In the past few months, the jihadists of the Islamic State group (IS) have seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

Since their successful offensive in Iraq mid-June, IS fighters have set up camp in large parts of northeastern Syria, the neighbouring war-torn nation. All the while, they have battled Kurdish militias (YPG), anti-Assad rebels – including other jihadists – and Syrian government forces.

In Iraq, government forces have been trying to regain control of their national territory with help from international coalition air strikes. Explore the map below to discover which areas are in the hands of the IS group in Iraq and in Syria.

In the last three weeks alone, intensified fighting between rival armed groups in Libya has forcibly displaced nearly 290,000 people across the country, including 100,000, who urgently need food, health care and adequate shelter, especially now that winter in approaching, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said today.

“The growing number of displaced people is outstripping the capacities of local communities,” UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards told journalists in Geneva, adding that the agency and its partners are responding to some of the needs, but “we face major constraints in access.”

In recent weeks, the North African nation has been embroiled in some of the worst fighting since the 2011 uprising that ousted former leader Muammar al-Qadhafi. The Libyan parliament convened for the first time in early August of this year, welcomed by the UN as a move toward peace. However, protracted battles between opposing armed groups continue to take their toll on civilians.

According to a UNHCR statement released today, recent displacement has been around Warshefana on the outskirts of Tripoli, where fighting in recent weeks has caused some 100,000 people to flee. Additionally, some 15,000 people are estimated to be displaced around Benghazi.

Many displaced people are living with locals, some who have opened their homes to several families to meet the growing need for shelter. People unable to stay with relatives or host families sleep in schools, parks or non-residential buildings converted into emergency shelters.

For example, Ajaylat, a small town some 80 kilometres west of Tripoli, normally of about 100,000 people, is now hosting some 16,000 displaced people. With displaced people now making up more than 10 per cent of the local population, health facilities are struggling to cope.

UNHCR reports that the main hospital there is witnessing a 30 per cent increase in cases and lacks essential medical supplies and medicines for chronic illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes. Other towns across western Libya and in Benghazi are under similar strain.

Efforts to reach the displaced are often hampered by limited access to towns affecting by fighting between rival armed groups. UNHCR and partners dispatched the first relief convoy for 12,000 displaced people in western Libya in August. But additional help is urgently needed, and for this, better access is required.

The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNMIL) has called for an immediate ceasefire and access to carry out distribution of aid. Meanwhile, the UN has issued a humanitarian appeal for Libya requesting additional funding to continue helping hundreds of thousands of people.

As well as the impact on the local population, the fighting is also affecting refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants in Libya – many of them from Middle Eastern countries and sub-Saharan Africa. Lawlessness and spike in food prices have made many desperate to leave.

Libya’s policy of detaining refugees and migrants has pushed many to put their lives in the hands of smugglers to try to get to Europe – joining the tens of thousands of people who in recent months have transited through Libya and made the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. Of the more than 165,000 who have arrived on Europe’s shores so far this year, the majority departed from Libya – of whom 48 per cent are Syrians and Eritreans.

Many have not made it far from the Libyan coast. The latest tragedy, off the coast near Tripoli on October 2, left more than 100 people, mostly Syrian nationals, dead or missing.

Source:  scoop.co.nz

Fighting in Iraq’s western Anbar province has forced up to 180,000 people to flee since the city of Hit fell to Islamic State earlier this month, the United Nations said on Monday.

Islamic State fighters extended that advance by overrunning a military base that the Iraqi army had abandoned 8 km (5 miles) west of Hit earlier on Monday, according to an army officer and members of a government-backed Sunni militia.

Islamic State has been on the offensive in the desert province of Anbar, bordering Syria, in recent weeks, taking the town of Hit on October 2 and nearby Kubaisa on October 4.

That has raised concerns in the West because it is close to Baghdad and demonstrates the group’s reach; while operating successfully in Anbar, it is also on the verge of taking the strategic town of Kobani hundreds of miles away in northern Syria on the border with Turkey.

In Baghdad, three bombs exploded in Shi’ite parts of the capital on Monday, killing 30 people, police and medical officials said, continuing a wave of attacks targeting Iraq’s majority religious group.

There was no claim of responsibility for the bombings, but Islamic State claimed a string of attacks in Baghdad on Sunday that left 45 dead.

