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| Terror Networks |
| The Beatings Will Continue: Iraqi and Syrian Edtions |
| 2016-08-23 |
| ISIS detains 100 in Raqqa RAQQA – Radical group of the Islamic State (ISIS) has launched a campaign of arrests in Syria’s northeastern Raqqa province, targeting civilians the group says have been involved in cooperating hostile parties, activists and eyewitnesses reported on Monday. The ISIS-linked Hisba police arrested over 100 people in Raqqa on Sunday and Monday, mostly young men. “They were accused of cooperating with and supporting anti-ISIS forces, such as the western coalition and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),” a local media activist told ARA News, speaking on condition of anonymity for security concerns. This comes amid continues advance by the SDF against ISIS, taking over key territory from the militant group including the city of Manbij on the Syrian-Turkish border–which has for long served as a key jihadi border pocket for ISIS. Also, the US-led coalition has recently bombed major headquarters for ISIS in Raqqa –the de facto capital of the group’s self-declared Caliphate– causing heavy losses in ISIS’s ranks. “The SDF has made advances against the group in the northern countryside of Raqqa, coupled with heavy airstrikes by the coalition on ISIS positions in western Raqqa,” a local rights activist told ARA News, adding: “This has raised the group’s concerns about the presence of what they call ‘spies’ leaking security information to those anti-ISIS forces in Syria, which explains the recent arbitrary arrests by the group.” 6 die in roadside bomb attack near Hawija Six Iraqi civilians were killed on Monday when a bomb planted by the ISIS group went off as they tried to flee the Hawijah area, security officials said. Thousands of people have been fleeing ISIS rule in Hawijah, which lies about 220 kilometres (140 miles) north of Baghdad, in recent weeks. “Six civilians were killed and five wounded by an IED (improvised explosive device),” a colonel in the Kurdish peshmerga forces told AFP. “It happened during an attempt by families to flee areas southeast of Kirkuk and reach peshmerga positions,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Among them were women and children,” he added. Other local officials confirmed the information. Much of the area is littered by bombs and booby traps rigged by ISIS to prevent movements by Iraqi security forces. The militants have repeatedly tried to prevent an exodus of the population before a government military operation to retake their areas. In June this year, ISIS fighters opened fire on families trying to slip out of the city of Fallujah as Iraqi security forces prepared to move in. A provincial official in charge of displaced people, Ammar Sabah, said 650 people who had successfully escaped ISIS areas were taken to camps east of Kirkuk on Sunday. Peshmerga fighters and allied forces have been tightening the noose around Hawijah and neighbouring villages that ISIS has controlled since June 2014. More and more civilians have fled Hawijah and its surroundings lately, with Sabah putting the number at 3,000 over the past week alone. |
| Posted by:badanov |