Shiite prayers billow from a mosque loudspeaker at a sprawling Iraqi military base on the fringes of the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk as Shiite militiamen, most of them in mismatched military fatigues, shuttle back and forth to nearby front-lines, eager for a taste of victory against the Islamic State group.

When the IS militants blitzed across northern and western Iraq last year, tens of thousands of Shiite men answered a call-to-arms by the country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to defend the nation against the Sunni extremists.

Now the Shiite militiamen have arrived in Kirkuk, long one of Iraq’s most hotly disputed territories, and have made a string of bases just 10 kilometers (six miles) from the city their home. A marriage of convenience has since emerged with Iraq’s strained Kurdish forces, which had been exclusively in charge of the city since last year when they repelled IS advances.

As they face a common enemy, the unexpected and often uncomfortable alliance between the Kurdish and Shiite rivals is on display. The friction is feeding the combustible inter-ethnic competition over who will ultimately get control of the city.

The Shiite fighters, officially known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, were instrumental in helping the Iraqi military — which dissolved in the face of the militants’ initial onslaught in northern Iraq — stall the IS push outside Baghdad. They have also teamed up with Kurdish peshmerga fighters in a number of battles, breaking the siege of the northern Shiite-majority town of Amirli in August, and recently, driving Islamic State militants out of a string of towns in Diyala province, northeast of the Iraqi capital.

But their arrival in Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, has provoked deep-rooted sensitivities. Kurdish forces claimed control of Kirkuk just days after the Islamic State group swept across northern Iraq, seizing major cities, including Mosul and Tikrit. Kirkuk, located along the fluid line that separates Kurdish northern Iraq from the rest of the country, is home to Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, and all have competing claims to the area. The Kurds have long wanted to incorporate the city into their semi-autonomous region, but Arabs and Turkmen oppose this.

The Kurdish troops held their ground, but the IS attempted a comeback. With what the Kurds say was assistance from a Sunni sleeper cell in the city, Islamic State extremists stormed an abandoned Kirkuk hotel last month, then staged a surprise attack on a Kurdish peshmerga outpost, killing a top commander and several of his troops.

The apparently coordinated attack was a blow to the Kurds and underscored their tenuous hold on the city, while the semi-autonomous Kurdish government appealed for more weapons and training from the U.S.-led coalition forces.

Since then, thousands of fighters from a handful of militias such as the powerful Iran-backed Badr Brigades, have flooded into Kirkuk and the surrounding Tamim province.

Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim welcomed the Shiite forces but Massoud Barzani , the president of the Kurdish regional government, insisted that the Shiite militiamen would be “prohibited under any circumstances” from entering the city.

“We are already in Kirkuk,” Mullah Mohammed Yousseff, a Badr Brigades spokesman, roared with laughter as he sat behind his desk inside a trailer at the Taza Batallion base during a recent visit by The Associated Press.

“We have to fight,” Yousseff added. “Our religion legitimizes it.”

The Badr Brigades commander, Hadi al-Amiri, came to Kirkuk last week to deliver truckloads of weapons to Shiite fighters and vowed during a meeting with senior Kurdish officials to send thousands more from his militia to reinforce the area — much to the Kurds’ consternation. At least 2,000 fighters have arrived at the Taza base alone since al-Amiri’s visit. Several militia commanders in Kirkuk estimate that as many as 5,000 Shiite fighters arrived in the region this month alone.

“I’m here because … al-Sistani called on us to protect our country,” said 24-year-old Shiite fighter Amir al-Qassim, who came to Kirkuk from his native Baghdad in January.

A former minister in the Kurdish regional government, Jafar Moustafa, insisted that the reports of Shiite militia presence in Kirkuk are “far from reality,” and that the governorate is firmly in the hands of the Kurdish peshmerga forces.

But only a few kilometers (miles) away from where Moustafa spoke to the AP, religious Shiite flags mark the battlefield, while billboards with al-Amiri’s picture and that of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are hoisted alongside Shiite outposts just south of the city.

“Run Daesh, run, by the orders of al-Sistani,” chanted a group of Shiite fighters after a recent clash, firing their Kalashnikov rifles into the air in celebration. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
Less than 50 meters (yards) away, Kurdish fighters stood guard along the same front line. They did not engage with the Shiite militiamen and refused to be interviewed.

