Leading charity tells of collaborative multi-faith efforts to free persecuted minority group

A secret underground network operating in Iraq and Syria has reportedly freed more than 3,000 Yazidi women held captive in sexual slavery by Isis, like reported by independent.co.uk .

Kurdish and Christian civilians make up the group, along with other ethnic minorities and families of the victims, NGO Yazda has claimed.

According to the charity, rescues are carried out through word of mouth, driven by Yazidis who have escaped capture or whose loved ones are still being held in Isis territory.

“This is a group made up of all ethnicities working together on the ground. I know of more than five different groups collaborating, some are rescuing from Mosul, some from Raqqa, every group is working in different places,” Yazda director Ahmed Burjus told The Independent.

“If one person hears of a girl who is trapped in Raqqa, then they will call a friend on the ground who might know someone who will be able to try and rescue them, these are local people trying to free these women.”

Mr Burjus said little is known about the civilian humanitarian effort to free captive Yazidis due to the dangerous nature of the group’s work.

“These rescue missions happen very secretly, no information is shared with anyone. These are local people, local Yazidi families who carry out the rescues so they remain in danger. They can’t post anything about their whereabouts or their plans for fear of Isis capture,” he said.

The Yazidi people are an ethnic minority whose ancient religion is considered a form of devil worship by Isis. According to the UN, more than 3,500 are still being held captive, however Mr Burjus fears the real number could be even higher.

“Entire families have been killed or kidnapped. People didn’t know the correct information about them at the start, so everything is an estimation,” he said.

In July 2016, the UN recognised Isis’s persecution of the Yazidis as “genocide”. ​

Kurdistan Regional Government officials (KRG) allegedly closed Yazda’s Kurdish headquarters last week without giving a specific reason or due warning, according to the group.

Staff told Human Rights Watch: “Officers provided no reason, no paperwork and no information on how long it was being closed. The officers put locks on the doors to prevent staff from coming back.”

The KRG allegedly accused the group of being illegally involved in “political activities”, a claim Yazda describes as “baseless”.

An Islamic State (IS) chief was killed by a coalition airstrike in Raqqa, Syria, US officials revealed to kurdistan24.net.

Mahmud al-Isawi, a long-standing IS member who led the group’s media and intelligence, was killed by a precision airstrike in IS’ de facto capital of Raqqa, the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) reported.

Isawi controlled the flow of instructions and finances between IS-held areas and the leaders of the group.

He also provided extensive support to propaganda and intelligence outlets used by the extremist group.

“Isawi was the 16th significant member of IS’ external operations network killed by coalition forces in 2016,” the CJTF stated.

The CJTF statement also said Isawi facilitated trans-regional travel with other external IS operations coordinators.

“[Isawi] had a personal relationship with Abd al-Basit al-Iraqi, the emir of [IS’] Middle East attack network, who was killed in a coalition airstrike on Nov. 2, 2016,” the statement continued.

Additionally, the United States Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk on Friday confirmed the death of Isawi.

“Another blow to [IS’] EXOPS network,” he wrote on Twitter.

Regarding the anti-IS ground operations in northern Syria, the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and its multi-ethnic surrogate Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are the primary recipients of US-led coalition air support and arms shipments.

Mostly from its special operations forces, the US has embedded nearly 300 soldiers in Syria with the YPG and SDF.

Since the insurgent group’s emergence, the Kurdish forces have been applauded for their bravery and perseverance in defeating the extremists.

The US State Department announced that Ibrahim al Banna, who has served as one of al Qaeda’s most senior security and intelligence officials in Yemen since the 1990s, has been designated as a terrorist. State’s Rewards for Justice program has offered a bounty of up to $5 million for information on al Banna’s whereabouts since 2014, but he wasn’t officially added to the US government’s terrorist designation list until this week.

Al Banna was targeted in a US drone strike that killed Anwar al Awlaki’s son in 2011. But the veteran Egyptian jihadist survived and has continued to play a major role in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) operations ever since. Awlaki, who was a major al Qaeda ideologue, was killed in a separate airstrike just weeks earlier.

Al Banna was originally a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) organization, which he joined in 1979 or 1980. The EIJ officially merged with Osama bin Laden’s enterprise prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But the EIJ was closely cooperating with bin Laden by the early 1990s, when members of the group helped perform surveillance that was later used in the Aug. 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

In Dec. 2015, al Banna appeared in an AQAP video entitled, “Guardians of Sharia.” [See FDD’s Long War Journal report, An al Qaeda commander comes out from the shadows.]

