Al Qaeda Splinter Group ISIS

[Romeojin]

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The siege of Mosul: What's happening? Why is it significant? - CNN.com

(CNN) -- For a while, Iraq faded from the collective consciousness. But what happened there Tuesday should make people sit up and take notice.

Extremist militants have overrun the northern city of Mosul, the country's second-largest. As many as half a million civilians have fled their homes to escape the violence, and the brazen incursion has highlighted all the weaknesses of the government's ability to maintain security.

Here's how things got to this point.

So, what happened?

Monday night into Tuesday, militants seized Mosul's airport, its TV stations and the governor's office. They freed up to 1,000 prisoners.

Police and soldiers ran from their posts rather than put up a fight, abandoning their weapons as they went. The militants took their place in the city's boulevards and buildings.

"There was no presence of any government forces on the streets, the majority of their posts destroyed and manned by (Islamist militants)," resident Firas al-Maslawi told CNN.

Why is this significant?

Mosul is the nation's second-largest city. What's happening here doesn't bode well for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's administration. It calls into question whether he has a handle on the country.

The devastating militant advance, which had been building for some time, is proving an object lesson of much that is wrong in Iraq and the region -- growing sectarian tensions at home and a festering civil war over the border in Syria.

It also shows that the extremists are seeking to extend their influence and can strike swiftly and effectively against Iraq's American-trained security forces.

Who are the militants?

They're part of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, an al Qaeda splinter group. Here's how extreme the militant group is: Even al Qaeda has disowned it.

The Mosul siege has made ISIS the single most dangerous, destabilizing radical group in the region.

The group is also known by some as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Its members include Europeans as well as Chechens, Turks and many fighters from other Arab countries, some attracted by the conflict in Syria.
Militants seize Iraqi city of Mosul

What do they want?

They want to establish an Islamic caliphate, or state, stretching across the region.

ISIS has begun imposing Sharia law in Syrian towns it controls, like Raqqa, forcing women to wear the full veil, or niqab, in public and banning music.

Have they made such incursions before?

Yes. In past months, they've wrested control of Iraqi cities like Falluja and parts of Ramadi from authorities, just as they've done with Syrian towns over the border.

Militants believed to be from ISIS have also taken control of two villages in Iraq's Kirkuk province and seized parts of the oil town of Baiji in Salaheddin province, authorities said.

Have they been able to keep their control?

Not really. Despite the territorial advances it has made in Sunni-dominated Anbar and Nineveh provinces, ISIS still has "significant weaknesses," a U.S. counterterrorism official says.

"It has shown little ability to govern effectively, is generally unpopular, and has no sway outside the Sunni community in either Iraq or Syria."

How is all this tied to Syria?

ISIS grew out of al Qaeda in Iraq. In the west of Iraq, its militants were responsible for killing and maiming many U.S. troops. In 2006, their commander -- the bloodthirsty Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- was killed in a U.S. strike.

In the years afterward, with American help, Iraqi tribal militias put the al Qaeda upstart on the defensive.

But when U.S. troops left, the extremist militants found new leadership, went to Syria, grew stronger and returned to Iraq, making military gains often off the backs of the foreign fighters drawn to Syria's conflict.

Now the group has footholds in both countries and is blamed for destabilizing both.

In Syria, where its forces have clashed with other Islamist groups, observers say the internecine fighting has played into the hands of Bashar al-Assad's regime by distracting rival factions from their campaign against the Syrian military.

What's the situation in Mosul right now?

More than 500,000 civilians have fled since the fighting started over the weekend, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The northern city's four main hospitals are inaccessible because of fighting, and some mosques have been converted to clinics, the IOM said.

There's a lack of drinking water in the western part of the city since the main water station for the area has been destroyed by bombing. Food is running low and few areas are receiving electricity, while fuel for generators is also running out.

What does this mean for Iraq?

While Iraq is plagued by multiple daily car bombings and suicide attacks, the sheer scale of the attack on Mosul -- and the brewing humanitarian crisis tied to it -- bodes ill for the country's stability.

According to the United Nations, last year was Iraq's most violent in five years, with more than 8,800 people killed, most of them civilians.

Already this year, almost half a million people have been displaced from their homes in central Anbar province by fighting between the same extremist group and government forces.

One major reason Mosul made headlines is how swiftly the city, to all intents and purposes, fell.

What does this mean for the United States and the West?

The last U.S. military forces left Iraq at the end of 2011, after nearly nine years of deadly and divisive war in the country.

Talks that might have allowed a continued major military presence broke down amid disputes about whether U.S. troops would be immune to prosecution by Iraqi authorities.

Iraq's security forces, trained by the United States at a cost of billions of dollars, have proved unable to dislodge the militants from strongholds in Anbar province and have now been routed in Mosul.

