Sinkhole containing 1,000 ISIS victims uncovered in Iraq’s Tal Afar

 Sinkhole containing 1,000 ISIS victims uncovered in Iraq’s Tal Afar 

19-02-2020

Zhelwan Z. Wali

Members of the Iraqi security forces inspect a mass grave discovered in territory recaptured from the Islamic State group (ISIS) in 2016. File photo: AFP

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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A sinkhole reportedly containing almost 1,000 bodies, including around 30 Yezidis, killed by the Islamic State (ISIS) from mid-2014 to late 2017 has been uncovered in northern Iraq’s Tal Afar region of Nineveh, a local official confirmed on Wednesday.

“The pit contains at least 1,000 bodies. They [ISIS] had even dumped victims into the mass grave while they were still alive,” Tal Afar Mayor Qasim Mohammed told Rudaw.

The majority of the victims in the pit, thought to be 150 meters deep, are Shiites from Tal Afar, he added.

ISIS militants attacked the Yezidi homeland of Shingal in August 2014, slaughtering thousands of men and burying them in mass graves. Women and children were abducted and sold into slavery – many facing years of repeated sexual violence.

An official from the Tal Afar Mass Graves Affairs Office told Rudaw the sinkhole contains the bodies of at least 30 Yezidis from Shingal.

Sulaiman Hadi, a Yezidi survivor who witnessed the genocide, accompanied Rudaw’s Tahsin Qasim to the site of the mass grave. He explained how the slain Yezidi victims ended up in the pit.

ERIC ZUESSE -- Iraq Says ISIS Did the Attack that Trump Killed Soleimani For

Iraq Says ISIS Did the Attack that Trump Killed Soleimani For

Soleimani Was ISIS’s Main enemy. Did ISIS Fool Trump There?

by Eric Zuesse

February 7, 2020

Iraq Says ISIS Did the Attack that Trump Killed Soleimani For.

Soleimani Was ISIS’s Main enemy. Did ISIS Fool Trump There?

Scott Ritter on Why Soleimani Is a Hero to Almost All Iraqis

Eric Zuesse

On February 6th, the New York Times headlined “Was U.S. Wrong About Attack That Nearly Started a War With Iran? and presented the Iraq Government’s evidence that ISIS had actually done the December 27th rocket-attack which had killed an American contractor (an Iraqi translator for U.S. forces), for which Trump killed Iran’s second-most-powerful leader, General Qasem Soleimani. The NYT reporters were unable to obtain from the Trump Administration any of their alleged secret evidence that Soleimani was behind that attack. Though Iraq’s Government was forthcoming with answers and evidence to the reporters’ questions, America’s Government was not.

Even some of America’s mainstream news-media have previously reported that Soleimani was an extremely effective general in the international war against ISIS. Whereas Russian media openly state that Qasem Soleimani was the world’s most effective general against ISIS, no U.S. media do, but some of them provide buried in a report facts which support that conclusion, such as here and here and here, and some news-media of other nations (even of predominantly Hindu India) also are public about the fact. (Even in anti-Muslim India, General Suleimani is recognized as having been a global leader in the battles against both ISIS and the Taliban — both of which fundamentalist-Sunni groups threaten not only Shiite Iran but Hindu India.) So, on January 3rd, Trump assassinated the world’s most effective general who led the elimination of the Sunni-terrorist group ISIS. And the U.S. Government calls Soleimani a ‘terrorist’, because America’s billionaires want to grab Iran back like they had it after the CIA coup in Iran in 1953 and before the Iranians overthrew the U.S.-imposed dictator Shah in 1979. However, by killing General Soleimani, Trump may have benefitted not only ISIS but also America’s billionaires — the same group that had conquered Iran in 1953 by means of that CIA coup.

Pravda: The miltants have no widows. Why?

Pravda: The militants have no widows. Why?

It turns out that it is very difficult to get to Syria or another hot spot in the Middle East. Is it true that they immediately give a lot of money and many benefits, including 50 virgins? What happens to women who find themselves in such places?

“Unusual week” with Inna Novikova and Yuri Zinin

Yury Zinin, senior researcher at the Center for Middle East Studies at MGIMO, told Inna Novikova about this to Pravda.Ru chief editor .

Read the beginning of the interview:

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– Yuri Nikolaevich, continuing the conversation about terrorist fighters in Syria and the entire Middle East, of course, it must be said that there are fanatics and mercenaries from all over the world, including from Russia. Of course, they are also used for propaganda, including making films with allegedly Russian military for provocative purposes. As you said, there are women there, including ours. We remember that even a student at Moscow University, Varvara Karaulova , went there to join the Islamic State group, banned in Russia *.

– Yes, but this is still a special case, here the role was played by her purely internal, mental perception. Of course, terrorists everywhere are trying to recruit people, but I don’t think it would be widespread, although such attempts have taken place and continue. Here, the calculation is made on some youthful, youthful desire to oppose themselves to general trends, mainstream trends, to stand out with something, play with something.

