The Kurds are pushing Canada to supply them with the heavy weapons they need to fight ISIL — as well as to defend themselves after they separate from Iraq.

The Canadian military has a stockpile of armoured vehicles that could be of use to the Kurds but has yet to figure out whether to turn those over.

The military has in its surplus stocks three Husky armoured vehicles used in Afghanistan to help clear improvised explosive devices and one Buffalo vehicle used for similar operations, according to data compiled by the Canadian Forces. Also surplus are 181 Coyote wheeled armoured vehicles and 46 tracked light armoured vehicles. Some of those upgraded carriers were used in Afghanistan and received good reviews for how they protected troops.

The Canadian military also has a variety of graders, tractors and other heavy equipment in its surplus inventory, according to the data. Such equipment could be of use in moving barricades and other fortifications erected by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant forces.

Canada also could provide the Kurds with small arms and anti-tank weapons.

The U.S. military already has outfitted such units with mortars, anti-tank weapons and armoured personnel carriers.

Department of National Defence spokesman Evan Koronewski said no donations have been made yet. “Planning is underway,” he said in an email.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in February that Canada would be providing the Kurds with lethal military equipment.

Sources said the announcement likely would be made by government ministers this summer.

But the issue of arming the Kurds, now being trained by Canadian special forces, is controversial.

Kurdish leaders acknowledge their intent is to create an independent state eventually. They argue it is their right to break away from Iraq, pointing to Quebec’s attempts to leave Canada as an example.

“Iraq is a failed state,” Masrour Barzani, head of intelligence for the Kurdish government and son of the region’s president, has said.

Kurdish leaders say they need access to heavy weapons so they can defend their fledging country when it emerges.

The Kurds’ push for independence and refusal to turn over parts of Iraq they have seized from ISIL has increased tensions with the Iraqis.

In late April, Canadian-supported Kurdish troops fought in a bloody battle with forces allied with Iraq’s government. Ten people were killed.

Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance has dismissed any concerns about tensions between the Iraqis and the Kurds. He suggested that whatever happens between various factions in Iraq after ISIL is defeated is an issue for the Iraqis to sort out.

But Peggy Mason, a former disarmament ambassador in then-prime minister Brian Mulroney’s government, said such a view is short-sighted and similar to the one Canada endorsed during the war to overthrow Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

“It’s extraordinarily cavalier to say what comes next is Iraq’s problem,” said Mason, president of the Rideau Institute in Ottawa. “Our training of the (Kurdish) peshmerga is not helping if the end result is a stronger group to fight against the Iraqi government later on.”

The issue has been complicated by the insistence of Canadian special forces to wear the Kurdish flag — the symbol of an independent Kurdistan — on their uniforms.

“The Canadian Forces putting the (flags) on their uniforms tells the rest of Iraq that we don’t support the territorial integrity of your country,” said Denise Natali, a Middle East expert at the Institute for National Strategic Studies in Washington.

After two years of wearing the Kurdish flag on their uniforms, Canadian special forces are now considering whether it should be removed.

nationalpost.com

Seventeen detainees escaped from a prison in Bahrain, police said on Saturday, and the government warned citizens against giving them shelter.

The official Bahrain News Agency said 11 of those who escaped on Friday had since been recaptured, and six remained at large. Five others who aided in the planning and execution of the escape had also been arrested, it quoted police as saying.

The news agency said Interior Minister Sheikh Rashed bin Abdullah al-Khalifa, chairing a security meeting to review the circumstances of the escape from the Dry Dock Detention Center, warned Bahrainis against harboring the fugitives.

The news agency did not say whether the escapees were prisoners jailed for anti-government demonstrations or attacks, or inmates convicted of ordinary crimes.

Thousands of mainly Shi’ite Muslim Bahrainis are in jail on charges ranging from participating in anti-government protests to armed attacks on security forces in the Western-allied Gulf kingdom, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based.

Social media users posted at least one photo of a road where traffic was backed up for miles, and said it was caused by police closing roads to search for the prisoners on the run.

Bahrain was rocked in 2011 by Arab Spring-style mass protests staged mainly by the Shi’ite community demanding political and economic reforms, including a bigger share in running the country.

The government, with backing from Saudi Arabia, put down the protests by force, but demonstrators continue to erupt from time to time, often drawing swift response from police.

