39 Indians killed in Iraq's Mosul; govt didn't listen to survivor in 2015

All the 39 Indians who were abducted by ISIS in Iraq nearly three years ago were killed, and their bodies had been recovered, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Tuesday. Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh will be flying to Iraq to bring back their mortal remains to India on a special flight.

As many as 40 Indians were originally abducted by the terrorist organisation ISIS in June 2014 from Mosul in Iraq but one of them escaped by posing as a Muslim from Bangladesh, Swaraj said in a suo motu statement in the Rajya Sabha. The remaining 39 Indians were taken to Badoosh and killed.

Search operations led to a mound in Badoosh where locals said some bodies were buried by the ISIS. Deep penetration radars were used to establish that the mound indeed was a mass grave, Swaraj said, adding that the Indian authorities requested their Iraqi counterparts to exhume the bodies.

Islamic State lost 87% of territory seized in 2014: US-led coalition

The Islamic State (IS) group has lost 87% of the territory it controlled in 2014, when it proclaimed a "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria, the US-led coalition said today.

The announcement by the coalition, which has carried out thousands of air strikes against the jihadists and deployed advisers in both countries, came on the day of its third anniversary and as the Kurdish-Arab force, it supports captured IS's one-time bastion of Raqa.

"Our partners have removed ISIS from 87% of territory they once held and liberated over 6.5 million people," coalition spokesperson Ryan Dillon said on social media, using another acronym for IS.

Attacking from bastions it consolidated in Iraq and especially in war-torn Syria, the organisation that eventually re-branded itself "Islamic State" swept through Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland in June 2014 and conquered roughly a third of the country.

In a separate statement, the coalition, formed after former US president Barack Obama sent warplanes to Iraq in a bid to stop the IS genocide of the Yazidi minority, said it had trained close to 120,000 forces in Iraq and more than 12,000 in Syria.
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Foreigners scramble out of Iraqi Kurdistan ahead of retaliatory flight ban

Foreigners scrambled to leave Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday hours before the start of a flight ban imposed by Baghdad in retaliation for an independence referendum that has sent regional tensions soaring.

Iraq's central government has ordered a halt to all international flights to and from the autonomous region from 6:00 pm (local time) on Friday after Iraqi Kurds overwhelmingly voted for independence.

Washington has said it would be willing to facilitate talks between the Iraqi Kurdish authorities and Baghdad to calm escalating tensions over the 92-percent "yes" vote, as a top Shiite cleric called for solving the crisis in an Iraqi court.

Neighbouring Turkey and Iran also strongly opposed the vote, fearing it would inflame the separatist aspirations of their own sizable Kurdish population.

Ankara has threatened a series of measures including blocking crucial oil exports from the region via Turkey.

The Kurds have condemned the flight suspension as "collective punishment".

Today, Iraqi Kurdistan's transport ministry sent a letter to Baghdad asking to "open negotiations" on flights but was still awaiting a reply, a ministry spokesman said.
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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to ISIS militants: Have patience, step up your attack

The leader of the Islamic State group urged followers to burn their enemies everywhere and target "media centers of the infidels," according to an audio recording released Thursday that the extremists said was by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The reclusive leader of Islamic State, who has only appeared in public once, also vowed to continue fighting and lavished praise on his jihadis for their valor in the battlefield — despite the militants' loss of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in July.

The recording was released by the Islamic State-run al-Furqan outlet, which has in the past released messages from al-Baghdadi and other top figures of the extremist group. The voice in the over 46-minute-long audio sounded much like previous recordings of al-Baghdadi. His last previous purported message was released in November, also in an audio recording.

"You soldiers of the caliphate, heroes of Islam and carriers of banners: light a fire against your enemies," said al-Baghdadi, a shadowy cleric who has been surrounded by controversy since the Sunni terror group emerged from al-Qaida in Iraq, its forerunner.

Russian officials said in June there was a "high probability" that al-Baghdadi had died in a Russian airstrike on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group's de facto capital. US officials later said they believed he was still alive.

Al-Baghdadi's whereabouts are unknown but he is believed to be in Islamic State' dwindling territory in eastern Syria. The Islamic State-held cities of Raqqa and Deir el-Zour are under siege and likely too dangerous for him to hide in. Some Islamic State leadership is believed to have gone to the nearby town of Mayadeen, and the group still holds a stretch of the Euphrates River from Deir el-Zour to the Iraqi border, as well as remote desert areas along the border.
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Why Islamic State attacked Spain - once a part of Islamic empire

Despite its (relatively) low body count and primitive execution, Thursday’s terrorist attack in Barcelona shocked many local and international onlookers. The Islamic State (IS) group was quick to claim responsibility for the attack, in which a van was deliberately driven into pedestrians on Barcelona’s famed Las Ramblas strip. At least 13 people are dead, and around 100 have been left injured.

The location and targeting of the attack deviates from IS’s previous efforts. These have typically focused on punishing countries directly involved in military operations against it in Syria and Iraq.

But how reliable are its claims of responsibility? And why was Spain chosen, given its relatively inconsequential role in the fight against IS?
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Russian detained in Turkey over planned drone attack on US warplane

Turkish authorities on Thursday detained a Russian suspected member of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group for allegedly plotting a drone attack on an American warplane at a US base in southern Turkey.

State-run Anadolu news agency said that Renat Bakiev is accused of seeking to stage an attack at "the Incirlik airbase or a plane stationed there".

Quoting local police, it said that "for this purpose, he worked to obtain a drone".

Dogan news agency added that Bakiev is suspected of seeking to "stage a bomb attack aiming to bring down a US plane using a drone" at the Incirlik airbase.

