ISIS

A senior Chinese official said on Tuesday that there was a danger of Islamic State militants re-emerging in Syria and called for progress in the political process between the Damascus government and the opposition to end the war. “There is now a danger of terrorist organizations like ISIS being revived, …

At least seven members of Iraq’s security forces were killed and 16 wounded overnight in two separate attacks by Islamic State militants, police said on Thursday. Three members of the paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) and two policemen were killed in an attack in the Sayed Gharib area north of …

U.S. forces have quietly sent at least 30 suspected foreign Islamic State fighters captured in Syria last year and in late 2017 to stand trial in Iraq, interviews with the men, Iraqi sources and court documents show. FILE PHOTO: Islamic state fighters and their families walk as they surrender in …

By Elias Farhat* In the aftermath of the 9,11 attacks, the US under president George W. Bush announced the Global war on terror. This terror was recognized as al-Qaeda and its offshoot Taliban.  Al Qaeda owned the ideology, the mobilization and sleeper cells all around the world, while Taliban owned …

Islamic State remains a potent threat around the world despite reduced capabilities, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday, adding its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had made his latest video appearance in a “remote area”. Abdul Mahdi did not say which country that area was in. A video …

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) formally announced the destruction of Islamic State’s control of land in eastern Syria on Saturday but said it would continue its military and security campaigns against jihadist sleeper cells. At a televised ceremony, its general command called on the Syrian government, which has sworn to …

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Friday denied any agreement to hand over captured Iraqi Islamic State fighters or their families to Iraq. SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel cited Iraqi officials as issuing statements in recent days saying there was a deal to hand Iraqi Islamic State fighters and their …

With ISIS’ leader nowhere to be found, deep fissures have emerged within the crumbling terrorist organisation as desperate militants make a last stand. by Chris Massaro for FOX NEWS — As the once-powerful Islamic State (IS) crumbles, and its desperate fighters make a last stand in its final enclave surrounded …

A mass grave containing the bodies of dozens of people who may be Yazidis enslaved by Islamic State has been found in territory recently seized by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an SDF official said on Thursday. Many of the bodies found in the Baghouz area were those of …

Some 200 families are trapped in a shrinking area of Syria still controlled by Islamic State, whose forces are stopping some from fleeing, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday. “Many of them (also) …continue to be subjected to intensified air and ground-based strikes by the U.S.-led Coalition …

By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem* –I will try in this paper to present the more likely expected scenarios in short and will focus on two issues. First, before discussing the future of terrorism, we must first agree on the reasons that led to the rise of the extremism and the motives …

Tolerance and non-judgemental understanding may be the best way to try to save radicalized young Europeans who want to go and join militant Islamists in Middle Eastern conflicts, veteran French actress Catherine Deneuve said on Tuesday. “Farewell to the Night”, which premiered on Tuesday at the Berlin Film Festival, tells …

An Indonesian militant who appeared on an Islamic State propaganda video showing the execution of a hostage and was said to be close to the militant group’s leader was killed in Syria last month, an Indonesian police spokesman and his brother said. Muhammad Saifuddin, who was known by various aliases, …

Russian investigators on Friday dismissed an Islamic State claim of responsibility for a deadly apartment building explosion in December that killed 39 people, saying that militant groups had a history of falsely taking credit for such incidents. Islamic State (IS) made the claim in its Al Naba newspaper on Thursday …

A bomb attack claimed by Islamic State killed U.S. troops in northern Syria on Wednesday, weeks after President Donald Trump said group was defeated there and he would pull out all American forces. A U.S. official who declined to be named said four U.S. troops had been killed and three …

The Kurdish YPG militia’s fight with Islamic State in Syria was “a huge lie”, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday, as he criticized U.S. comments that Ankara must agree to protect Washington’s Kurdish allies. Turkey sees the YPG, which the United States has backed in the fight against Islamic …

A Belgian judge has ordered the government to repatriate six children of Islamic State (IS) militants and their mothers who have been detained in a camp in Kurdish-controlled Syria, the national news agency Belga said on Wednesday. Tatiana Wielandt, 26, and Bouchra Abouallal, 25, both Belgian citizens, and their children …

A top U.S. envoy leading a global coalition fighting Islamic State has quit over President Donald Trump’s decision this week to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, a source familiar with the matter said on Saturday. Brett McGurk, U.S. special presidential envoy for the global coalition to defeat the militant …

U.S.-led war planes targeted an Islamic State leader on Sunday in Syria responsible for killing hostages including an American, Washington’s envoy to the coalition fighting the jihadist group said. “Earlier today, coalition air forces conducted precision strikes against a number of ISIS leaders in southeast Syria. Those targeted included Abu …

Syrian state media said insurgent shelling on Aleppo city wounded 50 people on Saturday, causing breathing problems. State news agency SANA, citing a health official in the city which is under government control, said the shells hit two districts and contained gases that made people choke. Source: Reuters

Iraqi forces have killed 15 Islamic State militants inside a tunnel during a search operation in the northern Sunni-majority Salahuddin province, the military said on Wednesday. Islamic State, which once occupied a third of Iraq’s territory, has been largely defeated in the country but has continued to carry out ambushes, …

The Trump administration hopes that the U.S.-backed fight against Islamic State in its last foothold in northeastern Syria will end within months but American forces will remain to ensure the “enduring defeat” of the militant group, a top U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday. Ambassador James Jeffrey, the U.S. special representative …

