When ISIS seized swathes of Iraqi land in 2014, Peshmerga played a key role in driving the extremist group out of the areas disputed between Erbil and Baghdad, especially Kirkuk. The US-led global coalition provided Peshmerga and Iraqi forces with military assistance to defeat ISIS territorially, which was completed in 2017.
Barzani and Leahy also discussed the latest developments in Syria and their impact on neighboring countries.
(December 12, 2024)
In 2003, he went to Iraq to fight against American forces. After three years of war, he was captured by the U.S. military and spent over five years in prison, including a stint at the notorious Abu Ghraib torture center.
While in Iraq, Jolani fought with ISIS and was even a deputy to its founder. Immediately upon release in 2011, ISIS sent him to Syria with a rumored $1 billion to found the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda and participate in the armed protest movement against Assad that arose out of the Arab Spring.
Since Assad’s downfall, the US, Turkey, and Israel have all been bombing Syria. On December 8, the day Assad fled, the US launched heavy airstrikes in Syria, saying it hit 75 ISIS-related targets.
US officials justify the strikes by saying they don’t want ISIS to reconstitute itself following the regime change. But on the other hand, the US has supported the HTS takeover even though the group is designated by the US as a terrorist organization and has a similar ideology to ISIS.
The US has also made clear it has no intention of withdrawing the approximately 900 troops that it has occupying eastern Syria.
Islamic State (IS) group fighters on Tuesday killed at least 54 people in Syria‘s Homs region, all of whom are said to have been former members of the Bashar al-Assad government and tried to flee upon its collapse on Saturday.
The news comes from the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, and follows a declaration by Hay‘at Tahrir al-Sham-led (HTS) rebels who took over Damascus and said that all those who were conscripted into the Syrian military would receive amnesty.
The United States army announced on Sunday that it carried out airstrikes against 75 Islamic State (ISIS) camps in Syria, to prevent the group from taking “advantage” of the recent kerfuffle in the country.
“The strikes against the ISIS leaders, operatives, and camps were conducted as part of the ongoing mission to disrupt, degrade, and defeat ISIS,” read a statement from the army’s Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees US troops in the Middle East.
Prior to merging it with the newly declared union, Organi led the Union of Sinai Tribes (UST), a pro-government paramilitary group set up in 2015 to support the Egyptian army in its battles against a local offshoot of the Islamic State (IS). The UST’s mission in Sinai has been unclear since the IS-affiliate group known as the Sinai Province was officially defeated in 2022.
The bloody, 10-year campaign in the Sinai has almost completely razed Rafah and uprooted thousands of members of the indigenous Bedouin population, leaving most towns and villages pulverised.
Simonyan explained that the perpetrators were chosen to carry out the attack in a manner that would allow the West to persuade the international community that ISIS was behind the attack.
“Basic sleight of hand. The level of a railway thimble-rigger,“ she added.“ It has nothing to do with ISIS. It‘s Ukrainians.“
She added that the enthusiasm displayed by Western media when they tried to persuade everyone that ISIS was responsible even before arrests were made gave them away completely.
“This is not ISIS. This is a well-coordinated team of several other, also widely known, abbreviations,“ Simonyan concluded.
In addition to publicly warning on March 7 about a possible attack, U.S. officials said they had privately told Russian officials about the intelligence pointing to an impending attack. It is not clear how much information the United States gave Russian officials beyond what was in the public warning.
American intelligence agencies have a “duty to warn” potential targets of dangers when they learn of them.
The United States had warned Iran of a possible attack ahead of twin bombings in January that killed scores and wounded hundreds of others at a memorial service for Iran’s former top general, Qassim Suleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike four years before.
(2.9.2015)
Former CIA director David Petraeus is advocating giving arms to members of al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida off-shoot, to beat Isis. That is madness
The US-led anti-ISIS coalition is building a new military base in Syria’s northern province of Raqqa, The New Arab reported, citing a source close to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The US backs the SDF and keeps about 900 troops (officially at least) in eastern Syria, allowing the US to control about one-third of Syria’s territory. The report said there are currently about 24 US-led military sites spread throughout eastern Syria.