As a result of the fighting and air strikes in Anbar, carried out by the Iraqi government and a United States-led military coalition, up to 30,000 families or 180,000 individuals have fled Hit, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

The war in Anbar and its conquest of Mosul have allowed Islamic State to hold territory from eastern Syria across Sunni parts of Iraq with the goal of establishing a caliphate.

Suicide bombers
In northern Syria, three Islamic State fighters blew themselves up on Monday in Kobani, a monitoring group said, with the hardline militants making slight advances inside the besieged Kurdish town.

In one of the attacks, an Islamic State fighter detonated a truck laden with explosives in a northern district of Kobani, which has been the scene of heavy clashes between Kurdish forces and Islamic State fighters, Kurdish sources said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported more heavy fighting on Monday inside the city, where US-led air strikes have so far failed to halt the militants’ advance.

Rami Abderahman of the Observatory said one of the suicide attacks targeted a bus station in the northwest of Kobani and that the group had taken around 50 percent of the town.

“They now control the cultural centre, which means they have advanced further inside the town,” he said.
The Observatory said there had been at least five US-led strikes early on Monday, mainly targeting southern districts of Kobani, which is known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic. Clashes also continued to the east, killing a dozen Islamic State fighters.

The militant group wants to seize the town to consolidate a dramatic sweep across northern Iraq and Syria.
The United States and Saudi Arabia launched eight air strikes on Sunday and Monday against Islamic State targets in Syria, including seven near Kobani, the US military said.

Four strikes southwest of Kobani hit Islamic State units and destroyed a machine gun firing position, while three strikes northeast of Kobani struck a militant unit and damaged a staging location and several buildings. Another strike hit an Islamic State garrison northwest of Raqqa, the military said.

Denial
In a blow to US hopes, Turkey denied it had agreed to let the United States use its Incirlik air base in the fight against Islamic State, and sources at the Turkish prime minister’s office said talks were continuing on the subject.

Turkey had however reached an agreement with Washington on training Syrian rebels, the sources told reporters, without saying who would train the insurgents or where.

The comments come after US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Turkey had agreed to let forces from a US-led military coalition use its bases for activities inside Iraq and Syria and to train moderate Syrian rebels.

Syria’s air force meanwhile carried out strikes against rebels at more than double its usual rate on Monday, according to the Observatory.

The intensified air strikes by President Bashar al-Assad’s government will add to the fear among Assad’s opponents that he is taking advantage of the US strikes to crush other foes, including the “moderate opposition” that Washington backs.

The United States says it does not want to help Assad’s government despite bombing Islamic State, the most powerful group fighting against Damascus in a three-year-old civil war. Washington aims to help arm moderates to fight against both Assad and Islamic State.

But within days of the start of US air strikes in Syria last month, Assad’s government stepped up the tempo of its own air campaign against rebels closer to the capital Damascus.

The Observatory said the Syrian air force had struck 40 times on Monday in areas in Idlib and Hama provinces, including dropping oil drums packed with explosives and shrapnel.

Typically Damascus has carried out no more than 12-20 raids a day.

Source:  dnaindia.com

E ‘un buon auspicio che il paese nordafricano in crisi sia sotto i riflettori mondiali. Il Segretario Generale delle Nazioni Unite, Ban Ki-moon, nella sua prima visita in Libia – dopo la caduta del colonnello Muammar Gheddafi – ha detto che la comunità mondiale non dovrebbe mai più permettere a Tripoli di scivolare nell’anarchia.

He voiced concern over the growing militancy trends in the country, and said Libya had seen enough of killings. The concern expressed by the world body chief is laudable from the point of view that Libya had been put on the back burner for quite some time, especially owing to the fact that it houses no such element as the ISIS, and the infighting is all among the thugs and despots of the strife-torn country.

It is widely hoped that the UN-brokered talks that are being held between rival parliamentary factions will enable them to post a stable and efficient government in the near future, and pull the country out from the abyss of lawlessness and parochial sentiments.

The fact that Ban was accompanied by Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, who is scheduled the take over the office of European Union Foreign Policy chief, illustrates the level of importance that Libya is once again attaining in the scheme of diplomacy.

Britain and France, which had been at the vanguard of the struggle to oust Gaddafi, should return to the marshlands of Libya with a proactive policy to rebuild the country and let a culture of tolerance and accommodation take roots.

