Islamic State’s police chief was killed, while five others were injured in an airstrike, southwest of Kirkuk, a local source from the province was quoted saying, like reported by iraqinews.com.

“IS leader in charge of the so-called Islamic police in Hawija, southwest of Kirkuk, was killed along with one of his companions, while five others were wounded as an airstrike targeted a group’s rest house at the outskirts of the town,” the source told AlSumaria News on Monday.

The source, who preferred anonymity, added that the killed member was from the group’s second-line leaders in Kirkuk.

On Sunday, nine IS militants were killed as U.S.-led coalition jets targeted IS locations in al-Rashad, al-Riyadh and Hawija, southwestern Kirkuk.

Hawija, located west of Kirkuk, have been held by IS since mid-2014, when the group emerged to proclaim an Islamic “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. The group executed dozens of civilians and security members there, forcing thousands to flee homes.

Security officials say tens of IS families in the group’s so-called Diyala State headed to Hawija after losing the cities they controlled after June 2014.

There has been pressure on Iraqi government to hasten with invading Hawija, given the humanitarian crisis people were experiencing under the group’s rule. Further offensives are expected to be launched across Iraq.

Russia’s armed forces have celebrated Navy Day with processions and parades across the world – including its first ever celebration in Syria, like reported by independent.co.uk.

Navy Day is a national holiday for Russians on which huge parades are held in St Petersburg – Moscow’s second largest city and the home of the Navy – on the last Sunday of July.

There are usually smaller processions at Russian naval bases across the vast country as well as around the world, including Crimea, annexed in 2014, and for the first time this year, the regime-held Syrian city of Tartous.

The Russian and Russian navy flags were raised in the city on Sunday as six warships and a Black Sea Fleet submarine took part in the celebrations, Russia state news agency Interfax reported, accompanied by jets from the nearby Hmeymim air base.

A deal with the Syrian government struck in January of this year will in effect solidify Moscow’s presence at the the Hmeymim air base with a lease over the next 49 years and options to renew the presence of troops there for 25-year-long periods.

It is now Moscow’s only permanent Mediterranean base after President Vladimir Putin signed it into law last week.

Russia has proven to be Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s most powerful ally in his now more than six-year-old war against various rebel factions; Russian bombing against Isis and moderate Sunni rebel groups has been widely credited with turning the tide of the war in Mr Assad’s favour.

The scale of this year’s parades was unprecedented. Observers believe Sunday’s huge celebrations were designed to show both Russia’s military prowess and Moscow’s ambition to reposition itself as a global power in the face of a more isolationist US.

In St Petersburg, more than 5,000 sailors took part in a parade featuring more 50 ships and submarines and flyovers by 40 jets. Two Chinese warships also took part in the St Petersburg celebrations – a sign of the increasingly close ties between Moscow and Beijing.

The procession was overseen by Mr Putin, who said in a speech that “Russia’s history is inseparable from the victories of its courageous and fearless Navy,” and announced the addition of 30 new vessels to the Russian fleet over the course of 2017.

Scores of buses and ambulances have arrived at the Lebanon-Syria border for the second round of an exchange between Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group and Syria’s al-Qaida affiliate, like reported by ap.org.

The second round is planned to have about 9,000 Syrians, including hundreds of al-Qaida fighters, resettle in their home country of Syria. In exchange, eight Hezbollah fighters held by al-Qaida’s Fatah al-Sham Front will be returned home

The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media released video and photos of the buses and ambulances in the Lebanese border town of Arsal and the Syrian village of Fleeta preparing for the evacuations.

Monday’s evacuations come a day after the two groups exchanged the bodies of their dead fighters as part of an agreement to restore order to a contested frontier zone.

Iraqi warplanes killed 20 Islamic State members near the borders with Syria, military media reported Monday, denying reports that the strikes targeted locations inside Syria, like reported by iraqinews.com.

The Defense Ministry’s War Media Cell said an airstrike was carried out at Tal Sufouq, a region at Nineveh’s borders with Syria, based on intelligence provided by the Popular Mobilization Forces.

The strike killed 20 militants and destroyed six vehicles, the statement said, denying reports that the strikes targeted locations inside Syria.

On Sunday, semi-official al-Sabah newspaper said Iraqi warplanes pounded IS locations in the Syrian city of Mayadin, Deiz Ezzour, before the group proceeded with plans to target holy Shia sites in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, as well as the residence of the country’s top Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Iraqi forces regained control over the city of Mosul earlier this month, ending more than eight months of battles against the militants at their former capital. Coinciding with the campaign in Mosul, paramilitary troops, backed by warplanes, managed to take full control over the borderline with Syria and Jordan.

Islamic State now holds a few towns in Nineveh near the Syrian borders, most notably Tal Afar, which is widely reported to be the next target for military operations.

The Islamic State group has issued a short new video in which it threatens the Islamic Republic of Iran and vows to destabilize the country with terrorist attacks, like reported by voanews.com.

The video, released Tuesday, depicts a teenage boy in military uniform who directly looks at the camera and speaks Persian with a bold voice, threatening the regime.

