It&#039;s All About Muhammad

Trust no one: Scholar risked all to document Islamic State

(NATIONAL POST) — By LORI HINNANT and MAGGIE MICHAEL

The historian carried secrets too heavy for one man to bear.

He packed his bag with his most treasured possessions before going to bed: the 1 terabyte hard drive with his evidence against the Islamic State group, an orange notebook half-filled with notes on Ottoman history, and, a keepsake, the first book from Amazon delivered to Mosul.

He passed the night in despair, imagining all the ways he could die, and the moment he would leave his mother and his city.

He had spent nearly his entire life in this home, with his five brothers and five sisters. He woke his mother in her bedroom on the ground floor.

“I am leaving,” he said. “Where?” she asked. “I am leaving,” was all he could say. He couldn’t endanger her by telling her anything more. In truth, since the IS had invaded his city, he’d lived a life about which she was totally unaware.

He felt her eyes on the back of his neck, and headed to the waiting Chevrolet. He didn’t look back.

For nearly two years, he’d wandered the streets of occupied Mosul, chatting with shopkeepers and Islamic State fighters, visiting friends who worked at the hospital, swapping scraps of information. He grew out his hair and his beard and wore the shortened trousers required by IS. He forced himself to witness the beheadings and deaths by stoning, so he could hear the killers call out the names of the condemned and their supposed crimes.

The blogger known as Mosul Eye kept his identity a secret as he documented Islamic State rule.

He wasn’t a spy. He was an undercover historian and blogger . As IS turned the city he loved into a fundamentalist bastion, he decided he would show the world how the extremists had distorted its true nature, how they were trying to rewrite the past and forge a brutal Sunni-only future for a city that had once welcomed many faiths.

He knew that if he was caught he too would be killed.

“I am writing this for the history , because I know this will end. People will return, life will go back to normal,” is how he explained the blog that was his conduit to the citizens of Mosul and the world beyond. “After many years, there will be people who will study what happened. The city deserves to have something written to defend the city and tell the truth, because they say that when the war begins, the first victim is the truth.”

He called himself Mosul Eye . He made a promise to himself in those first few days: Trust no one, document everything.

Neither family, friends nor the Islamic State group could identify him. His readership grew by the thousands every month.

And now, he was running for his life.

November 25th, 2017

Death toll now 305 in Egypt mosque massacre, including 27 children

(UK TELEGRAPH) — At least 27 children were among the 305 people killed during a terrorist rampage at a Sinai mosque on Friday, the Egyptian government said as it updated the grim toll of one of the bloodiest attacks since September 11th.

Egypt’s attorney general said that up to 30 gunmen had taken part in the slaughter and that they carried the black banners of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) as they gunned down worshippers during Friday prayers.

Relatives of the victims told The Telegraph that some households in the village of Rawda had lost every single male member of their family. “There is no one in the village who didn’t lose at least one of his relatives,” said Mohammed Sleem, a university student who lost two cousins. .

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion has fallen heavily on Isil’s Egyptian affiliate, known as Sinai Province, which has carried out deadly attacks against Egyptian troops and Christians in the area.

The Egyptian military carried out airstrikes in north Sinai in response to the killings but it was not clear if they were acting on specific intelligence or simply trying to make a show of force to reassure the public.

Investigators said Saturday they were still finding bodies in the toilets and other areas as they combed through the grounds of mosque.

The village of Rawda is home to around 2,500 people and with almost all of the men at the mosque for prayers nearly every home was in mourning on Saturday.

“Some women lost all their male family members,” said Abdel Qader Mubarak, a village elder. “One woman lost her husband and two sons, and another lost three of her sons. There is no home in Rawda without a martyr. At least 100 families have at least one martyr or at minimum a wounded person.”

Mr Mubarak was outside the village on Friday but relayed what happened from what he had heard from survivors.

“It was during the Friday sermon, where all men were inside the mosque. About 20-30 armed men surrounded the mosque from outside and some of them entered the mosque. They shut the door behind them. They started to open fire with machine guns and hand grenades. Some of them shot through the windows of the mosque. It was random shooting. Then they left and wandered in the village, whoever was found in the village was shot, then they returned back to the mosque, whoever was found still alive was shot again,” he said.