Young people are always characterized by a certain romance, disbelief in adults, a desire for thrills. Here, as they say, even the count on the head is comic, but I still check it myself or myself. These things can be, of course. But I would not consider that this is some kind of mass phenomenon, that almost everyone without exception is infected with this.

Apparently, these are still separate, rather rare phenomena. And this as a whole, of course, is already ending. But even earlier, even just to go there and get to the destination was not an easy task. I can’t even imagine what and how they needed to do this, although I worked a lot in these countries.

It’s even harder on the spot. Firstly, it is difficult for our people there climatically, and secondly, in terms of language. As an Arabic translator, I couldn’t always clearly understand what they were talking about, because there are a lot of dialects. How is it to go there without knowing the language at all, and still take up arms? Generally unthinkable things! How can one live there? What language to speak, well, I just don’t know …

– They somehow drove through Turkey, they were helped in this.

Chicago man charged for working with & recruiting for ISIS

CRIME

10/19/2018, 06:14pm

Chicago man charged with using social media to recruit operatives for ISIS

Ashraf Al Safoo

 

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Sam Charles and Frank Main

 

A Chicago computer engineer was in federal court Friday afternoon after being charged with using social media to help ISIS recruit operatives, encourage people to carry out terrorist attacks and spread propaganda to support “violent jihad.”

Ashraf Al Safoo, 34, faces one count of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization, according to federal prosecutors.

Al Safoo — who sported a beard and was escorted by U.S. marshals while wearing an orange jumpsuit — said during a brief court appearance that he has a master’s degree in computer science and has worked in IT for a web development company in River North. By Friday afternoon, his staff bio on the company’s website was removed.

Al Safoo was taken into custody about 9:20 a.m. Wednesday. His next court appearance is scheduled for next Thursday.

A naturalized citizen, Al Safoo was born in Iraq and moved to Chicago in 2008, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit released Friday.

A 29-year-old brother of Al Safoo’s is serving a 12-year prison sentence for robbing two gas stations and a doughnut shop in the northwest suburbs in 2017, according to court records. He cut a clerk’s cheek with a knife in one holdup, police said.

Federal authorities allege Al Safoo and several unindicted co-conspirators were active members of the Khattab Media Foundation — a propaganda outfit with a “sworn bayat, or an oath of allegiance, to ISIS.”

The Khattab Media Foundation’s logo. Federal authorities allege Ashraf Al Safoo was heavily involved in creating and disseminating pro-ISIS propaganda before his arrest this week. | U.S. Attorney’s Office

“Al-Safoo and the [co-conspirators] were working at the direction of and in cooperation with ISIS and ISIS’ media office, created and disseminated ISIS propaganda, recruited for ISIS, encouraged individuals to carry out attacks on behalf of ISIS, and supported violent jihad on behalf of ISIS and ISIS’ media office,” the affidavit reads.

ISIS regroups to attack a fragmented Libya (video + transcript)

ISIS regroups to attack a fragmented Libya

World Sep 29, 2018 05:05 PM EDT

By — Christopher Livesay

By — Alessandro Pavone

Transcript

The city of Sirte, once the crowning jewel of the Islamic State in Libya, was part of the ISIS-controlled coastline from 2015 to 2016. Over a six-month offensive, Libyan security forces combined with U.S. airstrikes wiped out ISIS combatants from the area. But sleeper cells still lurk in the Sirte desert, and though it no longer controls Libyan territory, ISIS has renewed its attacks there. NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Christopher Livesay reports. This story was made possible with special funding from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Read the Full Transcript

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  We've been telling you in recent weeks about the resurgence of the terrorist organization ISIS in Iraq. Tonight, some new reporting on the group's rise from the ashes in Libya.

  NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Chris Livesay was recently the first American broadcast journalist legally allowed into the country in almost a year. While there, he and videographer Allesandro Pavone found a country in dangerous disarray, with ISIS trying to fill the resulting power vacuum. This story, the first of two parts, was made possible with special funding from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
  

Credible report alleges US relocates ISIS from Syria and Iraq into Russia via Afghanistan

According to Russian and Chinese law enforcement agencies, militants fleeing by sea from Syria and Iraq follow a route from the Qasim port in the Pakistani city of Karachi to Peshawar, and are then distributed along the Nangarhar province in the east of the country.

by 

ERIC ZUESSE

May 27, 2018, 19:254.5K Views

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Katehon, a think-tank dedicated to the protection of nations’ sovereignty against invasions and coups from abroad, headlined, on May 15th, “Special Services Agent: Attack on Russia Is Being Prepared”, and reported that [with editorial clarifications and links supplied by me in brackets]:

According to Russian and Chinese law enforcement agencies, militants fleeing by sea from Syria and Iraq follow a route from the Qasim port in the Pakistani city of Karachi to Peshawar, and are then distributed along the Nangarhar province in the east of the country…

Since late 2017 the leaders of the Islamic State managed to transfer from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan an additional 500 foreign fighters, including more than two dozen women. A source in one of the Russian law enforcement agencies says: “All of them are also in the province of Nangarhar. They are citizens of Sudan, Kazakhstan, Czech Republic, Uzbekistan, France and so on.”