On October 22 2014 06:05 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: Pretty interesting thing I found on statistics from the Iraqi defense ministry. Apparently, in the very bad months of June and July, in the first 20 days of July, 2,508 ISIS fighters were killed. From June 9 to July 20, they report 5,664 fighters having been killed. I don't know how legitimate this is, but it really gives you an idea of just how BIG ISIS actually is. Mind you, this is in the bad months of June and July. I'd love to see what statistics the Iraqi govt. has for August-October. At this rate, the Iraqi military and allied airstrikes will kill more ISIS fighters in Iraq alone than the combined Coalition/Iraqi forces did in the 8-year Iraq War. src
I am afraid these statistics follow the well establish rule of lumping together all casualties, civilian and combatant, and multiply that by a convenient factor and declare the final number all enemy casualties.
You can usually take claimed enemy casualties down by a order of magnitude to get to a realistic estimate.
On October 22 2014 06:05 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: Pretty interesting thing I found on statistics from the Iraqi defense ministry. Apparently, in the very bad months of June and July, in the first 20 days of July, 2,508 ISIS fighters were killed. From June 9 to July 20, they report 5,664 fighters having been killed. I don't know how legitimate this is, but it really gives you an idea of just how BIG ISIS actually is. Mind you, this is in the bad months of June and July. I'd love to see what statistics the Iraqi govt. has for August-October. At this rate, the Iraqi military and allied airstrikes will kill more ISIS fighters in Iraq alone than the combined Coalition/Iraqi forces did in the 8-year Iraq War. src
I am afraid these statistics follow the well establish rule of lumping together all casualties, civilian and combatant, and multiply that by a convenient factor and declare the final number all enemy casualties.
You can usually take claimed enemy casualties down by a order of magnitude to get to a realistic estimate.
So, if they of all people do it, I'm sure we do to. Does this also mean to imply the US lied about enemy insurgent / military deaths in its wars too, including Iraq War? I guess it makes for useful propaganda at least.
FORT MEADE, Md., Oct. 21, 2014 – Kurdish forces are in control of the majority of the Syrian city of Kobani despite efforts by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to take the town, Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said today.
Coalition airstrikes in and around the city on Syria’s border with Turkey have been augmented by an airdrop of arms to Kurdish forces fighting the terror group. Air Force planes dropped 27 of 28 pallets to Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Kobani, Kirby said at a Pentagon news conference.
“ISIL forces continue to threaten [Kobani],” Kirby said. “We’re continuing to hit targets in and around there to help the Kurdish forces as they continue to fight against ISIL. So it’s still a very mixed, contested environment.”
Credit to Kurdish forces
Kirby gave credit to the Kurdish forces that have fought ISIL to a standstill. ISIL is presenting more targets to coalition aircraft and to Iraqi forces, Kirby said. Coalition forces launched seven airstrikes yesterday, and with the weather in the region improving, Kirby said he expects more attacks on the terror group in the coming days. With better weather, “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms are able to fly a little bit more now,” he explained.
Iraqi forces make advances
In Iraq, there have been strikes in support of forces on the ground in Fallujah, at the Mosul Dam complex and in Bayji. All three are areas ISIL wants to take and hold, and at all three locations, Iraqi security forces are contesting the group. Near Bayji – the location of a massive oil refinery -- Iraqi security forces are advancing.
“Their advances over the last few days have been slowed by the weather, which is clearing, and so they're moving again, but it also has been slowed by [improvised explosive devices] -- almost 30 IEDs that they found and cleared,” Kirby said. “They are taking the fight to the enemy, and those strikes last night are indications that we're trying to support them, too.”
Reports: Canadian soldier was shot, injured while standing guard at the National War Memorial in Ottawa - @CBCNews, @AP
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest asked if Ottawa shooting is a terrorist attack, says 'I'm not in a position to render a judgment on that at this point' - @ZekeJMiller
Ottawa police confirm 1 male shooting suspect died; no one in custody - @OttawaPolice
It looks like some members of the State of Hostile Islamic Terrorists (SHIT) are losing their will to fight.