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October 21st, 2017

Trump: ‘End of the ISIS caliphate is in sight’

(CNN) — By Miranda Green, CNN

President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States would soon transition into a “new phase” of involvement in Syria after US-backed forces drove ISIS members from Raqqa, the city they deemed their capital.

“The defeat of ISIS in Raqqah represents a critical breakthrough in our worldwide campaign to defeat ISIS and its wicked ideology,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House. “With the liberation of ISIS’s capital and the vast majority of its territory, the end of the ISIS caliphate is in sight.

“We will soon transition into a new phase in which we will support local security forces, de-escalate violence across Syria, and advance the conditions for lasting peace, so that the terrorists cannot return to threaten our collective security again,” Trump said.

The US and its allies would support diplomatic negotiations to end the violence, to allow Syrian refugees to return to their homes, and to make way for “a political transition that honors the will of the Syrian people,” the President added.

US-backed forces fighting ISIS in Raqqa announced this week that “major military operations” in the city have ended and that the terrorist group has lost control of its self-declared capital.

October 17th, 2017

Raqqa: Isis completely driven out of Syria ‘capital’ by US-backed forces

(UK INDEPENDENT) — By John Davidson

US-backed militias have completely taken Isis’ de facto capital, Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Tuesday, in a major symbolic blow to the jihadist group.

The fall of Raqqa, where Isis staged euphoric parades after its string of lightning victories in 2014, is a potent symbol of the movement’s collapsing fortunes. The city was used as a base for the group to plan attacks abroad.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by a US-led international alliance, has been fighting Isis inside Raqqa since June.

SOHR said 3,250 people were killed in the five-month battle, including 1,130 civilians.

A witness said fighting appeared to be almost at an end with only sporadic bursts of gunfire.

Militia fighters celebrated in the streets, chanted slogans from their vehicles and raised a flag inside Raqqa stadium.

An SDF spokesman said the alliance would capture the last Isis areas in the city within hours.

Save The Children has warned that the humanitarian crisis in northeast Syria is “rapidly escalating”, with 270,000 people who have fled the fighting in “critical need” of aid and camps “bursting at the seams”.

On Saturday a deal was brokered for the last remaining local fighters in Raqqa to leave the city.

SDF spokesman Talal Silo said then that any fighters who were not signed up to the deal would be left behind “to surrender or die”.

The jihadists’ last bases in the city, a stadium and a hospital, were captured earlier on Tuesday, the SDF said.

A local field commander said no Isis fighters remained at the two central points where militants had been best entrenched and where the SDF said fighting on Monday night and early Tuesday was focused.

“We do still know there are still IEDs and booby traps in and amongst the areas that ISIS once held, so the SDF will continue to clear deliberately through areas,” said Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition.

In a sign that the four-month battle for Raqqa was in its last stages, Col. Dillon said there had been no coalition air strikes there on Monday.

It is now hemmed in to a tiny bomb-cratered patch of the city around the stadium that was being pounded from the air by a US-led coalition and encircled by SDF fighters.

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October 4th, 2017

Inside ISIS’ suicide bomb-making factories where fanatics painstakingly create deadly explosive and ball-bearing-laden vests

(THE SUN) — By Patrick Knox

CHILLING footage of ISIS bomb-makers painstakingly creating powerful suicide vests has been released on social media.

Photos of the factory, said to be close to Baghdad in Iraq, show masked bomb-makers assembling devices designed to kill or horribly maim as the doomed death-cult plots a last ditch murder campaign.

Wearing latex gloves, the ISIS jihadis are seen laying out plastic explosive and ball bearings as shrapnel before binding it up and stuffing it into a camouflage vest.

Another shot shows a room with several finished bombs.

A picture then shows a fighter fitted with the deadly cargo and what appears to be two triggers on the vest.

Last week it was revealed the terror group is on the run across the Middle East, according to the US led-coalition.

Col Ryan Dillon said: “ISIS is losing on all fronts, and they are losing their grip on their few remaining strongholds in both Iraq and Syria.”

