Is Opens Outdoor Cinema For Mosul Residents To Show Brutal Crimes

[Sally]

What psychopaths these people are!!!

IS opens outdoor cinema for Mosul residents to show brutal crimes

Sep 24, 2014 at 09:15am IST

Mosul (Iraq): The Islamic State (IS) Sunni radical group has opened an outdoor "cinema" to show videos of their brutal crimes and terrorise residents of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which they have controlled since June.

The macabre spectacle began last week amid the groves and thickets along the banks of the Tigris river, the only place that people have to relax and ease the tensions caused by the IS occupation of Iraq's second-largest city.

A large number of young people, children and families gathered at the site waiting to see the programme that the extremists would deliver on big screen monitors that had been installed for the purpose.

Viewers were horrified to see scenes of various bloody slayings by IS executioners, including beheadings and murders of hostages and prisoners of war.
After the curtains were drawn back, hymns were sung encouraging people to join the Sunni jihad movement and, in particular, IS, which has occupied large swaths of Syrian and Iraqi territory.

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http://ibnlive.in.com/news/is-opens-outdoor-cinema-for-mosul-residents-to-show-b

 

[waltky]

Mosul next city to be liberated from ISIS...

After Fallujah, Iraq Gears Up to Rid Mosul of Islamic State
June 30, 2016 — Riding high on Iraq’s victory over Islamic State fighters in Fallujah, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi confidently said the northwest city of Mosul would be next.

But as Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul is almost 10 times larger than Fallujah and has 10 times the population. Military officials warn it will be a much tougher battle. Humanitarian agencies are worried it will be a much bigger humanitarian disaster. And echoing the U.N.’s concerns over reports of serious human rights abuses against civilians displaced from Fallujah, Sunnis are worried that sectarian abuses in Mosul could be even worse.

Iraq's elite counter-terrorism forces gather ahead of an operation to re-take the Islamic State-held City of Fallujah, outside Fallujah, Iraq​

Patrick Martin, Iraq research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said it is pivotal to see how the Iraqi security forces recapture terrain both leading up to Mosul and within the city itself. “The force composition is important: what specific units are going to be involved, and making sure that units like the Iranian-proxy Shi’ite militias and compromised federal police are not involved,” Martin told VOA. “A lot of Sunni Arabs are mistrustful and it could contribute to them being nervous to accepting ISF into their home areas,” Martin said. Iraqi forces will have to also resettle and protect the civilian population so that they neither come under attack nor are abused by the Shi’ite militias, he said.

Fallujah lessons learned

U.S. officials congratulated Abadi on the recent victory by Iraqi forces over the IS stronghold of Fallujah. “[Abadi] opened the safe corridors or safe passageways for civilians,” State Department Deputy spokesman Mark Toner said. And he “sent a very clear message that any human rights abuses would be prosecuted and people would be held accountable.” Nevertheless, there were reports of significant abuses in Fallujah by Iranian-backed militias and by members of Iraq’s federal police, who answer to Iraq’s minister of interior, who is himself a member of the Iranian-backed Badr Organization.

“In Fallujah there were a lot of compromised units, who were seen operating alongside Iranian proxy militias inside Fallujah itself,” Martin said. “This is a major concern for future operations.” Testifying before Congress this week, Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, acknowledged that while the retaking of Fallujah had been a significant victory, it “has not been perfect." “There were concerning reports of abuses against civilians in the early stages of the operation and the outflow of people initially overwhelmed the U.N. and humanitarian organizations,” McGurk said.

Mosul

 

[waltky]

Obama gettin' ready to pounce on ISIS in Mosul...

