A screen grab of the Mohammad Jolani interview with the Arab journalists

The leader of al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, the al-Nusra Front, claimed that the Kurds are the reason that the United States and Turkey do not see eye-to-eye on a no-fly zone over Syria.

“The situation is very complex: Turkey alone cannot impose it (the zone) and America is against it, because it won’t be to the benefit of its Kurdish allies,” Mohammad Jolani said in an interview with four Arab journalists inside territory controlled by the militant group.

Turkey “does not accept a Kurdish political elite on its border and America is supporting the Kurds,” he said in the interview, which was released on social media sites affiliated with al-Nusra or al-Qaeda.

“How come America does not allow a no-fly zone in Syria? Because Kurds will suffer the consequences. They fight ISIS, therefore they are important for America,” he claimed, referring to the Islamic State group.

Turkey has pushed for a no-fly zone across its border in Syria, where it opposes any strengthening of the Kurdish YPG forces that have been fighting against ISIS.

But the United States, which has been helping the YPG with air support in the fight against ISIS, has been lukewarm about the suggestion from its NATO partner.

Turkey is not concerned with the lives of civilians in Damascus and other parts of Syria, Jolani claimed, as he predicted that the Kurds would also be fighting against al-Nusra in the future.

Turkey, he claimed, “does not care about the expansion of ISIS and they do about the expansion of the Kurds. Ten million Kurds live in Turkey, while ISIS has no national roots there and will not put the country at stake.”

Turkey has been criticized by other NATO allies as a reluctant partner in the war against ISIS. Ankara has turned a blind eye to Islamist groups using its territory for jihads in Syria and Iraq. Since it declared a war on terrorist groups in late July, Turkey has been mainly pounding its own outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Jolani predicted that Turkey’s oppressed Kurds would have their own homeland.

“Allowing the emergence of a Kurdish elite (in Iraq) paved the way for the Kurds in Syria to create an elite, and in the next 20 years there will be another Kurdish elite in Turkey which will stretch to the land of Iran,” he claimed.

Jolani said that his group considers the Kurds as one of their own. “We think they are Muslims too and consider them as part of us.”

He said that al-Nusra had withdrawn from fighting ISIS and would not be part of any coalition against the group.

rudaw.net

The Saudi-led alliance will be based in Riyadh “to coordinate and support military operations to fight terrorism”, the agency said, and comprises Middle Eastern, African and Asian states, the SPA state news agency announced.

The coalition will tackle “the Islamic world’s problem with terrorism and will be a partner in the worldwide fight against this scourge” said Saudi defence minister and deputy crown prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud at a press conference in Riyadh.

Arrangements would be made for “coordination with friendly peace-loving nations and international bodies for the sake of supporting international efforts to combat terrorism and to save international peace and security”, SPA added.

More than 10 other “Islamic countries” had expressed support for the coalition, including Indonesia, it said.

“These countries have procedures to go through before joining the coalition, but out of keenness to achieve this coalition as soon as possible, (this alliance of) 34 countries has been announced,” said the Saudi minister.

The United States has called for broader international participation in the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, saying Turkey needed to do more to control its borders with Syria, and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states had been distracted by the conflict in Yemen.

The coalition will fight “any terrorist organisation that appears,” said bin Salman when asked if the alliance would concentrate on fighting IS only.

timeslive.co.za

In the latest development involving the controversial deployment of Turkish troops to a base in Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul, sources have told Turkish media that a number of the soldiers have been stationed elsewhere in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

The source goes on to say that there are no immediate plans in place for them to return to Turkey, raising questions as to where they will be stationed in the short term.

There has been international pressure on Ankara after Iraq appealed to the United Nations on Friday, insisting that the deployment was in violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.

In a letter to in a letter to the president of the Security Council, Iraqi Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim said “We call on the Security Council to demand that Turkey withdraw its forces immediately… and not to violate Iraqi sovereignty again.

“This is considered a flagrant violation of the principles of the U.N. Charter, and a violation of Iraqi territorial integrity and sovereignty of the state of Iraq.”

basnews.com

Under the latest “adjustment” in US military operations in Iraq and Syria, President Obama has approved the deployment of a larger contingent of US Special Forces into Iraq.  Unlike previous “train, equip and advise” deployments, the new Special Forces teams will be operating independently of the Iraq Army, conducting “decapitation” operations against ISIL targets.