The crisis in Libya is more than fighting the menace of lawlessness. Instability has plagued the oil-rich country and the newly elected dispensation had not been able to assert itself. Apparently that is why the parliament could not meet in Tripoli, due to militants’ pressure, and is meeting 1,000 kilometres away from the capital.

This tantamount to Libya in the making as a failed state, as there is hardly any centralised authority at work. The writ of the state is in the thin air, as three prime minister since 2011 have walked out, being unable to form a stable and workable government.

The prime issue that needs to be addressed is the surge of militant groups, and that too divisive on tribal and ethnic considerations. Apart from enabling the parliamentarians to resolve their differences, the UN should also broker reconciliation among the militant groups to bring them into a nexus of governance that is lawfully viable.

This current trend of marginalisation and going solo has rented the republic’s image and threatens its survival. The way militant groups are selling oil in the international market and indulging in parallel trade activity is unacceptable. Some out-of-box solution is the need of the hour.

Source:  khaleejtimes.com

The US-backed plan for an Iraqi national guard to recruit and support Sunnis fighting the militant group ISIL, a linchpin of president Barack Obama’s strategy, faces an immediate political test and an uncertain outlook.

Pressed by the Obama administration, new Iraqi prime minister Haidar Al Abadi is scheduled to send parliament legislation on Tuesday aimed in part at reprising the Sunni Awakening movement that fought Al Qaeda alongside the US military in Anbar province a decade ago. Locally recruited guard forces would provide Sunni boots on the ground to combat extremists in provinces hostile to Iraq’s Shiite-dominated military.

Parliament is the first of many hurdles for the plan, which has drawn a mixed reaction from Sunni leaders even as ISIL expands its hold on Sunni communities, including in Anbar. A guard wouldn’t be a quick fix to the current crisis because US officials estimate it may take as long as a year to raise, vet and train forces.

“I question whether Iraq units, which are going to be fashioned out of a few tribal fighters here and a few formerly disgruntled soldiers, will quickly have the capacity” to conduct anti-insurgency activities, said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution in Washington.

A more controversial aspect has received little public debate in Iraq or the US: forming effective Sunni National Guard units would require deploying several thousand more American advisers, Mr O’Hanlon said. Currently, about 1,600 US troops are in Iraq or headed there for military coordination, intelligence and security functions operating in Baghdad, the capital, and in Erbil in the Kurdish region.

The debate in parliament will be a political test for Mr Al Abadi, whose predecessor Nouri Al Maliki opposes the guard plan, sayimng it will weaken the central authority needed to keep Iraq from disintegrating. Kurdish officials may oppose the measure because they don’t want to merge their peshmerga militia into a national guard, just as it’s unclear whether Shiite leaders – and their Iranian backers – would yield control of their sectarian militias.

Guard units, while operating under the authority of provincial governors, would be paid and equipped by the central government and ultimately be accountable to the prime minister as Iraq’s commander-in-chief. Mr Al Abadi has hinted at concerns that Sunni units of a national guard might become a rogue force for tribal leaders opposed to the central government.

“I cannot start any recruitment without the proper legal framework,” MAr Al Abadi said in an interview last month on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “We don’t want to end up forming another militia.”

Mr Al Abadi said the plan reflects his view of the need to devolve power to the provinces as a long-term solution to the tensions among Iraq’s Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds.

“I think he is personally committed to it,” said Norman Ricklefs, president and chief executive officer of the Iraq Advisory Group, a consultancy based in Dubai that has advised the US military and the Iraqi government. “I don’t think it’s just an American plan, but I think he wants to be careful in case it doesn’t work out that he’s got a bit of flexibility and can distance himself from it.”

While governors of the main Sunni provinces have said they are prepared to raise thousands of men for a national guard force, some Sunni tribal leaders are wary of or oppose the plan. Sheikh Wasfi Al Asi, one of six Sunni tribal leaders who met in Baghdad recently with retired General John Allen, the US special envoy, said the plan is vague and many issues remain to be resolved.

“Frankly speaking, the idea of the national guard is not clear, only thoughts and ideas presented by Americans and the Iraqi government,” Mr Al Asi said in a phone interview.

Source:  thenational.ae

When the man in charge of Libya’s main border crossing with Egypt checks his staff rota every morning, he can count on a maximum of just 30 officers.

Masked gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on Lebanese army posts in the northern city of Tripoli overnight, security sources said Friday.

