The Pentagon said on Tuesday that two U.S. service members were injured over the weekend, one in Iraq and another in Syria.

“They were not on the front lines, they were not engaged in active combat, but they were hit in both cases by indirect fire and suffered injuries,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said.

According to reports, the United States has authorized 4,087 troops in Iraq and 300 in Syria.

Since December, Iraqi forces trained by the U.S. military and backed by coalition air strikes have taken back territory from Islamic State, which seized swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Davis did not say to which branch of the military the injured belonged, but added that they were carrying out advise and assist duties.

Pentagon: US special forces in Syria blend in with Kurds

Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook in a press conference on Thursday refused to comment on photos that showed US special forces in Syria with insignia of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) on their shoulders, but did say on Thursday that these forces are trying to blend in.

“I’m — first of all, you know our policy with regard to our special operations forces, that we’re not going to talk very much about their activities, where they are and what they’re doing for obvious reasons,” he said. “They’re carrying out a mission; they are exposing themselves to significant risk.  And I’m not going to do anything up here that in any ways gives anyone the ability to identify where our forces are operating and what they’re up to at any moment in time,” he added.

However, he did say that the US special forces sent to Syria’s Kurdish region are trying to blend in. “What I will say is that special operations forces when they operate in certain areas do what they can to, if you will, blend in with the community to enhance their own protection, their own security.”

“And special operations forces in the past have worked with partners, and in the past have conducted themselves in such a way that they — that they might operate in an atmosphere in which they are supportive of that local force in their advise and assist role,” he stated.

The Kurdish YPG is leading member in the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forcers (SDF) fighting ISIS in northern Syria.

US coalition spokesman Colonel Steve Warren on Twitter said “US Special operators will often wear patched from their partner forces as a sign of partnership.”

Moreover, US State Department spokesman Mark Toner acknowledged the presence of US forces, but did not want to talk about the pictures.

“I would only say that we acknowledged several weeks ago that Special Operations Forces would be present in northern Syria in the capacity of the advise-and-assist role that we have clearly laid out that they’re playing on the battlefield in coordination with the SDF,” he said.

Syrian Kurds have welcomed the support from the US Special Forces and the fact they are wearing YPG insignia.

Speaking to ARA News, Kurdish politician Idris Nassan said: “Of course, Kurds are happy with the international support and volunteers joining fighting against ISIS but they still feel that more is needed in this side and the international community should do more to defeat terrorists militarily and politically. At this stage it is important to officially recognise the Kurdish sovereignty.”

aranews.net/

ISIS has released new images of its oldest fighter – an 81-year-old Chinese grandfather – in a desperate bid to boost morale with the terror group which is on course to lose Fallujah.

Muhammed Amin is said to have once been a member of the minority Muslim Uighur in Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in north west China once known as Turkestan.

But ISIS, currently battling to maintain control of its Iraqi stronghold of Fallujah, claim he left his home country with his family after seeing a video of his jihadi son being killed in Syria.

In new pictures, the ageing extremist can be seen holding a hand gun and posing in front of a camera with another unidentified man.

It comes as ISIS fighters launched a series of desperate counter attacks as Iraqi forces continued to advance on Fallujah.

But more than 75 of the jihadists were killed when the attack was repelled, it emerged today.

Inside the city, panicked extremists were reported to have rounded up about 100 young men while other fighters branding residents ‘cowards’ for not backing their cause.

dailymail.co.uk

The Syrian Jusoor Center for Studies in collaboration with Iranian forces has published a map claiming to reveal the locations of Iranian advisors in Syria.

According to the map, the twelve sites, which are distributed in all the Syrian governorates, are the centres where military and field decisions about battles in Syria are taken.

The Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Monday that Iranian military advisers are present in Iraq and Syria upon formal requests from the governments of both countries.

Abdollahian said in remarks published by the Iranian news agency that his country will continue to proudly and firmly provide advisory assistance to the fight against terrorism in the region.

middleeastmonitor.com

Daesh has been using more guerrilla tactics in its fight against the Iraqi security forces, Sky News reported.

According to the channel, the group has been using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) across the country in its fight against the Iraqi army and those allied with it.

Sky News said the number of victims as a result of the IEDs are growing.

