https://youtu.be/nzPaKjiFChw

Daesh (ISIS) is known for its use of nasheed: Arabic language songs celebrating their military victories and radical Islamic ideology. However, such songs are not limited to the Sunni jihadist tradition. The largely Shia Popular Mobilization Units in Iraq release nasheed as well, and with their recent participation alongside the Iraqi army in the battle for Fallujah against Daesh, their songs continue to gain tens of thousands of views on YouTube.

Popular Mobilization Units nasheed are often released via YouTube, and contain lyrics strongly celebrating the group’s actions. For example, a February 2016 song released by Musa al-Saadi aka ‘Mobilization boy’ opens with an old woman cheering “terrorism will not roll over us” (referring to Daesh) in front of a group of the militia’s fighters. Mobilization boy then calls on Iraq’s men to join the fight against Daesh in the five minute plus number.

Such songs are quite popular. The most popular nasheedappears to be one that says it is from an official Popular Mobilization Units media organ that was released in March 2015. It has over 1.1 million views, and still receives daily comments. In typical fashion, most of the video’s images show the Units’ fighters, tanks, and flags both Iraqi and militia-specific as the singer praises the “freedom” they are fighting for against Daesh on the frontlines.

While most are in Iraqi Arabic, some of the Units’ nasheed come from Iran and are in Farsi. An October 2015 nasheed simply entitled “Holy Iranian Popular Mobilization nasheed” calls on Shia and their Sunni allies to be victorious against Daesh. Iran has supported the Popular Mobilization Units since their establishment in 2014.

And some continue to be released as recently as late May in both Arabic and Farsi.

One thing that separates Shia and conservative Sunni nasheed is the use of instruments. Groups like Daesh, and Nusra Front only use male voices and sometimes percussion sounds, whereas the Popular Mobilization Units, Hezbollah and other Shia groups regularly use instruments in the songs.

The Popular Mobilization Units are pro-government militias formed in 2014 to fight Daesh in Iraq. They are participating in the current conflict with Daesh in Fallujah alongside the Iraqi army. While mostly comprised of Shia fighters, they have Sunni, Christians and others as well. Not all is well in their world, though, and they have been accused of torturing Sunni civilians in in the Fallujah area after taking part of it from Daesh.

albawaba.com

The Islamic State is showing signs of strain as it comes under new pressure from U.S.-backed Syrian rebels from the north and east in Syria, and Russian-backed Assad regime forces from the south and west.

Defectors from the group are reportedly contacting foreign embassies to try to arrange safe passage from the group, including 150 Western fighters, though they face detention, interrogation, and likely criminal charges.

Those that remain behind are subject to the increasing paranoia of the terrorist group’s leadership. The group recently executed 38 of its own members in a purge of suspected moles.

The U.S.-supported push by the mostly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces has drawn Islamic State forces away from fronts in western Syria, allowing Russian-backed Assad regime forces to press their advantage and make gains in Raqqa province.

The United States exchanges information with Russia to deconflict its operations in Syria, but U.S. officials deny coordinating directly on the offensive. “In terms of direct coordination of activities on the ground, that is not happening,”

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters. “I know there have been discussions about changing that, but at this point, our position is the same.”

foreignpolicy.com

ISIS’ province in Iraq released a 10-minute video late on Monday allegedly showing an ancient temple south of Mosul being destroyed. The clip also features an ISIS fighter vowing to demolish Egypt’s pyramids.

In the video, which Vocativ uncovered on ISIS forums and social media, a militant declares the terror group is about to demolish the temple of Nabu, a structure more than 2,500 years old that was dedicated to the Babylonian god of wisdom. The next scene allegedly shows the temple, in the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, being blown up, and a massive explosion is heard. Clips seemingly taken in the aftermath of the blast appear to show the destroyed temple. It is unclear, however, when the assault took place.