Bahrain accuses Iran of fomenting unrest and backing militants who have been increasingly attacking security forces using improvised bombs. Iran denies supporting militants.

businessinsider.com

Iraqi soldiers on Saturday entered the city of Fallujah, occupied by the militants from the Islamic state (ISIL or Daesh) jihadist group and established control over one of the city’s districts, Iraqi army’s information bureau said in a statement obtained by Sputnik.

The activists of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights observed the arrival of the families of tens of foreigner members in the ranks the “Islamic State” from the cities Jarablos and Manbej in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo, to the city of Al-Raqqah the main stronghold for the “Islamic State” in Syria, the Observatory’s activists also learned that some other families have been transferred to other areas controlled by the organization in the countryside of Deir Ezzor.

syriahr.com

A total of 15 militants have been killed in four counter-terrorism strikes in recent months against al-Qaeda in Yemen, including one May 19, Central Command of the US Department of Defense announced Friday.

Spokesman Col. Pat Ryder said the strikes against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were not previously announced.

The May 19 strike in Shabwah governorate in central Yemen killed four fighters, Ryder said.

Another strike in the same area killed six fighters Feb. 3; another in Hadramawt governorate Feb. 29 in east Yemen killed three militants and one in the vicinity of Azzan in central Yemen on March 30 killed two fighters.

Although pressed by reporters, Ryder failed to explain why the Defense Department did not release information about the airstrikes at the time they were conducted.

According to a Central Command statement, however, the Pentagon has launched nine strikes this year against the group in Yemen, killing 81 militants.

As the militants have gained ground amid the chaos in Yemen, the Pentagon has increased military support for operations in Yemen, including deployment of special operations forces to advise Yemeni and Emirati forces.

The US views al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as a persistent threat to the region and its own interests.

albawaba.com

Iraqi security forces on Fallujah’s southern outskirts halted offensive operations against the Islamic State on Thursday amid fears for the safety of 50,000 civilians being used as human shields.

Their ongoing dilemma is how to protect and evacuate men, women and children who are being held by the extremist group.

Iraqi units have been told not to attempt to breach Islamic State lines, said army and police officials.

On Wednesday, counter-terrorism units paved the way for a move into Fallujah by breaking through a sand berm built by Islamic State forces in Nuaimiya, on the city’s southern outskirts, said Fallujah’s exiled mayor, Eissa al-Issawi.

“The gap is big enough to allow military vehicles to go through it,” Mr. Issawi said, adding that the units were “awaiting orders to break into Fallujah city.”

Counter-terrorism forces spokesman Sabah al-Nouman said: “This direction is the fastest and most effective one when attempting to break into the city center, despite the fact that it has tunnels full of explosives.

He insisted that forces were still advancing, but slowly and “with caution” to avoid the explosives.

Islamic State fighters have been booby-trapping bridges, roads, even drainage pipes, say Iraqi officials.

“We are still cleansing all liberated areas from explosives,” said Gen. Saad Harbiya, commander of army operations in western Baghdad, who is leading some forces on Fallujah’s southern front.

A separate offensive is under way northwest of Fallujah to complete the encirclement of the city, led by Shiite Muslim militias backed by Iraqi army and police forces.

U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Wednesday that victory was “within reach.”

But Abadi is being criticized in some quarters for attempting to take back Fallujah with seemingly under-trained, under-equipped and divided security forces. His opponents accuse him of rushing the offensive in the hope of boosting his own flagging popularity.

“The timing of the Fallujah initiative is very much politically motivated,” said Lina Khatib, the head of the Middle East program at the London-based Chatham House research institution. “Abadi has not yet delivered politically so in a way he is seeking stability through military engagement against” ISIS.

The United Nations believes at least 50,000 civilians are trapped inside the city, but aid workers say that the number could be double that.

“Commanders on the ground have discussed the issue of waiting until civilians get out and how this may negatively affect the operation,” said Brig. Ahmed al-Bilawi, head of the emergency police unit in Anbar province, where Fallujah is located.

“They favor waiting for more civilians to come out, so we have had to listen to them the past few days.”

The Iraqis’ offensive to retake Fallujah, supported by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, began May 23. The offensive is joined by Iraqi counter-terrorism forces, Iraqi police, tribal fighters and the Popular Mobilization Forces Shiite militia group. Fallujah, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, has been under Islamic State control since early 2014.