The coalition and its partners on the ground – the Iraqi security forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces – remain committed to defeating the enemy, he said.

“But make no mistake,” Col Dillon added, “we fully expect fierce fighting in the days ahead.

“And while these terrorists remain a dangerous and desperate enemy, our ISF and SDF partners have proven they are up to the task.”

Iraqi forces have made significant progress in the fight, Dillon said.

“Our Iraqi partners have fought a long, bloody war and have sacrificed a great deal to liberate their people and clear terrorists from cities and villages,” he told reporters.

More than 26,000 square miles in Iraq have been cleared and more than four million people are now free from ISIS control, the colonel said.

“ISIS is on the run, and we must remain focused on delivering a decisive defeat in their few remaining holdouts in Iraq,” he added.

September 3rd, 2017

Dozens of Al-Nusra, ISIS-affiliated jihadists entered Germany posing as refugees

(RT) — Several dozen Syrian extremists linked to both al-Nusra Front and ISIS, who committed “numerous massacres” of civilians and captives, have sought asylum in Germany, Der Spiegel reports.

Some 60 members of a Syrian militant group called Liwa Owais al-Korani or the Owais al-Korani Brigade arrived to Germany as refugees, Der Spiegel reports, citing sources within the German security services.
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The Owais al-Korani Brigade initially fought on the side of the Free Syrian Army but then switched sides and joined al-Nusra Front (now self-styled Jabhat Fateh al-Sham) – Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, the weekly says, adding that the group also fought alongside Islamic State(IS, former ISIS/ISIL) in the Raqqa province for months.

The group’s fighters were involved in “numerous massacres of captured civilians and Syrian soldiers,” the report says, adding that at least 300 people died at the hands of the militants.

One of the Owais al-Korani Brigade former commanders identified as Abdul Dschawad al-K., who came to Germany in October 2014 and was granted asylum, took part in the mass execution of civilians and prisoners of war.

During the massacre that happened near the Syrian town of Tabka in March 2013, the Owais al-Korani Brigade militants killed 36 policemen, administrative workers and militia fighters who supported Syrian President Bashar Assad. Some of the massacre victims were beheaded.

Less than half of group members identified so far

The German state security service, the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (BfV), established a special task force to deal with the group members who came to Germany, according to the Spiegel report. So far, the investigators have successfully identified 25 former Owais al-Korani Brigade fighters who sought asylum in Germany.
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Some of the group’s members have already been charged with war crimes and will stand trial in late September. Abdul Dschawad al-K, who is also among those charged, not only took part in massacres in Syria but also reportedly planned to carry out a terrorist attack in the German city of Dusseldorf in the name of Islamic State.

August 22nd, 2017

Blog

Muhammad and the made men of Allah

YOU WOULD THINK THAT ISIS HAD REACHED the limit of its ability to nauseate with its barbaric terror tactics such as beheadings and crucifixions and mass shootings of captured Syrian and Iraqi soldiers and the impaling of severed heads on the spikes of a wrought-iron fence. But it has not reached its limits, and there may never be a limit. The evidence is in a 16-minute video the so-called Islamic State released when it was still in its expansion phase.

This appears to be a recruitment video since it touts the blood-soaked history of ISIS, and the centerpiece is more blood soaking. At the eight-minute mark, it documents the simultaneous beheading of 19 captured Syrian pilots and military officers who have been marched out to the desert in front of 19 executioners and forced to their knees. Read more »

August 17th, 2017

Second Spain terror attack: Police fatally shoot at least five suspects near Barcelona

(NY DAILY NEWS) — BY Jessica Chia Elizabeth Elizalde

Five suspects wearing explosive belts mowed down civilians in the seaside town of Cambrils, Spain, early Friday before they were killed in a shootout with police just hours after a similar terror attack in Barcelona, local officials said.

“The alleged terrorists were in an Audi A3 and apparently knocked down several people before coming across a police patrol and a shoot-out ensued,” said a spokesman for the regional government of Catalonia.

Police shot and killed four suspects in the town about 70 miles south of Barcelona. A fifth was injured and arrested before authorities confirmed the suspect died.