Afghanistan
Ägypten
Albanien
Australien
Bahrain
Belgien
Bosnien und Herzegowina
Bulgarien
Republik China (Taiwan)
Dänemark
Deutschland
Dschibuti
Estland
Finnland
Frankreich
Georgien
Griechenland
Irak
Irland
Island
Italien
Japan
Jordanien
Kanada
Katar
Kosovo
Kroatien
Kuwait
Lettland
Libanon
Libyen
Litauen
Luxemburg
Malaysia
Marokko
Moldau
Montenegro
Neuseeland
Niederlande
Nigeria
Nordmazedonien
Norwegen
Oman
Österreich
Panama
Polen
Portugal
Rumänien
Saudi-Arabien
Schweden
Serbien
Singapur
Slowakei
Slowenien
Somalia
Spanien
Südkorea
Tschad
Tschechien
Tunesien
Türkei
Ukraine
Ungarn
Vereinigte Arabische Emirate
Vereinigte Staaten
Vereinigtes Königreich
Zypern
Internationale Organisationen:
Arabische Liga
Europäische Union
Interpol
NATO
(24 May, 2023)
There are currently at least 24 US-led coalition military sites spread throughout Syria’s northeast.
The US says its military is stationed in the country to fight against the remnants of IS.
Heute wurden bei einem mutmaßlichen Angriff des IS auf mehrere Busse in Deir al-Sor im Osten mindestens zwölf Ölarbeiter getötet, wie die Syrische Beobachtungsstelle für Menschenrechte mitteilte. (…)
Zunächst reklamierte niemand die Attacke für sich. Örtliche Quellen sagten aber, der Anschlag und die Art, wie er ausgeführt wurde, trage die Handschrift des IS.
(December 20, 2022)
U.S. forces conducted three helicopter raids in eastern Syria that resulted in the detention of six Islamic State operatives, according to a Tuesday statement from U.S. Central Command.
The three raids occurred “over the last 48 hours,” and one of the ISIS fighters detained was identified as al Zubaydi, whom CENTCOM described as “an Islamic State Syria Province Senior Official involved in the planning and facilitation of ISIS attacks in Syria.”
(December 16, 2022)
The two allied forces resumed operations on Dec. 8, and since then, they „have conducted six partnered operations, resulting in the detention of five ISIS operatives involved in planning attacks on detention facilities holding ISIS fighters and on the Al Hol camp,“ Col. Joe Buccino, a spokesman for CENTCOM, said in a statement referring to the Syrian refugee camp.
(…)
The Syrian Democratic Forces thwarted a suicide bombing attempt at the camp in late September, though four ISIS fighters were killed in the incident. Weeks earlier, the SDF arrested “dozens of ISIS operatives” while conducting security operations at the refugee camp, and a CENTCOM spokesperson said at the time that the arrests led to the “dissolution of a major ISIS facilitation network both within the camp and throughout Syria.”
Luftaufnahme des US-Verteidigungsministeriums | picture alliance/dpa
Nach Anschlag in Kabul US-Drohnenangriff gegen den IS
Stand: 28.08.2021 04:30 Uhr
Die Antwort der USA kam schnell: Als Reaktion auf den Anschlag am Flughafen von Kabul hat die US-Armee einen Drohnenangriff auf einen mutmaßlich Beteiligten der Terrormiliz IS geflogen.
Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in a statement that military forces conducted an “over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner” in the Nangahar Province of Afghanistan.
ISIS-K is based in the Nagarhar and Kunar provinces east of Kabul, according to NBC News.
Glenn Greenwald analyzes the reactions to the horrific terror attack in Kabul this morning, and debunks the propagandistic talking points used by Deep State operatives and their media allies to push the US into indefinite war.
(25.08.2021)
Die US-Botschaft hatte US-Bürger, die sich am Abbey Gate, East Gate oder North Gate aufhielten, in der Nacht zu Donnerstag dazu aufgerufen, das Gebiet „sofort“ zu verlassen. Großbritanniens Staatssekretär im Verteidigungsministerium, James Heappey, sprach noch am Morgen von der Drohung eines „ernsthaften, unmittelbaren, tödlichen Angriffs“ binnen Stunden auf den Flughafen oder die von westlichen Truppen genutzten Zentren.
(2.9.2015)
Former CIA director David Petraeus is advocating giving arms to members of al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida off-shoot, to beat Isis. That is madness
(May 24, 2017)
The arms and equipment transfers were apart of the Iraq Train and Equip Fund, a program that initially appropriated $1.6 billion under the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act to help Iraqi forces combat the rise of the Islamic State.