The Syrian army has rescued a group of 19 women and children who were abducted by Islamic State in the Syrian city of Sweida in July, Syrian state television reported on Thursday. The group was freed in an area northeast of the desert city of Palmyra, in what state television …

By Areej Zaher*   The retreat of Isis, about a year ago, from eastern Syria and Mosul in Iraq wasn’t much of a relief, as a result of its latest attacks on the Swaida governorate in the south west of Syria. Maybe it’s too soon to determine the decisive battle …

Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan are just days away, and the Taliban and ISIS fighters, countered by Afghan and U.S. troops, are doing all they can to disrupt voters. Nangarhar in Eastern Afghanistan was the deadliest province for Americans in 2017. Of the 11 American troops killed in Afghanistan last year, …

U.S.-backed fighters braved a sandstorm to battle the Islamic State group in eastern Syria on Thursday in heavy clashes that killed several fighters on both sides. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led group, said it was fighting to retake the village of Sousah, where the extremists took advantage of …

The slave market opened at night. We could hear the commotion downstairs where militants were registering and organising, and when the first man entered the room, all the girls started screaming. It was like the scene of an explosion. We moaned as though wounded, doubling over and vomiting on the …

The United Nations’ cultural agency wants to use the reconstruction of Iraq’s second city Mosul as a way to restore its credibility and show how a fraying multilateral order can be revived, its director general said on Monday. Officially entitled the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Paris-based Unesco …

Well over 500,000 Syrians have so far returned to their homes after vast swathes of lands in eastern Syrian were recently cleared of Daesh jihadists. In the course of sweeping joint operations in al-Mayadeen in Deir ez-Zor, in southeast Syria, the authorities in cooperation with Syrian Army engineers discovered weapons, ammunition and medicines, some of which were …

Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi called on extremists to wage war in a purported new audio recording released on Wednesday. The Telegram message is the first known to be released since another was broadcast in September last year, and comes as Daesh has lost most of its territory in …

Between 20,000 and 30,000 Daesh terrorists remain in Iraq and Syria despite the group’s defeat and a halt in the flow of foreigners joining its ranks, according to a UN report released Monday. The report by UN sanctions monitors estimates that between 3,000 and 4,000 extremists were based in Libya …

The Syrian regime has reclaimed a sliver of territory in southern Syria that was under the control of Islamic State, sealing its military victory in the strategic southern territories that rebelled in 2011 against Bashar al-Assadand fully reestablishing its hold over the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Syrian Observatory …

Suicide bombers struck an open-air market and other targets in the southern Syrian city of Sweida early Wednesday. The four attacks killed dozens of people and injured dozens more, local media say, in a region where the government has been fighting ISIS militants. Citing the Syrian regime’s state media agency, …

As U.S. military bases go, Um Jurius isn’t much to look at: a collection of armored vehicles, makeshift wooden benches covered with camouflage netting and groups of tents pitched in the sand. The fire base has sprung up in the past month in the northern Iraqi desert, just over a …

At least 11 Daesh terrorists were arrested Tuesday in different parts of Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, according to local police sources. Nineveh Police Chief Hamad Namis al-Jubouri told Anadolu Agency that security forces had managed to capture Hussein Salim Yassin Mustafa, who had been in charge of recruitment for the …

ISIS fighters are close to losing their small pockets in east Syria after being besieged in the two provinces of Hasaka and Deir Ezzor, particularly in areas located east of the Euphrates River. Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by Italian, French and US forces, advanced in the southern al-Hasaka governorate …

Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State has executed thirty of its members in a Syrian region near borders with Iraq, a paramilitary leader in Anbar said on Tuesday. Speaking to BasNews website, Qutri al-Samarmad, a leader with tribal mobilization forces in Anbar, said “information by the intelligence and eyewitnesses from Syrian regions …

The United States is withdrawing assistance from northwest Syria as the Trump administration reviews hundreds of millions of dollars in stabilization aid to Syria, a State Department official has told CNN. The withdrawal of assistance comes as the US-led military coalition battles the remaining elements of ISIS in the Middle …

Iraq began voting Saturday in its first parliamentary election since declaring victory over Daesh, with the country hoping to shore up a fragile peace and rebuild. Polling stations opened around the conflict-scarred nation under tight security as fighters still pose a major security threat despite a sharp fall in violence. …

By Dr. Haytham Mouzahem* — Tunisian writer Hadi Yahmad recently published a book in Arabic about Tunisian jihadi Mohammed Al-Fahem. Born in 1990, Fahem traveled to Syria in late 2014 to join the “The Islamic State”(ISIS) — for him and his extremist cohorts, a dream come true. Fahem fled ISIS …

US satellites, surveillance aircraft, drones and ships have stepped up operations to monitor the movement of suspected Iranian anti-air and ballistic missiles inside Syria due to rising concerns they could be used to strike Israel in the coming days, according to half a dozen US officials CNN has spoken with …

Syrian government forces used warplanes, helicopters and artillery on Sunday to pound districts of the capital held by the Islamic State group, in a bid to enforce an evacuation deal reached with the militants earlier in the week. Two Palestinian refugees, a father and a son, were killed during the …

Iraq will not solve the crises it faces unless it maintains an inclusive political process, overcomes sectarian divisions and rids itself of foreign interference, the Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi told The National during a visit to Dubai. On the 12th of May Iraqis will cast their votes in the …

The Pentagon’s mission against the Islamic State in Syria remains open-ended despite President Trump’s promise of a quick U.S. withdrawal. Military leaders are focusing on pushing the once-powerful group out of the small foothold it controls in eastern Syria and ensuring that it cannot plot attacks against the United States, …