A U.S. military expert announced on Thursday, the arrival of troops from the US Naval Infantry “Marines” to the Iraqi territory to participate in liberating Mosul city, which is controlled by ISIS terrorist organization since mid of last year 
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He told “Sky News Arabic” station that those troops have already arrived in the country to participate in the ground battle 
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The source, who requested anonymity explained that this is the first time that U.S. Marines arrive on the ground in Iraq and to take part in the battles against ISIS, adding that about three thousand of Marines are stationed in different locations in Iraq 
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“Hundreds of Marines have already arrived, while the rest will arrive in the coming weeks, to prepare for the process of liberating Mosul 
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The source said that the bulk of the troops that arrived are “stationed in Ain al-Asad base, while the other part went to Baghdad to protect the U.S. Embassy from a coming ISIS risk from west of the capital 
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“The liberation process of Mosul will be with the participation of US Marines , Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi army 
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The source pointed out that the entry of Marines into Iraqi territory and participating in the battles came “after a deal with the Shiite militias 
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He said that “America has agreed to send its troops after the Shiite militias confirmed its withdrawal from fighting and not attacking US forces, in turn, Shiite militias demanded the US forces with a number of points, first commitment to fight ISIS only, second ; not to attack the Shiite militias and third; not to support the Sunni tribes in the region

Source:  shafaaq

The United States has so far identified around 1,200 Syrian opposition fighters for potential participation in a US military-led program to help train and equip them to battle the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

The fighters will undergo vetting for the program, which is expected to begin in March at multiple sites outside of Syria and train more than 5,000 Syrian fighters a year. Some 3,000 could be trained by the end of 2015, a US official said.

The program is expected to vet fighters using both US government databases as well as intelligence from regional partners.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have publicly offered to host the training and Jordan has privately offered to do so. One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said training is likely to start in Jordan.

At the Pentagon, spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby declined to specify which sites might host the potential Syrian recruits identified so far.

“There’s about 1,200 individuals who have been identified for participation — potential participation — in this process and in this program,” Kirby told a news conference. “Where they will be trained, I don’t have that information right now.”

On Tuesday, the US and Turkey said they expected to soon sign an agreement on training and equipping “moderate” Syrian opposition fighters.

Turkey has been a reluctant partner in the US-led coalition against the insurgents, refusing a frontline military role despite its 1,200 kilometer (750-mile) border with Iraq and Syria. But it agreed in principle to train and equip Syrian rebels and is already training Kurdish peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq.

Regarding Tuesday’s deal, several US officials have told Reuters the Syrian fighters would be equipped with items including pickup trucks with mounted machine guns, radios and global positioning system trackers.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that the radios and GPS equipment would enable the fighters to call in airstrikes. But Kirby stressed that the training mission was not meant to create “Syrian forward air controllers,” although he acknowledged their potential assistance in identifying targets.

“I can’t rule out that at some point, that we might find it useful for them to have the ability to help assist with targeting on the ground,” he said.

The Pentagon has previously estimated that more than 400 US troops, including special operations forces, will train Syrian fighters. Hundreds more US forces will be sent to support them. Kirby estimated that the total force involved in the training mission could reach about 1,000 troops.

The US-led coalition of around 60 mainly Western and Arab states was formed several months after ISIS swept across northern Iraq in June, seizing swathes of territory and proclaiming a caliphate in parts of the country as well as regions in neighboring Syria.

Critics opposed to US involvement in the conflict with ISIS have pointed out that Washington in partnership with its allies, including Turkey, played a role in the formation and expansion of extremist groups like ISIS by arming, financing and politically empowering armed opposition groups in Syria.

In an interview with CNN, Barak Barfi, the spokesperson for the family of American journalist Steven Sotloff murdered by ISIS, said that “moderate” Syrian rebels backed by the United States government sold Sotloff to the group.

“We believe that these so-called moderate rebels that people want our administration to support, one of them sold him probably for something between $25,000 and $50,000 to ISIS and that was the reason he was captured,” Barfi declared.

Former 16-year member of the US Congress and two-time US presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich wrote in an article for The Huffington Post in September entitled “8 Reasons Why Congress Should Vote No on Training and Funding Syrian Rebels.”

In his article, Kucinich warned that “funding Syrian rebels will precipitate a new and wider war in the Middle East.”

“Saudi Arabia, which, with Qatar funded the jihadists in Syria, is now offering to ‘train’ the rebels,” which means that “the sponsors of radical jihadists are going to train ‘moderate’ jihadists,” Kucinich added.