The expanded Special Forces deployment comes as the result of the latest Pentagon assessments that the Iraq Army is still disjointed, plagued by political interference from Baghdad politicians under the influence of Iran, and will not be effective against ISIL strongholds for the foreseeable future. Iran continues to exert significant influence on the Dawa Party, through former Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, and Iranian-backed Shia militias continue to conduct operations independent of the Iraq military command.

One feature of the change in the US military mission in Iraq is that the American forces will no longer be sharing intelligence with the Iraq Army or the government in Baghdad. This is due to the expanded Iranian and Hezbollah penetration of the Iraqi intelligence services. The US had already pulled back from intelligence sharing since the announcement more than a month ago that a joint intelligence center had been established in Baghdad, involving Iraq, Iran, Russia and Syria. But this is a further step towards Washington conducting independent military operations inside Iraq.

The US Special Forces already deployed inside Iraq have developed extensive intelligence profiles of ISIL’s operations and key personnel. ISIL’s communications systems have been reportedly penetrated at a local level, and under the new rules of engagement for US Special Forces, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) will be acting unilaterally, without consulting or coordinating with the Iraq Army, when actionable intelligence is obtained.

The new US Special Forces mission is modeled on the night raids against Taliban and Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan. In effect, US commanders in Iraq concluded that Iraqi military units were incapable of acting on short notice to conduct such missions, and will, therefore, be operating independently. An estimated 200 additional US Special Forces are expected to be arriving in Iraq as an Expeditionary Targeting Force in the coming days.

The US deployment has created a major political problem for Prime Minister Abadi, who is already under fire from within his own ruling Shia coalition in parliament. A number of prominent Shia parliamentarians, representing powerful militia groups, have rejected the US expanded deployment, and threatened to bring down the Abadi government if the US deployment goes ahead.  Some Shia officials, including Jafaar Hussaini of the Kata’ib Hezbollah and Mohammed Naji of the Badr Organization and the Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Force) militia, have threatened civil war if the US Special Forces are allowed in the country.

On Dec. 3, in response to that pressure, Prime Minister Abadi’s office issued a statement that Iraq “will consider any country sending ground combat forces a hostile act and will deal with it on this basis. The Iraq government is committed to not allowing the presence of any ground force on the land of Iraq.”

Secretary of State John Kerry countered by claiming that he had fully briefed Abadi on the expanded US mission, and that he believed the official statement was more directed at domestic critics of the planned Special Forces deployment than at the US. Nevertheless, there is a concern among Shia militia leaders and Dawa Party officials that the Special Forces could eventually be turned against the Shia forces. A number of Shia militia leaders are already on the US terrorist list.

The controversy has been compounded by the deployment of additional Turkish military forces to the Mosul area, where they have been training Sunni tribes, former local police, and Kurdish militias for over a year.

The bottom line for the Pentagon is that the multi-year efforts to stand up an effective Iraq Army have run aground, and Washington is losing political ground to Iran and, indirectly, to Russia. President Obama’s longstanding policy of refusing “US boots on the ground” in Iraq or Syria has given way to a more flexible and pragmatic position, driven by the poor results of the US operations against the ISIL to date.

In another signal of that shift, President Obama was also recently forced by his military advisors to lift the embargo against striking ISIL infrastructure targets in Syria, particularly the oil refineries and tanker trucks, and the power plants. For 18 months, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CENTCOM have been asking for Presidential approval to bomb vital ISIL infrastructure, with no success.

Military planners had been arguing, all along, that the danger of civilian casualties and the destruction of vital infrastructure needed for a post-ISIL, post-Assad reconstruction, were secondary to the mission of cutting off the Islamic State’s ability to govern in the territories it controlled, by generating millions of dollars a week in black market revenue. Finally, that message got through to the President, and the target ban has been recently lifted.

While there is little area of agreement yet between the United States and Russia, particularly over the issue of the future of President Assad, Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov are working together on a United Nations Security Council resolution, demanding cooperation of all UN members in shutting off the finances of the Islamic State.

mebriefing.com

After ten months of bitter fighting in Yemen, a seven-day ceasefire is set to begin Monday midnight, local time. In the lead-up to the temporary UN-brokered truce, the main combatants — Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels and the Saudi Arabia-led coalition loyal to internationally-backed Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi — have stepped up their fighting.

Houthi rebels launched a Russian-made Tochka short-range ballistic missile at coalition forces Monday, according to the Houthi-controlled SABA News Agency. The report stated that at least 146 coalition forces and other anti-Houthi fighters were killed in the attack in Taiz, the southern city of Yemen that has been under fire from both sides for months.