Babel (IraqiNews.com) More than 100 ISIS terrorists surrendered themselves to the security forces in Babel province.
The head of the security committee within Babel provincial council, Thamer Theban, declared in a statement received by Iraqi News ”The terrorists turned themselves in and handed their weapons and equipment over to the Iraqi Security Forces after surrounding them in Jurf al-Sakher district of western Hilla city.”
It's claimed that US government is planning to set up a military base on the area of Herir Military Airport, in Erbil.
It's claimed that the United States (US) willing to set up a millitary base in Iraq's Erbil district.
Inside the Erbil city's borders, the military base will be build, turning the Herir Airport remained from the Saddam regime into a base, reported anonymously by a source of Kurdish Regional Government.
Said an offical that hey will have to leave the Herir airport zone due to several weeks, adding also foreign companies have already moved with their staff into other locations.
ISIS rekt at Sinjar and at Amariyat al Fallujah (near Fallujah). This is along with Coalition bombings near Baiji that caused heavy ISIS casualties. For the past few days, the news in Diyala province has been excellent, and the news in Saladin and Babil have been good too. Waiting for good news from Nineveh and Anbar
Mosul (Iraq): At least 59 Islamic State (IS) militants were killed in fierce fighting involving the Sunni radical group, the Iraqi security forces and allied fighters, media reported.
While Iraqi security forces and allied tribal fighters repelled attacks by IS militants in two towns in the western province of Anbar, leaving more than 32 militants dead, at least 27 other militants of the group were killed during clashes with Sinjar Protection Forces in northern Iraq.
In one of the attacks, IS militants advanced in the early hours of Wednesday on the town of Ameriyat al-Fallujah, some 40 km west of Iraq's capital Baghdad, but were repelled by Iraqi security forces and allied local Sunni tribesmen, a source from Anbar provincial operations command, told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The militants tried to enter the town, which has been under their siege for more than two weeks, from three directions but, after several hours, they withdrew from the scene because of the fierce opposition and heavy bombardment by the warplanes of the US-led coalition and Iraqi aircraft, the source said.
At least 32 militants were killed and nine of their vehicles destroyed, the source added.
The strategic town of Ameriyat al-Fallujah is the last major town under the control of the government ahead of Baghdad, located some 60 km north of the Shia holy city of Karbala which lies 108 km south of Baghdad. If the militants seize the town they will be closer to the Iraqi capital and will also be able to move closer to Karbala and pound it with artillery and mortars.
Also in the province, the security forces and allied Sunni tribesmen repelled another attack in the morning by IS militants in the partially seized town of Heet, some 160 km west of Baghdad, a provincial security source told Xinhua.
The militants apparently failed to advance further into the town, the source said, adding that there were no immediate reports about casualties as sporadic clashes continued after the major battle. Most of Heet has been under the control of IS militants since Oct 13 except for its al-Furat suburb on the eastern side of Euphrates river which has been seized by the Sunni tribe of Albu-Nimer and some security forces.
On October 23 2014 10:12 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: It looks like some members of the State of Hostile Islamic Terrorists (SHIT) are losing their will to fight. Babel (IraqiNews.com) More than 100 ISIS terrorists surrendered themselves to the security forces in Babel province.
I hope they show no mercy to them. Just smoke them all and world is a better place. Only good thing about ISIS is that all the scum gathered there to be vaporized.
Iran, Russia create joint operations headquarters to fight IS
Iran and Russia created a joint operations headquarters to fight the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization in Iraq, the Iranian Tasnimnews agency reported citing an Iraqi source.
Reportedly, the Iranian and Russian military experts are helping the Iraqi commanders in the fight against the IS.
“Over 60 military experts from Russia and Iran created a joint operations headquarters in the Al Rasheed Hotel in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad,” the report said.
Iran, Russia create joint operations headquarters to fight IS
Iran and Russia created a joint operations headquarters to fight the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization in Iraq, the Iranian Tasnimnews agency reported citing an Iraqi source.