Der IS seinerseits könne „sich auf den Erfolg seiner Zweigorganisationen berufen, selbst wenn seine Kernorganisation im Irak und in Syrien und Franchise-Gruppen in Ländern wie Libyen und Afghanistan mit Rückschlägen zu kämpfen haben“ heißt es in „Foreign Policy“.
Als Brückenkopf in Afrika zum IS im Nahen Osten dient Libyen, dort haben sich auch aus Syrien und dem Irak geflüchtete Milzen niedergelassen. In dem Land, in dem es in weiten Teilen keine funktionierende Staatsmacht gibt, können sie fast beliebig schalten und walten.
(24.11.2020)
Konkret. Am 20. Dezember 2016, dem Tag nach dem Anschlag, fand im Bundeskanzleramt wie jeden Dienstag die Besprechung der nachrichtendienstlichen Lage statt. Der BND, der vom Kanzleramt beaufsichtigt wird, übermittelte eine Information über den IS (Islamischer Staat), die Anfang November 2016 gewonnen worden war. Darin geht es um Beispiele für Anschläge mit Kraftfahrzeugen wie LKW auf Märkte oder in Fußgängerzonen. Die IS-Vorschläge lesen sich wie ein Drehbuch für die aktuelle Tat vom Breitscheidplatz.
(29.11.2020)
By early 2014 he had made it to France with the help of French agents who may have believed the senior official could be a useful asset in the event of President Assad’s downfall, the senior French judicial source told The Telegraph.
“This was also just a few months before the 2015 terror attacks in Paris and the DGSE was desperate to get their hands on any leads about the Islamic State, which they knew was actively planning strikes,” said the source, who asked their name be withheld.
Konkret. Am 20. Dezember 2016, dem Tag nach dem Anschlag, fand im Bundeskanzleramt wie jeden Dienstag die Besprechung der nachrichtendienstlichen Lage statt. Der BND, der vom Kanzleramt beaufsichtigt wird, übermittelte eine Information über den IS (Islamischer Staat), die Anfang November 2016 gewonnen worden war. Darin geht es um Beispiele für Anschläge mit Kraftfahrzeugen wie LKW auf Märkte oder in Fußgängerzonen. Die IS-Vorschläge lesen sich wie ein Drehbuch für die aktuelle Tat vom Breitscheidplatz.
Joel Rayburn, currently deputy assistant secretary and special envoy for Syria, will take on the responsibilities of engagement with Syria.
Ambassador Nathan Sales, the coordinator for counterterrorism, will take on the role of special envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.
Obama framed the election as a battle for democracy.
“Our democracy is not gonna work if the people who are supposed to be our leaders lie every day and just make things up,” Obama said. “This notion of truthfulness and democracy and citizenship and being responsible — these aren‘t Republican or Democratic principles. They’re American principles. … We need to reclaim them.”
The 291 new signatures announced Tuesday join 489 national security leaders who previously endorsed former Vice President Biden as having “the character, principles, wisdom and leadership necessary to address a world on fire.”
„What you are witnessing these days are only signs of big changes in the region that’ll offer greater opportunities than we had previously in the past decade” read an online message on Thursday from new ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, translated by Hassan Hassan, director of the Non-State Actors in Fragile Environments Program at the Center for Global Policy and a co-author of „ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.“
The statement underscored that as Farooqi was involved in anti-Pakistan activities in Afghanistan, he should be handed over to Pakistan for further investigation and also suggested that the two sides should coordinate actions against the menace of terrorism, including through established mechanisms.
„No ally has suffered more terrorist attacks than Turkey. They are important in the fight against Daesh. They are the only ally which is bordering Syria and Iraq,“ he said, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL.
Stoltenberg‘s remarks came during a speech at the European Parliament in Brussels.
(27.10.2019)
“Several groups that have ties with al-Qaida have presence in this area,” said Sadradeen Kinno, a Syrian researcher who closely follows Islamic militant groups in the country.
He noted that Huras al-Din is one of the groups that has operated in the area for a long time.
Huras al-Din emerged in Syria in early 2018 after several factions broke away from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra Front) following al-Nusra’s decision to sever ties with al-Qaida.
