Jazeera Operations Command in Anbar announced on Sunday that thirty (30) ISIS fighters were killed and two boats in the Euphrates river demolished by a coalition air strike on ISIS gatherings at al-Doulab and al-Baghdadi west of Ramadi.

Commander of Jazeera Operations Major General Qassim al-Mohamadi, in a press statement issued to the media, said, “The international coalition aviation bombarded ISIS strongholds and gatherings at al-Doulab and al-Baghdadi, killing thirty (30) ISIS members and destroying two of their boats at Euphrates river.”

Mohamadi added, “ISIS is trying to launch ‘weak’ attacks on the areas that were liberated west of Anbar including Heet district, Rutba, Baghdadi vicinity and Haditha district.”

iraqinews.com

At least 36 people were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and Shia Houthi militants in Yemen.

Pro-government forces launched a surprise attack on a Houthi location in north-western Al-Bayda’ province in central Yemen, local commander Mustafa Hussein al-Baydani told Anadolu Agency.

“Seven Houthis and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh were killed in the attack,” he said.

Nine Houthis and allied forces were also killed in two ambushes set by pro-government fighters in the province, al-Baydani said.

Two more Houthis were shot dead by a pro-government sniper in the province’s Sablatu al-Jarm district, he said.

Meanwhile, ten Houthi militants and six government forces were killed in clashes in the northern al-Jawf province on Saturday.

Yemen has been racked by chaos since late 2014, when the Shia Houthi group and their allies overran capital Sanaa and other parts of the country, forcing President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and his Saudi-backed government to temporarily flee to Riyadh.

In March of last year, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive military campaign in Yemen aimed at reversing Houthi gains and restoring Hadi’s embattled government.

In April of this year, the Yemeni government and the Houthis entered into UN-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait aimed at resolving the conflict, in which more than 6,400 people have been killed and another 2.5 million forced to flee their homes.

albawaba.com

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has said that the country would strike “terrorists” beyond its borders.

Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of the IRGC’s Ground Forces, has said that a group of terrorists are based in northern Iraq, Tasnim news agency reported.

If the neighboring country’s officials fail to prevent the terrorists from carrying out actions against Iran’s security, the IRGC will target their bases.

A couple of armed clashes between the IRGC and members of a dissident group, dubbed Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) have taken place in north western Iran over the past several days.

trend.az

Isil has executed five media activists in Syria’s eastern province of Deir Ezzor, warning that anyone who tries to document the group’s atrocities will never be safe from retribution.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group, said it had received a video depicting the activists’ deaths, carried out on various charges including “acting against the Islamic State, communicating with outside parties and receiving funds”.

The Observatory reported that the jihadists murdered one of the activists by hand-cuffing him to his explosives-rigged laptop and detonating it. Another was killed while tied to his camera.

One of the activists had been providing the Observatory with information about events in the areas of Deir Ezzor ruled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

Isil attempts to keep a tight grip on any news and footage emerging from territories under their control, executing any activists who try to its expose crimes.

In the video, the terrorist group warned media activists that they were not safe even outside of Syria, showing the faces of anti-Isil journalists who have been murdered by Isil in southern Turkey.

telegraph.co.uk

British Army Maj. Gen. Doug Chalmers, deputy commander of the anti-ISIS international coalition said that the role of western special forces on the ground in Syria will not change now that the Kurdish and Arab fighters are moving into the city of Manbij.

“There’s no change to our profile. Strong relationships are in place with those headquarters and they will continue,” he said.

“The [military] advisers are back more with sort of the headquarters helping our planning and coordination role. And that won’t change as the forces go into there [Manbij],” he added.

British, French, and US Special Forces are assisting the operations in bases of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), not very far from the battlefronts against the Islamic State radical group (ISIS).

The German government has denied any role in the operations, despite rumours about their involvement.

The deputy commander also denied that the SDF forces are inside Manbij yet, only in the suburban areas and villages and hamlets.

“The reporting I’ve had puts them [Kurdish-Arab alliance of the SDF] on the edge and the outskirts of some areas, which I describe as the outer element of the city, rather than the city proper. And it’s the definition of what we described as the city proper,” he added.

The deputy commander told reporters Thursday that Manbij has been effectively isolated by the SDF forces, but there are still some obstacles. “So we see the IEDs, we see, sort of, rocket fire positions and the sort of berms, et cetera, in that area. So it is a similar type of defensive type network that they are working their way through,” Gen. Chalmers added.

He added that there is still a civilian population in the city of Manbij.

Commander of the SDF-led Manbij Military Council, Adnan Abu Amjad, has thanked the US-led coalition for their advice, logistical support, and airstrikes, and confirmed ISIS is trying to use civilians as human shields, and that booby-traps and IEDs are preventing fast progress.

Nevertheless, he told local media that the morale of the fighters is very high “and victories are achieved every day”.

The Russian government also confirmed that ISIS militants are encircled in Manbij on Thursday and are trying to break through SDF positions. “The ISIS forces staged several suicide bomber attacks as a diversionary tactic,” said Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

Humanitarian Corridor 

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Tuesday opened a humanitarian corridor between the ISIS-held city of Manbij and its countryside, in a bid to help civilians evacuate the war-torn city.

