The General Commander of the SDF-linked al-Bab Military Council, Jamal Abo Jomaa, has promised the people of al-Bab city that the SDF will soon liberate their areas from the Turkey-backed Euphrates Shield rebels, like reported by aranews.net.

Jomaa said during the anniversary of the establishment of the SDF-linked al-Bab Military Council: “A year after the establishment of al-Bab Military Council, our people in the region of al-Bab and its villages continued to suffer from terrorist groups like ISIS, who committed the most despicable types of murder and displacement against the peoples.”

The SDF commander also accused Turkey-backed rebel groups of terrorising the people of al-Bab. “They practiced the most horrible forms of theft, looting, murder and kidnapping against innocent civilians,” he said.

Therefore, the Bab Military Council commander said they are going to liberate al-Bab from the Turkish-backed rebels.

“On behalf of the command of Al-Bab military council, we promise our people in the region of Al-Bab and its countryside that we are going to liberate every inch occupied by [pro-Tuyrkey] radical groups,” he concluded.

Pro-government paramilitary troops killed seven Islamic State militants escaping towards the Syrian borders, the troops’ media service said Thursday according to iraqinews.com.

The Popular Mobilization Forces said through their media that troops killed seven Islamic State militants and destroyed three of their vehicles while they were trying to escape the town of Tal Afar towards the borders with Syria at Ein Tallawi region.

Tal Afar is 65 kilometers west of Mosul, and is home to a mixed Turkmen and Arab population. Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul, Islamic State’s former capital, early July after more than eight months of U.S.-backed offensives.

Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi and his defense officials have marked Tal Afar as their next target of anti-Islamic State action. Iraqi defense officials said recently that warplanes were carrying out raids on the enclave in preparation for the ground invasion which is yet to be scheduled.

Tal Afar has reportedly seen divisions among Islamic State leaderships, with occasional news telling of power conflicts and dissents among leaders, as well as attempts by some militants to flee the anticipated battle field.

Since Iraqi forces launched a wide-scale campaign to retake Mosul in 2016, paramilitary troops managed to isolate the town from the Syrian borders and from the rest of Nineveh.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces arrested 30 Islamic State militants near Tal Afar, Islamic State’s last haven in Nineveh province, a security source said to raqinews.com.

Mawazin News quoted the source saying that the militants were arrested over the past four days while attempting to flee the enclave towards Peshmerga-held territories.

According to the same source, more than 600 civilians, mostly Turkmen, had fled Tal Afar towards Peshmerga deployments.

Tal Afar is 65 kilometers west of Mosul, and is home to a mixed Turkmen and Arab population. Iraqi forces recaptured Mosul, Islamic State’s former capital, early July after more than eight months of U.S.-backed offensives.

Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi and his defense officials have marked Tal Afar as their next target of anti-Islamic State action. Iraqi defense officials said recently that warplanes were carrying out raids on the enclave in preparation for the ground invasion which is yet to be scheduled.

Tal Afar has reportedly seen divisions among Islamic State leaderships, with occasional news telling of power conflicts and dissents among leaders, as well as attempts by some militants to flee the anticipated battle field.

Since Iraqi forces launched a wide-scale campaign to retake Mosul in 2016, paramilitary troops managed to isolate the town from the Syrian borders and from the rest of Nineveh.

The reports feature satellite images showing a site under construction in northwest Syria near the Mediterranean coastal town of Baniyas that purportedly could be used to produce and store the weapons, like reported by rferl.org.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned recently that Iran is augmenting its presence in Syria as the six-year civil war there has turned more favorably toward Tehran’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“Our policy is clear: We vehemently oppose the military buildup by Iran and its proxies, primarily Hizballah, in Syria and we will do whatever it takes to protect Israel’s security,” Netanyahu said in a speech last week.

Iran, which has not officially commented on the Israeli reports, is Israel’s avowed enemy and for years has provided Assad with military advisers and militias to wage his civil war.

An Israeli Channel 2 television news report showed images it said were taken by an Israeli satellite showing a weapons-factory construction site and indications that explosives would be stored there.

The report compared images of buildings it said were of a rocket factory near Tehran to structures at the Syrian site, and said there was a strong resemblance between them.