AQAP media operatives also distributed an image with highlights from his biography. The image can be seen on the right.

In “Guardians of Sharia,” al Banna discussed the history of jihadism, al Qaeda’s war against the US and his group’s quest to resurrect an Islamic caliphate. Although Al Banna has long been known to Western counterterrorism and intelligence officials, Dec. 2015 was the first time he had shown his face in years. AQAP lost several senior leaders in 2015, so it is likely that the group decided to reintroduce him to the public to remind followers that veteran figures remain in place.

In 2010, AQAP’s Inspire magazine published an article attributed to al Banna in which he praised the 9/11 hijackings. “The American people need to think long about this great event that changed history; this strike that hurt America militarily and economically, and exposed the lies of the American media,” al Banna wrote. “We will not let you enjoy peace as long as we do not live it in our lands and in Palestine.”

Worked alongside co-founder of the Islamic State of Iraq

Al Banna was temporarily detained in Yemen sometime in 2010. That November, Al Jaridah, a Kuwaiti publication, published a partial transcript of what al Banna purportedly told authorities during interrogations.*

If Al Jaridah’s transcript is accurate, then al Banna’s account provides a fascinating window into how Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) evolved out of the EIJ’s first efforts inside Yemen. Al Banna emphasized that throughout his entire career in Yemen he answered to Ayman al Zawahiri. And he claimed to have worked closely, in Yemen, with the jihadist known as Abu Ayyub al Masri, who went on to lead al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Masri took over AQI after its founder, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was killed in June 2006. Masri and his compatriots established the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), the forerunner to the current Islamic State, in Oct. and Nov. 2006. At the time, Masri described the ISI as “the first cornerstone of the Islamic caliphate project.”

Al Banna provided an intriguing background story for Abu Ayyub al Masri, who went by several names and aliases. Al Banna claimed that Masri’s real name was Abd-al-Mun’im al-Badawi and that he had forged a passport for him sometime around the year 2000, before Badawi traveled to Afghanistan. Al Banna allegedly told authorities that he helped Badawi adopt the nom de guerre (Abu Ayyub al Masri) and identity of a jihadi who was already imprisoned in Egypt. This was no doubt part of their attempt to confuse authorities.

Al Banna claimed to have handpicked Badawi to train “newcomers” in Yemen. He was so impressed with Badawi’s skills that the two jointly led the EIJ’s training program in Yemen. The pair, working under orders from Ayman al Zawahiri, trained cadres of jihadists in “espionage and intelligence.” Al Banna claimed that Badawi’s success in this regard helped him eventually take over the leadership of AQI.

According to Al Jaridah’s transcript, al Banna even “nominated” Badawi to be AQI’s emir. Al Banna also claimed that Badawi was a major figure in al Qaeda’s global intelligence apparatus at the time of his ascendancy inside Iraq.

The Egyptian jihadi veteran told Yemeni authorities that he first relocated to their country in 1993. At the time, the Egyptian government was hunting down members of the EIJ and the Vanguards of Conquest, which were implicated in attacks against officials, including a failed assassination attempt targeting Prime Minister Atef Sedky.

Al Banna explained that two jihadists were responsible for receiving and hosting him and his compatriots in Yemen. One of them was Muhammad al Zawahiri, Ayman’s younger brother. Muhammad al Zawahiri was “responsible” for organizing the Egyptian youth and integrating them into Yemeni society, according to al Banna. (The junior Zawahiri has been imprisoned multiple times, but was reportedly released from custody last year.)

Other notable Egyptian jihadists who worked with al Banna in Yemen included Abu Faraj al Masri (also known as Ahmed Salama Mabrouk), who went on to become a leader of Al Nusrah Front in Syria. Mabrouk was killed in an airstrike late last year.

Ayman al Zawahiri traveled to Yemen in 1994 to directly oversee the Egyptians’ efforts, according to al Banna. The leadership of the EIJ in Yemen was first entrusted to Ahmad al-Najjar. But Zawahiri replaced Najjar in 1996, handing over leadership of the organization to al Banna and Badawi (Abu Ayyub al Masri). The pair ran the EIJ’s Yemeni branch for two years.