He allegedly carried out reconnaissance work for the plot, both reports said, without giving further details on how the plan would have been put in place.

Anadolu further reported the suspect had asked fellow IS members through the Telegram messaging app for 2,800 lira ($790) in order to buy the drone.

The Russian embassy in Ankara said in a statement it was "carrying out the necessary work to understand what happened and make clear the circumstances"
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How Islamic State is luring women with false sense of 'empowerment': Report

The dreaded Islamic State terror group is luring foreign women recruits with a false sense of "empowerment", according to a new report by a UK think tank.

The report compiled by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) said the reasons that drove hundreds of women to journey from Europe to ISIS territories were "complex".

"We talked to women who hadn't been radicalised but could understand why some of these girls might have gone to Syria and Iraq so they could live as 'good Muslims'," said Emily Winterbotham, the report's co-author.

She said the use of the term "jihadi bride" to describe all female ISIS members was not truly representative.

"ISIS has been successful at selling that image to women. It's not just about the naive vulnerable jihadi bride, it's women saying: 'This is in line with my religion, my political beliefs, the fact I want to live how I want'," Winterbotham told 'The Independent'.

Possible draws were found to include "a rejection of Western feminism, online contact with recruiters who offer marriage and adventure, peer or family influence, adherence to ISIS ideology, naivety and romantic optimism, and the chance to be part of something new, exciting and illicit", she said.
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Islamic State is on its knees, but its legacy will long haunt Middle East

After three years of violence, Islamic State has encountered a major defeat that could mean that its end is near. On July 10 2017, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, after a successful nine-month military offensive to “liberate” the northern city of Mosul, declared “total victory” over IS in Iraq.

He categorically said: “I announce from here the end and the failure and the collapse of the terrorist state of falsehood and terrorism which the terrorist Daesh announced from Mosul”, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS or ISIL.

Almost exactly three years ago, on June 29 2014, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the group’s self-styled caliph, proclaimed a cross-border caliphate stretching over vast swathes of northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria.


Today, the Iraqi half of that territory has been almost totally eliminated (the northwestern Iraqi city of Tel Afar, close to the Syrian border, being an exception) while the Syrian half, based in the city of Raqqa, is facing imminent collapse under powerful US-backed Kurdish-led military offensives.

It’s a major turning point.

In the summer of 2014, an ISIL blitzkrieg swiftly defeated Iraqi defence forces across northwestern Iraq, capturing some 40% of Iraqi territories.

Prior to this rapid conquest, ISIL fighters had captured the Syrian province of Raqqa in January 2014, taking advantage of the bloody civil war let loose by pro-democracy movements.
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The last near-century of American dominance was extraordinarily violent

John Dower is one the most preeminent historians of World War II’s Pacific theatre and the aftermath of the conflict in Asia. His book War Without Mercy (1986) described the racial component of the U.S. campaign against Japan. In Embracing Defeat (1999), he examined the post-war U.S. occupation of Japan. He has long taken a critical look at U.S. foreign policy, subjecting the vaunted ideals of America’s global pretensions to sceptical scrutiny. He’s not interested in “good wars” or “good occupations.” He describes the exercise of power, and it’s almost never a pretty picture.

In recent years, Dower has been extending his critical analysis both chronologically and geographically. Cultures of War (2010) was an initial effort to link the violence of World War II to 9/11 and the Iraq War. Now, with The Violent American Century, Dower deepens his analysis by addressing the emergence and expansion of American global power all the way up to the Obama era. Dower is particularly interested in connecting the dots between the United States that emerged victorious from World War II and the America of the 21st century that appears willing to do almost anything to maintain its status as the world’s only superpower.

Dower begins his story just at the moment when the United States is poised to become a global titan. It’s 1941, the year the United States officially entered World War II. It’s also when Time’s Henry Luce proclaimed the beginning of “the American century.” For all his talk of democratic principles and the American spirit, Luce was not naïve. He knew that America would have to use force – in some cases, overwhelming force – to establish its global position. The saturation bombing of Dresden and Tokyo followed by the nuclear attacks against Nagasaki and Hiroshima became the pivotal moments of “war and terror” on which the United States would secure its authority.
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39 Indians abducted by ISIS in 2014 still alive: Govt

India is in touch with all the countries which can help in locating 39 Indians, believed to have been abducted by terrorist outfit ISIS in Iraq in 2014, the government said today.

Responding to a question on the issue, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said Sushma Swaraj had met representatives and families of these 39 Indians early this month.

"We are in touch with all nations who are helping us or who can help us. All possible steps are being taken. As of now we have the information that the people are alive. We have no such information to suggest that they are not alive," Baglay said.

The families said they had last heard from the men on June 14, 2014, when they all called home to say they were being taken away by ISIS fighters.
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ISIS surrenders leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's hideout in Iraq

The Islamic State has surrendered the key town of Baaj in north-west Iraq, which was a known hideout of the terrorist group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Baaj had been under Islamist militants' control throughout the 14 years of war and insurgency.

After the surrender, the remaining ISIS fighters fled the town on Saturday night, allowing Shia militia forces to enter unopposed.

"The Iraqi flag has been hoisted above its buildings," a statement from the Popular Mobilisation Front, which is an umbrella organisation for pro-government paramilitaries that is dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias, announced the "total liberation" of the Baaj district.

The withdrawal leaves just a pocket of Mosul and the border town of Bukamal as the only urban centres in Iraq with a significant ISIS presence.

Bukamal is expected to be a new focus of both Iranian and US efforts.

Meanwhile, US-backed Kurdish troops are now within sight of Raqqa on three sides of the city and the battle to retake the city is likely to start sometime this month.
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