Reportedly, the Iranian and Russian military experts are helping the Iraqi commanders in the fight against the IS.
“Over 60 military experts from Russia and Iran created a joint operations headquarters in the Al Rasheed Hotel in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad,” the report said.
Russia is a decades-long ally of Iraq. They've had advisers in Iraq since June if not earlier. The Russians are pretty good at that military thing and I'm sure Iraqis like and trust them a lot more than us, so their help against IS is welcome.
Iranian advisers have also been there for a quite a while. However, I don't like the pro-Islamist, sectarianist influence they try to exert on Iraq, as you can see in the vicious Shiite militias they back. I can't help but feel that the Iranian intervention in Iraq against ISIS is fueled specifically by their unspoken and contrived duty in a Shia vs Sunni and Persian vs Semitic (Arab/Hebrew) conflict, and to try to gain more influence in Iraq.
On October 23 2014 10:12 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: It looks like some members of the State of Hostile Islamic Terrorists (SHIT) are losing their will to fight. Babel (IraqiNews.com) More than 100 ISIS terrorists surrendered themselves to the security forces in Babel province.
I hope they show no mercy to them. Just smoke them all and world is a better place. Only good thing about ISIS is that all the scum gathered there to be vaporized.
When they capture IS members, they usually take them prisoner from what I've read. POWs are POWs, and they have certain rights that should be respected, even if it's ISIS we're talking about. We can't come down to their level of savagery.
Greater media freedom in Iraq under the new regime (see spoiler): + Show Spoiler +
Forces linked to Baghdad Operations Command had banned the newspaper without any legal authorization as part of a broader media clampdown in the country carried out earlier this year.
The publishing house where Asharq Al-Awsat was printed in Iraq had been forcibly closed by government forces and its staff expelled from the building as part of a much-criticized media crackdown undertaken by the Nuri Al-Maliki administration.
Ahmed Abdul Hussein, editor-in-chief of Iraq’s Qurtas News, told Asharq Al-Awsat: “The policy of forcibly closing media institutions and gagging the media is one of the biggest mistakes made by the former government after it took the decision to form a committee to monitor the media.
“The main objective of this committee was to censure and forcibly close the media outlets that were criticizing government policy and influencing public opinion, including our own media outlet.
“We hope that this policy changes after it has been shown to fail. Media is like a raging river; it cannot be obstructed or diverted by written decisions. Proof of this is the increase in the number of people who visited alternative websites after the government took the decision to block social media websites and YouTube during the early days of the Mosul crisis,” he added.
Hussein criticized the weak laws protecting media freedoms in Iraq, adding that this had opened the door for the Maliki government to censor privately-owned media in Iraq.
Director of Iraq’s Journalistic Freedoms Observatory Ziad Al-Ajili, agreed that media freedoms had witnessed “broad violations” during the Maliki era, pointing to the policy of “indiscriminate harassment” against journalists carried out during the period.
He told Asharq Al-Awsat: “As an observatory committed to monitoring media freedoms, we issued a statement condemning the shutdown of Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. The problem is that the former government did not believe in media pluralism and was seeking to promote a single media vision.”
Ajili said that media outlets that circulated views that were opposed by government were subject to censorship, harassment or forcibly shut down.
The observatory’s director added that he hopes that the new government, led by consensus figure Haider Al-Abadi, will pursue a more tolerant, professional and enlightened approach in its dealings with the media.
Iraqi MP Farhad Hassan said that parliament is discussing a new media law that will strengthen press freedoms in the country, including the prevention of the arbitrary closure of media outlets and ensuring freedom of expression. He described the former government’s closure of Asharq Al-Awsat as illegal, but added that there had been no legal mechanism in place to reverse the closure.
Another Iraqi lawmaker, Maysoon Al-Damluji of the Iraqiya coalition and a member of parliament’s Culture and Information Committee, strongly criticized the Maliki government’s media crackdown, but added that media clampdowns such as this are impossible to maintain in the digital age. “The internet today is available to everybody and the decision to stop the publication of the print edition of Asharq Al-Awsat [in Iraq] only increased the number of Iraqis who read it on the Internet,” she said.
