Tagged: ISIS

August 16th, 2021 Breaking News

Islamic State Attacks Iraqi Oil Field

OILPRICE.COM —

An attack with an explosive device on an oil field in the northern Iraqi region of Kirkuk was blamed on Islamic State militants, according to an unnamed source who spoke to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency.

No damage was done to the field, Bai Hassan, according to the source.

Earlier this year, suspected Islamic State militants blew up two oil wells at the Bai Hassan field, killing at least one security officer and setting the oil wells ablaze.

The Bai Hassan field that can produce around 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil has more than 120 oil wells. Based on these reports, it is an attractive target for the Islamic State, which despite international efforts, is alive and well in Iraq and Syria.

A recent report by VOA News cited intelligence agencies as saying that the terrorist group remained resilient and ready to spring back out when the U.S. implemented its plans to “recede deep into the background.”

“The group has evolved into an entrenched insurgency, exploiting weaknesses in local security to find safe havens and targeting forces engaged in counter-ISIL operations,” a report by the UN sanctions monitoring team said.

“Attacks in Baghdad in January and April 2021 underscore the group’s resilience despite heavy counter-terrorism pressure from Iraqi authorities,” the report also said. Islamic State “is likely to continue attacking civilians and other soft targets in the capital whenever possible to garner media attention and embarrass the Government of Iraq.”

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October 8th, 2018 Related News

Report: White House counterterrorism strategy dismantles terrorist networks, stops recruitment

(LAS VEGAS NOW) — The threat of terrorism and how to fight it is the topic of a 25-page report released by the White House this month.

The report states how counterterrorism isn’t just about killing or capturing terrorists; it’s also about dismantling terrorist networks and stopping recruitment for their groups, which is tough, considering they have a major tool in the internet that allows them to connect with people.

“We will continue to work with friends and allies to deny radical Islamic terrorists any funding, territory or support, or any means of infiltrating our borders,” President Donald Trump said.

According to the National Strategy for Counterterrorism, today’s terrorist landscape made up of radical Islamic terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al Qaida, along with domestic terrorism, is more fluid and complex than ever. The more technology advances, the more cyber threats increase.

“In cyber warfare or cyber terrorism, it can affect the entire United States,” said Shannon Wilkinson, Axiom Cyber Solutions. “It’s kind of like the new arms race if you think about it. Cybersecurity or cyber is like the new tenant of warfare.”

Axiom Cyber Solutions is a Las Vegas-based company that works with businesses and public agencies to help protect them from cyber threats, and at times to respond to them once they’ve already been hit.

“Cyber is really like the new frontier,” Wilkinson said. “They’re all nation-state actors from China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Russia, of course, and Ukraine, all trying to break into not only businesses.”

Terrorists are also using the internet to recruit. Wilkinson does public outreach at locations like schools. Her advice on cyber safety continues to evolve, just like the threats do.

“Just being kind of aware if your children are online; what are they doing? Who are they talking to? If they get sucked into one of these schemes where somebody is trying to recruit them overseas,” Wilkinson said.

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October 7th, 2018 Breaking News

‘TREATED LIKE ANIMALS’ ISIS sex slave reveals harrowing details of abuse suffered at hands of jihadi thugs as women screamed and vomited in terror

(THE SUN) — A YOUNG woman who has just won the Noble Peace prize has revealed horrifying details of being forced into sexual slavery by ISIS.

Nadia Murad, 25, spoke of how she and other Yazidi women screamed and vomited in sheer fear when jihadis kidnapped them.

At age 19, ISIS soldiers attacked the Yazidi community in her village, killing 600 people including six of her brothers and stepbrothers.

She was taken into slavery and beaten, burned with cigarettes and raped when she tried to escape.

Writing in her autobiography featured in The Guardian, Nadia recalled one night at a slave market following her capture.

She said: “We could hear the commotion downstairs where militants were registering and organizing, and when the first man entered the room, all the girls started screaming.”

Nadia’s book, “The Last Girl,” tells of her captivity, the loss of her family and her eventual escape.

It featured, recalls in harrowing detail this examination process before she was sold like cattle.

She said: “The militants touched us anywhere they wanted, running their hands over our breasts and our legs, as if we were animals.”

But her ordeal worsened when she met a high-ranking militant named Salwan – whom she described as “looking like a monster”.