The teenager is introduced as the “Persian Qattadah” in the video, which is the name of a close disciple of Prophet Muhammad.

“We will destroy your land and your home, we will disrupt your security and we will shed your blood into rivers,” the teenager is heard saying in the video.

Iran has not yet reacted to the video. It was produced in similar fashion to other videos released by the terror group in the past.

In late March, IS released a 36-minute, Persian-language video aimed at Iran’s Sunni Muslim minority in which several adults spoke in Persian, but with heavy Baloch and Arabic accents.

The new video portrays a child soldier who speaks fluent Persian with no accent at all, which suggests that the terror group may have made inroads in parts of the country to recruit.

Mixed reaction

Analysts’ views on the content and purpose of the video were mixed.

Some said IS wanted to exploit Iranian Sunnis, who have long been deprived of their rights.

“Islamic State’s propaganda is falling on fertile ground as Sunnis in Iran are deeply underprivileged and deprived of many of their rights,” Ali Alfoneh, a nonresident senior fellow at Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at The Atlantic Council, told VOA.

“It is hardly surprising that the Islamic State is trying to target Iran’s Sunni minority,” Alfoneh added.

Others downplayed the video and viewed it as a desperate move by IS to show that it remains relevant. The terror group has faced numerous defeats on the battlefield in recent months in Iraq and Syria.

“This is an isolated case and depicts a desperate effort by IS to show it is still capable of conducting new attacks,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior analyst at the Washington-based Middle East Institute.

“With less territory under control and shrinking sources of revenue, recruiting new members from Iran, where people, even dissident Sunnis, see less common ground with IS, seems to be shooting in the dark and bears no fruit at all,” Vatanka added.

Marginalization of Sunnis

Alfoneh of the Atlantic Council said he thought that some of Iran’s policies were purposefully marginalizing the country’s Sunni minority from the mainstream, which could drive them closer to extremist groups like IS.

“Iran’s Sunnis are being oppressed, and the Iranian government policy of relating Sunnis to IS and Saudis has not given the desired fruit expected,” he said. “Twin attacks on June 7 committed by Iranian members of IS prove that fact.”

IS militants carried out twin terrorist attacks in early June targeting Iran’s parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

The attacks, which IS claimed responsibility for, killed at least 17 people and injured dozens more.

Iran’s mainly Baloch and Kurd Sunni minorities have long accused Tehran of discriminating against them because of their religious views.

Human rights organizations also have talked of mass executions of Sunnis and have urged Iran to lift restrictions on Sunnis, who make up about 9 percent of the country’s population.

Tehran has acknowledged it executed at least 977 people in 2015, which it says was mainly for drug-related crimes.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) confirmed on Thursday the liberation of half of Raqqa city, adding that the military operations against ISIS extremists will continue until the entire city is liberated, like reported by aranews.net.

Jihan Sheikh Ahmad, spokeswoman for the SDF-led Euphrates Wrath Operation in Raqqa, said in a statement that their forces have seized control of 50% of Raqqa city so far.

Meanwhile, a senior US-led coalition’s official said on Thursday that the SDF has taken control of 45% of Raqqa.

“Today marks day 53 of operations to defeat ISIS in Raqqa.  About 45 percent of the city is under control of the Syrian Democratic Forces.  The SDF have cleared about nine square miles of terrain this past week as they fought against stiff, sporadic resistance from ISIS entrenched in the city,” said Colonel Ryan Dillon, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve Spokesman.

“On the western axis, the SDF took control of a series of multi-story buildings that allowed them to provide over-watch and push further into the city’s center,” he added.

“On the eastern axis, the SDF made incremental gains south of the main road that runs east to west in the city,” Col. Dillon said.

“Currently, the distance between the east and west SDF axes is less than a half a mile.  And once they link up, the SDF will have full control of southern Raqqa.  And south of the Euphrates River, the SDF continue to isolate Raqqa and reinforce their positions,” he concluded.

Moreover, the official said at least 2,000 ISIS fighters remain in Raqqa.

“I would also take account the — how quickly that the Syrian Democratic Forces were able to make it immediately into the city, but there have been some stiff resistance since making it to, like, the ancient wall area as we’ve gotten closer into the city center,” he added.

This comes after the SDF launched a major operation to liberate the city of Raqqa from ISIS radicals.

Raqqa has been known as a de facto capital for the ISIS self-proclaimed Caliphate since the summer of 2014.

On June 6, the Syrian Democratic Forces announced the official start of the battle for Raqqa city.

The Command of the Arab Alliance in Support of Legitimacy in Yemen said that its air defense forces successfully intercepted a ballistic missile launched by Houthi militias in the direction of the Holy city of Mecca, in a desperate attempt to disrupt the Hajj season, like reported by aawsat.com.

“The air defense forces of the Alliance in Support of Legitimacy in Yemen were able on Thursday evening to intercept a ballistic missile launched by the Houthi militias towards Mecca,” the command said in a statement.

The interception operation took place over Al-Wasliya area in Al-Taif province, some 69 km away from Mecca, but did not cause any damages, the alliance added.