The sources told The Daily Star that gunmen with machine guns stormed three army posts in the Tripoli neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh around midnight, prompting soldiers to return fire.
They reported no casualties in the attacks.

The army spread out across the area to look for the assailants, the sources added.
Later, an unknown assailant also tossed a hand grenade into the city’s Abu Ali River in Tripoli overnight, the sources said, adding that troops also removed an undetonated hand grenade in the area.

The army confirmed the attacks in a statement. It said a group of individuals tossed two hand grenades on Syria Street in the Tripoli neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh at 4:30am.
The statement said another group also opened fire on a Lebanese army checkpoint in Talaat al-Omari in Bab al-Tabbaneh, prompting soldiers to respond.

The army is hunting the attackers, the statement added.
Future MP Ahmad Fatfat urged security forces to undertake stricter measures to tackle the security situation in Tripoli.

“Security forces have to be firm and clear,” Fatfat told a local radio station. “Tripoli is a safe city and should remain safe.”
The army has come under increased attacks across the country in recent weeks, with multiple attacks on Thursday alone.

On Thursday, one soldier was killed and another wounded in Rihaniyeh, in the northern Akkar province, when gunmen opened fire on them as they headed for duty. The army also came under fire near the Syrian border in the north, and gunmen inside a Syrian refugee camp near the northeastern border town of Arsal also shot at troops.

A military statement issued shortly before midnight said an army vehicle came under fire “from inside Syrian territory” as it drove along the Akkar highway in Qashlaq at 6pm.
Less than an hour later, unknown gunmen from inside a Syrian refugee camp in the Arsal neighborhood of Misyada opened fire on an Army patrol, prompting soldiers to return fire.

Earlier Thursday, gunfire from the Misyada refugee camp targeted an army post in Arsal.

Source:  albawaba.com

A militia chief was among at least 17 people, mostly soldiers, killed this week in fighting over the airport in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi, medical and military sources said Thursday.

The oil-rich North African nation has been in turmoil since an uprising toppled longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi three years ago, with interim authorities facing powerful militias that fought to oust him.

Salim Nabbous, a commander of the Shoura Revolutionary Council, was killed along with two of his comrades on Wednesday in clashes at the airport, a hospital source in Benghazi said.

His group, an alliance of militias, has been trying to wrest control of the airport from former general Khalifa Haftar, who launched a campaign against them in May.

And a spokesman for army special forces loyal to Haftar said 14 of them had been killed over the past three days.

Meanwhile, an AFP correspondent said several warplanes and military helicopters were flying over the city on Thursday and that anti-aircraft fire could be heard in some neighborhoods.

Since the beginning of September, the radicals have been trying to capture the airport, with its military and civilian airfields, from the special forces.

They clash almost daily clashes with Haftar’s forces, for whom the airport is a final redoubt in a city almost completely dominated by the conservatives.

On Oct., at least 36 soldiers were killed and more than 100 wounded by car bombs and clashes in what was the worst day of violence since Haftar announced his campaign to eradicate the radicals.

The cradle of the uprising against Qaddafi, Benghazi is the regular scene not only of fighting but also the murders of members of the security forces, political activists and journalists.

The Shoura Revolutionary Council includes radical group Ansar Al-Sharia, which Washington has branded as a terrorist organization. Last week, the UN Security Council warned of possible sanctions against those who reject peace in Libya.

The move is apparently aimed at shoring up UN-brokered talks on ending the violence.

Meanwhile, Libya’s interim Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni visited Cairo on Wednesday to cement an alliance with Egypt against the militias that control the Libyan capital and extremists battling his forces in the east.

Source:  arabnews.com

The Islamic State group’s effective media and jihadist branding campaigns have made them, if not the most dangerous, the most infamous of current active terror groups. Its militants have succeeded in bringing foreigner fighters to their strongholds in Iraq and Syria and have inspired established extremist groups across the map to pledge allegiance or show support. The new allegiances do not always represent territorial gains for the Islamic State group but they do underscore the appeal of the militant group often referred to as ISIS, as groups worldwide shed previous allegiances to umbrella organizations such as al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Days after ISIS declared its caliphate in June, leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio statement urging other extremist brigades and Muslims around the world to join him.