The Times of Israel reported that the missile factory is being built in a bastion of support for the embattled Assad government and could be used for the production and underground storage of Scud missiles capable of striking Israel.

It said dirt berms could be seen around the factory buildings in satellite photos to protect them from attack. It added that the same site can viewed by anyone on Google maps.

The Times said Iran was also helping Hizballah build subterranean factories in Lebanon to make Fateh-110 medium-range missiles that would be able to reach most parts of Israel.

Israeli Defense Minister Avidgor Liberman last month publicly warned Hizballah and Iran against building the weapons factories.

“We are fully aware” of the rocket factories, Liberman told military correspondents at a briefing in Tel Aviv. “We know what needs to be done…. We won’t ignore the establishment of Iranian weapons factories in Lebanon.”

The alarms raised by Israel about Iran establishing a long-term military presence in Syria and Lebanon have been heeded by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which has said this year it will not accept any peace settlement in Syria that allows Iran to maintain a military presence in the country.

U.S. news reports say Israeli intelligence officials will discuss the situation in Syria and Lebanon with U.S. counterparts in a visit to Washington this week.

ISIS has executed five of its leaders for cowardice as US-led coalition forces advanced on the terror groups final strongholds in Syria and Iraq, like reported by express.co.uk.

A paramilitary official from the Shia-led al-Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Units), revealed the terror group turned on its vile leaders in central Iraq and sentenced them to death on Tuesday.

He said: “ISIS executed five leaders in Annah town, west of Ramadi, and punished others.

“The group accused the slain and punished leaders of reluctance especially after several members were killed and injured by army and paramilitary troops over the past few days.”

A source from the army’s command said on Monday that there have been intensive strikes in the towns of Annah and Rawa.

Eleven members of ISIS were killed last week as Jazeera Operations Command and Tribal Mobilisation Forces carried out military operations towards Annah and Rawa.

These towns have been held by ISIS since 2014 when it proclaimed an Islamic Caliphate.

ISIS is now on the brink of defeat in Iraq since the fall of Mosul.

During the siege of Mosul in January up to 100 boats containing groups of militants were “blown out of the war” trying to cross the Tigris River to evade the Iraqi-coalition forces.

Iraqi security forces kill ISIS prisoner because they believe that if the militants are sent to a prisoner of war camp then they will bribe authorities to release them.

People believe that Iraqi soldiers and their own government are too corrupt to keep them in detention.

ISIS suspects are shot, thrown into the Tigris river or thrown off buildings.

The US State Department estimated that “in excess of 40,000 total foreign fighters have gone to the conflict [in Syria] and from over 100 countries” in June 2016.

Many foreign fighters were able to travel through into ISIS-held territory through Turkey.

In April, the UN claimed at least 30,000 fighters had travelled to Syria although “some foreign fighters have already returned to their home countries, spreading violence in their own communities”.

Kuwaiti authorities announced Sunday that 12 out of the 23 member Al-Abdali terror cell were recaptured, after a manhunt that lasted weeks, like reported by inn.com.

The cell, which Kuwaiti authorities had first uncovered in 2015, had escaped custody in July, after a June Kuwaiti Supreme Court ruling convicted 21 Shiite Muslims of forming an Iran and Hezbollah-backed terrorist cell, and of stockpiling weapons to be used in attacks against the regime.

Police had pulled out all the stops to find them, raiding suspected hideouts all over the country, and offering sizable monetary rewards in exchange for information on their whereabouts.

Kuwait has linked them to the Iran-backed Hezbollah, a charge the militia adamantly denies,and has accused Iran of complicity. Kuwait expelled 15 Iranian diplomats, and closed the Iranian embassy’s military, trade and cultural missions in retaliation for Iran’s role in the affair.

A group of armed men attacked a large weapons cache belonging to Islamic State (IS) in Iraq’s northern city of Tel Affar, killing a number of jihadists before blowing up the depot, like reported by basnews.com.

According to several local sources, the unidentified armed men have now escaped the scene, with the IS militants setting up checkpoints across the city to hunt the attackers.

The number of jihadists killed at the scene is not know yet.

The attack comes as Tel Affar (some 65 kilometres west of Mosul) is now almost surrounded by the Iraqi forces who are planning a major assault soon.

