Peshmerga Forces fighting the Islamic State militants has captured a bizarre pick-up truck with tank-style treads.

The picture was posted by Peshmerga, which shows the unusual vehicle, which appears to be a Toyota Hilux 4×4 converted to take tank-style tracks to drive over difficult terrain, was posted on a Facebook page supporting the Peshmerga.

The car maker’s trucks, particularly Toyota Hilux pickups and Toyota Land Cruisers, have appeared in the terror group’s propaganda videos in Iraq, Syria and Libya, loaded with heavy weapons and packed full with terrorists.

Mark Wallace, a former US Ambassador to the United Nations, who is CEO of the Counter Extremism Project, told ABC News : “Regrettably, the Toyota Land Cruiser and Hilux have effectively become almost part of the ISIS brand.”

basnews.com

Russia is interested in the inclusion of Kurds in its work in the international Baghdad Information Center founded for the coordination in the fight against the Daesh, which is prohibited in numerous countries including the United States and Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“The international Baghdad Information Center has been operating for several months already and includes Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. We are open for cooperation in any format and with other interested parties, including the Kurdish opposition and patriotic Syrian opposition. We are continuing to work closely with the anti-terrorist situation in Jordan and Egypt,” Lavrov said in an interview with Italy’s Limes monthly magazine.

The Baghdad Information Center was established by Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria in September to coordinate their efforts in the fight against Daesh. The aim of the center is to collect, process, summarize and analyze current data about the Middle East in the context of counterterrorism measures against Daesh, distributing intelligence between the general staffs of the four countries.

The Kurds are one of the largest ethnic groups in Syria. They are putting up ground resistance to Daesh.

The commander of Iran’s “Emam Reza” armored brigade, IRGC general Mohsen Gajarian was killed in Syria.

According to Fars news agency, the general was killed by “Takfiri terrorists” (Iranian officials refer to extremist Sunni armed groups in Syria and Iraq, including the IS as “Takfiri).

Fars also reported that “at least 13 Iranians were killed in Syria during recent battles and all of them were IRGC members”.

The agency said all of the mentioned may have been killed during a new round of Syrian Army’s battle to break the siege of two key Shia towns of Nubul and Zahraa in north-western Aleppo.

At least four top commanders of IRGC have been killed in Syria since the beginning of 2015, including Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani who was killed in Syria on Oct. 8.

trend.az

A new Iraqi feature film portrays the ordeal of a young Yazidi woman kidnapped by Islamic State (IS) militants.

Taken from her home in northern Iraq after her town is captured, a woman named Jwan, which is the name of the film, suffers brutal attacks and enslavement at the hands of her captors.

Hundreds of Kurdish Yazidis were killed and thousands captured and enslaved by IS militants, who overran the northern city of Mosul in June 2014 and a proclaimed Islamic caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria.

Yazidi women and girls were captured, raped and tortured, and forced to convert to Islam and marry Islamic State followers, according to rights groups.

The 30-minute feature was filmed in the southern Iraqi city of Basra over a 10-day period in the summer of 2015.

The film’s director and producer, Ali Al-Jaberi, said that he hopes to shed light on the suffering experienced by ethnic minorities in Iraq.

“I consider it a tale to the wounds we suffer as Iraqis, these wounds from the abuse of the terrorist gangs of IS on innocent people and especially the women, the film is dedicated to all of our sisters that are still in captivity, have been freed or have been martyred, from all sects, our Yazidi, Turkmen and Kurdish sisters. God willing, we hope to deliver our message and condemn these crimes,” Jaberi said.

The film’s location of Basra was chosen as it features hills and landscape that is similar to areas under IS control in the northern and western parts of the country.

Assistant Director Muther Salman explained that Jwan is based on true ordeals that many Yazidi women have suffered, which may be difficult to for some viewers to watch.

“Jwan is an Iraqi girl that has been displaced from her home by force and her family have been killed because of IS crimes, which we will see in this film which tells a real life story. It will be hard for the audience to watch, it happened to thousands of Yazidi women and is still happening to other Iraqis in the north, it was hard for us to show all of this but we had to show the world what Islamic State is, and what their crimes are, that were delivered in the name of Islam and the fake religion that they represent,” he said.

Director Jaberi self-financed the film, working on a small budget of around $30,000 U.S. dollars, with the actors working for free.

Actor Hasan Hnatoosh plays an IS military leader in the film and carried out extensive research on the way his character should dress and behave.