Retaking Mosul Is ‘Now Upon Us’ Top US Official Declares
July 19, 2016 - But officials aren't willing to fix a timeline, acknowledging any effort to retake the city would be complicated, with setbacks likely

Some U.S. and Iraqi officials are voicing growing optimism about the prospects of retaking the key city of Mosul from the Islamic State terror group sooner than first anticipated. No one is suggesting the fight to recapture the city, the Iraqi capital of the terror group’s self-declared caliphate, will be easy. But there is a sense that momentum has clearly swung in favor of Iraqi forces backed by U.S. and coalition air power — and that now is the time to press the advantage. “In many ways our campaign is now ahead of where we thought it would be at this time,” U.S. Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk said Tuesday, ahead of two meetings to focus on the future of Iraq and the fight against IS. “Mosul is now upon us,” he added at an event with the Iraqi foreign minister at the U.S. Institute for Peace, noting that the Iraqi Security Forces have not lost a battle in over a year. Iraq’s foreign minister was also optimistic, calling Mosul “the next target.” “It is the last hideout of Daesh [IS] in Iraq,” Ibrahim al-Jaafari said through an interpreter.

Remaining challenges

Though heartened by the recent campaign to retake the crucial Qayyarah West Air Base, just south of Mosul, from IS, neither McGurk nor Jaafari was willing to put a timeline on possible Mosul operations, acknowledging any effort to retake the city would be complicated, with setbacks likely. Among the key challenges are the size of Mosul’s remaining civilian population, thought to be around 1 million, and the dense urban terrain, raising the prospect for a possible block-by-block fight through booby traps and human shields. Additionally, despite having lost considerable ground to coalition-backed forces in Iraq, IS has had plenty of time to prepare since first taking Mosul in June 2014. “I expect that ISIS has extremely hardened defenses inside of Raqqa and Mosul,” said Jessica McFate, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer now with the Institute for the Study of War.

Smoke rises after airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State militants in a village east of Mosul, Iraq​

There are also concerns IS might find a way to use the failed coup attempt in Turkey to its advantage. In particular, U.S. officials wonder whether the subsequent crackdown on elements of the Turkish military could weaken defenses along the Turkish-Syrian border, giving the terror group just enough space to bolster some of its operations. But even before the failed military coup in Turkey, IS had already been shifting fighters to defend Mosul, with a series of layered defenses, even making a push into the city, according to military and intelligence officials.

Shia militias

One Iraqi militia leader told VOA perhaps as many as 8,000 IS fighters have been assembled to protect Mosul, many of them Iraqis who are familiar with the terrain. “We can say that they are less than 10,000,” said Atheel Alnujaifi, a former governor of Nineveh province. Yet while that would seem to be a formidable force, Alnujaifi, who heads Iraq’s National Mobilization Front and its approximately 4,000 fighters, believes there are growing cracks in the terror group’s resolve. “The information coming from inside Mosul says that most of the foreign fighters are leaving these days,” he said, adding operatives inside the city see signs of growing resentment. “The people of Mosul want indeed to rise up against Daesh.”

Iraqi government forces drive their armored vehicle, June 22, 2016, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Qayyarah, during their operation to take the city and make it a launchpad for Mosul.​

At the same time, there are concerns a critical misstep could cost Iraqi forces dearly. “Always [IS] say that Shia militia will come to the city, will come to the city, will fight in the city and the Shia militia will kill all the Sunnis,” Alnujaifi said, warning the message of fear continues to resonate. “If there is a Shia militia in this fight, I think it will be a difficult fight inside the city.” For now, though, the Iraqi government still intends to use Shia militias in Mosul just as it did in Fallujah, rejecting accusations that Shia militias captured or killed hundreds of Sunni men fleeing the city. “Those volunteers are doing a great job in the war against ISIL,” Jaafari said Wednesday. “What happened in Fallujah after the city has been liberated has proved that it’s a good plan to apply.”

Getting the pieces in place

 

[waltky]

UN refugee agency bracing for up to 1.2 internally displaced Iraqis...

1.2 Million Iraqis Could Be Uprooted in Mosul Battle, U.N. Says
AUG. 23, 2016 - The United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday that it was bracing to accommodate as many as 1.2 million displaced Iraqis when the battle begins to retake Mosul from Islamic State militants, who overran the northern city more than two years ago.