Al Banna described how he and Badawi worked with the tribes in southern Yemen as well as Houthi rebels to achieve their objectives. Their dealings with the Houthis were generally restricted to arms sales, al Banna said. But the Egyptian jihadis would also ask for the Houthis’ assistance in transporting and sheltering members of their group. Al Banna said they purchased weapons from both Sudanese and Yemeni dealers after receiving money from Zawahiri. Beginning in 1998, when al Banna and his companions formally joined al Qaeda, bin Laden began to fund the arms transfers. Some of the weapons were sent to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Bin Laden and Zawahiri established the “World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders” in Feb. 1998. And al Banna began to officially operate under al Qaeda’s umbrella around that same time. According to the transcript published by Al Jaridah, al Banna described the relationship as a natural fit, as the EIJ and bin Laden’s operation were very “similar” and the merger generated new funds and more access to training facilities in Afghanistan for the EIJ. Indeed, much of the EIJ had already become a de facto part of al Qaeda years earlier, when bin Laden was based in Sudan. Regardless, in 1998, al Banna said he and others called for all jihadists to unite behind bin Laden “in order to intensify jihadist action against Israeli and American interests worldwide.”

The merger led al Qaeda to reshuffle the jihadis’ leadership inside Yemen. The Egyptians would no longer hold the top spot in the country. Ayman al Zawahiri allegedly told al Banna in 1998 that Muhammad Umayr al Awlaqi would be taking over inside Yemen because he had the resources and contacts to grow the jihadi presence. Al Qaeda apparently wanted someone with local roots, like al Awlaqi, to lead its efforts.

However, al Banna and Badawi continued to oversee the organization’s “military and intelligence” efforts and also arrange for weapons shipments. Awlaqi led al Qaeda’s Yemeni enterprise until 2006, when Nasir al Wuhayshi and a cadre of his men escaped from prison. Under Zawahiri’s orders, al Banna and his men immediately swore allegiance to Wuhayshi after he took over as al Qaeda’s emir in Yemen. Al Banna said that Wuhayshi was the jihadi who was most qualified to lead the charge, and he also confirmed that Said al Shihri, a former Guantanamo detainee, was Wuhayshi’s deputy from the start. (Both Wuhayshi and Shihri were subsequently killed in American bombings.)

At some point, Badawi (Abu Ayyub al Masri) left Yemen for Afghanistan. Al Banna said that he traveled with Muhammad al Zawahiri and, upon arriving in Afghanistan, the two became al Qaeda’s best sources on what was going on inside Yemen. As an intelligence expert, Badawi supposedly had incredible information on events and personalities throughout the Muslim-majority world. Bin Laden even called Badawi “the legend” due to his superior abilities, according to al Banna.

Al Banna claimed to be in contact with Badawi (Masri) right up until the day before his “martyrdom” in April 2010, when AQI’s leadership was decapitated by US-led forces. Al Banna said he communicated with Badawi and others via the internet. Along with his Yemeni wife, Badawi had relocated to Iraq sometime in 2002. The CIA collected intelligence on his activities inside Baghdad. Al Banna was even asked about a story that another jihadi in custody told about Saddam Hussein supposedly negotiating with Badawi to move to Yemen after the US-led invasion of Iraq. “This is totally false,” Al Banna said, according to Al Jaridah.

Al Banna was asked about al Qaeda’s goals inside Yemen, and he freely admitted that the jihadis wanted to overthrow the existing government in order to establish an Islamic caliphate on Yemeni soil, replacing man-made laws with al Qaeda’s draconian sharia.

Al Qaeda’s goal is to “eradicate these laws and reformulate them after the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate on the soil of Yemen, so that all the laws will be based on the Book and the Sunnah,” Al Banna said, according to a translation obtained by FDD’s Long War Journal.

A commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was killed in clashes with Syrian opposition groups, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

General Gholam Ali Gholizadeh, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, was killed in fighting with opposition fighters, the agency said, giving no further details.

Local Syrian sources, meanwhile, said the Iranian general was killed during clashes between regime forces and opposition fighters in Damascus’ western countryside.

Iran is a staunch supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime has been fighting heavily-armed opposition forces since 2011.

For the past six years, Iranian troops, along with members of Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah group, have been fighting alongside regime forces in Syria.

More than 1,200 soldiers and pro-Iran militiamen are believed to have been killed in Syria since 2012.

A leading figure of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorist group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, was killed in a drone attack in Syria, like reported by tasnimnews.com

Iraqi forces faced car bombs and fierce resistance from Daesh militants in southern Mosul, the second day of a renewed push to take back the city after fighting stalled for several weeks, according to arabnews.com.

An officer in the federal police forces, which joined the battle on Thursday, said there were heavy clashes in the southeastern Palestine district, but they had made progress in two other neighborhoods, disabling a number of car bombs.

Another officer, from an elite Interior Ministry unit fighting alongside federal police, said his forces were gaining ground in the Intisar district despite heavy clashes there.