“As an artist, I consider my participation in this film as a starting point because it was real cinematic work, as far as filming, direction and the scenes, my role in the film was of a military leader of the terrorist group of IS, I was preparing and studying for the character for seven months continuously, I looked at many of their internet websites, I watched real videos from the IS organization, because I had to study the character and the way they look, the hair and the beard,” Hnatoosh said.

The Yazidis, thought to number several hundred thousand in Iraq before they came under attack by Islamic State, are mostly Kurdish speakers whose ancient religion has elements of Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam.

Islamic State militants say they are devil worshippers, an accusation Yazidis reject, and must convert to Islam or die.

IS say enslaving Yazidi is the revival of an ancient custom of using women and children as spoils of war.

Islamic State group (IS) has extended its control on most parts of Sinjar (Shingal) district in northwest Iraq on August 3, 2014 which led thousands of Kurdish families to flee to Mount Sinjar, where they were trapped in it and suffered from significant lack of water and food, killing and abduction of thousands of Yazidis as well as rape and captivity of thousands of women.

Those who stay behind are subjected to brutal, genocidal acts: thousands killed, hundreds buried alive, and countless acts of rape, kidnapping and enslavement are perpetuated against Yazidi women. To add insult to injury, IS fighters ransack and destroy ancient Yazidi holy sites.

According to Human Rights organizations, thousands of Yazidi Kurdish women and girls have been forced to marry or been sold into sexual slavery by the IS jihadists.

Kurdish officials say thousands of Yazidi girls still in Islamic State captivity.

The United Nations has described the attack on the Yazidis as a possible genocide.

Of around 5,000 Yazidi men and women captured by the militants in the summer of 2014, some 2,000 have managed to escape or been smuggled out of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate, activists say. The rest remain in captivity.

Over 600,000 Yazidis live in villages in Iraqi Kurdistan region and in Kurdish areas outside Kurdistan region in around Mosul in Nineveh province, with additional communities in Transcaucasia, Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, and Syria. Additional Yazidi communities located in Germany.

There are almost 1.5 million Yazidis worldwide.

ekurd.net

The leader of Islamic State in Yemen was killed in a drone strike early on Thursday, residents and officials said.

They said the strike targeted a car in which Jalal Baleedi and two of his aides were travelling in on a road between the towns of Zinjibar and Shaqra in southern Yemen.

tribune.com.pk

Hezbollah are using Iranian-made anti-tank missiles in Syria that could be used against Israel in a future confrontation, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has learned.

On Sunday, Iranian news agency ABNA reported that Hezbollah is using Toophan anti-tank missiles manufactured by Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization.

The Toophan is a reverse-engineered version of the American military BGM-71 TOW missile, with a payload of 3.6 kg warhead that is capable of penetrating up to 550mm of steel armor.

The missile can reach a top speed of 310 m/s, with a range of 3,850m.

Israel frequently has voiced concerns over Hezbollah acquiring sophisticated weaponry — including new Iranian anti-tank missiles — that could end up being utilized against in a future battle between Israel and the Shi’ite terrorist organization.

This development comes amid growing Iranian expansion in Syria and throughout the region. Since the launch of Iran’s October ground operation in northern Syria, more than 135 Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) troops have been killed, according to a report written by Raz Zimmt — an expert on Iran’s political and social networks.

The commander of IRGC’s Quds Force — Qassem Soleimani — was also seen in public Jan. 21, his first appearance since he was reported injured in Syria.

Soleimani spoke at a memorial service for an IRGC brigadier general killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in January 2015 near Quneitra in the southern Golan Heights.

That airstrike also killed six Hezbollah terrorists, including Jihad Mugniyeh, son of arch-terrorist Imad Mugniyeh.

newsmax.com

The Head of Khalidiya Council in Anbar Province Ali Dawood announced on Wednesday, that the nephew of the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in an Iraqi air strike east of Ramadi, along with eight of his companions.

Dawood said in a statement released by Anbar News Agency and followed by IraqiNews.com, “Today, Iraqi Air Force conducted an air strike on the so-called ISIS sharia court in Albu Bali area in Khalidiya Island east of Ramadi.”

Dawood added, “The strike has resulted in the death of Abu Ahmed al-Samarrai the nephew of the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, along with eight of his companions, as well as Adel al-Bilawi the Military Commander of Albu Bali area.”

iraqinews.com

Khamad’s war is one of terrain — the Kurdish commander holds the high ground here and the Islamic State controls the villages that hug the Tigris River below.

The fighting is sporadic along a front line where men sit in lawn chairs, helmets askew, dutifully rotating through their watches. Lunch is made, tea is served. And Khamad, who will give only his nom de guerre, says that the militants are beyond his reach, their black flag only visible through aging binoculars.