“The general principle on which this whole operation is based is how to protect civilians,” acknowledged Saad Hadithi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Lise Grande, a U.N. official in Iraq, said Tuesday that the Islamic State was rounding up civilians in four locations inside Fallujah and were preventing people there from leaving—an indication, she said, they were being used as human shields.

The Iraqi army and allied Shiite militias have laid siege to the city for months, cutting it off from the outside world and creating shortages of food and medical supplies. Phone networks are down, and electricity is scarce.

Human rights groups from Anbar province say bombings by Iraqi air force planes since 2014 have killed dozens of civilians.

The Islamic State has reportedly killed civilians as they attempted to flee the city, which was once populated by about 300,000 people. The United Nations warns that residents face starvation due to food shortages and high prices. Deaths from starvation have already been reported.

Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary-General Jan Egeland previously warned of “a human catastrophe” in Fallujah.

“Families are caught in the crossfire with no safe way out,” Egeland said in a statement. “Warring parties must guarantee civilians’ safe exit now, before it’s too late and more lives are lost.”

upi.com

The Syrian army aims to target Islamic State in Raqqa province, a pro-Damascus newspaper reported on Friday, in a new offensive focusing on areas that a U.S.-backed alliance is also aiming to capture from the jihadists.

The initial target is the town of Tabqa, the location of an Islamic State arsenal, the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar reported, adding that the army would was putting “a foot in the area without leaving it completely to the Americans’ allies”.

Tabqa is also a target of the U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces alliance (SDF) which has launched a multi-pronged attack against IS in the provinces of Raqqa and neighboring Aleppo, aiming to deny it access to the Turkish frontier.

The Syrian army announced on Thursday a new operation backed by Russian air strikes in the Athriya area of eastern Hama province, some 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Tabqa and some 50 km (30 miles) from the provincial frontier with Raqqa.

Asked about the al-Akhbar report, a Syrian military source told Reuters the army was focused on eastern and northern areas of both Homs and Hama provinces “in the direction of Daesh (IS) gatherings”

Homs province borders the Islamic State-dominated province of Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria.

“The field leadership does not give information about the main direction or the secondary direction, but the direction is open to the two possibilities – Deir al-Zor and Raqqa”, the source said.

Al-Akhbar said the new Syrian army operation did not aim to reach Raqqa city “in the coming weeks”, but the aim was at least to reach Tabqa city and Lake Assad, which it overlooks.

Tabqa, the location of an air base, is some 50 km (30 miles) west of Raqqa city, Islamic State’s de facto capital. Islamic State captured Tabqa in 2014 at the height of its rapid expansion in Syria and Iraq.

The Syrian army advanced to the border between Raqqa and Hama provinces in February. A military source said at the time Tabqa would be the first target of a Syrian government attack in Raqqa province.

reuters.com

Yesterday Iran announced that this year it will not facilitate sending Iranian Muslim pilgrims to the Hajj in Mecca.

Last year, the number of people making the religious pilgrimage proved unmanageable, leading to a stampede in which almost 2,500 people were crushed to death.

Iran claims the newly announced restriction is because of safety issues, but the stoush is just the latest in an ongoing cold war between the two Middle Eastern powers, which escalated last year when Iran signed a nuclear deal with the US – a Saudi ally.

Over recent weeks, the two countries had been negotiating visa and transport conditions for the pilgrimage, but those negotiations collapsed on Thursday.

Iran says it’s Saudi Arabia’s fault. They say the Saudis would not give safety guarantees and refused to let Iran set up additional first aid sites.

Saudi Arabia blames the Iranians for the breakdown. They say the main issues were related to visas and airlines. They say Iran also sought a guarantee that worshipers could perform a Shia ritual, which the Saudi’s say would obstruct other pilgrims.

Saudi Arabia is a majority Sunni country, while Iran is Majority Shia. Both accuse each other of politicizing the Hajj.

Roger Shanahan from Australia’s Lowy Institute and National Security College says Iran’s security concerns are probably legitimate.

“There’s a particular sensitivity in Iran to safety concerns, and how the Saudis actually run the Hajj,” he told The Feed. But he said the Saudi’s showed good faith by hosting the talks.

Iran’s state-run Press TV has run extensive stories on the 2015 stampede, including graphic images of dead pilgrims. Iran says 464 of the dead were Iranians, more than any other country.