The group was in particular need of “scholars, fuqahā’ [experts in Islamic jurisprudence] and callers, especially the judges, as well as people with military, administrative and service expertise, and medical doctors and engineers of all different specializations and fields,” al-Baghdadi said. “Therefore, rush, o Muslims, to your state. Yes, it is your state. Rush, because Syria is not for the Syrians, and Iraq is not for the Iraqis. The Earth is Allah’s.”

Becoming a member of ISIS does not require being physically present in the group’s strongholds in Iraq and Syria, and ISIS has not sent fighters to many of the countries that now have ISIS-affiliated groups.
Some groups such as the Pakistani branch of the Taliban, and al Qaeda in Yemen, have issued formal statements allying themselves with ISIS and urging others to do the same. In other countries, groups have shown their loyalty by imitation — for instance, when Algeria-based terrorist group Jund al-Khilafah beheaded a French tourist whom it was holding as prisoner. In Libya, two extremist brigades held rallies with ISIS flags on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha but have not released formal statements.

Syria And Iraq
ISIS has seized large portions of Syria and Iraq, established a headquarters in Raqqa, Syria, and consolidated much of Iraq’s Anbar province under its control. There are several dozen different brigades operating in the Syrian civil war. Some have pledged allegiance to ISIS, some have had no choice but to join after militants seized their lands, and others are still fighting the extremists. ISIS has been active in Syria since the early years of the civil war, and was aligned with al Qaeda’s Syrian branch Jabhat al-Nusra until al Qaeda released a statement disowning ISIS in February 2014.

Algeria
Jund al-Khilafah was born when its leader defected from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, earlier this summer. It was a little-known militant group of no more than a thousand men until it declared its loyalty to ISIS in the most brutal of ways: The militants released a graphic video showing the beheading of French national Hervé Gourdel, whom they had kidnapped just days before. The video seemed to be an imitation of the ISIS videos of the murders of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and British national David Haines.

Pakistan and Afghanistan
The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, released an official video last weekend declaring allegiance to ISIS and called on other groups, notably al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, to do the same. The group’s leader was formerly aligned with al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri (Osama bin Laden’s deputy), but his allegiance has now shifted to al-Baghdadi. Earlier this summer, several of the group’s foreign fighters left the stronghold on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight with ISIS in Iraq.

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is based, despite its name, in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, but in the last few years has made gains across the border in Afghanistan. The group’s leader had ties to the Taliban and had long been considered an affiliate of al Qaeda. Since the group was formed in the early 1990s, some of its leaders have held top spots in the Qaeda hierarchy, according to the United Nations. On Sept. 26 the group formally allied itself with ISIS in an online statement: “Hereby, on behalf of all members of our movement, in line with our sacred duties, I declare that we are in the same ranks with the Islamic State (ISIS) in this continued war between Islam and (non-Muslims),” leader Usman Gazi wrote.
Al-Tawhid ​Battalion is a militant group that operates on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan that aligned itself with ISIS at the end of September. The group issued a statement asking ISIS leader al-Baghdadi for advice, according to the Site Intelligence Group.

Libya
Ansar al-Shariah’s Libyan branch is accused of carrying out the 2012 fatal attack at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. The group has solid footing in Benghazi and the city of Derna, where it had earlier declared an “Islamic emirate.” This weekend, the group reportedly held a parade in Derna holding ISIS flags. It has yet to issue a formal statement about its relationship with ISIS. Established in early 2014 in Derna, the Shura Council of the Youth of Islam had previously been aligned with al Qaeda and Ansar al-Shariah against the Libyan government. The group held a rally on Monday in Derna, after which members expressed support for ISIS.

Gaza
A militant group calling itself the Islamic State in Gaza recently emerged in the Gaza Strip. It is still unclear whether it is made up of militants already in Gaza or if ISIS has infiltrated the Strip. The group claimed responsibility for a bombing at the French Cultural Center in Gaza City on Thursday, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Its mission is to “implement Shariah law in Islamic lands and murder the children of Zion,” according to a statement released after the bombing.
The Mujahedeen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem is active in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and neighboring Gaza Strip. The militants issued a statement Wednesday urging all Muslims to back ISIS, according to the Site Intelligence Group. The State Department declared the group a terrorist organization in August and described it as “an umbrella group composed of several jihadist terrorist subgroups based in Gaza that has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on Israel since the group’s founding in 2012.” The group had previous ties to al Qaeda but has shown support for ISIS since February.