If his men are shot at, it is by tanks that fire from the western banks of the river, or by heavy weapons that have the range to hit his fortified positions. Just in case, however, his outposts are ringed with moats — a last ditch effort to stop any potential raiding parties that might come in the night.

But Khamad’s most potent weapon is in the skies above. He motions upward with a crooked finger through scattered clouds, where the underbelly of two jets are visible, if only for a moment, before they bank and head south.

For Khamad and his men — fighters known as peshmerga — the U.S. and coalition aircraft have taken on a mythic status, talismans that announce themselves with a low rumble at 15,000 feet.

With the fight against the Islamic State in its second year, American forces and their peshmerga counterparts have become deeply entwined. Both are preparing for a battle to retake the large northern city of Mosul, an Islamic State stronghold about 30 miles away. It is an operation likely to require bloody house-to-house combat.

Although U.S. forces in areas controlled by the Kurds declined to be interviewed, there is evidence everywhere of their presence and the focus on Mosul. The United States, in both Iraq and Syria, has sought out proxy ground forces, backed by air power, to fight the Islamic State. It is a policy that recorded a recent success with the recapture of Ramadi by Iraqi forces, but Mosul, a major population center, will provide a significant test for both the Iraqis and Kurds. And U.S. officials say it could be many more months before local forces have the training and equipment needed to move on the city.

Kurdish officials have said they are ready to seize the city, but they are waiting for the Iraqi army to free up some of its soldiers still positioned in or near cities such as Ramadi and Fallujah. The Kurds, who say they have entrenched positions on three flanks around Mosul, acknowledge they need the involvement of Iraq’s counterterrorism force, the elite unit that has borne the brunt of combat in Anbar province to the south. To launch a joint offensive, the combatants will have to overcome long-standing tensions between Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

They also will need the Americans.

“If America helps us, we will destroy them,” Khamad says of an attack on Mosul. “If they don’t, we will stay” behind the lines.

U.S. advisers move from position to position along the front lines here, assessing enemy locations and coordinating air support. According to numerous peshmerga, many of those advisers stay on the front for a few hours or sometimes a few nights. Small bases stocked with U.S. and other coalition trainers have also popped up near the front — instructing small numbers of fighters while keeping them close to their positions.

Recently, the advisers have been training the Kurds in the kind of street fighting they will face when entering Mosul.

The peshmerga have front lines and rear areas and outposts scattered for hundreds of miles in a sort of western front made of berms and machine guns. The lines rarely move, so the American jets and advisers can keep tabs on friendly and enemy positions easily.

Airstrikes arrive faster and strike with greater accuracy than when the U.S.-led air campaign began in the summer of 2014. Now, Khamad says, it takes only 10 to 30 minutes for the jets to appear after he calls for support.

But Khamad has no advanced radio of the kind U.S. troops might use to talk to jets circling overhead. Instead, he says, he uses his cellphone to call someone — apparently a Kurdish-American — who is located a few miles away in a small U.S. compound sprouting satellite and radio antennas. There, the Kurdish American talks to the coalition aircraft and a joint command center in Erbil, the Kurdish regional capital, and directs them to the target.

“Yesterday we are attacked by an anti-aircraft gun,” Khamad said. “It only shot five times before the Americans destroyed it.”

According to Kurdish intelligence officials, who requested anonymity to discuss their relations with the Americans, the United States has also outfitted peshmerga counterterrorism units with American weapons and equipment, while U.S. Special Operations forces train them. The slick black uniforms and modern equipment of the elite peshmerga forces are a far cry from what their brethren on the front have; many Kurds there carry aging Kalashnikovs into battle and lack adequate winter clothing.

In recent months, the Kurdish counterterrorism units and their U.S. counterparts have been more than just training partners. In October, the Kurdish units fought alongside the U.S. Army’s Delta Force in a raid that left one American dead. Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler was the first U.S. combat casualty in the war against the Islamic State. According to the Kurdish officials, multiple U.S.-Kurdish raids followed the death of Wheeler, all in attempts to free captured peshmerga forces.

Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for the U.S. led operation in Iraq and Syria, would not discuss whether U.S. forces continued to accompany Kurdish counterterrorism units on operations.