The result seems likely to be continued or growing instability in Iraq and the wider region.

This, at a time when the global economy is recovering, could have an unwelcome impact on oil markets.

There's also concern that foreign fighters with ISIS may go back to their native countries, in Europe and elsewhere, and carry out terror attacks there. That worry was heightened last month by the shooting deaths of four people at a Jewish Museum in Belgium; the suspect, according to French officials, recently spent a year in Syria and is a radicalized Islamist.

OMG a terrorist group taken over Iraq's second largest city.

- - - Updated - - -

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/10/world/meast/iraq-violence/index.html

(CNN) -- As security forces ran out, militants overran Iraq's second-largest city on Tuesday -- a stunning collapse that heightened questions about Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ability to hold onto not only Mosul, but his entire country.

Militants seized Mosul's airport, TV stations, the governor's office and other parts, if not all, of the northern Iraqi city.

"I only ... saw armed people, but not Iraqi military," said resident Firas al-Maslawi of his drive through Mosul on Tuesday. "There was no presence of any government forces on the streets, the majority of their posts destroyed and manned by (Islamist militants)."

Other witnesses painted similar scenes, of buildings and boulevards manned not by Iraqi soldiers or police but rather by men they say are members of the extremist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an al Qaeda splinter group also known by its acronym ISIS.

Mosul wasn't the only place in the country beset by violence Tuesday, including some focused closer to the capital of Baghdad. Still, what's happening in this northern Iraqi city is the most serious, given its size, the bloodshed's scope and the brewing humanitarian situation tied to it.

The numerous reports of police and soldiers running from their posts in Mosul raised the prospect that the Iraqi government did not either have the will or resources to win this and other fights.

In perhaps a sign of just how serious the threat is, al-Maliki took to the airwaves to urge all men to volunteer to fight, promising to provide weapons and equipment. The Prime Minister also urged parliament to declare a state of emergency as part of an effort " to confront this ferocious attack that harms all Iraqis."

"We will not allow for the remainder of the ... province and the city to fall," he said in a live speech broadcast on Iraqi state TV.

Already, hundreds in Mosul have been killed since the fighting began five days ago. Tens of thousands more have fled in vehicles and on foot, some of them carrying only what they could in plastic bags. This rush has contributed to bottlenecks at checkpoints as people tried to get to safety in nearby Erbil.

Within Mosul, militants managed to take control of security checkpoints, military bases and a prison, where they freed up to 1,000 prisoners, authorities said. They did so after apparently overrunning Iraqi security forces, whose bodies -- some of them mutilated -- littered the streets, a Reuters journalist on the ground in Mosul reported.

Some police took off their uniforms, dropped their weapons and ran, according to the journalist.

A journalist with Agence France-Presse, who was fleeing the city with his family, reported security forces had abandoned vehicles and a police station was set on fire.

"We can't beat them. We can't. They are well-trained in street fighting, and we're not," one officer, whose identity was withheld, told Reuters. "We need a whole army to drive them out of Mosul."

Fighting elsewhere around Iraq

Political and sectarian violence have wracked Iraq for months, often pitting minority Sunnis against majority Shiite Muslims, who came to dominate the government after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003.

Tensions are fueled by widespread discontent among the Sunnis, who say they are marginalized by the Shiite-led government and unfairly targeted by heavy-handed security tactics.

Militants also believed to be from ISIS have also taken control of two villages in Kirkuk province and one in Salaheddin province, Iraqi police officials told CNN on Tuesday.

The move into Salaheddin province -- the capital of which, Tikrit, was Saddam's hometown -- shows how close the major fighting is getting to Baghdad. Video posted on YouTube purportedly shows all jail cells in a police station in Beiji in the province abandoned, though CNN could confirm the authenticity of the footage.

On Tuesday night, Iraqi security forces were clashing with dozens of gunmen attempting to storm the Baiji oil refinery about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the capital, police officials in Tikrit said.

Closer to Baghdad, at least 31 people were killed and 28 others injured in a series of roadside bombs detonated at a cemetery on the outskirts of the central city of Baquba, according to police officials.

Two residents of Falluja, which is in Sunni-dominated Anbar province and controlled by militants, say a majority of government forces have pulled back from that city to focus on securing Baghdad's perimeter.

This violence is significant but hardly new in Iraq, which has been beset by instability for years.

That includes bloodshed in the years immediately after Saddam's capture over a decade ago. Still, one difference between then and now is the Iraqi government had help from U.S.-led forces at that time.

Now, after a brief lull, the unrest has picked up. The United Nations has said 2013 was the deadliest year in Iraq since 2008, with more than 8,800 people killed -- most of them civilians. Nearly 500,000 people are estimated to have been displaced this year in fighting, primarily in Anbar province.