Iraqi forces in the east and north of the city were clearing areas they had recaptured on Thursday before advancing any further, officers said, and the army was trying to cut supply lines to the town of Tel Keyf, north of Mosul.

Since the offensive began 10 weeks ago, US-backed forces have retaken a quarter of the jihadists’ last major stronghold in Iraq in the biggest ground operation there since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Recapturing Mosul would probably spell the end for Daesh self-styled caliphate, and Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has said the group would be driven out of Iraq by April.

Elite forces pushed into Mosul from the east in October but regular army troops tasked with advancing from the north and south made slower progress and the operation stagnated.

After regrouping this month, they renewed the offensive on Thursday, advancing from the south, east and north of the city, which has been under militant control for more than two years.

The second phase of the operation will see US troops deployed closer to the front line inside the city.
On Friday, a Reuters reporter saw a handful of Americans in their MRAP vehicles, that tower over Iraqi tanks, accompanying top commanders to meetings in a village just north of Mosul.

Although the militants are vastly outnumbered, they have embedded themselves among Mosul residents, hindering Iraqi forces who are trying to avoid civilian casualties. Despite food and water shortages, most civilians have stayed in their homes rather than fleeing as had been expected.

NORTHERN FRONT
On the nothern front, Iraqi forces have yet to enter Mosul itself but on Friday they were clearing just-recaptured areas on its periphery as well as trying to cut off Tel Keyf.

“The enemy had occupied this area and used it for resting and resupplying toward Tel Keyf and Mosul,” Major General Najm Al-Jubbouri, a top commander in the offensive told Reuters in the northern district of Sada, which was recaptured on Thursday.

“It (Tel Keyf) is surrounded from the other sides and by our forces here,” he said.
Jubbouri said the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces had killed 70 militants since late on Thursday and were using Apache helicopters, HIMARS rocket launchers and fighter jets.

Mosul is bisected by the Tigris river, and Iraqi forces have yet to enter the western side, where 2,000-year-old markets and narrow alleyways are likely to complicate any advance.
Coalition forces bombed the last remaining bridge connecting east and west Mosul late on Monday in a bid to block Daesh access across the Tigris River.

A medical source in Mosul told Reuters a large number of wounded militants had been ferried across the river to the emergency hospital on the western side of city on Thursday.

The source said the militants were denying wounded and sick civilians access to the hospital.
More than 114,000 civilians have been displaced from Mosul so far, according to the United Nations — a fraction of the 1.5 million thought to still be inside.

The radical group of Islamic State (ISIS) has promoted a number of foreign jihadists to leading positions in Syria’s northeastern Raqqa Governorate, to replace senior local jihadists, like reported by aranews.net.

The Islamic State named Abu Saraqeb al-Maghribi, a Moroccan, as Head of Security in Tabqa city in Raqqa Governorate, an informed source told ARA News, adding that al-Maghribi was promoted after the Syrian head of security in Tabqa was arrested by ISIS on corruption charges.

ISIS has also named an Egyptian, known as Abu Jandal al-Masri, as Chief of Information in Raqqa. Al-Masri replaced the Syrian jihadist Abu Ahmed al-Souri at the request of the ISIS supreme leader al-Baghdadi.

Furthermore, the group has replaced another Syrian official with an Algerian, called Abu Muhammad al-Jazrawi. Al-Jazrawi was named as Chief of Hisba –or Islamic Police.

Jawad al-Ali, a Syrian political analyst, told ARA News that promoting foreign jihadists to such leading positions “shows that ISIS no longer trusts its local members.”

ISIS has recently executed dozens of people, including its own militants, on charges of spying for hostile forces in Syria.

“The Islamic State tries to take some preventive steps in a bid to avoid any breaches in its security institutions in Raqqa [ISIS’ de facto capital],” al-Ali said.

“However, isolating Syrian jihadist leaders in this way may lead to a serious internal conflict within the group,” he told ARA News.

This comes amid an ongoing military campaign by the SDF, backed by an air cover from the US-led coalition, as part of the second phase of the Euphrates Wrath Operation for Raqqa. The SDF has so far captured over 1400 km² in western Raqqa within the second phase of the operation, that started on December 10. During the first phase of Euphrates Wrath, that was launched on November 6, the SDF captured roughly 560 km² of land in northern Raqqa.

The SDF launched the second phase of the Euphrates Wrath Operation with the objective of securing Raqqa’s western countryside and Tabqa Dam, which bridges the Euphrates River. The long-term objective of Euphrates Wrath is the elimination of the Islamic State in its de facto capital, Raqqa city.