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October 4th, 2018 Breaking News, Related News

ISIS’s Second Resurgence

(Institute for the Study of War) — The Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) is reconstituting a capable insurgent force in Iraq and Syria despite efforts to prevent its recovery by the U.S. Anti-ISIS Coalition. The U.S. Department of Defense stated in August 2018 that ISIS retains nearly 30,000 fighters across Iraq and Syria and is “more capable” than Al-Qaeda in Iraq – ISIS’s predecessor – at its peak in 2006 – 2007. ISIS is waging an effective campaign to reestablish durable support zones while raising funds and rebuilding command-and-control over its remnant forces. On its current trajectory, ISIS could regain sufficient strength to mount a renewed insurgency that once again threatens to overmatch local security forces in both Iraq and Syria. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) is issuing a map update depicting ISIS’s current operating areas based on an analysis of its activity from January 1, 2018 to October 1, 2018.

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May 5th, 2018 Breaking News

Former ISIS Fighter: Islamic State Will Return With More Rigid Ideology

(OANN) — A former ISIS fighter issues a warning to the U.S. the ideology of the Islamic State will not go away.

Thursday, a Belgian man claiming to be one of the first foreign members of ISIS, gave an interview from a terrorist prison in Syria.

He warned of continued plots and splinter groups that will arise from the now defeated Muslim caliphate in Syria.

He said fighters were already planning to organize break away terror groups before the fall of Raqqa.

Reports show, many displaced ISIS fighters from Syria and Iraq are now moving to areas of the Philippines, where one in five residents are Muslim.

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April 21st, 2018 Breaking News

“Soon in your country”: ISIS Threatens to Set Seattle Ablaze

(PJ MEDIA) — By Bridget Johnson

ISIS supporters released posters this week depicting President Trump in an orange jumpsuit like the terror group uses for prisoners in execution videos and showing Seattle ablaze.

The first poster, stating “soon in your country” and “a message to America,” photoshops Trump’s head on the body of a kneeling prisoner as the late Mohammed Emwazi, aka British terrorist “Jihadi John,” stands beside him with knife in hand.

The background is church pews and stained-glass windows, with the point of view toward the altar.

In the second poster, a camouflage-clad Trump is depicted again kneeling in front of an executioner who points a gun at his head. Another jihadist stands nearby with his foot on a disembodied head.

In the background, a handful of buildings are on fire in the Seattle skyline.

The releases are reminiscent of a cache of posters spread across ISIS Telegram channels and social media late last year.

ISIS supporters circulated a gruesome Christmastime poster depicting the beheading of Barron Trump, showing a masked jihadist standing over an adult body in an orange jumpsuit with the 11-year-old’s head photoshopped into the terrorist’s hand.

The ISIS supporters’ holiday threat spree essentially took the terror group’s PR into their own hands with a flurry of propaganda posters encouraging lone jihadists to attack, including one reiterating previous calls to “put terror in their hearts by running them over or stabbing them or burning structures and forests.”

Another poster from ISIS supporters circulated in the holiday spree showed an armed jihadist overlooking a Christmas display as the Statue of Liberty loomed overhead. “Make your motto ‘I will not survive if they cross worshiper survived,'” jihadists were advised.

“And for you Crusaders, we swear by Allah the Almighty you will see the strength of the Caliphate Soldiers, and the battles will be in your homeland, we will break your cross and destroy your thrones and we will shed your blood,” the text added. “And the news is what you see not what you hear.”

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April 13th, 2018 Breaking News

ISIS ‘Beatles’ in chilling terror warning: ‘There will be MORE attacks in Europe’

(UK EXPRESS) — By Latifa Yedroudj

TWO men thought to be members of the ISIS ‘Beatles’ terror cell have declared there will be “more IS-inspired attacks in Europe”. The duo, Alexanda Kotey and Shafee Elsheikh, were captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) this year.

The men, both from west London, did not deny being members of the ‘Beatles’ group and appeared to show no regret for their actions in an interview for Sky News today.

They did not denounce terror attacks in London, Manchester, Paris and Brussels and said that joined the Islamic State for “religious reasons” and accepted being a part of IS.

Speaking to Chief Correspondent Stuart Ramsay, Shafee Elsheikh said:

“There is a difference being aligned to Islamic state or agreeing with Islamic State policy.

“It is by default, just like being born into a certain country.