(14.10.2019)
„Die Bundesregierung muss jetzt dafür sorgen, dass die in Nordsyrien inhaftierten Dschihadisten und ihre Angehörigen zügig nach Deutschland zurückgeholt werden“, sagte er den Zeitungen des Redaktionsnetzwerks Deutschland
In fact, in recent years American Special Operations forces have moved away from using helmet cameras to pipe back video in real time on every mission because it is often violent and disorienting, and invites instant quarterbacking from back in command centers.
Perhaps because of the importance of this raid, though, the Delta Force operators were wearing body cameras, officials said, but those cameras do not broadcast in real time; instead the video in those cameras is configured to be downloaded and reviewed after the operation is complete.
#Baghdadi
The raid was carried out by special operations commandos, a source familiar with the operation told CNN.
The CIA assisted in locating the ISIS leader, the defense official said.
The senior Pentagon official said there was a brief firefight when U.S. forces entered the compound in Idlib‘s Barisha village and that Baghdadi then killed himself by detonating a suicide vest. Family members were present. According to Pentagon sources, no children were harmed in the raid but two Baghdadi wives were killed after detonating their own explosive vests.
(27. August 2014)
Waffenlieferungen in den Irak bzw nach Kurdistan: Versagt „Die Linke“ im Bundestag bei der parlamentarischen Aufklärung über die Schattenarmeen unter dem Label „Islamischer Staat“ bwz bei der Aufklärung und Kontrolle der Aktivitäten der Geheimdienste, vorneweg dem Bundesnachrichtendienst B.N.D.? Oder ist das bereits aktive Selbstsabotage und Kollaboration?
Urteilen Sie selbst.
(19.10.2019)
“I want to live in a place where I can live freely,” Qasim told Rudaw, surrounded by tens of fellow ISIS detainees in a windowless room. “I want to go to any country that has more freedom like the European countries, for example, Germany or Sweden.”
(16.10.2019)
According to a research paper published this October by the pro-government Turkish think tank, SETA, “Out of the 28 factions [in the Turkish mercenary force], 21 were previously supported by the United States, three of them via the Pentagon’s program to combat DAESH. Eighteen of these factions were supplied by the CIA via the MOM Operations Room in Turkey, a joint intelligence operation room of the ‘Friends of Syria’ to support the armed opposition. Fourteen factions of the 28 were also recipients of the U.S.-supplied TOW anti-tank guided missiles.”
(21.11.2015)
“They have invited young men and some women in so that they can act out their greatest perversion. It’s not about an ideology. It’s not about the caliphate,” McRaven said at a national security conference in Austin, the Austin American-Statesman reported on Friday.
“I believe that they bring people in because they realize they can kill, they can rape with impunity, they can torture, they can do these barbaric things in the name of Islam.”
Das heißt, nicht nur die NATO oder die UN sind Verbindungen, im Rahmen derer nach unserem Grundgesetz militärische Einsätze erlaubt sind. Auch die EU ist ein passender Rahmen.
These Islamic State attacks have become prevalent over the last three months, as they often hit the Syrian Army’s positions and then disappear into the desert.
In addition to targeting the Syrian Army’s positions, the Islamic State also carries out attacks against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) along the eastern region of the Euphrates River Valley.
In fact, Turkey is threatening to launch a broad campaign to take over Syrian territory in the area between eastern Syria and the Euphrates River to “cleanse” it from Kurdish militias, which Turkey considers a threat to its national security.
This is precisely what the United States, which sees itself as the protector of the Kurdish allies who fought alongside it against ISIS, is afraid of.
The Deputy Commander of the Joint Operations of Iraq, Special Forces Team, Abdel-Emir Rashid Yarallah, told the Sputnik News Agency in a statement on Monday that the Iraqi Armed Forces had begun the third phase of the operation, with the primary target being the Diyala countryside.
“We have thousands of Isis fighters that we want Europe to take and let’s see if they take them. And if they don’t take them, we’ll probably have to release them to Europe,” Mr Trump said on the White House lawn on Thursday.
The SDF is thought to be holding around 13,000 foreigners suspected of Isis links — not including Iraqi or Syrian fighters. That number is made up of 2,000 men and 11,000 women and children, most of whom were detained when the terror group’s caliphate fell earlier this year.