Iraqi doctor Zahawi Saman said the attacks are happening regularly and that he and his staff are facing medical shortages.

“There should be a plan from the central government because they are running a war and war needs more big hospitals and more staff and equipment,” he said.

The channel’s report said the use of IEDs makes it more difficult for the Iraqi security forces, especially when they are made from easily obtained dual-use materials such as fertilisers, simple fuses and mobile phones

According to the report, the tactic has a massive psychological impact on the Iraqi forces, especially when they explode in supposedly secure areas.

middleeastmonitor.com

Islamic State forces are holding several hundred families as “human shields” in the Iraqi city of Fallujah while government forces close in, the United Nations refugee agency says, citing witness accounts.

Some 3,700 people have fled Fallujah, west of Baghdad, over the past week since the Iraqi army began its offensive on the city controlled by militant forces, it said.

“UNHCR has received reports of casualties among civilians in the city centre of Fallujah due to heavy shelling, including seven members of one family on the 28th of May,” UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told a news briefing.

“There are also reports of several hundred families being used as human shields by ISIL in the centre of Fallujah.”

The accounts come from displaced people who have spoken to UNHCR field staff, spokeswoman Ariane Rummery said.

“Most people able to get out come from the outskirts of Fallujah. For some time militants have been controlling movements, we know civilians have been prevented from fleeing,” she said.

“There are also reports from people who left in recent days that they are being required to move with ISIL within Fallujah.”

Islamic State militants fought back vigorously overnight and parried an onslaught by the Iraqi army on a southern district of Fallujah, officers said.

Iraqi authorities are holding some 500 men and boys under the age of 12 for “security screening” as they leave the city, a clearance process that can take up to seven days, Mr Spindler said.

“But people are being released after this process and we understand that 27 men were released yesterday (Monday) after being screened,” he said.

abc.net.au

Iran will continue sending military advisers to Syria and Iraq in a fight against terrorism, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said here on Monday.

“We will help Syria and Iraq as much as we can because parts of the Islamic community have been under attack and we are defending (them),” Dehqan was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

The Islamic republic deploys military advisers to these countries in a bid to defend Islamic countries as “Islam and Muslim nations are important to us,” he said.

As for the strategic city of Aleppo in northern Syria, he said that “eventually, the occupied territories in Aleppo will be liberated (from the terrorists) by the resistance front,” Dehqan added.

Iran, a major regional ally of the Syrian and Iraqi governments in their fight against the militant groups, has repeatedly announced the presence of its military advisors in both countries.

xinhuanet.com

Iraq’s Kurdish peshmerga forces wrapped up an operation east of the Islamic State group’s northern hub of Mosul Monday after recapturing nine villages, a statement said.

The Kurdistan Region Security Council said the operation launched before dawn on Sunday “had achieved its key objectives”.

The KRSC statement listed nine villages that had been occupied by IS since the summer of 2014 and were previously mainly inhabited by northern Iraq’s Kakai and Shabak minorities.

The operation involved around 5,500 peshmerga fighters backed by US-led coalition air strikes and reconquered an area of 120 square kilometres (46 square miles).

The area, near Khazir, lies near the main road between Mosul and the autonomous Kurdish region’s capital Arbil.

The KRSC claimed that in the course of the two-day operation, 140 IS fighters were killed and 14 car bombs were destroyed.

The peshmerga officer in charge of the region said at a news conference that four Kurdish forces were killed and 34 others wounded during the operation.

The fresh push against the jihadist organisation in the north came a week after Iraqi forces launched an operation against Fallujah, IS’s only other major urban hub in Iraq.

An Iraqi special forces commander says Iraqi forces have started pushing into Fallujah as part of the ongoing operation to oust Islamic State militants from this city west of Baghdad.

Brig. Haider al-Obeidi with the elite counterterrorism troops says the push started at dawn on Monday from the southern edge under the cover of coalition air support.

Al-Obeidi says the clashes as “fierce,” with IS extremists deploying snipers and releasing a volley of mortar rounds.

The operation to recapture Fallujah, which is located 65 kilometers or 40 miles west of Baghdad, was first announced last week.