Sunnis living in Kirkuk also have much at stake, and many are viewed with suspicion, deemed guilty by association — simply for being Sunni like the IS militants. The Shiite militias have been repeatedly accused of severe brutality against Sunni communities as they push IS back.

A report released Sunday by Human Rights Watch accuses the Shiite fighters of forcing Sunni residents from their homes, kidnappings, and in some cases, executions.

Such sectarian fears hang over the streets of Kirkuk, and at the outdoor bazaar in the heart of the city, many echoed concerns over the Shiite militias’ brutal record.

“They act like gangsters and we are afraid of that,” said Yassin Ahmed, 24, a Sunni resident of Kirkuk. “But the most important thing is that they have to take care of the people and provide us with security.”
For many of the city’s Kurds, Kirkuk can only be Kurdish.

“Kirkuk is a Kurdish area,” said 48-year-old Ali Karim. “Only the peshmerga must be in control.”

Over 13,000 security troops had been killed by March last year, while combat operations against the Taliban were still ongoing, according to Afghan government statistics

Leaders from Central Africa have met in Cameroon to finalize plans for a military offensive against Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria and neighboring countries, media report said.

Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli has sworn he will stay in the capital Tripoli, despite the Italian government on Friday warning its citizens to leave Libya amidst escalating violence.

“My community is here. How could I leave? It would be a betrayal,” he told Corriere del Veneto by phone. “This is the end of my mission. And if the end must bear witness to my blood, I will do it.”

Martinelli, 73, was born in Libya before returning to north-east Italy with his family. He moved back to the country in 1971 as a monk and now leads the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Tripoli.

Despite the closure of the Italian embassy on Sunday and the repatriation of around 100 nationals to Italy, Martinelli celebrated mass on Monday and said he was “not moving” nor was he scared.

Christians in Libya have faced threats from Islamists in the country, with Martinelli being targeted in Tripoli.

“They came into the church to tell me I must die. But I want it known that Father Martinelli is ok and that his mission could reach its term,” the vicar said.

His defiant stance comes just days after Isis militants released footage of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians being beheaded. The killings prompted Egypt to launch air strikes against Isis targets in Libya, while the Italian government called for a diplomatic response with UN involvement.

Martinelli said that he was well aware he could also be murdered by Islamic extremists.

“If God wants the end to be my head cut off, so be it. Also if God doesn’t look for heads cut off, but other things in a man…I could give testimony to something precious.

“I thank the Lord that He allows me to do so, even with martyrdom,” he said.

Lebanon’s Shiite movement Hezbollah is fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq, its chief Hassan Nasrallah revealed for the first time Monday in a speech beamed to supporters.

“We may not have spoken about Iraq before, but we have a limited presence because of the sensitive phase that Iraq is going through,” Nasrallah said, referring to ongoing clashes between Iraq’s army, militias and Kurdish forces against the IS jihadists.

Hezbollah is already fighting in Syria, alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

Nasrallah’s speech comes two days after his leading Lebanese opponent, former prime minister Saad Hariri, called on Hezbollah to withdraw from Syria.

“I say to those who call on us to withdraw from Syria, let’s go together to Syria,” said Nasrallah.

“I say, come with us to Iraq, and to any place where we can fight this threat that is threatening our (Muslim) nation and our region,” he added, referring to IS and the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra Front.

Both Sunni jihadist movements control large swathes of Syria, while IS is also present in Libya, where on Monday it claimed the beheading of 21 Coptic Christian Egyptian hostages.

Nasrallah condemned the brutal killings as “an awful, heinous crime”, while branding the Al-Nusra Front and IS as having “the same essence, ideology, culture and methodology”.

“The only difference between them was over leadership, but they are essentially one and the same,” said Nasrallah.

“All the takfiri (extremist Sunni) currents must be fought, without distinction.”

Nasrallah’s speech comes just over a week after Hezbollah, the Syrian army and pro-regime militias launched a major offensive against rebels and their Al-Nusra Front allies in southern Syria.

Nasrallah meanwhile said it made no sense for unnamed Gulf countries — in an apparent reference to Saudi Arabia and Qatar — as well as Jordan to fight IS, while allegedly supporting the Al-Nusra Front.