The clip also claims to show destroyed ancient and iconic gates: the Adad and Mashki gates at the ancient site of Nineveh, near Mosul. Reports of their destruction surfaced in April, but this is the first time ISIS released video allegedly showing the gates being destroyed with a bulldozer.

A final scene of the video shows the Great Pyramid of Giza—the largest pyramid in a famous archaeological site near Cairo—and features an ISIS militant vowing to blow the Egyptian pyramids up and “demolish them with the help of God.” He calls the breathtaking structures “ancient sites built by the infidels.”

The attacks are the latest assaults by the Islamic State on the region’s antiquities. ISIS militants have systematically attacked and looted cultural heritage across Syria and Iraq, including antiquities at the Mosul Museum andthe 2,000-year-old Arch of Triumph in the Syrian city of Palmyra. The damage to ancient sites across Iraq and Syria is so extensive that experts at UNESCO admit they haven’t been able to track all of it.

vocativ.com

Drawing slowly on his cheap cigarettes, 35-year-old Abu Zakour is hardened as he describes how he employs children as young as nine to stitch the uniforms that end up on the backs of frontline ISIS fighters.

The Syrian boys – and a couple of girls hidden upstairs – are paid a minimum of 40 Turkish lira (£10) a day to stitch, cut and measure out the camouflage material and help their older colleagues piece together the uniforms that get smuggled across the border to rebel groups.

‘My kids are in a school run by an NGO,’ he said, speaking exclusively to MailOnline from his office in the Turkish border town of Antakya. ‘These children could go too but their parents want them to earn money, so what can I do?’

dailymail.co.uk

The Russians have not yet publicly announced their involvement in the operations to liberate the city of Raqqa, ISIS’ main stronghold in Syria.

However, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Rami Abdul Rahman told Asharq Al-Awsat that the main fighting force there that is fighting alongside the regime’s forces is the “Desert Hawks” and added that it “is a secondary force supported by Russia, and there is information that says that the force underwent Russian training”.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which are made up of mainly Kurdish militias and are supported by the US advanced towards the battle front on the eastern countryside of Aleppo and are now on the outskirts of the city of Manbij, ISIS’ other stronghold.

Gunfire and air raids that have been going on for days continued yesterday, targeting neighbourhoods under the control of combatant factions in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Activists confirmed that “16 people were killed in airstrikes yesterday”.

aawsat.com

The troops are defending Western-supported rebel units from the incoming jihadi scourge – who are launching daily attacks on their position.

The operation is believed to be the first frontline involvement of British troops on Syrian soil as the West fights to wipe out the delinquent death cult, also known as Daesh.

British soldiers were initially introduced to train fighters from the New Syrian Army – a group of rebels who defected from Syrian president Bashar al Assad’s special forces before being equipped to fight ISIS by Western military personnel.

But as the lowlife jihadis desperately try to maintain their war on four fronts across the Middle East, UK forces have stepped up to slay the approaching combatants and defend their position.

It comes as British troops gradually take up combat roles in the fight against the so-called caliphate.

Last week UK special ops destroyed two ISIS suicide vehicles in Libya, the most recent location that the twisted terror cell has spread to.

Special forces tend to play an advisory role in foreign warfare, helping local militias with training and intelligence gathering.

But unlike regular troops they do not need require a government vote to be deployed – sidestepping a risky political decision to officially put boots on the ground.

Almost two years ago David Cameron was defeated by political opponents in the House of Commons when he failed to gather enough votes to use airstrikes in Syria to beat back the regime of President Assad.

Meanwhile Russian-backed troops are bearing down on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa as the unified effort of Western forces and local militias crushes the bloodthirsty cult’s resistance.

Syrian government soldiers, supported by Vladimir Putin’s armed forces, have stormed into the jihadis’ key province surrounding Raqqa and are now preparing for an all-out assault on the city.