Asset Source, a mobile intelligence and monitoring company, reported between 16 and 18 Sudanese, 23 Saudi, seven Emirati, and nine Moroccan soldiers were killed in the attack. The Houthi report also claimed that at least 40 mercenaries from the U.S. security services training company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, now called Academi, were among the fatalities.

International Business Times was not able to independently confirm the numbers, but Saudi Arabia’s state-run news agency reported that a Saudi Colonel and officer from the United Arab Emirates were killed in Taiz Monday “while carrying out their duties in … liberating Taiz.”

The lethal Tochka missile, a Soviet-era ballistic missile that also goes by the NATO reporting name SS-21 Scarab, was also the weapon of choice when Houthis launched an attack at a coalition-controlled base in September, killing at least 45 Emirati troops, five Bahrainis and 10 Saudis — the deadliest operation against coalition forces until now.

Houthis have access to roughly 40 Tochka missiles, according to a recent interview with an official from Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The official told IBT that Houthis have access to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s weapons cache. It was not immediately clear whether the missile used on Monday was part of this stockpile or a recent acquisition.

In the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, coalition airstrikes Sunday killed 12 people and wounded at least 20 others, including women and children, according to the pan-Arab TV channel Al-Mayadeen. In a separate attack, the coalition launched at least 11 airstrikes in the northwestern province of Hajjah and a further 25 people were killed in aerial strikes between Saturday and Sunday morning.

Asset Source reported that intensified fighting is typical in the hours preceding a ceasefire in order to “solidify and improve their positions ahead of truces in order to have more bargaining power in talks. Such an intensification should be expected until the hour of the truce’s implementation.”

Neither the Saudi Arabia-led coalition nor the Houthi rebels have guaranteed that they will respect the ceasefire. The halt in fighting is based on an agreement between internationally-backed president Hadi and United Nations’ envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed. Peace talks are set to follow Tuesday.

More than 5,800 people have been killed and some 27,000 people have been wounded, at least half of whom are civilian casualties, since fighting broke out in March.

Mueen Abdulmalek, a member of the government delegation, told AFP, “We hope the militias will commit to the ceasefire this time.” A spokesman for the Houthis said the group would only respect the truce if the coalition and forces loyal to Hadi halted their “aggression.”

ibitimes.com

Babylonia has no regrets about leaving behind her two children and her job as a hairdresser to join a Christian female militia battling against the Islamic State group in Syria.

The fierce-looking 36-year-old in fatigues from the Syriac Christian minority in the northeast believes she is making the future safe for her children.

“I miss Limar and Gabriella and worry that they must be hungry, thirsty and cold. But I try to tell them I’m fighting to protect their future,” she said.

Babylonia belongs to a small, recently created battalion of Syriac Christian women in Hasakeh province who are fighting ISIS.

They are following in the footsteps of Syria’s other main female force battling the jihadists — the women of the YPJ, the female counterpart to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units or YPG.

So far the new force is small, with around 50 graduates so far from its training camp in the town of Al-Qahtaniyeh, also known as Kabre Hyore in Syriac, and Tirbespi in Kurdish.

But the “Female Protection Forces of the Land Between the Two Rivers” — the area between the Tigris and Euphrates waterways historically inhabited by Syriacs — is teeming with women eager to prove their worth against ISIS.

It was actually Babylonia’s husband who encouraged her to leave Limar, nine, and six-year-old Gabriella and join the unit whose first recruits graduated in August.

Himself a fighter, he urged her to take up arms to “fight against the idea that the Syriac woman is good for nothing except housekeeping and make-up”, she said.

“I’m a practising Christian and thinking about my children makes me stronger and more determined in my fight against Daesh,” added Babylonia, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.

Syriac Christians belong to the eastern Christian tradition and pray in Aramaic. They include both Orthodox and Catholic branches, and constitute around 15 percent of Syria’s 1.2 million Christians.

Before the conflict began in March 2011, Christians from some 11 different sects made up around five percent of the population.

The unit’s first major action was alongside the newly created Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish, Arab and Christian fighters, which recently recaptured the strategic town of Al-Hol.

“I took part in a battle for the first time in the Al-Hol area, but my team wasn’t attacked by ISIS,” said 18-year-old Lucia, who gave up her studies to join the militia.

Her sister also joined up, against the wishes of their reluctant mother.

“I fight with a Kalashnikov, but I’m not ready to become an elite sniper yet,” the shy teenager said, a wooden crucifix around her neck and a camouflage bandana tied round her head.

Al-Hol, on a key route between territory ISIS controls in Syria and Iraq, was the first major victory for the SDF, which has captured around 200 villages in the region in recent weeks.