The suspected terrorists were wearing explosive belts, which have been detonated by the police force’s bomb squad.

At least six civilians and one police officer were injured, according to Catalan authorities. Five remain in the hospital.

Among them, one is in critical condition, two sustained serious injuries while another two are stable, according to emergency services.

Police say the suspects in Cambrils were linked to an attack late Thursday afternoon in Barcelona that killed 13 people and injured at least 100 others.

The region’s Interior Minister Joaquin Forn told local radio RAC1 early Friday that the Cambrils attack “follows the same trail. There is a connection.”

In Barcelona, a white van jumped onto a curb, swerved through the busy thoroughfare and struck pedestrians at Las Ramblas in what police called a terror attack.

July 23rd, 2017

Yazidi genocide survivor: ‘Jews are an example for us’

(JERUSALEM POST) — By Noa Amouyal

In Israel for the first time, Yazidi genocide survivor Nadia Murad Basee explains why her experience and Jewish suffering during the Holocaust are intertwined.

You don’t need to know Kurdish to understand the sadness that has seeped into Nadia Murad’s soul. In August 2014 Murad was captured by ISIS in her village of Kocho, Iraq and sold into sex slavery where she witnessed unspeakable atrocities. Today she is a Yazidi refugee.

She is one of 5,200 Yazidi people abducted by Islamic State in Iraq whose lives were torn apart because religious extremists saw them as “kafir” or “nonbelievers.” Her dreams of being a teacher were destroyed in an instant three years ago, when ISIS tore through her town, murdered six of her brothers and held her captive for months.

Her captor’s failing to lock a door was her gateway to freedom, as she escaped, found her way to a refugee camp and now is one of more than a thousand Yazidis who were accepted into a refugee asylum program in Germany.

Murad’s, bravery in telling her experiences to international audiences all over the world is extraordinary.

She was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations last year as an advocate for her people and is explaining to the world that the crimes waged against them must not go unpunished.

June 3rd, 2017

ISIS newspaper days before London bridge: New UK attack ‘definitely coming’

(PJ MEDIA) — By Bridget Johnson

The latest issue of the Islamic State’s weekly newspaper al-Naba released two days ago warned that another terrorist attack in Britain was “definitely coming.”

Al-Naba, a 16-page color newsletter, is distributed within ISIS territory but is also posted and distributed online via the usual ISIS mediums such as Telegram and social media.

Britain, said an article within the newsletter titled “Blessed Battle of Manchester: A new lesson for tyrants, Crusader States,” thought it “was safe from the wounds of the Mujahideen.”

“Protected by the sea they have long relied on isolating themselves” and thought “their exit from the European Union would save them.”

“A soldier from the Islamic State” in Manchester, the article continued, “has unleashed terror throughout their country, they rushed to spread the army in the cities, mobilizing police and security in the streets for fear of a new attack,” which “is inevitable, God willing.”

ISIS branded British security and vigilance across cities and towns a “costly, exhausting situation.”

ISIS also needled the UK for “their abandonment of John Cantlie,” a British war correspondent who was kidnapped in Syria in 2012 and has been forced to write propaganda pieces and film video segments for his ISIS captors. Cantlie was last seen in December ISIS videos reporting from Mosul.

Though Al-Naba usually focuses on events within ISIS territory, Ohio State terrorist Abdul Razak Ali Artan was featured in a December article calling the first-year student “one of the Mujahideen of the Islamic State” who “attacked a gathering” at the school, causing “serious injuries.”

British authorities are treating tonight’s ramming of pedestrians on London Bridge by a white van speeding at about 50 mph and a stabbing at nearby Borough Market as terrorist incidents.

Last month in Rumiyah magazine, which is published in several languages including English, ISIS published a remedial step-by-step pictorial for lone jihadists on how to use a heavy vehicle to kill, walking would-be terrorists through how to acquire a vehicle and which targets to strike.

“The ideal vehicle,” said ISIS, has a “slightly raised chassis and bumper,” is a “double-wheeled, load-bearing truck” that “large in size, heavy in weight” and is “fast in speed or rate of acceleration.”