A spokesman for the agency, Adrian Edwards, said it was scrambling to build encampments in six locations in northern Iraq to handle such an influx, which could inflate the country’s displaced-person population by more than a third. Mr. Edwards also said that “other shelter options are being prepared.” His announcement, at a regular news briefing in Geneva, the refugee agency’s headquarters, did not necessarily signify an imminent military operation to seize Mosul, about 250 miles north of Baghdad. But the announcement provided detail on the efforts to prepare for enormous new pressure on the Iraqi government to house and feed hundreds of thousands of Mosul residents when the fighting starts. “The humanitarian impact of a military offensive there is expected to be enormous,” Mr. Edwards said in remarks posted on the refugee agency’s website.

The Iraqi government has been warning for months that the battle to retake Mosul is coming. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq said at a news conference in Baghdad that “Mosul will be liberated in 2016.” Iraq already faces one of the biggest internal displacement crises in the Middle East. Nearly 3.4 million people have fled their homes since January 2014, including families who have been uprooted multiple times. A battle for Mosul could increase that number by up to 1.2 million people, Mr. Edwards said. He coupled the warning with a plea for donations, saying the refugee agency’s Iraq budget of $584 million was only 38 percent funded as of Aug. 2. The United Nations “is doing what it can amid enormous challenges to build more camps to accommodate people and mitigate suffering, but additional land for camps and funding is still needed,” he said.

Mosul, once Iraq’s second-largest city with a population that reached about 2.5 million, was seized in June 2014 by Islamic State militants who routed government troops, many of whom fled in panic. The Mosul takeover was a humiliation for the Iraqi government and a warning for the United States and other Western powers about the potency of the Islamic State, which went on to capture more territory in Iraq. President Obama, who had withdrawn United States troops from Iraq in 2011, redeployed a limited number and authorized American airstrikes against Islamic State targets.

With the help of American airstrikes and assistance from other powers, including Iran, a conglomeration of Iraqi government forces and militias have since reclaimed the cities of Ramadi and Falluja from the Islamic State, leaving Mosul as the militant group’s last major redoubt in the country. Nonetheless, United States military officials have warned of what they describe as a grinding insurgency in the coming months to oust the Islamic State from Mosul and destroy the group’s ability to carry out suicide bombings and other deadly attacks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/world/middleeast/isis-mosul-iraq.html?_r=0

 

[waltky]

US feet gettin' bigger ahead of Mosul operation...

US forces increasing Iraq footprint ahead of Mosul operation
October 9, 2016 — Thirteen years ago, Chase Snow's father was among the American troops who moved into the Iraqi city of Mosul during the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Now Snow, a U.S. Army specialist, is deployed in Iraq to help in the fight to retake the city from the Islamic State group.

The assault on Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, is bringing American forces into their most significant role in Iraq in years, in terms of numbers and presence on the front lines. The lead-up to the assault has already brought some U.S. forces into combat with the militants. Special forces carry out raids alongside Iraqi troops inside IS-held territory around Mosul. And now as Iraqi forces prepare for the operation to retake the city, those raids have increased in frequency, according to a coalition official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to brief the media. The U.S. has also sent Apache helicopters to aid in the Mosul fight, according to the Pentagon, a step that was not taken when Iraqi forces retook the western cities of Ramadi and Fallujah.

The number of U.S. troops in Iraq has steadily grown over the past two years to now nearly 6,000 service members, up from almost none following the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq. The latest group, numbering nearly 600, began to deploy in September to Qayara air base, the facility 30 miles south of Mosul that is to be the main staging ground for the assault on the city. Trucks have been rolling in the base for weeks with supplies and equipment, preparing it so coalition warplanes will be able to operate there. "You've got to look at Mosul as the crown jewel right now," said Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, the head of U.S ground forces in Iraq, regarding the build-up of forces. The deployments have "all been targeted to assist in the Mosul attack." Besides the hundreds of special forces, most of the American personnel operate back from the front lines, coordinating coalition airstrikes, tracking Iraqi ground troops, sharing intelligence and helping plan operations.