Tit for tat

The collapse in negotiations is only the latest marker of a deteriorating relationship between two of the largest and most powerful countries in the Middle East.

“Their foreign ministers are on a first name basis, but they tend to quibble a lot in multilateral meetings,” one Western diplomat told The Feed.

Saudi Arabia severed official diplomatic ties with Iran in January, after Iranian authorities failed to prevent protestors from torching their embassy in Tehran. They were later ejected by police.

Those protests were a response to Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shia religious leader, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was convicted of sedition and bearing arms after accusations he led anti-government protests. The trial was flawed, according to Amnesty International.

Sheikh al-Nimr’s nephew, Ali al-Nimr, has also been sentenced to death. Amnesty International has been campaigning to save his life, noting the alleged offences occurred when he was just 17.

If the sentence is carried out, it would likely spark a new round of tensions.

A tense history

Roger Shanahan says the rivalry between the countries goes back much further than the execution though. The most recent round goes back to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, he says, and historically it goes back even further to Iran’s 1979 revolution.

“After the revolution Ayatollah Khomeini called for an export of the revolution, and claimed leadership over the worlds Muslims,” Shanahan told The Feed.

The countries were then on opposite sides in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. The conflict left hundreds of thousands dead after bloody trench warfare and major chemical weapon attacks.

Since Saddam Hussein was removed, Iran and Saudi Arabia have competed for influence in Iraq. The country’s population, a mix of Sunni and Shia, is caught between the two rivals – literally.

Yemen has also been a battleground. Saudi Arabia has been backing the government in bloody civil war against rebels, which it says are backed by Iran.

Experts and diplomats The Feed spoke to said the Saudi’s claims were overblown. Iran was likely providing logistical support for rebels, Shanahan said, but there was no strong alliance.

While the Hajj fallout may seem minor by comparison, it’s a sign that the cold war between the two shows no sign of ending soon.

sbs.com.au

Tehran claims that a recent cyber-attack against one of its government websites originated in Saudi Arabia

Brigadier General Seyed Kamal Hadianfar, chief of Iran’s Cyber Police (FATA) announced that his agency has managed to identify the IP addresses of hackers responsible for an attack against the Statistical Center of Iran’s website.

According to the general, the perpetrators were traced to three Arabian countries, and the entire attack was coordinated by a mastermind residing in Saudi Arabia, Fars News Agency reports.

“We monitored a cyber-attack on May 24 which was conducted from three countries and led by hackers in Saudi Arabia and they launched deceive attacks on the Statistical Center of Iran and of course such an attack is not important technically,” Hadianfar said.

General Hadianfar added and that all of the relevant information has already been forwarded to the Saudi authorities via Interpol.

Furthermore, he dismissed claims that the hacker was affiliated with the terrorist group Daesh (ISIS/ISIL), stating that the culprit already had a record and had been positively identified by FATA.

Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, head of Iran’s Civil Defense Organization, also said that a group of Saudi hackers carried out attacks against a number of Iranian government websites, but were unable to obtain any sensitive or classified information as a result of that attack.

“These attacks were carried out on the first layer and didn’t inflict heavy damage. Saudi Arabia sought to materialize its threats through such attacks but it was mostly a type of show-off,” he declared.

A terrifying ISIS executioner known as “The Bulldozer” has been reportedly captured by the Syrian Army.

The jihadi can reportedly be seen in the video naked from the waste up, with his hands tied behind his back, according to the Department of Film and Sound Young Journalists Club.

The 20-stone killer was believed to be rising through the ranks of the evil organisation, gaining a brutal reputation for beheading unarmed men and even chopping off the limbs of children.

He has previously appeared in videos reportedly filmed in Iraq showing him beheading people in front of a crowd including young children, and chopping off peoples hands.

He is known only by the sinister nickname “The Bulldozer” that he acquired after being photographed with a 52kg machine gun.

Like British executioner Jihadi John – eventually unmasked as Mohammed Emwazi – the fat monster always wears a mask, fearful his identity will be revealed.

He is distinctive due to being being extremely overweight and gained notoriety after hacking off a 14-year-old’s hand and foot.

He is part of what has been dubbed the ‘Chopping Committee’ that descends on helpless Iraqi towns.

He was also filmed in Yemen continuing his reign of terror.

mirror.co.uk