New Iraqi Defense Minister pledges to defeat terrorism and corruption. Tribal leaders say Ramadi is in the best shape it's been. + Show Spoiler +
Baghdad, Asharq Al-Awsat—In his first televised speech following his appointment on Saturday, Iraq’s new Defense Minister Khalid Al-Obeidi pledged that Iraqi forces would retake all areas of the country that have been taken over by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“We are committed to the liberation of the provinces that have fallen under ISIS control and securing the return of refugees to their homes, securing peace and stability for our country,” the new defense minister pledged on Tuesday. “Our mission, from now, is to confront corruption and terrorism, as these are two sides of the same coin. We will not hesitate to confront corruption wherever we find it and work to build a professional military,” Obeidi said.
“We will work with determination and dedication to serve the national interests and security of Iraq and we will not yield to any pressure trying to fight against the imposition of peace and security and the fight against corruption,” he added, vowing to root out corruption in Iraq’s Defense Ministry.
Iraq’s efforts to rebuild its military have been dogged by high-levels of corruption among civil servants and the military officers, with many troops existing only on paper and their pay and allowances pocketed by corrupt officials.
Efforts to procure weapons, equipment, and supplies have also been undermined by graft and outright theft, with many units reportedly not receiving adequate food, water, and ammunition, a massive obstacle to efforts to combat ISIS.
The minister’s comments came as US-led airstrikes continued to target ISIS positions in western Iraq. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Pentagon claimed that an ISIS fighting position southeast of Mosul Dam and another south of Baiji oil refinery had been destroyed by airstrikes, and that another strike north of Fallujah disrupted an ISIS attack.
ISIS and Iraqi forces continue to battle over the strategically important region of Anbar, with local and regional forces warning that the western province represents an important supply line between ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
According to reports, ISIS has stopped advancing in many areas of Anbar following the start of US-led airstrikes against the group’s positions, while the Anbar Tribal Council continues to call for renewed efforts to recapture territory from group, which controls an estimated 80 percent of the province.
Anbar Tribal Council member Faris Ibrahim told Asharq Al-Awsat: “The situation in the city of Ramadi is better than it has been for a long time, particularly after a lot of territory in the surrounding area has been liberated from ISIS.”
“The main reason behind the halt of the ISIS advance is the focused airstrikes by international force which have focused on vital targets and resulted in significant losses for ISIS,” he added.
Ibrahim said that the Anbar Tribal Council has called on Iraqi and international forces to intensify its campaign against ISIS in the region, adding that tribal forces will then seek to re-secure territory previously held by extremist fighters.
“Airstrikes are not enough because ISIS will work to absorb its losses and then return anew,” he warned.
ISIS takes over an unknown village in Anbar thanks to sleeper cells; Western media freaks out. Article also talks about fighting at Sinjar: + Show Spoiler +
(Reuters) - Islamic State wrested a Sunni Muslim village in western Iraq on Thursday from tribal defenders who put up weeks of fierce resistance, and the insurgents tightened a siege of the Yazidi minority on a mountain in the north.
The attacks showed Islamic State's continued operating resilience despite air strikes by U.S.-led coalition forces aimed at defeating the ultra-radical Sunni jihadist group, which has captured large expanses of Iraq and neighboring Syria, beheaded prisoners and massacred people from other religious communities, and declared a medieval-style caliphate.
The Albu Nimr tribe had been fending off Islamic State (IS) since early October but finally lost the village of Zauiyat albu Nimr in the western province of Anbar overnight on Thursday.
A small Iraqi army unit was stationed in the village but evacuated by helicopter in the early hours of Thursday, along with leaders from the Albu Nimr, a tribal figure from the village told Reuters in Baghdad.
Residents said the bodies of tribal fighters and soldiers lay strewn in the streets of Zauiyat albu Nimr on Thursday, and the very few who survived the onslaught had been told by IS insurgents to drop their weapons and leave.