Raqqa has become ISIS’ symbolic seat of power, and its fall could mark the final nail in the coffin for the extremists’ failing dream for a so-called caliphate across the Middle East.

express.co.uk

rt.com

In March, a senior commander with the Islamic State group was driving through northern Syria on orders to lead militants in the fighting there when a drone blasted his vehicle to oblivion.

The killing of Abu Hayjaa al-Tunsi, a Tunisian jihadi, sparked a panicked hunt within the group’s ranks for spies who could have tipped off the U.S-led coalition about his closely guarded movements. By the time it was over, the group would kill 38 of its own members on suspicion of acting as informants.

They were among dozens of IS members killed by their own leadership in recent months in a vicious purge after a string of airstrikes killed prominent figures. Others have disappeared into prisons and still more have fled, fearing they could be next as the jihadi group turns on itself in the hunt for moles, according to Syrian opposition activists, Kurdish militia commanders, several Iraqi intelligence officials and an informant for the Iraqi government who worked within IS ranks.

The fear of informants has fueled paranoia among the militants’ ranks. A mobile phone or internet connection can raise suspicions. As a warning to others, IS has displayed the bodies of some suspected spies in public – or used particularly gruesome methods, including reportedly dropping some into a vat of acid.

IS “commanders don’t dare come from Iraq to Syria because they are being liquidated” by airstrikes, said Bebars al-Talawy, an opposition activist in Syria who monitors the jihadi group.

Over the past months, American officials have said that the U.S. has killed a string of top commanders from the group, including its “minister of war” Omar al-Shishani, feared Iraqi militant Shaker Wuhayeb, also known as Abu Wahib, as well as a top finance official known by several names, including Haji Iman, Abu Alaa al-Afari or Abu Ali Al-Anbari.

In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the biggest city held by IS across its “caliphate” stretching across Syria and Iraq, a succession of militants who held the post of “wali,” or governor, in the province have died in airstrikes. As a result, those appointed to governor posts have asked not to be identified and they limit their movements, the Iraqi informant told The Associated Press. Iraqi intelligence officials allowed the AP to speak by phone with the informant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his life.

The purge comes at a time when IS has lost ground in both Syria and Iraq. An Iraqi government offensive recaptured the western city of Ramadi from IS earlier this year, and another mission is underway to retake the nearby city of Fallujah.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said some IS fighters began feeding information to the coalition about targets and movements of the group’s officials because they needed money after the extremist group sharply reduced salaries in the wake of coalition and Russian airstrikes on IS-held oil facilities earlier this year. The damage and the loss of important IS-held supply routes into Turkey have reportedly hurt the group’s financing.

“They have executed dozens of fighters on charges of giving information to the coalition or putting (GPS) chips in order for the aircraft to strike at a specific area,” said Abdurrahman, referring to IS in Syria.

The militants have responded with methods of their own for rooting out spies, said the informant. For example, they have fed false information to a suspect member about the movements of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and if an airstrike follows on the alleged location, they know the suspect is a spy, he said. They stop fighters in the street and inspect their mobile phones, sometimes making the fighter call any unusual numbers in front of them to see who they are.

After the killing of al-Anbari, seven or eight IS officials in Mosul were taken into custody and have since disappeared, their fates unknown, said the informant.

“Daesh is now concentrating on how to find informers because they have lost commanders that are hard to replace,” said a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Baghdad, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. “Now any IS commander has the right to kill a person whom they suspect is an informer for the coalition.”

Another Iraqi intelligence official said at least 10 IS fighters and security officials in Mosul were killed by the group in April on suspicion of giving information to the coalition because of various strikes in the city.

Mosul also saw one of the most brutal killings of suspected informants last month, when about a dozen fighters and civilians were drowned in a vat filled with acid, one senior Iraqi intelligence official said.