“We are British citizens, do you agree with everything beingd done in the UK?”

Replying to comments from Mr Ramsay, Mr Elsheikh said:

“You being a British citizen, you don’t turn around one day after the UK commits a war crime or an act of terrorism… and say this isn’t what I signed up for.”

Alexanda Kotey, a 34-year-old from Paddington, was described by his neighbors as a “reserved and polite boy”.

He left to Syria in 2009, leaving behind his London life and two children.

Since becoming a member of IS, the terrorist is believed to have helped recruit other Britons to join the terror group.

El Shafee Elsheikh came to the UK as a child refugee from Sudan.

The 29-year-old worked as a mechanic and was described by his mother as “very clever” and a “nice boy”.

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March 29th, 2018 Related News

The women stolen by ISIS speak out: Dunya Mikhail details their journeys in new book

(THE NATIONAL) — By M. Lynx Qualey

It was the summer of 2014 when Dunya Mikhail learned that ISIS forces were not only kidnapping Iraqi women, but buying and selling them in open markets. Mikhail, an Iraqi poet living in the United States, says she “felt so insulted as a woman.” The Iraqi poet was so enraged by the treatment of women in her homeland by ISIS that she wrote a book detailing their pain – and strength

Mikhail, who now teaches at Michigan State University, went on to write Fi Souq Al Sabaya, which was longlisted for this year’s Sheikh Zayed Book Award. The English edition, titled The Beekeeper: Saving the Stolen Women of Iraq, was co-translated by the author and Max Weiss and was published by New Directions this month. The book is also being translated into Sorani Kurdish.

On the news, she heard of people being ordered to leave their homes. Online, she watched videos of hundreds of Iraqis fleeing on foot, many of them Yazidis. When Mikhail heard these women’s stories, she said: “I didn’t know what to do with my anger, but I contacted my friends in northern Iraq.”

She called a Yazidi journalist friend, who told her he’d heard horrifying stories from women who’d been kidnapped and escaped. He sent her the phone numbers of three women. At first, Mikhail didn’t call, as she wasn’t sure what to say. When she finally picked up the phone, the first two women spoke Kurdish, and Mikhail knew only a few words. At the third number, a man answered in Arabic. This was Abdullah, “The Beekeeper”, and he helped relay his cousin Nadia’s story. He also told Mikhail he was using his earnings from selling honey to assemble a network of smugglers and help women escape.

Mikhail is a multi-award-winning poet, the author of Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea and The War Works Hard (translated by Elizabeth Winslow) and The Iraqi Nights (translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid). Yet although she wrote for The Baghdad Observer as a young woman, it had been a long time since she’d practiced journalism.

“In the beginning,” she said, “I thought I was going to write a long poem – an epic – in response to that crisis.”

But the more she heard women’s stories, and spoke with Abdullah about his attempts to help escapees, the more she “wanted to stay behind the story and not in front of it, so that I could let their voices be heard”. There are still poetic moments in the book, which Mikhail says she kept “as breaks for the reader and myself”.

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March 2nd, 2018 Related News

ISIS, The Koran, and The Hudud

(UNDERSTANDING THE THREAT) — ISIS crucifies Christians, kills apostates (those who leave Islam), and amputates the hands of those who steal.

How do they justify such barbaric behavior? These cruel punishments are commands from allah in the Koran.

The Hudud is a part of sharia (Islamic Law), and contains the seven (7) crimes specifically listed in the Koran along with their punishments. If it is in the Koran, according to Islam, it is the word of allah as revealed to Mohammad.

Punishments for hudud crimes are fixed and, therefore, cannot be altered by an Islamic judge’s ruling.

Four of the seven offenses are punishable by death. They include fornication, adultery, armed robbery, and rebellion.

For instance, for armed robbery Koran 5:33 states: “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and his messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land.”

The other hudud crimes include punishments for: fornication (sex outside of marriage) for which Koran 24:2 prescribes “The woman and the man guilty for fornication flog each of them with a hundred lashes: let not compassion move you in their case in a matter prescribed by Allah”; false accusation of sexual intercourse; drinking intoxicants; and theft.

On September 24, 2014, an open letter to the leader of ISIS Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi signed by 126 Islamic leaders, including senior scholars across the globe, was published.

The letter stated: “Hudud punishments are fixed in the Qur’an and Hadith and are unquestionably obligatory in Islamic Law.”