The alliance command confirmed that the non-stop trafficking of missiles into the Yemeni territories was due to the absence of any control or monitoring system at Al-Hodeida port, in addition to the misuse of permits, which the alliance was granting to relief and goods shipments.

The alliance said the lack of control at the port comes at a time when the international community fails to take decisions to prevent such violations, which prolong the war and endanger the lives of civilians.

In its statement, the alliance reiterated its support for the decision of the legitimate Yemeni government based on the endeavor of UN envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed to impose control on the vital sea outlet.

Last October, the Saudi Air Defense was able to intercept a ballistic missile launched by Houthi militias from the province of Saada towards the Mecca area.

The coalition destroyed the ballistic missile about 65 km away from Mecca without causing any damage.

The Houthi behavior had caused a wave of Islamic, Arab and Western reactions as a response to the ballistic missile, saying Mecca was a red line.

Before she disappeared from Facebook, Mia Ash was a fun-loving, young photographer who used the world’s biggest social network to showcase her work, like reported by forbes.com. Ash was popular too, Stretching back to April 2016, she’d befriended a lot of individuals, as many as 500, with similar interests. Her looks almost certainly helped her apparent popularity.

Ash was thrown off of Facebook earlier this year, though. Not for any obvious infraction. But because Facebook had been handed proof by SecureWorks researcher Allison Wikoff that convinced them Ash was a fake. Not only that, her persona has been tied by Wikoff to one of Iran’s busiest cyberespionage groups, known as OilRig.

Alongside profiles across LinkedIn and DeviantArt, Ash was one of the most developed fakes Wikoff had ever seen in her years researching spy activity on the web. “What we’ve seen in the past is just a fake LinkedIn profile, but this had LinkedIn, Facebook, a Blogger profile, two domains, two email addresses, and WhatsApp. Traditionally we haven’t seen across the board,” Wikoff told Forbes.

According to the researcher, Ash was active shortly after a surge in hacker activity from OilRig in December, as previously reported by Forbes. Using stolen images of a real young woman from Romania, Ash reached out to an employee of a targeted organization in the Middle East, the name of which SecureWorks isn’t reporting, sharing an interest in photography, shifting initial contact from her LinkedIn profile with more than 500 connections to her Facebook account. A relationship, albeit a fake one, was established, with chats over WhatsApp too. (Forbes and SecureWorks have attempted to contact the woman whose images were used, but with no success).

Eventually, she sent an email to the unwitting target, containing an Excel file, a supposed survey to do with photography. She asked him to open it on his corporate network, which he did. Then OilRig’s signature malware, known as PupyRAT, attempted to run and steal passwords for the corporate network. Fortunately, in that case, the security products of the organization sprung into action and prevented any data loss.

Despite the failure of the attack, Ash provides proof that OilRig has become adept at creating fake online personas. Wikoff says Ash tried and in many cases succeeded in grooming a range of technical individuals working for Middle East and Africa, most working in the oil and gas field. She was convincing enough to befriend an oil and gas cybersecurity pro with 10 years experience, according to Wikoff.

Fake news from Iran?

But Ash was one of a large number of fake profiles developed by Iranian-linked hacker groups over recent years, as they hone their craft. In recent months it’s been experimenting with fake news outlets too. A separate group believed to be of Iranian origin, known as Charming Kitten, set up the blandly-named BritishNews, spamming a significant amount of content earlier this year, up to a sudden stop in April, according to a report handed to Forbes by Israeli security firm ClearSky.

The fake agency used stolen content from across the web and was designed to draw in targets to visit the official BritishNews website, from where malware would be delivered. The fake agency had a fake employee too. Again, LinkedIn was key to creating the persona, though it’s unclear just who Charming Kitten was trying to target with BritishNews.

ClearSky also reported on another fake profile earlier this week, believed to have been established by yet another Iranian-linked hacker crew called CopyKitten. Back in 2013, the crew had set up a handful of Facebook profiles to spread links to a copy of Israeli news site Haaretz. One Facebook fraud, named Amanda Morgan, was still active up to this month and was also promoting a fake news service called Emet Press. No malware were delivered over the sites and ClearSky believes they were only set up to establish trust. Most have now had their social sites cut down, others simply remain dormant, said ClearSky head of intelligence Eyal Sela.

Iran’s use of personas isn’t new. Historically, Iran’s defense and intelligence units have long been linked to social media-led campaigns. The Newscaster attacks of 2014, for instance, saw myriad LinkedIn personas set up profiles posing as journalists. It’s only the quality of the fakes that’s increasing.

Facebook response

For its part Facebook has been responsive to requests to remove fake profiles. Alex Stamos, chief security officer for Facebook, told Forbes the company would be taking more of a manual approach rather than relying on automated technologies for dealing with nation state-sponsored fakes.

“A lot of that work … is more about looking for the patterns of malicious behavior that are expressed by those kinds of grooming attacks by advanced nation state adversaries,” Stamos said. “That would be more of a manual process that’s helped by automation.”

With Iran not giving up on its social exploitation, expect that game of whack-a-mole to continue.