In the western province of Anbar, the Iraqi militant Wuhayeb was killed in a May 6 airstrike in the town of Rutba. Wuhayeb was a militant veteran, serving first in al-Qaida in Iraq before it became the Islamic State group. He first came to prominence in 2013, when a video showed him and his fighters stopping a group of Syrian truck drivers crossing Anbar. Wuhayeb asks each if he is Sunni or Shiite, and when they say Sunni, he quizzes them on how many times one bows during prayer. When they get it wrong, three of them admit to being Alawites, a Shiite offshoot sect, and Wuhayeb and his men lay the three drivers in the dirt and shoot them to death.

After Wuhayeb’s killing, IS killed several dozen of its own members in Anbar, including some mid-level officials, on suspicion of informing on his location, and other members fled to Turkey, the two intelligence officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Some of the suspects were shot dead in front of other IS fighters as a lesson, the Iraqi officials said.

After the Tunisian militant Abu Hayjaa was killed on the road outside Raqqa on March 30, IS leadership in Iraq sent Iraqi and Chechen security officials to investigate, according to Abdurrahman and al-Talawy, the Syria-based activist. Suspects were rounded up, taken to military bases around Raqqa, and the purge ensued. Within days, 21 IS fighters were killed, including a senior commander from North Africa, Abdurrahman said.

Dozens more were taken back to Iraq for further questioning. Of those, 17 were killed and 32 were expelled from the group but allowed to live, Abdurrahman and al-Talawy said, both citing their contacts in the militant group. Among those brought to Iraq was the group’s top security official for its Badiya “province,” covering a part of central and eastern Syria. His fate remains unknown.

Non-IS members are also often caught up in the hunt for spies. In the Tabqa, near Raqqa, IS fighters brought a civilian, Abdul-Hadi Issa, into the main square before dozens of onlookers and announced he was accused of spying. A masked militant then stabbed him in the heart and, with the knife still stuck in the man’s chest, the fighter shot him in the head with a pistol.

Issa’s body was hanged in the square with a large piece of paper on his chest proclaiming the crime and the punishment. IS circulated photos of the killing on social media.

According to al-Talawy, several other IS members were killed in the town of Sukhna near the central Syrian city of Palmyra on charges of giving information to the coalition about IS bases in the area as well as trying to locate places where al-Baghdadi might be.

Sherfan Darwish, of the U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces, which has been spearheading the fight against IS in Syria, said there is panic in IS-held areas where the extremists have killed people simply for having telecommunications devices in their homes.

“There is chaos. Some members and commanders are trying to flee,” Darwish said.

The U.S. -led coalition has sought to use its successes in targeting IS leaders to intimidate others. In late May, warplanes dropped leaflets over IS-held parts of Syria with the pictures of two senior militants killed previously in airstrikes. “What do these Daesh commanders have in common?” the leaflet read. “They were killed at the hands of the coalition.”

The jihadis have responded with their own propaganda.

“America, do you think that victory comes by killing a commander or more?” IS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani said in a May 21 audio message. “We will not be deterred by your campaigns and you will not be victorious.”

ap.org

Saudi Arabia’s official daily Okaz published an article attacking the U.S. for allowing the “great terrorist Satan,” Maj. Gen Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force – the covert external wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – to attack the Islamic State-controlled city of Fallujah in Iraq.

Soleimani, who Okaz brands “a war criminal” and “No. 1 murderer,” paid a visit last week to an Iran-backed Shi’ite force in Fallujah – Al-Hashd Al-Sha’abi – fueling Saudi fears of a takeover of the largely Sunni city.

The May 30 article, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and entitled “Soleimani – The Arch-Terrorist Satan,” is accompanied by an illustration of Soleimani’s head above a pile of human skulls.

It begins by outlining Soleimani’s bloody campaigns:

He was the No. 1 murderer in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, and even in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan. He committed the most horrendous crimes against the Sunni Muslim residents of these regions, meting out to them the harshest of punishments in order to actualize his despicable sectarian perception.

The editorial lambastes the International Criminal Court for allowing “the greatest murderer to remain free.” The U.S. is also accused of doing nothing to deter Soleimani, despite being aware of the instability his interference in Iraq is causing.

