43 people, mostly civilians, were killed when the tanker blew up in front of a courthouse in the northern Syrian town of Azaz. Dozens more had severe injuries, said the Observatory, which monitors the violence in the country.
In unsourced comments, Turkey's privately-owned Dogan news agency said a car bomb planted by Islamic State was responsible. Saturday's explosion was heard across the border in the Turkish town of Kilis, Dogan said.
Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency cited a doctor in Azaz as saying at least 60 people had been killed and more than 50 wounded. Anadolu said 23 wounded people had been taken by ambulance to Kilis hospital, one of whom subsequently died.
An Azaz resident who went to the local hospital told Reuters he had counted around 30 bodies laid out.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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As part of the ongoing ‘Shield of Euphrates’ operation, Turkish Air Force has destroyed 12 facilities of terrorists of the ‘Islamic State’ (aka IS, ISIL, ISIS, or Daesh) terrorist group in the Al-Bab, Bzagah, Suflaniyah and Qabr al-Muqri regions in northern Syria, the Anadolu Agency reported Jan. 7 citing the Turkish General Staff.
A command post and fortifications of terrorists have been destroyed. Meanwhile, 21 terrorists have been killed.
On Aug. 24 morning, the Turkish Air Force, with the support of the coalition aircraft, launched an operation to liberate the city of Jarabulus from the IS militants in northern Syria, near Aleppo.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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60 ISIS families flee western Mosul The missus won't be happy...
Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) A local source in Nineveh Province revealed that more than 60 families of the Islamic State’s leaders arrived in al-Ba’j area, fleeing from the western side of Mosul, Alsumaria News reported on Saturday.
The source said, “More than 60 families of the Islamic State’s Arab and foreign leaders arrived, today, to al-Ba’j District, fleeing from the western side of the city of Mosul.”
“The fleeing families might move to the Iraqi-Syrian borders towards the city of Raqqa. The migration of the IS families from Mosul is an evidence that security forces will win the battle against the extremist group,” the source added.
Joint security forces, backed by Army Aviation and international coalition air force, continue the battle to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State’s control.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/08/2017 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[AA.TR] At least five people, including three soldiers were killed and 13 others 
Jubbaland state troops have retaken control of Bulo-Gadud district, about 30Km north of Kismayo, the coastal city in Somalia’s southern Lower Jubba region on Friday.
[Libya Herald] Benghazi
...(al-Bunyan al-Marsous, 
[AA.TR] Pakistain’s controversial military courts will no longer be functioning from Saturday after completing their two-year term, officials said. 
All the terrorism related cases, which were being tried in the military courts, will now be taken up by the anti-terror courts, the interior minister said. 
[AA.TR] Coalition warplanes killed 27 civilians in 
[AnNahar] A senior member of former al-Qaeda affiliate 
Aleppo – Airforces of the US-led coalition on Saturday conducted dozens of airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, targeting key strongholds of the Islamic State (ISIS).
As part of the ongoing ‘Shield of Euphrates’ operation, Turkish Air Force has destroyed 12 facilities of terrorists of the ‘Islamic State’ (aka IS, ISIL, ISIS, or Daesh) terrorist group in the Al-Bab, Bzagah, Suflaniyah and Qabr al-Muqri regions in northern Syria, the Anadolu Agency reported Jan. 7 citing the Turkish General Staff.