Lebanon
Lebanon has seen recent spillover from the Syrian civil war, as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS joined forces to attack the Lebanese armed forces guarding the border. Most recently, the Islamic State group released a video purporting to show the beheadings of Lebanese soldiers. What’s more, Lebanon is home to a Shia militant group aligned with Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria: Hezbollah.
The Ahrar al-Sunna in Baalbek Brigade (or “Free Sunnis of Baalbek”) is an anti-Hezbollah militant group that previously was unaligned. Days after ISIS declared its caliphate, the Lebanese group issued a statement formally allying itself with Islamic State: “With utmost honor and pride, we announce our allegiance to the jihadist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the Caliph for Muslims,” the brigade announced on Twitter.

Bahrain
No militant groups in Bahrain have officially pledged allegiance to ISIS, but Sunni religious leaders in the country have held rallies and voiced their support for the extremist group.
Sunni preacher Turky Albinalim and former parliament member Nasser Alfadhala posted separate YouTube videos declaring allegiance to ISIS this summer.

Yemen
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is an al Qaeda branch operating in Yemen and is widely considered to be one of the biggest militant threats to the United States. The group issued a statement in August declaring its “solidarity” with ISIS, according to the Yemen Times: “We assert to the Islamic Nation [all Muslims worldwide] that we stand by the side of our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the American and Iranian conspiracy and their agents of the apostate Gulf rulers.”

Philippines
The Philippines-based Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement posted several videos to YouTube showing its support for ISIS. “We have an alliance with ISIS and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” group spokesman Abu Misry told the Agence France-Presse in August. The group was originally part of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front but split in 2008.

Jordan
Jordan shares a border with Syria, and ISIS militants have reportedly infiltrated the country. A video posted to YouTube in August claimed to show a group of ISIS militants crossing the border. So far, no Jordanian brigades have publicly declared allegiance to ISIS, but there is speculation that the militants are inspired by Salafists Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada.

Egypt
In Egypt last week militants formed a group called Jund al-Khilafah in Egypt, aligning itself with ISIS and apparently, as the name suggests, modeled after the Algerian extremist group. In its initial statement, the group vowed to attack U.S. interests and “worshipers of the cross.”

India
India’s long-standing rivalry with neighboring Pakistan, which now houses several ISIS-aligned groups, has made it particularly vulnerable to terrorist infiltration. Monday, a militant group by the name of Ansar al-Tawhid in the Land of Hind expressed support for ISIS and urged its members to attack citizens from countries participating in the anti-ISIS coalition, according to the Site Intelligence Group: “If you are in the fortunate position to kill an American or European, whether French or Australian or Canadian, or other unbelievers who have declared war on the Islamic State, then do so,” the group said in the video, according to Reuters.

Tunisia
After ISIS declared the caliphate, several leaders of Ansar al-Shariah’s Tunisian branch traveled to Syria and pledged to back al-Baghdadi. Ansar al-Shariah’s spokesman Seifeddine Rais declared his allegiance to the militant group in a YouTube video, where he spoke at a podium flanked by ISIS flags.

Source:  ibtimes.com

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has suggested that the government should renew a parliamentary mandate authorizing the Turkish army to mobilize in neighboring Syria by clarifying that it would solely aim to save the border town of Kobane from jihadists. The current mandate gives broad and vague authority for cross border operations into Iraq and Syria.

“Let’s limit our army’s ground operation to the target of rescuing Kobane and driving ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] from there. Let’s definitely drop from the motion the article about allowing foreign soldiers to be stationed in our country. Instead, let’s add an expression that states that we could provide cooperation for air strikes,” CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said at a press conference on Oct. 9.

“Within this framework, as the CHP, we would lend all kinds of support,” he added.

Kılıçdaroğlu’s party voted against a motion adopted on Oct. 2 that gave the government new powers to launch military incursions into Syria and Iraq, and to allow foreign forces to use Turkish territory for possible operations against ISIL.

At the time, the CHP head argued that the motion brought to Parliament by the government was not aimed at broadening the struggle against terror, but was directed against Syria itself.

“We would support a motion on the struggle against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK], in short, against terrorist organizations. This was also what the Western coalition was looking for: A struggle against the terrorist organization of ISIL. But this is not the motion that came to Parliament. On the contrary, it is about struggling against Syria,” Kılıçdaroğlu said when that motion was debated.

Source:  hurriyetdailynews