The commander, according to Okaz, is a direct subordinate of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, reaffirming reports by Western media that Soleimani “has Khamenei’s ear,” with the latter praising him as “the living martyr of the Iranian Revolution.”

The article delves into Soleimani’s experiences in battle, highlighting his role in the 1979-80 suppression of an armed Kurdish revolt in the city of Mahabad in northwest Iran, before concluding: “The greatest sectarian Satan is [today] waging war against the residents of Fallujah in order to divide Iraq and transform it into a submissive sectarian state.”

breitbart.com

Syrian troops reached the edge of the northern province of Raqqa on Saturday, home to the de facto capital of the Islamic State group’s self-styled caliphate, in a push that leaves the extremists fighting fierce battles on four fronts in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

IS, which controls large swaths of territory in both countries, is fighting Syrian troops, U.S.-backed fighters and opposition militants in northern Syria and is facing an offensive by Iraqi government forces on their stronghold of Fallujah.

The Syrian government has had no presence in Raqqa since August 2014, when IS captured the Tabqa air base and killed scores of government soldiers. The provincial capital, Raqqa, became the militants’ first city.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian troops reached the “administrative border” of Raqqa province under the cover of Russian airstrikes. It said that during three days of fighting 26 IS fighters and nine troops and pro-government gunmen were killed.

The media arm of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, which is fighting alongside government forces, said Syrian troops reached the border of Raqqa province after advancing about 4 miles on Saturday afternoon.

The front line is around 50 miles from the city of Raqqa.

Syrian troops began their advance toward the province Wednesday, the same day that U.S.-backed forces launched an attack on the IS-stronghold of Manbij, some 72 miles to the northwest of Raqqa. It is unclear if the attacks were coordinated.

The U.S.-backed predominantly Kurdish Syria Democratic Forces advanced closer to Manbij, which lies on a key supply route linking the Turkish border to the city of Raqqa, Saturday.

The Observatory said SDF fighters had captured 34 villages near Manbij. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said the fighting is now concentrated on the south of the town.

IS fighters are also engaged in fierce battles for the rebel-held stronghold of Marea, a town some 70 kilometers west of Manbij. IS has surrounded Marea on three sides but has failed to capture the city, which is under control of rebels and fighters from the Al Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front.

“The fighting is very intense on three fronts in Marea,” said opposition activist Baraa al-Halaby, who is based in northern Syria.

While battles rage in Raqqa province, Manbij and Marea, IS fighters are also coming under fire in their Iraqi stronghold of Fallujah. Iraqi forces launched their offensive on the city almost two weeks ago, and say they have reached the edge of town.

On the city’s northern edge, Iraq’s military issued a statement announcing that IS had been pushed out of the neighborhood of Saqlawiya, Saturday. The statement also said an Iraqi flag had been raised above the area.

However the main push into the city center has been slow. Heavy IS counterattacks and concerns for the tens of thousands of civilians trapped inside the city have slowed Iraq’s elite counterterrorism troops, who are leading the push, according to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider alAbadi.

Meanwhile, violence in and around the contested northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest and once commercial center, claimed more lives Saturday. The city has been the scene of fierce fighting, even during a truce brokered by the U.S. and Russia that went into effect in late February and collapsed weeks later.

The Russian military’s Reconciliation Center in Syria said in a statement that the Nusra Front heavily shelled several government-held neighborhoods of the city.

Syrian state TV said the shelling of government-held parts of contested Aleppo killed 22 and wounded 23 people, while opposition activists said dozens were killed or wounded in rebel-held neighborhoods.

Intense fighting also took place south of Aleppo, where insurgents led by the Nusra Front attacked Syrian army position near the Khan Touman area, according to the Observatory and the activist, al-Halaby.

“The aim of the attack south of Aleppo is to reduce pressure on the city” by government forces, al-Halaby said.

foxnews.com