Tag: ISIS

A squad of Islamic State militants kidnapped five Iraqi citizens in the Kirkuk region last week, one of the men abducted was a Kakai religious leader. The men were taken near Zanqar village according to Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) official Jamal Shakur. He added that, “The name of one of the abductees is Farhad, […]

Recently I have been speaking with many of the Kurds I had previously served alongside in the Kurdish Peshmerga military forces. Many have moved on to veteran status and found civilian jobs. Many feel disenfranchised with the Peshmerga because it is surrounded by family hookups and back door deals. Corruption is common practice among the […]

A U.S. Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) came under attack today in the Bar-Sanguni area near Kismayo in Somalia. The U.S. Special Forces team was in the process of constructing a new Forward Operating Base (FOB) with a large local partner force when they came under sustained mortar fire and machine gun fire from […]

Ah, those ethical do-gooders over at Google. Don’t you just love the perks the millennials receive for working there? Slides, laundry service, free meals and on-site gyms with free exercise classes, free massages for those stressed out workers make it one of the best places to work in terms of job satisfaction. And the company […]

The top UK Royal Air Force general has defended the RAF’s bombing of Islamic State targets calling ISIS “really wicked and evil enemy that used civilians as human shields.” Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach said the RAF had carried out “the most carefully planned air campaign in history” and was “meticulous” in trying to […]

The top U.S. military leaders of the United States and Russia are meeting in Finland to exchange views on U.S.-Russia military relations, Syria, and the current international security situation. Finnish news agency FNB said Friday’s meeting of Gen. Joseph Dunford, current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Russia’s chief of the military’s General […]

In 2006, Iraq was a very dangerous place to be. Civil war wracked the country, the casualty rates for U.S. troops was the highest it had been since the United States had invaded. It had a lot to do with the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. From 2005 until his death in 2006, Abu Musab […]

Special Operations Forces in Africa could be slashed heavily under sweeping Pentagon proposals to retask and reorganize SOF towards more pressing needs facing the rising threats of Russia and China. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had ordered a review of all Special Operations Forces missions as Mattis, along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joseph […]

The United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, has launched an investigation into the war crimes of the Islamic State. The lead investigator will be Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, a British barrister (type of lawyer) born in Edinburgh who has a vast amount of experience in related fields. Khan will act as a special adviser as well as the investigation teams head […]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has upped the ante and warned Kurdish forces that are trained and equipped by the United States that he wouldn’t hesitate to use force to retake the roughly one-third of the country they currently control. Assad also tried to sound ominous and said in an interview with Russian television that the […]

Insurgents dressed in U.S. military uniforms and driving a captured Humvee tried to bluff their way into the Afghan Interior Ministry on Wednesday. Once challenged, however, they detonated a suicide vest and were all killed during a shootout with Afghan security forces. It’s not clear who carried out the attack — one of at least […]

The Special Forces rite of passage is about to begin for the next class of SF candidates. The final training in Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) for prospective SF soldiers is the Unconventional Warfare (UW) exercise “Robin Sage”, which we went over in detail in an earlier post, that you can read here: The prospective […]