Tag: ISIS

As a powerful coalition of forces converges on Mosul in what promises to be a fierce battle to retake ISIS’ Iraqi stronghold, some players inside the black-clad jihadist army are delivering many of the most damaging blows. Beleaguered and disenfranchised ISIS fighters, cultivated for months by the Kurds, are secretly working with their adversaries, supplying […]

Iraq’s Shia militia groups say they have launched an attack against Islamic State militants west of Mosul, as the offensive to retake the city continues. The Hashid Shaabi groups say their aim is to oust IS from the town of Tal Afar, cutting jihadist supply routes to Mosul from Syria. Tal Afar had sizeable Shia […]

Eighty-four bodies of Islamic State fighters were piled high at the Kirkuk hospital morgue, as the pathologists went through the gruesome work of gathering intelligence on the group’s sudden counterattack on the city. One by one, the corpses were removed from black body bags so fingerprints and DNA could be preserved. If no relatives come […]

Islamic State claims responsibility for the knife attack at one of the entrances of the US Embassy in Nairobi this past Thursday. The 24 year old man managed to stab one of the police officers in the face before being shot and killed. Witnesses said the assailant had walked up to the officer, pulled out a knife and […]

ISIS has “executed” 232 people near Mosul and taken tens of thousands of people to use as human shields against advancing Iraqi forces, the UN says. A spokeswoman for the UN’s human rights arm told CNN that the terror group had carried out the mass killings on Wednesday, punishing people who had defied its orders. […]

The Islamic State relies on religious precedence to absolve responsibility for the individual and group. As such, they’re finding authority to run from the battle. Nearly everything that the Islamic State does, in their view, has some kind of canonical precedent. They wish to create their own currency, based on the Quranic meaning of currency, […]

ISIS is planning additional “significant” external operations against the West from its de-facto capital in Raqqa, Syria, the top U.S. commander in Iraq told reporters Wednesday. “I will say that we actually aren’t sure how pressing it is, and that’s what’s worrying us,” Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend said via teleconference from Baghdad. “We know they’re […]

The small dorm room in Kirkuk, with gray-speckled terrazzo floors and wooden cots, was home to Monaly Najeeb and six other Christian women after ISIS took hold in Mosul and they were forced to abandon college. They restarted their studies in the Kurdish-controlled city, in that humble room, where they could once again study, pray and even […]

Hundreds of Islamic State militants are thought to have been killed since Iraqi forces launched an offensive to retake Mosul last week, the US military says. Two generals said the jihadist group had suffered the losses as troops and allied fighters, backed by US-led air strikes, advanced on several axes. Up to 5,000 IS fighters […]

The military convoy was rumbling across a river near the border last month when soldiers suddenly realized they were surrounded. More than 100 Boko Haram fighters, some of them on horseback, had encircled the vehicles, ready to strike. The 300 soldiers from Niger and the handful of American Special Operations forces accompanying them called for […]

Iraqi forces explored a network of tunnels and uncovered a bomb-making facility on Thursday in a village near Mosul that was recently retaken from the Islamic State group, offering a glimpse of the challenge they will face as they move closer to the city. Ten days into the offensive, the special forces are still at […]

ISIS is sending “suicide squads” from Syria to its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul, witnesses have told CNN, as tens of thousands of troops close in on the key city to take it from the militant group’s control. Witnesses said hundreds of new arrivals had streamed into Mosul from the group’s heartland of Raqqa, Syria, in […]