Hezbollah, like Assad’s regime, brands all those fighting Damascus as “terrorists”. Neither recognises the presence of non-jihadist groups seeking Assad’s ouster.

“How can some countries in the Gulf take part in the (US-led) international coalition against Daesh, while giving money and weapons to the Al-Nusra Front… How is that logical?” he said, using the pejorative Arabic acronym “Daesh” to refer to IS.

In August, a US-led coalition launched strikes against IS positions in Iraq. In September, the campaign was expanded to include targets in Syria.

Nasrallah went on to call on Gulf states that support the Syrian opposition to help pave the way for a political solution to a conflict that has claimed more than 210,000 lives since 2011.

“In Syria, the game is over,” said Nasrallah, in reference to the ongoing fighting.

“The gates to a political solution should be opened,” he said, “and the non-extremist opposition… must enter into a settlement with the regime, because the regime is ready for a settlement.”

Nasrallah also warned that “the region is going in the direction of more crises, more confrontations, and new fronts are opening”.

Source:  pakistantoday

In view of the deteriorating climate in Libya, Egyptian President Abdelfattah Al-Sisi has urged international action via the UN Security Council to intervene to re-establish legality and stability in Libya only days after 21 Egyptian Copts were killed there by ISIL-affiliated militants.

Speaking in an interview with “Europe 1” radio broadcast on Tuesday, Al-Sisi said Egypt did not want to intervene militarily in Libya but would work with the international community, citing France and Italy, to try to end the reign of terror in that country.

“We must deal with this problem because the mission was not completed (during the intervention by the European nations). We have abandoned the Libyan people to terrorism,” the Egyptian leader said.

Al-Sisi indicated that Egyptian air attacks against pro-ISIL groups in Derna over the weekend were not designed as intervention in Libya but were necessary to defend Egypt’s interests.

“We don’t want to intervene militarily and our attack was a form of self-defence,” he said.

“We need a response together,” he added, urging an international initiative to restore stability in Libya. “We must fight together to defeat terrorism.” Asked by “Europe 1” if this meant a UN Security Council mandate for action in Libya, he replied that he favoured this.

“There is no other choice, if the Libyan people are in agreement and call upon us,” the President said in the interview recorded in Cairo upon signature of a major arms contract with France.

Al-Sisi recalled that he had warned French President Francois Hollande four months ago of the growing dangers in Libya and both leaders discussed the war on terrorism in a phone call over the weekend after the assassination of the Egyptian nationals in Libya.

The Egyptian leader said he told Hollande of “the risks, the threats facing Egypt…not only Egypt but the Mediterranean basin, the region and Europe.” He recommended lifting the UN arms embargo on supplying weapons to the “legal” Libyan armed forces to allow them to combat the militant terrorists.

“We have to support legality and the Libyan people,” he said. “We must disarm (terrorists) and prevent arrival of arms,” he urged.

“We must lift the embargo on the Libyan army and allow it to defend itself,” he added.

Separately, Al-Sisi welcomed a major arms deal with France in which Paris has agreed to supply 24 high-tech, sophisticated “Rafale” combat aircraft to Egypt, as well as air-to-air missiles and a naval Frigate, for an estimated USD 5.7 billion.

He said the two countries had a long-standing defence cooperation and France has already supplied Mirage 5 and Mirage 2000 to the Egyptian air force as well as high-grade air defence missiles.

Source:  kuna.net.kw

A senior member of Palestinian Islamic group Hamas, Salah Bardawil, on Tuesday warned Italy not to embark on a military intervention in Libya, saying this would be considered “a new Crusade against Arab countries and Muslims”.

Last week Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said that Italy was ready to participate in a United Nations-mandated operation in Libya, amid concerns about advances made by jihadists linking themselves to the ISIS Islamist group.

But on Monday Premier Matteo Renzi ruled out an Italian operation in Libya for the time being and called for calm after the beheading of a group of Egyptian Copts in Libya on Sunday and threats that ISIS was now “south of Rome”.

In response to the tensions, Italy closed its embassy in Libya and brought back about 60 Italians early Monday.

Bardawil was quoted by the Palinfo agency as warned “some countries, such as Italy” against using the “excuse of fighting terrorism” to meddle in Libya.