Al-Qaeda front group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on Tuesday claimed a wave of attacks that killed dozens of people the day before. …read more
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Qaeda front group claims deadly Iraq attacks
Tag Archives: Islamic State
Kurds capture jihadist commander in north Syria: NGO
Syrian Kurdish fighters in the north fought fierce battles against jihadists and captured a commander of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) late Saturday, a monitoring group said. …read more
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Jihadists 'expelled from flashpoint Kurdish Syrian town'
Kurdish fighters have expelled jihadists from the Syrian flashpoint frontier town of Ras al-Ain and well as the nearby border crossing with Turkey, a watchdog said on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a car bomb attack killed at least seven people, among them a child, southwest of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Kurdish fighters took total control of Ras al-Ain “after 24 hours of fighting. The (jihadist) groups were expelled from the whole of Ras al-Ain, including the border post” with Turkey, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
Earlier, the Britain-based group had reported clashes pitting Kurds against Al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and other groups.
Ras al-Ain is home to a majority Kurdish population and is of strategic importance given its location close to Turkey.
Kurdish fighters are trying to ensure neither the regime of President Bashar al-Assad nor the opposition takes control of its areas.
The clashes between Kurdish fighters and jihadists broke out after Al-Nusra Front attacked a convoy of Kurdish women fighters, Abdel Rahman said.
Nine jihadists and two Kurdish fighters have been killed since the fighting broke out, the Observatory said.
Activists in Ras al-Ain said members of the jihadist groups had taken advantage of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began last week, to try to impose their extreme version of Islam.
In the early days of the Syrian conflict, when opponents of the Assad regime were desperate for assistance from any quarter, jihadist fighters were welcomed but a spate of abuses has fuelled a major backlash.
Elsewhere, a child and six men were killed when a car bomb attack hit Kanaker, in Damascus province, said the Observatory.
In the north of the capital, troops renewed their shelling campaign on rebel parts of Barzeh, while clashes raged in the neighbourhood, the group added.
And in the central city of Homs, an army onslaught aimed at taking back rebel districts went into its 18th day, activists said.
Troops launched a new attempt to break into the rebel area of Bab Hud, which like other areas of Homs has been under tight army siege for more than a year, Homs-based activist Yazan told AFP via the Internet.
Meanwhile, “the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate day after day because of the suffocating siege”, said Yazan.
The lack of medical equipment in Homs’ flashpoint areas means “there is a growing need to evacuate dozens of wounded, who urgently need operations that cannot be performed here”, he added.
More than 100,000 people have died in Syria’s 28-month war, says the Observatory.
Wednesday’s violence comes a day after at least 112 people were killed across Syria, the group added.
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Syrian Rebels Turn on Each Other
By Ruth Brown
Syrian rebel groups are no longer just battling government forces, some are now fighting a second front: other rebel groups. Infighting has broken out amongst the rebels, with the Western aligned Free Syrian Army clashing with al-Qaeda aligned groups the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, reports the AP . There… …read more
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Bombs hit Iraq mosque after prayers, killing 11
A pair of bombs struck in quick succession outside a Sunni mosque north of Baghdad on Friday, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than 30.
The attacks in the town of Kanaan, about 47 miles northeast of the capital, are likely to increase fears of further violence ahead of provincial elections in much of the country scheduled for next week.
Friday’s blasts struck as worshippers were leaving after midday prayers from the town’s Omar Bin Abdul-Aziz mosque, said police officials in Diyala province, where Kanaan is located. A hospital official confirmed the casualty figures.
Violence in Iraq has fallen sharply from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but deadly attacks remain common a decade after the U.S.-led invasion.
The nearby city of Baqouba, the provincial capital, was the site of a large bombing last week. In that incident, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a lunch hosted by a Sunni candidate in the upcoming provincial elections, killing 20 people.
Minutes after the Kanaan attack, a bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque in western Baghdad, wounding eight, according to police and hospital officials.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday’s attacks.
Al Qaeda‘s Iraqi branch, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, frequently carries out coordinated bombings targeting civilian targets such as mosques, markets and restaurants.
It primarily targets Shiites, whom it considers heretics, as well as security forces and other officials tied to Iraq‘s Shiite-led government.
But it has in the past also struck Sunni targets in an attempt to reignite the sectarian fighting that pushed the country to the brink of civil war in the years following the fall of Baghdad, a decade ago this week.
Iraqi officials believe Al Qaeda is growing stronger in Iraq, fueled in part by rising lawlessness on the Syria-Iraq frontier and what they say is cross-border cooperation with the Syrian militant group Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/cfh_4jHlGw4/
Tensions emerge in al-Qaida alliance in Syria
Tensions emerged Wednesday in a newly announced alliance between al-Qaida’s franchise in Iraq and the most powerful Syrian rebel faction, which said it was not consulted before the Iraqi group announced their merger and only heard about it through the media.
Al-Qaida in Iraq said Tuesday that it had joined forces with Jabhat al-Nusra or the Nusra Front — the most effective force among the mosaic of rebel brigades fighting to topple President Bashar Assad in Syria‘s civil war. It said they had formed a new alliance called the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
The Syrian government seized upon the purported merger to back its assertion that it is not facing a true popular movement for change but rather a foreign-backed terrorist plot. The state news agency said Wednesday that the union “proves that this opposition was never anything other than a tool used by the West and by terrorists to destroy the Syrian people.”
Talk of an alliance between Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaida in Iraq has raised fears in Baghdad, where intelligence officials said increased cooperation was already evident in a number of deadly attacks.
And in Syria, a stronger Jabhat al-Nusra would only further complicate the battlefield where Western powers have been covertly trying to funnel weapons, training and aid toward more secular rebel groups and army defectors.
Washington has designated Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist organization over its links with al-Qaida, and the Syrian group’s now public ties with the terrorist network are unlikely to prompt a shift in international support for the broader Syrian opposition.
Earlier this year, the U.S. announced a $60 million non-lethal assistance package for Syria that includes meals and medical supplies for the armed opposition. It was greeted unenthusiastically by some rebel leaders, who said it does far too little.
Washington’s next step is expected to be a broader package of non-lethal assistance, expanding from food and medical supplies to body armor and night-vision goggles. However, President Barack Obama has not given final approval on any new package and an announcement is not imminent, a senior administration official said.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who met with Syrian opposition leaders in London on Wednesday, hinted at the new non-lethal aid package this week, saying the administration had been holding intense talks on how to boost assistance to the rebels.
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Syrian Jihadis Pledge Allegiance to al-Qaeda
By Ruth Brown 
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