Kucinich also described the US Treasury as becoming the “piggy bank” of ISIS.

“The US has supplied weapons to the Iraqi government and to Syrian rebels which have ended up in the hands of ISIS,” he explained. “As a result, the US Air Force has been bombing Humvees and armored troop carriers purchased with US taxpayer money.”

A study published in September 2014 by the London-based small-arms research organization Conflict Armament Research revealed that ISIS jihadists appear to be using US military-issued arms and weapons supplied to the “moderate” rebels in Syria by Saudi Arabia.

The report said the jihadists disposed of “significant quantities” of US-made small arms including M-16 assault rifles and included photos showing the markings “Property of US Govt.”

As for Turkey, the Syrian government has consistently accused the NATO member of playing a major role in fueling the armed crisis in Syria by opening its borders and allowing free access to foreign jihadists into Syria.

Damascus has also repeatedly accused Ankara of harboring, financing, training, and arming militants since violence erupted in March 2011.

According to a UN report published in November, Turkey has been singled out as a major transit point for ISIS’ oil deliveries, with trucks often returning to Iraq or Syria with refined products.

In mid January, social media sites Twitter and Facebook, along with many other websites, were blocked in Turkey after anonymous accounts published new evidence in an ongoing case accusing Turkey of illegally shipping weapons to Islamist militants in Syria.

Source:  al-akhbar

According to recent reports, the Italian Secret Service fears an air attack by ISIS, compounding the already existent danger of terrorist infiltration among with throngs of immigrants coming to Italy by boat from neighboring Libya.

Several days ago, the air defense system went into high alert after the secret service sent a notice.

The notice spoke of aircraft prepared to take off from Sirte and able to strike the Italian peninsula.

Though this has not yet occurred, tensions remain high because of the strong risk of an attack carried out by “lone wolves” as occurred in Paris and in Copenhagen.

The State official responsible for the Secret Services, Marco Minniti, said that ISIS has what he called both “symmetric and asymmetric” capabilities, in that it can execute “both military and terrorist campaigns.”

According to Minniti, this means that the ISIS threat holds the “maximum unpredictability,” which is “unprecedented.” Minniti also said that the dynamics of the situation makes necessary “comprehensive data collection.”

Specifically, Minniti has called for the immediate implementation of a Europe-wide sharing of Passenger Name Records (PNR) on all flights, exchanging pertinent information especially regarding n passengers that trigger suspicions, because though the Schengen open treaty should not be suspended, “it is essential to maintain control of who moves in or out of the theaters of war.”

Meanwhile, the Egyptian journalist Mustapha Bakri has released details on the Egyptian special forces strike on Derna yesterday.

According to Bakri, Egyptian forces “killed 155 terrorists and captured 55 others before returning safely to Egypt.”

Bakri also reports that the Egyptian army was able to destroy several bases of the jihadist group.

Yesterday evening at a UN Security Council emergency meeting, discussions centered on what course to take to confront the growing ISIS threat in Libya.

Sebastiano Cardi, the Italian Permanent Representative to the UN Security Council said that Italy is “ready to contribute to the monitoring of a ceasefire and the maintenance of peace” as well as “to provide training of the armed forces in a framework of integration of the militias into a unified battalion.”

Cardi also said that “the next few weeks will be crucial for the future of Libya,” and urged a change of position from the international community “before it is too late.”

Source:  breitbart

Turkish intelligence has warned security forces that militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) crossed into Turkey after retreating from the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani near the Turkish border and that they might be planning attacks on foreign diplomatic targets in Ankara and İstanbul, according to a report on Thursday.

ISIL was forced out of Kobani in late January after four months of fighting with Kurdish forces, who were backed by a US-led coalition that launched aerial strikes against ISIL targets. According to a Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT) memo to the police and military on Feb. 3, about 3,000 ISIL militants were in the area as of January and some of them have already crossed into Turkey, the Hürriyet daily reported.

MİT warned that the militants, who are believed to have been accommodated in safe houses in Turkey, might be planning attacks on diplomatic missions of countries that took part in an international military coalition in Ankara and İstanbul. The premises of the targeted diplomatic missions have been spied on and scouted by ISIL militants, according to the report.

The MİT memo said some of the militants who have entered Turkey, identified as Syrian and Palestinian nationals between the ages 17 and 25, might pretend to be migrants crossing from Turkey into Bulgaria in an effort to travel to other European countries to carry out terrorist attacks there.

