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The Beatings Will Continue: Iraqi and Syrian Editions
 ISIS trying to destroy antiquities in Anbar Anbar (Iraqinews.com) Islamic State militants are planting explosives at historic sites in the province of Anbar preparing to demolish them, al-Hashd al-Shaabi leaderships there said. ISIS militants have planted explosives on the Old Minaret in the town of Annah and other historic sites dating back to the 11th century, deeming them as promoting paganism, according to Nazem al-Jugheifi, intelligence official at the militia. “The group ordered civilians to keep away from the historic minaret and other ancient sites in Annah until they are blown up,” said Jugheifi. ISIS emerged to the light in 2014, occupying large areas of Iraq and proclaiming an “Islamic Caliphate”. Besides its extremist style of applying Islamic law to the daily lives of citizens at areas within its hold, the group considers sculptures as paganism. Its members had posted globally-circulated videos showing themselves axing down priceless monuments in the city of Mosul, but was later reported to sell out other antiquities in online auctions. News reports last month depicted severe damage caused by the extremist group to Mosul’s ancient town of Nimrud after it was liberated by Iraqi forces. ISIS executes 3 soldiers in Tel Afar Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) In a new photo report released by the self-proclaimed Islamic State group and published by ‘Heavy’ website, ISIS militants desecrate the corpses of 3 members of al-Hashd al-Shaabi. The photo report was released on the extremist group’s Amaq terrorist channel from the so-called Wilayat al-Jazirah. The accompanying summary of the photo report reads: “3 militants of al-Hashd al-Shaabi are brought down in Sharai Village West of Tal Afar. In October, US-led coalition, Iraqi Army, Kurdish Peshmerga, Shia militias, Christian militias, and Turkish Nineveh Guard, started the battle to liberate the city of Mosul from the Islamic States’s control. The offensive was launched in October 17 by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. In late November, al-Hashd al-Shaabi began an offensive to push ISIS out of Tel Afar. ISIS destroying Christian graves in Ninevah Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) A significant damage was inflicted on the graves of Christian people in the liberated areas, including the cities of Bashiqa, Hamdaniyah, Karemlash, as well as Bartella and Tel Skaf in Nineveh Plain by the self-proclaimed Islamic State group (ISIS), after capturing these cities in 2014. Iraqi channel “ISHTAR” published photos revealing the destruction caused to these graves. The destroyed places included the grave of the Archbishop of the Chaldean Church in Mosul, Martyr Bishop Boules Faraj Rahu. The ISIS members exhumed the Bishop’s grave, located in “Saint Addai the Apostle Church” in Karemlash city, in Hamdaniyah district. The extremist group imposed its control on the city of Mosul, Nineveh, in 10 June 2014, as well as extending its terrorist activities to other areas in Iraq. The group also committed dangerous violations against civilians, especially minorities, including crimes against humanity and genocides. 35 percent of refugees yet to return to Anbar Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Anbar Provincial Council announced on Wednesday, that 35% of displaced familes didn’t return back to their areas that were liberated from the ISIS grip in the province, due to lack of services and projects. Member of Anbar Provincial Council Fahed al-Rashed, said in a press statement, “The percentage of displaced families that didn’t return to their liberated areas in Anbar reached 35%, due to lack of services. “Civilians’ houses were destroyed due to ISIS terrorist attacks, also many displaced children are occupied with studying in the schools of Kurdistan region and other Iraqi provinces,” Rashed added. “The lack of services and rehabilitation of destructed projects in the cities of Anbar, as well as destruction of national electricity network and civilians houses delayed the return of displaced people,” Rashed explained. Rashed also emphasized that the council is working to solve all problems to facilitate the return of displaced people. Kurds receive 300 refugees from Hawija Kirkuk (IraqiNews.com) Kurdish Peshmerga troops received on Wednesday 300 refugees fleeing Islamic state-held Hawija to central Kirkuk, a security source has said. The refugees were admitted to the Leilan camp after they reached a Peshmerga outpost, the source was quoted by AlMada Press as saying. They were mostly women and children. The southern ad western areas of Kirkuk have been under ISIS militants’ control since 2014. There are more than 600.000 internally displaced people inside Kirkuk, including more than 26.000 from the town of Hawija. The United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says there have been more than 3 million internally displaced people in Iraq since violence surged with the Islamic State taking over several Iraqi towns and proclaiming an Islamic Caliphate in 2014. It said recently that that more than 82.000 fled the city of Mosul as Iraqi troops continue battles to clear the city from ISIS militants. Hundreds of thousands fled homes to refugee camps, but other remain stranded