"Islamic State are out to purge the village of Bu Nimr members," said the tribal figure in Baghdad. “Sleeper cells inside the village have been assisting the Islamic State by providing the names and the locations of the houses of prominent resistance members.
Also, really good, though sensationalized, article and interview with 2 Anbar leaders, including more on ISIS sleeper cells and troubles in Anbar: Read here
Proven usage of chemical weapon attacks by ISIS. + Show Spoiler +
BALAD, Iraq — Dizzy, vomiting and struggling to breathe, 11 Iraqi police officers were rushed to a government hospital 50 miles north of the capital last month. The diagnosis: poisoning by chlorine gas. The perpetrators, according to the officers: Islamic State extremists.
The chlorine attack appears to be the first confirmed use of chemical weapons by the Islamic State on the battlefield. An Iraqi Defense Ministry official corroborated it, and doctors said survivors’ symptoms were consistent with chlorine poisoning.
It is one of three crude chlorine attacks that Iraqi forces say have occurred since the extremists seized vast tracts of Iraqi territory this summer, although details on the other two incidents remain sketchy. The reported assaults raise concerns that the militants are attempting to hone their chemical weapons capabilities as they push to seize more ground.
The presence of a large former Iraqi chemical weapons production plant in territory seized by the Islamic State has compounded those fears, though officials and chemical weapons experts say the 2,500 degraded rockets filled with nerve agents that remain there are unlikely to be fit for use. Weapons inspectors sealed them off with concrete in a bunker more than 20 years ago.
The Islamic State’s reported chlorine attacks appear to have been largely ineffectual. The attack on the police officers last month is the only one officially documented.
Chlorine, a common component in industry, is sold legally, but its use as a weapon violates the Chemical Weapons Convention. It was widely employed in trench warfare during World War I, including infamously at Ypres in Belgium, where German forces dispersed more than 160 tons of chlorine into the breeze, killing thousands of French and Allied soldiers.
Note: This isn't new, but US/European media is terrible. Babil, Diyala, and Saladin could be liberated tomorrow and they wouldn't say a word on it. They haven't said a word said about 1,000s of sq. km liberated in the past month or so. Then again, it hasn't said a single word about Syria except Kobani and chemical warfare. However, a single village's seizure demands everyone at the press to work double-overtime. This is the worst type of propaganda I've seen. It seems like it's more pro-ISIS than anti-ISIS. The US media is certainly working against Iraq.
ISIS outpost on a hill near Kobane at the Syrian/Turkish border gets blown up by airstrike. Residents watch from the other side of the border and cheer.
Usually I dont like such videos, but seeing that ISIS flag being blown up like that together with the scum next to it made me happy.
@pls no ty Nah, ISIS and Nusra and "FSA" (most Western analyses I've read say there really isn't any FSA to speak of nowadays) and other terrorist groups will meet their demise sooner or later. As sad as it is, I don't see a world where vicious Islamic terrorists and deserting generals who attempted the coup that kicked off this 3-year civil war are a better option than an established and organized secular administration.
With that said, of the Arab republican (non-monarchical) states, Syria never had a competent administration. It was always poorly managed, which is why in almost 40 years of relative peace between Ramadan War and this civil war, it didn't progress a whole lot. Nowadays, the competency of politicians has dropped dramatically in every country in the Mideast so it's even worse. However, the removal of Maliki and the assignment of Al-Abadi, new bureaucrats, and even former Baathists has certainly made Iraqi government magnitudes better than it was just a few months ago. In the last couple months, Iraq has had the best governance it's had since 2003, or maybe even the embargo (since the country had no money during it). Though there's still tons of corruption to clean up.
NOW FOR SOME GOOD NEWS:
Jurf al-Sakhar, the ISIS stronghold in Babil province, has been retaken by Iraqi military forces. If I'm not mistaken, this was their last enclave in the province?