Snow, from Nashville, Tennessee, with the 101st Airborne Division, is advising Iraqi officers carrying out the Mosul operation. His father was also with the 101st in Mosul in 2003. Now on Snow's Iraq deployment, he carries the same American flag his father kept with him on all of his tours and his father's good luck charm: a St. Michael prayer card. "I know my father never thought I would be coming to Iraq," Snow said. U.S. presence at bases closer to Mosul in the lead up to operation is "essential" to the advise-and-assist mission, said U.S. Army Col. Brett Sylvia, the commanding officer at Camp Swift, a small coalition base outside Makhmour, some 73 kilometers (45 miles) southeast of Mosul. "If you're not there, then you don't have a voice," Sylvia said, standing in front of the bank of televisions and desktop monitors that he says constitutes the forward edge of the battle for his men.

As of last week, there were 4,565 U.S. troops in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. That doesn't include another 1,500 troops considered there "on temporary duty," whose number changes daily, according to the U.S. officials. U.S. troop levels in Iraq peaked at 157,800 during the 2008 surge under then-President George W. Bush, according to the Pentagon. More than 140,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq when President Barack Obama took office in 2009. Obama drew down the forces until the complete withdrawal of late 2011 removed all combat troops from the country, leaving behind only a few hundred U.S. trainers, mainly civilians, to assist Iraqi security forces. U.S. forces began returning after the Islamic State group overran Mosul in the summer of 2014 and blitzed across much of northern, central and western Iraq, joining it to territory it holds in Syria. Weeks later, President Barack Obama announced the start of the air campaign against the Islamic State. At the time, he underlined that he will not allow the U.S. "to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq."

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See also:

Iran: Any US Attack Against Assad Regime Will be ‘Suicidal’
October 9, 2016 – A senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader warned Sunday that any U.S. military strike against Syria’s Assad regime would be “suicidal.”

“If the Americans take military action in Syria, it will be a suicidal action,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister who serves as foreign affairs advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. U.S. military action in Syria would result in the third consecutive “defeat” in the region, after the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, Velayati said, adding that the defeat in Syria would be even “stronger” than in the other two cases. His remarks were quoted by Iran Daily, a paper published by the official IRNA news agency.

Iran’s was the latest response to reports indicating that the Obama administration is mulling a “kinetic” option in a bid to end the assault by the Assad regime and its Russian allies aimed at recapturing rebel-held parts of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city. Earlier, Russia’s defense ministry spokesman noted that any attack against Syrian regime military targets would put its military personnel in danger too. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov underlined Russia’s deployment of sophisticated surface-to-air missile defense systems and implicitly threatened to retaliate against any U.S. strike. Like Russia, Iran is heavily involved in the campaign to fight off a broad rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad. Russia launched an airstrike campaign a year ago, claiming to be targeting terrorists but – according to the U.S. – focusing much of its attention on other rebel groups including those supported by Western and Arab nations.

In Iran’s case, it has provided millions of dollars of military aid, deployed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers and troops on the ground, and is also sponsoring Shi’a militia fighting on behalf of the regime, including those from its Lebanese ally Hezbollah. Sunday’s threat comes from a man who is not only close to Khamenei but has himself been accused of direct links to international terror, Velayati served as Iran’s foreign minister from 1981 to 1997, both under Khamenei (who was Iran’s president until elevated to the supreme leader’s post in 1989) and his successor, President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Velayati and Rafsanjani are among eight senior Iranians accused by the Argentine government of a role in plotting the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in which 85 people were killed. Argentina issued arrest warrants for the eight almost a decade ago, but all are still at large. A ninth man accused by Argentina of a key role in the bombing, Hezbollah terror chief and an FBI “most wanted” terrorist, Imad Mughniyah, was assassinated in a bomb blast in Damascus in 2008. Khamenei sent Velayati as his representative to Mughniyah’s funeral in Beirut. The U.S. State Department says Iran remains the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror.

Iran: Any US Attack Against Assad Regime Will be ‘Suicidal’