Fallujah fist fell to IS more than two years ago and is one of the group’s last strongholds in western Iraq. The militants still control patches of territory in the country’s north and east, as well as the second largest city of Mosul.

ap.org

On Saturday, Syrian Islamist factions renewed their bombardment on the Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsoud in Aleppo city, causing casualties among civilians.

At least four people were killed and over 15 others wounded, mostly women and children, after Syrian Islamist groups hit Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood with dozens of rockets and mortar shells, local activists told ARA News.

Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham and other Islamist factions participated in bombing the Kurdish district on Saturday.

A spokesman for the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG)–that are in control of Sheikh Maqsoud–told ARA News that the shelling continued until Saturday evening, “causing mass destruction to residential buildings beside killing and wounding twenty civilians”.

“Some of the injured are in critical situation. Civil defense volunteers are still searching for survivors under the rubble,” Kurdish civil rights activist Rezan Hiddo told ARA News in Aleppo.

Amnesty International said that armed groups attacking the Kurdish neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud in Aleppo since February have killed at least 83 civilians, and called on Turkey, Gulf states and others to stop the transfer of arms to the Aleppo Conquest operations room–an umbrella for Syrian Islamist rebels.

“Armed groups surrounding the Sheikh Maqsoud district of Aleppo city have repeatedly carried out indiscriminate attacks that have struck civilian homes, streets, markets and mosques, killing and injuring civilians and displaying a shameful disregard for human life,” Amnesty said last week.

The organization has gathered strong evidence of serious violations from eyewitnesses, and obtained the names of at least 83 civilians, including 30 children, who were killed by attacks in Sheikh Maqsoud between February and April 2016.

More than 700 civilians were also injured, according to the local field hospital. Video evidence shows artillery shelling, rocket and mortar attacks carried out by the Fatah Halab (Aleppo Conquest) coalition of armed Islamist groups in the area, targeting the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) controlling the district.

“The relentless pummelling of Sheikh Maqsoud has devastated the lives of civilians in the area. A wide array of armed groups from the Fatah Halab coalition has launched what appear to be repeated indiscriminate attacks that may amount to war crimes,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, interim Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

There are around 30,000 civilians living in Sheikh Maqsoud which is a predominately Kurdish part of Aleppo city.

Islamists Punish Kurdish Civilians

The Kurds in Sheikh Maqsoud suffer from the absence of many services as a result of the blockade imposed by Islamist rebel groups on their district, mainly by the Nusra Front (al-Qaeda branch in Syria).

Speaking to ARA News, Luqman Ismail, one of the stranded citizens in Sheikh Maqsoud, said that electricity outage continues for nearly three years because of the barbaric bombardment led by Islamist rebels on the main network of power outside the district.

“These groups are apparently punishing the people of Sheikh Maqsoud for their support to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), who are engaged in fighting with Islamist rebels around the city of Aleppo,” he reported.

“People now depend on power generators that work only 4-5 hours per day. We also suffer from the lack of fuel to run these generators,” Ismail added.

aranews.net

Seven members of Daesh, including a Westerner, have been captured in an offensive in Yemen’s port city of Aden.

The captures were made part of an offensive by forces loyal to ex-Yemeni president Abd Rubbuh Mansur Hadi against al-Qaeda and Daesh, which has claimed a wave of deadly attacks in recent months in Aden.

A militant commander, quoted by the AFP news agency, said the arrests were made in the al-Mansoura district of the southern province of Aden on Saturday.

Daesh and other militant groups, such as al-Qaeda, have exploited the year-long conflict in Yemen to gain a major foothold in the country.

There has been an uptick in violence since Saudi-backed forces stormed the of Mukalla near Aden.

On May 23, twin bombings claimed by Daesh killed at least 41 people in Aden which has turned to a major hub for militant since Saudi-backed troops claimed the city as embattled President Hadi’s temporary seat of government in July.

A security source told local news site Aden al-Ghad that the cell of seven was led by a French national.

France is said to be the biggest source of European foreign militants joining Daesh, with more than 900 French nationals thought to have left the country to fight for the group in Iraq or Syria.

It is not known how many French or European nationals could have joined the group in Yemen, where Daesh has not long had a presence.

albawaba.com