Hilla / NINA / The security forces and the supporting factions liberated on Friday Jurf al-Sakhar, 45 km northwest of Hilla completely and raised the Iraqi flag on it.
The governor of Babylon Sadeq Madlul al-Sultani told the National Iraqi News Agency / Nina / that the security forces and the popular crowd managed to liberate the district and expel the IS and killed more than 70 elements of them and destroying many of the bunkers and the vehicles belong to them.
He added that the local government will announce later the details of the victory.
Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) On Thursday, Iraqi Ministry of Defense announced that the Iraqi Army forces managed to liberate Duwailiya area in southern Baghdad after killed 43 ISIS militants.
The Ministry said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews that “Iraqi troops from the 14th Brigade accompanied by the armed volunteers have managed to liberate Duwailiya in southern Baghdad. Iraqi forces killed 43 ISIS militants, destroyed a number of armored vehicles, and seized weapons, ammunition and gear during the military operation.”
So the southern front is mostly secured. This is good. I wonder how things are going in Baiji and Tikrit.
ISIS cannot progress against Sinjar
Mosul: Iraqi military helicopters Friday bombed positions of Daesh around Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq, where about 3,000 Yazidis have taken refuge. Luqman Khansuri, leader of the Sinjar Protection Force, said the bombings were aimed at easing the persecution by the militants of the Yazidis. After the air raids, the Sinjar forces clashed with the Islamist fighters and killed 35 Daesh members, while others managed to escape, Khansuri reported. Among the dead was Khairy Sheikh Khedr, one of the prominent leaders of the Sinjar forces. Over the past few days, the Daesh has seized the towns of Hatin, Duhla and Burk in the Mount Sinjar area, as it took advantage of bad weather conditions which prevented aircraft of the US-led international coalition from flying over the region. Mount Sinjar has been a sanctuary for the Yazidi minority since August when they fled the brutality of the Daesh militants who had seized the nearby city of Sinjar.
And some very bad news. It's funny to think this used to be probably the second-most liberal Mideastern country after Lebanon. Boy have things changed thanks to the infinite Iranian influence in the last decade. Religious parties are literally overruling the Minstry of Education. Thanks Uncle Sam for letting Iran take power over Iraq.
ISIS leaders defecting! HAHA They know the end is nigh! Also, Assassin's Creed-style anti-IS assassinations going on in Mosul apparently.
Senior members of the Sunni Muslim extremist group, the Islamic State, have disappeared from Mosul and Tikrit. Sources suggest they defected for a number of reasons: they fear the end is nigh for their group, the threat posed by unhappy former allies who have already assassinated some of their number and because of promises of money and safety.
Last week was a tough week for the Sunni Muslim extremist group known as the Islamic State, or IS. It had incurred serious losses of manpower in strongholds in both Syria and Iraq.
Figures released by the Iraqi Ministries of Defence and the Interior suggest that the IS group lost around 400 fighters in Iraq and reports from Syria say as many as 500 IS fighters have been killed there, particularly around Kobani where there is fierce fighting but also in strongholds like Raqqa, where airstrikes by an international coalition are having an impact.
And it seems that some of the leaders in the IS group now feel that the writing is on the wall and that the IS group won’t be able to hold onto power for much longer.
Confidential information from inside Iraq military intelligence obtained by NIQASH says that several senior leaders in the IS group have disappeared from areas the group controls – most particularly from inside Mosul, the northern city the group considers it’s Iraqi capital, and from parts of the Salahaddin province.
NIQASH’s source inside Iraqi intelligence says that most of the IS group leaders who disappeared are field commanders, men responsible for administration of combatants and territorial sectors. Most of them are Iraqis too – they are not from among the IS group’s Arab or foreign fighters. And apparently the group of defectors also includes one Ali al-Hamadani, who is thought to be very close to the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as well as another senior leader whose name is unknown as yet but who was allegedly responsible for al-Baghdadi’s personal protection.
Asked as to why these senior members may have defected, the source told NIQASH that it was down to the success of local and foreign infiltration into the organisation. The senior members had been promised money and protection, their future safety guaranteed if they left the IS group and gave up information about the group’s plans and movements.