It has received air support from the US-led coalition fighting ISIS, as well as drops of American weapons.

Ormia, 18, found battle terrifying at first.

“I was afraid of the noise of cannons firing, but the fear quickly went away,” she said.

“I would love to be on the front line in the fight against the terrorists.”

The battalion’s fighters train in an old mill in a programme that includes military, fitness and academic elements.

With its limited combat experience, the unit for now focuses mainly on protecting majority Christian parts of Hasakeh province.

Thabirta Samir, 24, who helps oversee the training, estimates that around 50 fighters have graduated so far.

“I used to work for a Syriac cultural association, but now I take pleasure in working in the military field,” she said.

“I’m not afraid of Daesh, and we will be present in the coming battles against the terrorists.”

Samir said both local and “foreign forces” helped train the women, without specifying the nationality of the foreigners.

In late November, Kurdish sources said US soldiers had entered the town of Kobane in northern Syria to train Kurdish fighters and plan offensives.

Some women cited what is known as the Sayfo (“Sword”) massacres in 1915 of Syriac, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians as reasons for joining the unit.

“We are a community that is oppressed by others,” said 18-year-old Ithraa. She joined four months ago inspired by the memory of Sayfo, in which Ottoman authorities are said to have killed tens of thousands of Christians in Turkey and Iran.

She said the community hoped to prevent “a new massacre like that committed by the Ottomans… when they tried to erase our Christian and Syriac identity”.

middle-east-online.com

The translator rushed towards the rudimentary trailer housing the French volunteers who came to Iraq to fight against the Islamic State jihadist group alongside Kurdish Peshmerga forces from Iraq’s Kurdistan Region.

“Come quick, the general wants to see you! And bring your helicopter,” he told them, as an armoured convoy assembled and prepared to leave the base.

General Araz Abdelkader, who commands the Kurdish peshmerga forces stationed in Daquq, a town around 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Baghdad, had just received information on possible jihadist movements near the front line.

What the translator calls a helicopter is in fact a small commercial drone which can be carried in a backpack and has turned out to be the French volunteers’ most valuable “weapon”.

Fred, Kim and Pascal are among six former servicemen from France forming the French contingent in Daquq, not counting Bella the dog, the group’s mascot.

They have called themselves “Unit 732”, a reference to the date of a battle that saw Frankish-led forces defeat the troops of the Umayyad caliphate in central France.

All six have significant military experience, but the peshmerga keep them mostly in the rear and they have not yet fired a shot in anger.

“We’re working on a training programme and, mostly, what we do is recon and intelligence gathering,” said Pascal, a Corsican sporting a salt-and-pepper moustache.

With 25 years’ experience in private security in France, Africa and the Middle East, he’s the group’s veteran.

Paris attacks

The tiny contingent was welcomed by Iraqi Kurds, who are some of the main recipients of Western military aid to fight the Islamic State (IS) group.

France has good relations with Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Daquq front line, where the autonomous region’s forces are deployed, is one of the areas where the French jets that are part of the US-led coalition have been the most active.

“These six men are worth many more, they master some technologies we don’t,” the peshmerga general said. “They brought this drone from France, it is very useful to us.”

That day, the small device — which has a range of four to five kilometres (three miles) — flew across a wide open plain to monitor and record enemy movements without exposing a peshmerga reconnaissance unit on the ground.

The volunteers in Unit 732 got together on social media following the January attacks which IS claimed against satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris.

“It started with Charlie Hebdo… something happened inside of me,” said Pascal, who wears the Kurdish flag on one arm patch and the French tricolour on the other.

Other foreigners have volunteered to fight alongside the Kurds in Iraq and Syria since 2014, but no Western country has been harder hit by IS than France and the deadly November 13 attacks in Paris spawned new volunteers.

“The attacks at the Bataclan (concert hall) sparked a wave… Many people want to join us now,” said Pascal, warning nonetheless against a mass influx.

‘Not crusaders’

Despite its name, the six Frenchmen insist on the apolitical and non-religious nature of the group.

“We’re not Crusaders, we didn’t come here because we’re unemployed or bored,” said Fred, another member of the

group who served 10 years in the army.

“We are all fathers and have families… We came here to defend our values,” he said.

Sipping tea at the little blue plastic table outside their trailer, the volunteers also speak of their love for adventure, and some of them feel confined to a token role.

“I don’t necessarily want to kill, and even less be killed, but we’d like to get more involved,” said one of Daquq’s Frenchmen, who gave his name as Kim.

