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+15 +1
IS top command dominated by ex-officers in Saddam's army
While attending the Iraqi army's artillery school nearly 20 years ago, Ali Omran remembers one major well. An Islamic hard-liner, he once chided Omran for wearing an Iraqi flag pin into the bathroom because it included the words "God is great." "It is forbidden by religion to bring the name of the Almighty into a defiled place like this," Omran recalled being told by Maj. Taha Taher al-Ani.
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+23 +1
Why the Best War Reporter in a Generation Had to Suddenly Stop
After fourteen years of being immersed in the bloody wars of our era, C.J. Chivers came home.
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+29 +1
Jordan MP’s son carried out Iraq suicide attack
A Jordanian parliamentarian's son died carrying out a suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group in Iraq this week, Jordanian media said Friday. Independent legislator Mazen al-Dhalaein was quoted as telling the Khaberni website that his son, Mohammed, who went by the name of Abu Baraa, had died in Iraq.
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+44 +1
'Unclear' if IS leader among 8 killed in air strike, Iraq says
Eight senior figures from Islamic State have been killed in an air strike in western Iraq, the country's military says.
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+51 +1
Tony Blair is right: without the Iraq war there would be no Islamic State
Only one of Tony Blair’s mea culpas in his CNN interview stands out as truly significant: his partial acknowledgment that without the Iraq war there would be no Islamic State (Isis). Until now, Blair had refused to link the two, insisting instead in the lead-up to the war that sending western troops would deny jihadis an arena and prevent Saddam Hussein from using them as proxies in his standoff with the west.
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+39 +1
Donald Trump: World would be '100%' better with Hussein, Gadhafi in power
Donald Trump believes the world would be much better off if ruthless dictators like Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. "100%," Trump replied when asked that question in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper that aired Sunday on "State of the Union." Trump said he believes Iraq and Libya, the respective countries of the since-deceased dictators, would be less fractured and promote a more stable Middle East...
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+21 +1
US to begin 'direct action on the ground' in Iraq, Syria
Defense Secretary Ash Carter today revealed that the U.S. will openly begin “direct action on the ground” against ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria. In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee on Tuesday, Carter said “we won’t hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL…or conducting such mission directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground.”
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+20 +1
The Caliph at the gates of Vienna
History has a jolly habit of repeating itself as surrealist farce. Is it 1683 all over again, with the Ottoman Empire laying siege to Vienna just to be defeated by the “infidels” at the last minute? By Pepe Escobar.
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+23 +1
AP Newsbreak: Iraq warned of attacks before Paris assault
Senior Iraqi intelligence officials warned members of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group of imminent assaults by the militant organization just one day before last week's deadly attacks in Paris killed 129 people, The Associated Press has learned. Iraqi intelligence sent a dispatch saying the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had ordered an attack on coalition countries fighting against them in Iraq and Syria...
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+25 +1
Rational Monster: How Terror Fits into Islamic State’s Plan
Analysts falsely believed Islamic State was too weak to carry out terror attacks abroad. But IS views terror as a means to an end -- and will launch attacks as long as they continue to serve its broader strategy. By Christoph Reuter.
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+44 +1
I despised Saddam’s police state, but the Islamic State would not exist under his rule
When people ask me how I feel about the latest events in Iraq, I tell them I feel sad. All these people — both Americans and Iraqis who have died since 2003 — died for nothing. And as the Islamic State insurgency unfolds, and as Iraq tries once again for a peaceful political transition, I’m mourning not just those who have died over the past decade, but for a country that I haven’t been able to recognize for a very long time.
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+36 +1
IS blamed for mass Yazidi grave found near Sinjar, Iraq
A booby-trapped mass grave containing the bodies of at least 110 people from the minority Yazidi sect has been found in northern Iraq, officials say. The grave was found close to the town of Sinjar after it was recaptured from the so-called Islamic State (IS) group earlier in November. IS captured Sinjar in August 2014, with reports of massacres and enslavement and rape of Yazidi women and girls. This is said to be the sixth mass grave found in or near the town.
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+17 +1
Former head of US special forces admits: Islamic State would not exist if Bush didn’t invade Iraq
The former commander of U.S. special forces in Afghanistan and Iraq admitted that strategic blunders by the Bush administration had led to the rise of Islamic State militants. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn told the German newspaper Der Spiegel that Americans allowed their anger of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to lead them into disastrous military policies that failed to address the root causes of terrorism — and actually helped create new and more brutal terrorists.
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+23 +1
Remember the Iraq War? More U.S. Combat Troops Are Heading Back to the Fight
For the first time since U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State began some 16 months ago, the U.S. is openly sending in ground combat troops. In an acknowledgement that the fight against the militants has yet to significantly dent the group’s power, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday that the Pentagon would send a “specialized expeditionary targeting force” of elite troops to Iraq with freedom to operate inside Syria as well.
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+29 +1
Pentagon chief addresses possible friendly fire strike
The American airstrike that may have killed a number of Iraqi soldiers on Friday seems to be "a mistake that involved both sides," U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Saturday. He called Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to express condolences. Speaking to reporters during a visit to the USS Kearsarge in the Persian Gulf, Carter said the incident near the western Iraqi city of Fallujah was "regrettable."
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+15 +1
Iraqi army declares first major victory over Islamic State in Ramadi
Iraq's army declared victory over Islamic State fighters in a provincial capital west of Baghdad on Sunday, the first major triumph for the U.S.-trained force since it collapsed in the face of an assault by the militants 18 months ago. The capture of Ramadi, capital of mainly Sunni-Muslim Anbar province in the Euphrates River valley west of the capital, deprives Islamic State militants of their biggest prize of 2015. The fighters seized it in May after government troops...
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+24 +1
Mosul: Turkey’s Fulda Gap
“Our national borders pass through Antioch and span east-ward, containing Mosul, Sulaymaniya, Kirkuk. We say: This, is our national border.” — Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. By H. Akın Ünver.
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+31 +1
Isis video shows 'execution of five British spies' and warning to Cameron
The Isis militant group has released a new video purporting to show the execution of five British spies, and threatening David Cameron over the UK's campaign in Syria. In the video, which appears to have been released by the group's Raqqa-based media arm, five men are shown wearing orange jumpsuits and "confessing" to spying on behalf of the UK security services.
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+22 +1
The Fight for Mosul
To retake the city from ISIS, rival groups need to form an alliance. Can they? By Luke Mogelson.
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+36 +1
Iraqi City of Ramadi, Once Home to 500,000, Lies in Ruins
So complete was the destruction of Ramadi that a local reporter who had visited the city many times hardly recognized it. "Honestly, this is the main street," Amaj Hamid, a member of Iraq's elite counterterrorism forces, told the TV crew as they entered from the southwest. He swerved to avoid the aftermath of months of fighting: rubble, overturned cars and piles of twisted metal. Airstrikes and homemade bombs laid by the Islamic State group had shredded the,,,
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