The office of New Zealand’s prime minister says she is aware of comments linking Sri Lanka’s Easter bombings to the mosque attacks in Christchurch, though it hasn’t “seen any intelligence upon which such an assessment might be based.”
The statement came Tuesday after Sri Lanka’s minister of defense, Ruwan Wijewardene, made the claim to Parliament, without offering evidence.
‚The preliminary investigations have revealed that what happened in Sri Lanka [on Sunday] was in retaliation for the attack against Muslims in Christchurch,‘ state minister of defence Ruwan Wijewardene told parliament today.
Trump made his comments while talking to U.S. troops in Alaska about the progress his administration has made in Afghanistan and the Middle East over the past two years. He stopped in Alaska on his way back from talks in Vietnam with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
(15.5.2018) A second Obama administration program, „Timber Sycamore,“ was started by the CIA in late 2012 with the similar aim of arming rebels. This particular operation was active along the Turkish border to Syria‘s north, and a Jordanian crossing in the south, referred to as the “Southern Front.”
But Syrian opposition figures say this program was also compromised, with arms falling into the hands of ISIS or Al Nusra.
The program initially supplied light weapons. But as the Syrian civil war intensified, the U.S. strengthened its commitment by providing selected rebels with American “tune-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided” antitank missiles, better known as BGM-71 TOWs.
9. In 2019, the Coalition expects to concentrate on implementing the Working Group action plans. With the conventional military effort against ISIS in Syria nearing culmination and shifting to a supporting rather than a central role, the Coalition members will open a discussion to plan the next phase of the campaign. This could involve an effort to counter ISIS’s reversion to insurgency in Syria and Iraq. It could also include, addressing ISIS’s trans-border networks, branches, and affiliates, which continue to present a significant, and in some cases, growing threat to the members of our Coalition as highlighted by the June 2018 Coalition meeting of Political Directors with a focus on Africa held in Skhirate, Morocco. In particular, the Coalition should remain united in its efforts to undermine ISIS’s brand by rolling back its access to the information space as a tool to spread its toxic ideology and propaganda. The Coalition is determined to increase the pressure to disrupt ISIS’s trans-regional network through increased information sharing and complementary efforts in counter-finance, strategic communication, law enforcement, the justice sector, and security for our homelands. Coalition Working Groups and members will strive to ensure that our goals are met across the broader diplomatic and counterterrorism ecosystem, and does not seek to duplicate existing mechanisms and lines of effort. The Coalition has gathered unique experience and information while fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria that can be of value to other international organizations and groupings combating terrorism.
10. We are gratified by the momentum collectively generated by the Coalition and its partners and once again express our determination to deliver ISIS an enduring defeat. Our joint engagement in Iraq and Syria will continue. We recognize the need for sustained coordination and consultation of the Coalition across all its lines of efforts and especially in the Core. The four Working Groups of the Coalition – Foreign Terrorist Fighters, Counter-ISIS Financing, Communications, and Stabilization – are essential, and we remain dedicated to their continued progress. With this in mind, we look forward to the Political Directors’ meeting in late spring and the regular meeting of the Coalition Working Groups in the year ahead.
US President Donald Trump is delivering remarks at the State Department in Washington DC on Wednesday, February 6 at a meeting with foreign ministers whose countries are part of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. The 79-member coalition is expected to discuss the future of campaigns in Iraq and Syria, which will focus on safeguarding against a resurgence of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) through stabilisation and security assistance.
Trump sprach bei einem Treffen der Außenminister der Internationalen Koalition im Kampf gegen den IS, der oft auch als ISIS abgekürzt wird. Der Koalition gehören 79 Mitglieder an – darunter die EU-Staaten, die USA, die Türkei und viele arabische Länder.
A meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS met in Washington to focus on what happens once the U.S. withdraws its troops from Syria. Jackson Proskow reports.
Syria’s military announced Dec. 28 it has taken control of the flash-point northern town of Manbij, where Turkey has threatened an offensive.
The announcement was quickly welcomed by the Kremlin, whose spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it a „positive step“ that could help stabilize the situation.
Turkey, on the other hand, questioned Syria‘s motive with the announcement.
In conjunction with this, we invite the Syrian government forces which are obliged to protect the same country, nation and borders, to assert control over the areas our forces have withdrawn from, in particularly Manbij, and to protect these areas against a Turkish invasion.