He and his comrades are aware their presence is essentially a PR windfall for the peshmerga, who have cast themselves as the world’s first rampart against IS, and do not plan to stay longer than three months.

They could not afford to stay much longer, given that they all arrived in Iraq with barely enough cash for a hotel room and are only housed and fed by the peshmerga but not paid.

That is one of the conditions for a smooth return to France, where diplomatic sources say they are unlikely to run into any legal trouble, having not fought as mercenaries nor in the ranks of a terror-listed organisation.

France, a leading member in the coalition against IS, is busy trying to track the hundreds of nationals it has among the very jihadists that Unit 732 wants to battle.

Kim, himself a Muslim, explained that IS’ recruiting prowess in France was a motivating factor in his decision to come to Iraq.

“These people are not Muslims, they’re pigs,” he said. “I wanted to show that there were French people fighting on the other side too.”

ekurd.net

Several journalists who had been forced to hide whilst living the Islamic State (IS) controlled northern Iraqi city of Mosul have managed to escape to the safety of Iraqi Kurdistan Region.

On Sunday, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) official from Mosul Saed Mamuzini told BasNews, “It is the first time that journalists have succeeded in escaping the jihadists.”

He continued, “The three journalists had kept themselves hidden inside Mosul for three months, after IS sentenced them to death.

“On Sunday, they escaped to the Kurdistan Region.”

He mentioned that the journalists were smuggled from Mosul, and “following their escape to the Kurdistan Region, the jihadists confiscated their houses.” Mamuzini refused to reveal further details.

basnews.com

It is the latest film by Behrouz Nouranipour, whose past works include God Doesn’t Make A Mistake [pictured], about a family coming to terms with the tragic death of its camel-driver patriarch, and A Crime In Silence, capturing the long-term impact of chemical weapons attacks on people in a village on the Iran-Iraq border.

The title A157 refers to the number of the girls’ tent in a refugee camp on the Turkish border with Syria.

“It’s a beautiful film capturing the tragic story of three young women who were raped by Daesh fighters,” said Maryam Naghibi, head of international sales at Soureh. “We sent the film to Berlin and are awaiting a response.”

One of Iran’s biggest producers and distributors, Soureh is attending Dubai Film Market for the first time this year. Other new titles on its slate include feature-length family animation Mobarak by Ali Najafi Emami. The work, which has been submitted to Annecy International Film Festival, is inspired by the characters of Persian poet Ferdowsi’s Farsi classic epic Shahnameh, or Book Of Kings. The mythical characters are portrayed as a set of puppets that are stolen from their puppet-master owner.

screendaily.com

An SAS sniper took out five ISIS jihadis with just three rounds before they were able to launch a sickening suicide bomb attack.

The SAS veteran fired a trio of well-placed bullets from 800 metres away, taking them out as they left a bomb factory near Mosul, an ISIS stronghold in Iraq.

He opened fire after they were seen leaving in heavy coats in hot weather – a sign they were concealing explosive vests.

His first bullet hit a jihadi in the chest, sparking an explosion that killed the terrorist and two Islamic State guards.

The second bomber fell to a headshot, while the third was hit as he tried to get back into the bomb factory.

An Army source told the Express: “This was a classic SAS mission.

“About three weeks ago the intelligence guys got information that a bomb factory had been set up in a nearby village.

“With just three well-aimed shots that single team has probably saved the lives of hundreds of innocent people.”

In August a British sniper saved a man and his eight-year-old son from certain death at the hands of ISIS after shooting dead the man who was about to execute him.

He shot the would-be executioner in the head from a range of 1,000m before taking out three other terrorists.

A British sniper saved a man and his eight-year-old son from certain death at the hands of ISIS after shooting dead the man who was about to execute him.

He shot the would-be executioner in the head from a range of 1,000m before taking out three other terrorists.

The father and son, who belonged to the Shia sect whom Isis regard as infidels, were going to be killed because they refused to renounce their faith.

The British snipers had been tipped off by an Iraqi spy and were on the scene in northern Syria close to the Turkish border in time to prevent the killings.

Several headless bodies were lying on the floor when the special forces troops arrived, as Isis militants carried out rigged trials of locals while their friends and family were forced to look on.

As the marksmen watched from a distance the man and the young boy were dragged out blindfolded as a man with a beard and a long knife addressed the terrified crowd.

It was then that the SAS marksman, using a .50 calibre sniper rifle fitted with a silencer, killed the executioner.

dailyrecord.co.uk