Mukhlis Hamad, a peshmerga since 1991, travels about 20 minutes from his frontline position near Sultan Abdullah to training sessions with the Americans. In a walled-off subsection of a peshmerga base, known as the Black Tiger Camp, there is a small detachment of U.S. Army Special Forces responsible for training the peshmerga for this section of the line in addition to a detachment of German trainers. The Americans live in a base within a base, the tell-tale HESCO barriers — wire mesh containers filled with sand — provide a wall around their tents and vehicles.

The peshmerga say the Americans come and go as they please.

The Black Tiger base peshmerga commander is Maj. Gen. Sirwan Barzani — also a telecom magnate and nephew of Masoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.

He is in charge of roughly 15,000 troops, including a small number of Iraqi battalions and Arab tribes, that compose the peshmerga’s sixth defensive sector he has commanded since August 2014. In response to a recent Amnesty International report that said Kurdish troops had driven out Arab populations from villages taken back from the Islamic State, Barzani said in an interview that there was no plan to drive people from their homes, but as the peshmerga cleared the militants from northern Iraq, many villages had been heavily mined and his men had no choice but destroy them in place.

Like many peshmerga commanders and Kurdish officials, Barzani is continuously looking for new equipment, especially from the United States. Most of what he does have was taken from the Islamic State.

“We have no heavy machine guns, no armored vehicles from the West,” Barzani said. “Nothing.”

The Black Tiger’s motor pool is stocked with a few modified and aging Russian armored personnel carriers, as well as U.S. Humvees and MRAPs that Barzani said were first taken from the Iraqi army by the Islamic State and then recaptured, repainted and repurposed by the peshmerga. For the most part, however, his men get around in Toyota pickups and Land Cruiser high backs.

Barzani said his men need more anti-tank weapons, adding that MILAN systems provided by Germany have helped his forces significantly. In 2015, he started the year with only two of the anti-tank guided-missile systems, but now he has five.

For the troops on the frontline, the MILAN has been the only weapon that can destroy the Islamic State’s heavily armored suicide vehicle; it can hit targets more than a mile away.

For Khamad and his men stationed in the hills above Sultan Abdullah, the MILAN has been used to keep the militants contained to the valley below. With large stretches of open fields between them and the enemy, they are well out of range of the Islamic State’s Kalashnikov rifles.

And so they watch and wait.

“I’ve been in many fights,” said Khamad, who has been fighting with the peshmerga for decades. “But I’ve never seen anything like this.”

stripes.com

The FBI has launched a Facebook page in Farsi to solicit tips on the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who went missing in Iran nine years ago.

The new site, which went live in the last few weeks, is part of a broader effort to appeal directly to the Iranian public for information about Levinson’s disappearance and comes as the FBI continues its yearslong search for him. Farsi is the predominant language of Iran.

Levinson, now 67, disappeared from Iran’s Kish Island in March 2007. A 2013 Associated Press investigation revealed that he was working for the CIA on an unauthorized intelligence-gathering mission.

The case drew renewed attention last month when Levinson was not part of a prisoner swap between the U.S. and Iranian governments that set free four other Americans who had been held in Iran’s custody, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.

The FBI says it continues to investigate every lead and remains committed to finding Levinson and bringing him home. A $5 million reward for information leading to his whereabouts remains in effect.

The FBI has long had an English-language social media campaign aimed at encouraging tips and leads. The new Facebook page, as well as a missing-person poster and press release in Farsi that were already in circulation, represent the most concerted effort so far to reach Iranians in their native language.

The page went live in the two weeks since the prisoner swap was announced, but it had been in the works before then, FBI officials said. Additional pages are planned in the Arabic and Urdu languages.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said last month that Levinson may no longer be in Iran, but no evidence has surfaced publicly to support that idea. Though Levinson was last seen on Iran’s Kish Island, the Iranian government has never acknowledged arresting him and has said it doesn’t know where he is.

In late 2010, Levinson’s family received a video that offered proof that he was still alive. In the video, Levinson, who had lost considerable weight, pleaded for help to return home. In April 2011, the family received photos showing Levinson, with unkempt hair, dressed in an orange jumpsuit. His relatives have said that he suffers from diabetes, gout and hypertension.

But Secretary of State John Kerry said after the prisoner deal last month that U.S. officials did not know whether Levinson remained alive.

One of Levinson’s children, Daniel Levinson, said in an interview with the AP last week that the family was “devastated” that Levinson was not part of the prisoner swap and was upset that it had no advance notice that the exchange would take place.

He said it should be “unacceptable not just to us but to the American people to leave someone behind like that,” noting that his father had missed joyful family events like weddings and births of grandchildren.

“We’re not going to go away. We’re not going to give up,” Levinson said. “We’re going to continue pressing.”

tampabay.com