The city has fallen into the hands of IS since 2014. Baghdad has vowed to move onto Tel Affar and dislodge the extremists group after it defeated them in Mosul earlier in July.

Iran will increase spending on its ballistic missile program as legislators signed off on the measure in response to the resumption of US sanctions, like reported by sbs.com.

U.S.-backed forces now have Islamic State fighters surrounded in central Raqqa, a Syrian Kurdish commander said, but he predicted that driving the militants out could take up to four months.

“We’ve cleared about half of Old Raqqa … and we’re advancing on all axes,” said Haval Gabar, the 25-year-old commander from the Kurdish YPG militia who is directing the assault on the Old City front in Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold, like reported by japantimes.co.jp.

Units of the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance dominated by the YPG, fully linked up in Raqqa’s southern districts on Tuesday, encircling the militants in the city center, which includes the Old City,

“The day before yesterday there was still a small gap,” Gabar said on Wednesday. “Yesterday it was closed. We are now pressing towards Mansour and Rashid districts.”

From his command post, a former Syrian government police headquarters overlooking the Old City walls, Gabar hunched over maps and radioed orders to YPG units 400 meters (yards) ahead in the densely built city center.

As he spoke, the sound of machine gun fire barked over his walkie-talkie while airstrikes staged by the U.S.-led coalition slammed into targets nearby.

The SDF, backed by the airstrikes and coalition special forces, have been fighting since June to clear Islamic State from Raqqa city, its de facto Syrian capital. A separate campaign drove the group from its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul last month.

However, the multiphased Raqqa offensive began already in November, capturing surrounding towns and villages, encircling the city and cutting off Islamic State from the north, east and west.

But the advances are proceeding cautiously, officials say, as Islamic State uses snipers, car bombs and booby traps, and forbids civilians to leave, prolonging the effort to flush the jihadis out.

Initial predictions by the YPG that the Raqqa battle would be over in a matter of weeks were wrong.

“It could take another three to four months to finish Raqqa,” Gabar said. The SDF was advancing steadily, but he added: “They’ve laid many mines, that’s one of the biggest difficulties. As for car bombs, they don’t use them every day, but if our forces are advancing down a street, then they deploy them.”

As he spoke, a huge blast shook the building, and a plume of smoke rose from inside the Old City — a car bomb had been hit by an air strike.

The radio crackled with reports of SDF casualties. A medic working at the command post, who gave her name as Jiyan, did not give a figure for the number of wounded being brought in, but said it was lower than in some previous battles.

“There are not as many fighters being killed and wounded as last year in Manbij,” she said, referring to the town northwest of Raqqa captured by the SDF last year.

SDF spokesman Talal Selo said on Tuesday that mines were slowing movement even where Islamic State — known by its opponents as Daesh — had withdrawn.

“In the northern area there is no Daesh presence, but at the same time our forces are not getting closer in because Daesh has rigged these areas with enormous amounts of explosives and mines,” he said.

The further forces advance into Raqqa, the tougher it has become, fighters in Gabar’s unit and other SDF militias said. Militants from the Russian region of Chechnya were particularly deadly.

“There are many snipers. They’re good, especially the Chechens,” YPG fighter Adel, 20, said, pointing at small holes in the walls of the police headquarters that the militants had used to shoot from when they held the building.

Through large open windows in the command post, some barricaded with tables to shield the unit from sniper fire, the ancient mud-brick Old City walls were visible, including one point where the SDF breached them to get through.

Gabar said that despite resistance, several hundred militants had surrendered themselves, and estimates not more than 1,000 are left. He believes their morale “is zero.

“Maybe 600 Daesh have surrendered. It’s mostly foreign fighters left in the city now. Those with families tend to be the ones to hand themselves over.”

A handful of civilians have trickled out of the city each day, but most cannot leave. Up to 50,000 civilians are trapped inside, the United Nations says.

The U.S. coalition and its allies say they take care to avoid civilian casualties, another reason for advancing cautiously. Many buildings around the command post were reduced to rubble.

The U.N. says coalition air strikes have killed at least 300 civilians in Raqqa since March.

The SDF are keen to finish the battle. “We’ll be done soon,” said a YPG fighter. “We kill 10 to 15 Daesh a day.”