ISIS

The United Nations said Friday it is “gravely worried” that ISIS has taken 550 families from villages around Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and is using them as “human shields” as Iraqi and Kurdish forces battle the terror group for control of the city. Two hundred families from Samalia village and 350 families from Najafia were […]

In the early morning, ISIS attempted to blow up a power station on the outskirts of Kirkuk as well as a police headquarters building.  The attackers, said to be about a dozen in number, killed six Kurdish police officers and 13 power company workers.  Although unconfirmed at this time, images obtained by SOFREP appear to […]

Islamic State gunmen launched a series of coordinated attacks Friday in the northern city of Kirkuk and a nearby power plant, briefly controlling the main police station in their first significant counterattack since Iraqi forces launched an offensive for Mosul. The Iraqi military said the situation was now “under control” and that three police stations […]

A tunnel leading to the underground hide-out of an Islamic State leader killed in the Iraqi forces-led Mosul offensive was outfitted with extremist graffiti, electricity, appliances, stockpiles of food and, potentially, booby traps. “We found some of their mortar shells over there under the tunnels,” Kurdish Brig. Gen. Fayak Hassan Rashid said Thursday from a command post in the village of Shakoli, about 20 […]

The much-anticipated U.S.-Iraqi push into ISIS-controlled Mosul has begun in earnest. Over 1,000 civilians have fled since Monday. According to a U.N. spokesman, around 1,200 civilians have escaped to a UN-operated refugee camp across the border in Syria. Meanwhile, combat operations have made progress, liberating nearly 20 villages on the road to the city center. […]

Indonesian police shot and killed a man wielding a machete and two pipe bombs after he attacked and injured three police officers in an assault inspired by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). The 21-year-old man stuck an ISIS logo on a traffic post before launching his attack, stabbing at officers wildly and throwing two pipe bombs […]

Initial reports indicate that a US Service Member has died from injuries sustained in an IED blast near Mosul. The majority of the US Service Members in Iraq are Special Operations Forces and are operating in an advisory role. This is the fourth US death in Iraq since 2014. Iraqi security forces have encountered several IEDs since […]

A California man convicted of attempting to help a friend travel to the Middle East to fight on behalf of Islamic State was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday, federal prosecutors said. Muhanad Badawi, 25, was found guilty of providing “material support” to the militant group in the form of his recruit, Nader […]

The battle to recapture Mosul from ISIS could take two months, a Peshmerga military commander told CNN on the second day of the long-awaited offensive to liberate Iraq’s second city. “My expectation is two months for the fight inside Mosul, but weather is one of the factors that can delay the process,” Sirwan Barzani, a […]

Editors note: the following open letter was penned by a current member of 5th Special Forces Group who wanted to speak out against the current toxic command climate that exists in his unit. Toxic leadership is something that many soldiers and civilians accuse their command of, but rarely is it ever as bad as it […]

“The United States and the rest of the international coalition stand ready to support Iraqi security forces, peshmerga fighters and the people of Iraq in the difficult fight ahead,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a separate statement. “We are confident our Iraqi partners will prevail against our common enemy and free Mosul and the […]

Islamic State has crushed a rebellion plot in Mosul, led by one of the group’s commanders who aimed to switch sides and help deliver the caliphate’s Iraqi capital to government forces, residents and Iraqi security officials said. Islamic State (IS) executed 58 people suspected of taking part in the plot after it was uncovered last […]