Radical Islamists on the move

While sectarian strife is largely to blame, there's no doubt that radical Islamists increasingly flexed their muscles and expanded their reach in recent months.

Formost among them is ISIS, which has wrested control of Iraqi cities like Falluja and parts of Ramadi as well as of Syrian towns just over the border. It has done so by exploiting the weakness of Iraq's central Shiite-dominated government, says CNN's Nic Robertson, as it has done in Mosul.

"It is considered too radical even for al Qaeda and, in the past months, has withstood and emerged from a jihadist backlash from its erstwhile radical Islamist allies in Syria's civil war," Robertson said. "Mosul ... has made them the single most dangerous, destabilizing radical group in the region, something al-Maliki's government seems ill-equipped to deal with."

The fall of Mosul -- a predominantly Sunni city with a population of about 1.6 million -- would be a blow to the central government, which is already struggling to contain an insurgency in central Anbar province.

Mosul, about 560 kilometers (350 miles) northwest of Baghdad, was once called the last stronghold of al Qaeda in Iraq by the U.S. military, and at the height of the Iraq war, it was considered one of the main entry points for foreign fighters coming into the country by way of Syria.

The security forces, particularly police, have not always been trusted in Mosul. In 2004, thousands of police officers fled their posts amid the Sunni insurgency, leaving U.S. and Kurdish forces to fight to keep control of the city.

This time around, Jala Abdulrahman saw no sign of government authorities in his Mosul neighborhood, prompting him to flee along with his wife, three children and other family members.

"Gunmen are everywhere in my neighborhood," he told CNN by telephone. "...Where are the Iraqi army and police? Where are the politicians that we trusted and voted for?"

By late Tuesday, Abdulrahman and his family were among hundreds waiting at a checkpoint on the road between Mosul and the Erbil, the capital of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region.

Um Ahmed decided to drive out of Mosul at dawn with her three daughters and two sons. She wasn't taking any chances, especially knowing how gunmen killed her husband outside of a mosque in Mosul a few years ago.

"I left everything behind, and I don't know how long it will take to return back to our home," she said.

Al-Maslawi, the Mosul resident, said that while government forces were absent, ISIS fighters seemed to be in control. Members of the group even urged mobs trying to flee toward Kurdistan to go back home, he said.

"'We will not hurt anyone,'" al-Maslawi said of what ISIS members were saying. "'We have liberated the city of Mosul from al-Maliki forces ... We are running this city, and tomorrow all (businesses) need to be reopened.'

Grisly scene in Iraq: 'See these children?'

Speaker points finger at security forces

Turkey has become part of the story in Mosul as well, with the Turkish Foreign Ministry reporting fighting near its consulate in the city and noting reports that militants abducted 28 Turkish truck drivers hauling fuel.

The drivers were en route from Iskenderun, Turkey, to an electrical plant outside of Mosul. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, when the drivers arrived at the plant, ISIS fighters grabbed them.

Earlier, the speaker of Iraq's parliament said that a "foreign invasion" of the country was under way by "terrorist groups" and that the northern province of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, was under "total occupation."

Speaking at a news conference in Baghdad, Osama al-Nujaifi appeared to point the finger at the central government, accusing security forces of abandoning Mosul when the fighting began.

Al-Nujaifi said security forces "abandoned their weapons, their tanks and their bases and left them to terrorist groups, even Mosul airport." He also said gunmen had taken over ammunition storage facilities.

The speaker, whose brother Atheel al-Nujaifi is the governor of Nineveh province, said the central government had been warned over the past few weeks that militant groups were gathering but had taken no preventive action.

"It will not stop at the borders of Nineveh but will reach all of Iraq," he said.

Also criticizing the central government was Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, who blamed security forces for allowing militants to take control of portions of Mosul.

"Over the last two days, we tried extremely hard to establish cooperation with the Iraqi security forces in order to protect the city of Mosul. Tragically, Baghdad adopted a position which has prevented the establishment of this cooperation," he said in a written statement.

While Iraq's defense and interior ministries didn't release statements Tuesday about the situation in Mosul, the country's most influential Shiite cleric expressed support for their efforts.

"Religious authority stresses that Iraqi government and other political leaders need to unify and strengthen its efforts to stand up to the terrorists and to provide protection to citizens," said Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani.

[Romeojin]

How ISIS and Iraq upheaval threatens the wider world - CNN.com

We should be worried. This, after all, is a group that was rejected by al Qaeda because of its ferocity. Its mysterious leaders are far beyond the extremist pale, and that they seem to be consolidating a territorial base must be put at the forefront of international counter-terrorism policy.