The signatories included leaders of prominent U.S. Islamic organizations including: the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) also known as Hamas; the Fiqh Council of North America; the North American Imams Federation; and others.

Its in the Koran, which means allah said it. U.S. Islamic leaders condone it. ISIS does it.

What is all the fuss about?

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December 28th, 2017 Breaking News

Chinese troops arrive in Syria to fight Uyghur rebels

(JERUSALEM CENTER FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS) — By Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah

The Syrian conflict has an endless capability to surprise analysts as seemingly every other day a new element, unprecedented in the Syrian civil war, comes to the surface.

Such is the case with the arrival of the first Chinese Army special forces unit, “the Night Tigers,” to Syria’s Tartous port on the Mediterranean, according to reports in Arab media close to the Assad and Tehran regimes (the Al-Mayadeen TV channel).2

The Night Tigers were dispatched by Beijing to fight the Uyghurs, the Muslim Chinese ethnic group fighting with the rebel forces against the Assad regime.

According to these press reports, Beijing planned to send two units from the Special Operations Forces – the “Tigers of Siberia” and the “Night Tigers” – to assist Assad’s regime against Chinese Uyghurs fighting with radical Muslim organizations in Syria. However, unlike the news reporting about the arrival of the “Night Tigers,” no confirmation has been received yet on the second unit.

According to the Syrian ambassador to China, some 5,000 ethnic Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang province are presently in Syria. President Assad stressed the “crucial cooperation” between Syria and Chinese intelligence against Uyghur militants last year. Following the visit of Chinese Admiral Guan Yufi mid-2016 to Syria, the Chinese military has been present in Syria to train Syrian forces on Chinese-made weapons, intelligence gathering, logistics, and field medicine.3

Since the beginning of the civil war in Syria and Iraq, Uyghurs have flocked to the Middle East and joined the rebel forces fighting the Assad regime and the Iranian-backed Shiite regime in Iraq. The Uyghurs joined various jihadist militias, suchJabhat al-Nusra Front, Hayaat Tahrir el-Sham, as the and ISIS.

The first reports that Uyghurs returned home to Western China from Syria emerged in July 2013, revealing that Uyghurs were present in the combat areas long before. The Chinese government has alleged that “more than 1,000” Xinjiang separatists have received terrorist training in Afghanistan and claims to have arrested 100 foreign-trained terrorists who made their way back to Xinjiang.4

Fearing the irredentist currents provoked by the separatist Uyghurs and facing the increased violence in Xinjiang Province, the Chinese central government has pursued a policy meant to neutralize the separatist tendencies in that region of China.

It is obvious that the Chinese government has not succeeded in containing the Uyghur separatist threat in the Xinjiang province. The measures adopted against the Uyghurs have boomeranged to such an extent that more terrorist attacks occurred in the provinces and outside China since the end of 2016. Moreover, as reported in July 2016 by New America, a U.S. think tank, Chinese religious restrictions on Muslims in Xinjiang may have driven more than 100 to join ISIS.5

The attacks perpetrated by the Uyghurs follow almost the same patterns as those conducted by Islamic radicals (ISIS and others) in other places worldwide such as car-ramming, suicide bombers, and knife-wielding attackers. But, unlike other places on the globe, the attacks are not publicized by the Chinese government, which keeps a tight grip on the information. As a Reuters correspondent put it: “The government has delayed reporting some previous incidents in Xinjiang, and limits on foreign journalists working there make it almost impossible to reach an independent assessment of the region’s security.”6

The defeat of ISIS in Iraq and the recent successes of Assad’s troops in Syria against the rebels seem to have created a crisis to which Beijing is trying to find solution before hundreds of Uyghurs fighters return home after fighting in the ranks of the rebels, fully trained for guerrilla warfare. Their experience may have a great impact in the manner the separatist Uyghurs are waging their war today. Added to the latest Uyghur threats to“shed blood like rivers,”7 one can anticipate that the Uyghur problem has grown to a dimension unknown in the past.

With this in mind, these exceptional circumstances may have pushed Beijing to deploy its elite troops to Syria to contain the possible flow of Uyghur fighters back to China. In parallel and as a quid pro quo, Beijing has expressed to the Syrian regime its interest in participating in the reconstruction effort of Syria and its readiness to invest billions of dollars to that effect.8

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