It is also thought that the senior leaders are leaving because they fear that the IS group will not last much longer in Iraq and that they might eventually be killed. If they are caught though, they will also be killed as the sentence for betraying the organisation, as decreed by its leader, al-Baghdadi, is also death.
There has also been a rumour that al-Baghdadi had been moving a large amount of money around, smuggling it out of Iraq and investing it with friendly businessmen in the Gulf States in order to ensure that the IS group has financial stability – in case, one imagines, they lose the money-making territory they currently control.
After rumours about the defection of these senior leaders began to circulate, the IS group held one of their traditional demonstrations of strength and power, organising a parade of vehicles and manpower through Mosul’s streets.
Locals say that other senior members of the IS group –including the group’s spokesperson, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the IS-appointed governor of Mosul, Abu Bakr al-Khatouni, and the group’s military leader in Tal Afar, Abu Ala al-Afri - all returned from Syria to take over the posts left empty by the deserters.
On October 25 2014 09:40 JudicatorHammurabi wrote: ISIS leaders defecting! HAHA They know the end is nigh! Also, Assassin's Creed-style anti-IS assassinations going on in Mosul apparently.
Senior members of the Sunni Muslim extremist group, the Islamic State, have disappeared from Mosul and Tikrit. Sources suggest they defected for a number of reasons: they fear the end is nigh for their group, the threat posed by unhappy former allies who have already assassinated some of their number and because of promises of money and safety.
Last week was a tough week for the Sunni Muslim extremist group known as the Islamic State, or IS. It had incurred serious losses of manpower in strongholds in both Syria and Iraq.
Figures released by the Iraqi Ministries of Defence and the Interior suggest that the IS group lost around 400 fighters in Iraq and reports from Syria say as many as 500 IS fighters have been killed there, particularly around Kobani where there is fierce fighting but also in strongholds like Raqqa, where airstrikes by an international coalition are having an impact.
And it seems that some of the leaders in the IS group now feel that the writing is on the wall and that the IS group won’t be able to hold onto power for much longer.
Confidential information from inside Iraq military intelligence obtained by NIQASH says that several senior leaders in the IS group have disappeared from areas the group controls – most particularly from inside Mosul, the northern city the group considers it’s Iraqi capital, and from parts of the Salahaddin province.
NIQASH’s source inside Iraqi intelligence says that most of the IS group leaders who disappeared are field commanders, men responsible for administration of combatants and territorial sectors. Most of them are Iraqis too – they are not from among the IS group’s Arab or foreign fighters. And apparently the group of defectors also includes one Ali al-Hamadani, who is thought to be very close to the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as well as another senior leader whose name is unknown as yet but who was allegedly responsible for al-Baghdadi’s personal protection.
Asked as to why these senior members may have defected, the source told NIQASH that it was down to the success of local and foreign infiltration into the organisation. The senior members had been promised money and protection, their future safety guaranteed if they left the IS group and gave up information about the group’s plans and movements.
It is also thought that the senior leaders are leaving because they fear that the IS group will not last much longer in Iraq and that they might eventually be killed. If they are caught though, they will also be killed as the sentence for betraying the organisation, as decreed by its leader, al-Baghdadi, is also death.
There has also been a rumour that al-Baghdadi had been moving a large amount of money around, smuggling it out of Iraq and investing it with friendly businessmen in the Gulf States in order to ensure that the IS group has financial stability – in case, one imagines, they lose the money-making territory they currently control.
After rumours about the defection of these senior leaders began to circulate, the IS group held one of their traditional demonstrations of strength and power, organising a parade of vehicles and manpower through Mosul’s streets.
Locals say that other senior members of the IS group –including the group’s spokesperson, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the IS-appointed governor of Mosul, Abu Bakr al-Khatouni, and the group’s military leader in Tal Afar, Abu Ala al-Afri - all returned from Syria to take over the posts left empty by the deserters.