Source:  todayszaman

Islamic State (Isis) militants retreated from the Libyan village of An Nawfaliyah on Tuesday morning (17 February), according to Arabic media.

The news was reported by Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, and was also posted by several journalists on Twitter.

Sources say the cause of the full and sudden retreat was unknown, as was the direction the IS militants were heading – although inhabitants of An Nawfaliyah said they may have been heading towards Sirte in central Liya.

Situated 123 km east of Sirte, An Nawfaliyah has been an IS stronghold for several days. Sources say top officials in IS may have ordered the retreat in fear of imminent air strikes on their open military bases in the village.

The retreat comes following Egyptian air strikes on IS military bases in the city of Derna, eastern Libya, earlier this week.

Egyptian officials said the strikes were in revenge for the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians by IS militants, footage of which was released on Monday (16 February).

Egypt announced its wave of air strikes in Libya within hours of the Coptic massacre. It is the first time they have pursued military intervention in the unsettled country.

Libya is also preparing for air strikes on IS military bases across the country, promising to root out the terrorist group.

Niger, Chad and Cameroon are seeking to pin down Boko Haram within Nigeria’s borders ahead of a ground-and-air offensive by a regional taskforce due to start from the end of next month, a senior Niger military official said.

The Islamist group, which has killed thousands of people in a six-year insurgency in Nigeria, has fought fierce battles with the three countries’ armies in southern Niger and northern Cameroon, near Nigeria’s borders, in recent weeks.

Chadian forces have made incursions into Nigeria to push back the jihadist fighters, hundreds of whom have been killed. Military chiefs will meet in the Chadian capital N’Djamena next week to finalise strategy for the 8,700-strong taskforce of troops from Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin and Niger, said Colonel Mahamane Laminou Sani, director of documentation and military intelligence of Niger’s armed forces.

“All we are doing right now is stopping Boko Haram from entering Niger: if they attack our positions we push them back a certain distance and Nigeria pushes from the other side to contain the situation,” he said, on the sidelines of the annual US-sponsored ‘Flintlock’ counter-terrorism exercises in Chad.

“There are initiatives by our countries to make sure Boko Haram doesn’t get out of control but we have a deadline of end-March to put the joint force into practice,” he said late on Wednesday.

De-classified documents reveal details about the life led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before he became leader of Islamic State, the terrorist organisation that has sadistically murdered thousands of people in Syria, Iraq and Libya, including beheading western hostages.

Al-Baghdadi was captured by American soldiers in 2004 during the invasion of Iraq and spent almost a year in a military prison in the south of the country, according to documents seen by Business Insider.

His real name is Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Al Badry and while his date of birth was redacted from the files, he is thought to be 43.

He was captured, according to Business Insider, by US military intelligence in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, on 4 February 2004 and held until 8 December the same year.

Al-Baghdadi’s status was listed as “civilian detainee” and he was therefore not officially thought to be an insurgent.

His occupation was written as “ADMINISTRATIVE WORK (SECRETARY)”.

It is thought he was detained in a raid aimed at arresting his friend.

He was listed as married, with an uncle being his next of kin, although all relatives’ names have been redacted from the de-classified documents.

There is also a prison photo of him wearing glasses.

What a difference a decade makes. The former secretary from Fallujah is now the most reviled terrorist on the planet, heading a band of murdering thugs, bent on the establishment of an Islamist caliphate carved across the Middle East.

US officials must be ruing the fact that the man they now have top of their most wanted list was in their custody for almost a year.

How would the modern fight against terror look if Al Baghdadi, the one time secretary, was still in an American jail?

The Romanian ambassador to Baghdad , Brad Jacob announced that his government is preparing to supply Iraq with various weapons and ammunition to support the security forces 
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Brad added that the Romanian government is one of the first countries to have joined the international coalition to fight ISIS terrorist organization 
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“The government supports the Iraqi counterparts as it has adopted a new mechanism in which the security forces are equipped with various weapons and ammunition in order to maximize the victories achieved by the Iraqi security forces and the international coalition against ISIS gangs.”

The ambassador added “after the expulsion of these gangs, Romania will begin to implement the plan in place for the reconstruction of Iraq, which includes development projects and various agricultural and industrial sectors”.
 
Source: shafaaq

Some European Union countries which withdrew their ambassadors from Syria are saying privately it is time for more communication with Damascus even though Britain and France oppose it, diplomats said.