Backed by the US-led coalition’s air cover, the SDF recaptured the entire countryside of Manbij from ISIS militants subsequent to heavy fighting. More than 105 villages were liberated since the SDF launched a battle for Manbij on 31 May, 2016. However, the group is still in control of the city of Manbij and has been using civilians as human shields in the fighting against the SDF.

“After capturing western parts of the city, our forces have opened a humanitarian corridor between the city and its liberated countryside in order to assist civilians to evacuate the city so that we can continue with our operations against ISIS terrorists inside Manbij city,” SDF officer Habun Osman told ARA News.

Hundreds of civilians were able to escape the besieged city of Manbij, using the corridor opened by the SDF west of the city.

“The safety of civilians is a top priority for us at the moment, otherwise we would have already liberated the entire Manbij border pocket from ISIS,” the SDF official said. “So, now we are trying to rescue the stranded civilians and prevent the terror group from using them as human shields during the clashes. Then we’ll attack ISIS in its final stronghold in Manbij downtown.”

The 98-kilometer-long border area in Aleppo’s countryside is called the Manbij pocket, and is used by the Islamic State group (ISIS) to transport foreign fighters from Turkey to Syria, and to smuggle arm supplies to the de-facto ISIS capital of Raqqa, in northeastern Syria. Also, the extremist group has used the Manbij pocket to send trained jihadis abroad to conduct terrorist attacks. Closing it down would make Europe and America safer, US and Kurdish officials have said.

aranews.net

The commander of Anbar Operations, Maj. Gen. Ismail al-Mahalawi, announced on Friday destroying three boats for ISIS north of Ramadi.

Mahalawi said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The international coalition aviation, in coordination with the army forces, bombed three boats belonging to the ISIS in the Euphrates River in the area of Zankoura north of Ramadi,” adding that, ” The bombing resulted in the destruction of these boats and killing the [ISIS] elements that were on board.”

“Those [elements] were trying to sneak into the area,” he also added.

iraqinews.com

Witnesses say that Al-Qaeda fighters have been seen in southern Yemeni cities, nearly a month after the militants withdrew from the towns following tribal-led negotiations.

Local residents reported Thursday that Al-Qaeda militants were seen in the cities of Jaar and Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan province. They say that during the day fighters can be seen driving pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, but at night they retreat to hideouts.

The residents spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Al-Qaeda and Daesh group militants have exploited the security and power vacuum after rebels known as the Houthis seized the Yemeni capital in 2014 and the president fled to Saudi Arabia.

The militants withdrew this spring under pressure from a Saudi-led coalition that is fighting the Houthis.

albawaba.com

Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled Obaidi said that the person in charge of the terrorist organization Daesh’s security service was killed in a special operation carried out by the Iraqi army in Anbar province

The person in charge of the terrorist organization Islamic State’s security service was killed in a special operation carried out by the Iraqi army in ​​Anbar province, Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled Obaidi said Monday.

“A special unit of the Iraqi military stormed a building in the Iraqi Anbar province where the head of the Islamic State Security Service, Ahmed Madjid, and other terrorist group members were hiding. As a result, Madjid was killed in a shootout together with seven other terrorists,” the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) press service cited Obaidi as saying.

Fighting in the Anbar province comes is concentrated around the Iraqi army operations near the city of Fallujah against Daesh, a terrorist organization prohibited in many countries around the world, including in the United States and Russia.

According to the press service, 377 terrorists were killed in the battle for Fallujah over a three-day period, including 40 snipers. In addition, 45 car-bombs were destroyed, and 516 mines and bombs were neutralized.

Fallujah, located some 42 miles west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, is one of the largest cities in the Anbar province. Daesh has been in control of the city since 2014.

On June 17, Iraqi Brigadier General Abdelwahab Saadi said that the Iraqi military operation to liberate Fallujah would be completed in two to three days, once the militants still concentrated in the north of the city had be routed.

Iraqi Kurdistan is an autonomous territory in northern Iraq, whose status is enshrined in the Iraqi Constitution.

sputniknews.com

Iran has foiled several terrorist attacks planned by Islamic State sympathizers across the country, the head of the Iranian National Security Council was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency Monday.

Police had arrested a terrorist group planning to carry out several suicide attacks in Tehran, Ali Shamkhani told ISNA.

According to the report, all of the men arrested were Islamic State sympathizers.

“One of the largest terrorist operations” in the country had been stopped, the Iranian secret service said in a press statement published by ISNA.

All attacks had been planned by terrorist groups supporting the Islamic State, it added. However, secret service agents had been able to neutralize the “diabolical act” on time, according to the statement.

Neither Shamkhani nor the secret service provided any further details on the exact place and time of the arrests. Information on the arrested was not immediately available.

Shiite Iran is considered one of the arch-enemies of the Sunni Islamic State extremist group.

Iranian troops have been fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria for years.

dpa-international.com