in suffering under the extremist group’s hold, with many reportedly kept as potential human shields against Iraqi government and tribal troops currently in battles to drive the group out of Iraq. ISIS executes 10 in Anbar Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Al-Hashd al-Shaabi Command in Anbar province announced on Thursday, that the Islamic State extremist group (ISIS) executed 10 persons, including police officers, by firing squad in central Anah district, west of Anbar. Commander of al-Hashd al-Shaabi in Baghdadi district, Sheikh Qatari al-Samarmad, said in a press statement, “Members of the Islamic State executed 10 persons, including four police officers, by firing squad, in central the district of Anah, as well as preventing the families from approaching the bodies of their relatives.” “The heavy losses that were inflicted on the ISIS members in Anbar and Mosul, made them execute civilians and security members, who were abducted by the group during the last three years,” Samarmad added. “Security forces and tribal fighters are approaching the ISIS-held areas, and preparing to liberate it,” Samarmad said. Security forces liberated the majority of areas and cities of Anbar from the ISIS control in early 2016, in addition to preparing and securing those area for the return of displaced people. Yazidi leader seeks protection for community after genocide (Reuters) The spiritual leader of Iraq’s Yazidis said his people need international help to recover from the worst atrocities they have suffered in more than a century and to reintegrate thousands of women who were enslaved by Islamic State. Khurto Hajji Ismail, the Yazidi Baba Sheikh, or religious leader, said an edict he issued to reintegrate former captives has helped overcome traditional resistance to accepting back women who were raped or members who converted to another faith, even if it was under force. Hundreds of women freed from captivity, either by escaping or in return for ransoms, have been baptized as Yazidis again in the spring that runs under temple of Lalesh, a ceremony that symbolized admission into the community. “Baptism means that you are welcome,” Ismail said in an interview at his residence in Shikhan, in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. Islamic State enslaved thousands of Yazidi women and children when it overran parts of Iraq in 2014. Thousands of captured men were killed in what a U.N. commission termed a genocide against the Yazidis, a religious community of 400,000 people who live mostly in the Sinjar mountain of northwestern Iraq, near the Syrian border. They speak Kurmanji, a Kurdish language. Yazidis, whose beliefs combine elements of ancient Middle Eastern religions, are considered infidels by the hardline Sunni Islamists who declared a caliphate over parts of Syria and Iraq. The militants have been retreating in both countries since last year and are now fighting off a U.S-backed offensive on their major city stronghold, Mosul, where some Yazidi captives are believed to be held. Many were also taken to Raqqa in Syria. “We spoke with the French, with the Germans, with Washington, we went to Moscow,” said the Baba Sheikh, adding that it was up to the international community to find “the best way” to protect the Yazidis after Islamic State is defeated. The Baba Sheikh published an edict in February 2015 that those rescued “remain pure Yazidis”, and calling on “everyone to cooperate so that the victims can return to their normal lives and integrate into society.” However, more than 3,500 remain in captivity, said Hussein Alqaidi, the director of the Kidnapped Affairs department at the Kurdistan Regional Government, the Kurdish self-rule administration in northern Iraq. A “network of good people”, active in the Islamic State-held region, is helping secure the release of the captives, he told Reuters. He declined to give details of how they operate, but some released captives say ransoms were paid for their freedom. “The financial aspect is very important, but there are also operations to bring them back by telling them to go to a certain location, and we rescue them from there,” Alqaidi said. Nearly 2,800 were freed, of which more than 1,030 are women, 1,450 children and 300 men, Alqaidi said. A former captive, Warida Haji Hameed, said she was freed with her four children after $35,000, or $7,000 for each person, was paid to her captor in Raqqa. The 27-year-old woman is among those who went to the temple of Lalesh to be baptized again after her forced conversion to Islam. She was released about a year ago and now lives in a camp near the Kurdish city of Duhok. “We were so happy at the baptism,” she said. “We prayed for those still missing and for my husband,” who was kidnapped at the same time as the rest of the family. But Heloua Hussein, another ex-captive, said she cannot afford to make the trip to Lalesh. “We have nothing, no heating fuel, no food,” said the 44-year-old, who lives in a construction site in Dohuk with two other Yazidi families. “The community has in general welcomed them back with love and consideration, and many got married with Yazidi expatriates in Europe,” said Saib Khidir, a Yazidi lawyer and human rights activist in Baghdad. “But still, the level of violence inflicted on them is such that they need special care and special therapy that unfortunately the local governments are not providing.” ISIS executes 1 in Aleppo [ARA News] Aleppo – Radical group of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Thursday executed a young Syrian man by throwing him from the top of a building on charges of being gay. The victim was arrested by the ISIS-led Islamic Police, also known as Diwan al-Hisba, in the Maskana district east of Aleppo under the pretext that he was “a homosexual”. “The young man was brutally thrown from the top of a building in front of hundreds of people in central Maskana,” local media activist Issa Battal told ARA News. ISIS has also released a videotape showing the man’s execution by a masked militant. “Those who dare to oppose and violate Allah’s Sharia and the Caliphate’s rules deserve merciless punishment,” an ISIS jihadist said in a statement to the crowd that gathered to witness the execution. The ISIS-linked Sharia Court had issued a decision to execute every gay man by throwing him from the top of a building, according to local sources. Over the past three years, the extremist group has executed dozens of allegedly gay men in its areas of control in Syria and Iraq. “Islamic State militants have been carrying out brutal atrocities against civilians, punishing people on baseless charges only to show off their power over unarmed, peaceful civilians,” human rights activist Muzaffar al-Berro told ARA News. “Apparently the group won’t stop such atrocities as long as it controls towns and villages across Syria and governs the people of those areas.” UN trying to find land for refugee camps outside of Mosul UNITED NATIONS: The UN is scrambling to find enough land to shelter those displaced by the fighting to retake Mosul from the Daesh group as humanitarians brace for the exodus of as many as 700,000 people from the city, an official said Wednesday. Bruno Geddo, the UN’s top humanitarian official in Iraq, told The Associated Press that there is currently enough space in camps for 180,000 people. “That is the thing that makes us somehow sleepless at night. You cannot be complacent when you still one million people inside the city. It is bound sooner or later that you may have tens of thousands of people who come out in flash outflow,” he exlained. Geddo said he and his colleagues were haunted by the memory of Fallujah where some 65,000 people fled the city over three days during an operation to retake the city from IS in June, quickly overwhelming humanitarian efforts. He says the UN has learned from that experience and that so far he was pleased that Iraqi forces appeared to be doing their utmost to avoid civilian casualties. The downside of protecting civilians, however, is that slows down operation just as winter is approaching and the prices of water of and fuel are skyrocketing. “In the end, the choice is theirs. It is a very stark choice. They may be hit by a land mine or a sniper, ISIS has a policy of killing anybody trying to flee. They may be caught in the crossfire, but if they stay they may also be reached by rockets and otherwise they may be facing penury over the full winter,” Geddo said, using an acronym to refer to the Daesh group. As of Tuesday, some 82,000 people have fled the city since the military offensive began on Oct. 17, Geddo said, adding that 81 percent of them are currently in camps some 40-80 miles outside the city. In order to solve the problem, he said, the UN is now considering building camps closer to the city which has the advantage of allowing displaced people to simply walk in. “Because the camp capacity has now more or less reached its limit, we are now planning to use the fact that the front lines have gotten closer to the city to try and build camps much closer to the city so in the event of a mass outflow, these camps would act as buffers,” Geddo said. Much of the land around Mosul is contaminated with unexploded ordinance and other detritus of war. In other areas, local communities are likely to violently reject the displaced for being Sunni Muslims. And then other potential areas hold mass graves, which make them unsuitable out of respect for the dead, Geddo said. Another problem is a lack of funding as the UN has so far received only about half of the $284 million it estimates it needs to deal with the people displaced by the operation. ISIS robs refugees fleeing Mosul [al-Manar] Iraqi civilians who escaped ISIL control in Mosul said that the group’s terrorists obliged them to pay money in return for offering them a safe exit from the city where the national army and the mobilization force have been battling the takfiri gunmen since mid October. The recent method to obtain funds followed by ISIL indicates that the terrorist group has almost reached bankruptcy as the Iraqi forces tightened the noose around its militants in the northern city. Foreign Policy magazine mentioned that the smuggler who moved the civilians to the city’s outskirts forced them to pay $200 thousand for every person whose age is above 12 years despite the miserable economic situations that the Iraqis suffer from. The Iraqi army and the Mobilization forces have been striking ISIL terrorist group for several weeks, achieving remarkable field progress by regaining scores of towns and inflicting heavy losses upon the militants. Posted by: badanov 2016-12-09 |
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