Al Qaeda 'disowns' affiliate, blaming it for disaster in Syria - CNN.com

mura pud dili ferocious ang gihimo ng Al Qaeda sa WTC, pa reject2x pa

[mr_kyme]

Mas nindot unta kn sa China nalang cla mag samok2x and focus China only. I think they have future in China. ^_^

[Alramzz]

Mas nindot unta kn sa China nalang cla mag samok2x and focus China only. I think they have future in China. ^_^

ga samok2x na btaw ni cla sa China,.

[TaftPropertyCebu]

ka kuyaw sad ani oi.

[raissah]

nganung kinahanglan man jud nga naay lugar angay sila mag samok2? pwedi wla nlang?

[The Rocker]

daghan napung nihimog ilang grupo ,wa nay sulbad gyud aning extremism

[jesselyn]

bisnis gihapon ni ang terorism jud mawala.

[Romeojin]

ISIS: The first terror group to build an Islamic state? - CNN.com

(CNN) -- The face of a balding, middle-aged man stares unsmilingly into the camera. He is dressed in a suit and tie and could pass for a midlevel bureaucrat.

But the photograph is that of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who has transformed a few terror cells harried to the verge of extinction into the most dangerous militant group in the world.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has thrived and mutated during the ongoing civil war in Syria and in the security vacuum that followed the departure of the last American forces from Iraq.

The aim of ISIS is to create an Islamic state across Sunni areas of Iraq and in Syria.

With the seizure of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and advances on others, that aim appears within reach.

ISIS controls hundreds of square miles where state authority has evaporated. It ignores international borders and has a presence all the way from Syria's Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad.

What are its origins?

In 2006, al Qaeda in Iraq -- under the ruthless leadership of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- embarked on seemingly arbitrary and brutal treatment of civilians as it tried to ignite a sectarian war against the majority Shia community.

It came close to succeeding, especially after the bombing of the Al-Askariya Mosque, an important Shia shrine in Samarra, which sparked retaliatory attacks.

But the killing of al-Zarqawi by American forces, the vicious treatment of civilians and the emergence of the Sahwa (Awakening) Fronts under moderate Sunni tribal leaders nearly destroyed the group.

Nearly, but not quite.

When U.S. forces left Iraq, they took much of their intelligence-gathering expertise with them.

Iraqi officials began to speak of a "third generation" of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Two years ago, a former spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, warned that "if the Iraqi security forces are not able to put pressure on them, they could regenerate."

The capability of those Iraqi forces was fatally compromised by a lack of professional soldiers, the division of military units along sectarian lines and a lack of the equipment needed for fighting an insurgency, such as attack helicopters and reconnaissance capabilities.

The new al Qaeda was rebranded in 2006 as the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). It would add "and Syria" to its name later.

The group exploited a growing perception among many Sunnis that they were being persecuted by the Shia-dominated government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, starved of resources and excluded from a share of power.

The arrest of senior Sunni political figures and heavy-handed suppression of Sunni dissent were the best recruiting sergeants ISI could have. And it helped the new leader re-establish the group's influence.

Who is its master of terror?

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi graduated to the top job in 2010 -- at the age of 39 -- after Abu Omar al Baghdadi was killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation.

Al Baghdadi's group was in a pitiful state. But with U.S. forces and intelligence on the way out, he launched a revival.

Very little is known about Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, but a biography posted on jihadist websites last year said he held a Ph.D. in Islamic studies from a university in the capital.

He formed his own militant group in the Samarra and Diyala areas, where his family was from, before joining al Qaeda in Iraq.

Al Baghdadi even served four years in a U.S. prison camp for insurgents, at Bucca in southern Iraq -- a time in which he almost certainly developed a network of contacts and honed his ideology.

He was released in 2009 and went to work.

What is ISIS trying to accomplish?

It wants to establish an Islamic caliphate, or state, stretching across the region.

ISIS has begun imposing Sharia law in the towns it controls. Boys and girls must be separated at school; women must wear the niqab or full veil in public. Sharia courts often dispense brutal justice, music is banned and the fast is enforced during Ramadan.

Sharia law covers both religious and non-religious aspects of life.

Where does the group's money come from?

In the beginning, al Baghdadi focused on secrecy -- with loosely connected cells making it more difficult to hunt down the leadership -- and on money.

Extortion, such as demanding money from truck drivers and threatening to blow up businesses, was one revenue stream; robbing banks and gold shops was another.

It seemed the group had become little more than gangsters, but the income would help finance a growing stream of suicide attacks and assassinations that would poison the political atmosphere.

It would also aid the recruitment of Sunni tribal fighters and finance spectacular prison raids that liberated hundreds of fighters, as well as attacks on police patrols and the assassination of officials.

Now, al Baghdadi has a new strategy for generating resources: large-scale attacks aimed at capturing and holding territory.

Ayham Kamel of the Eurasia Group, a U.S.-based consultancy, says that in the latest iteration of this strategy, ISIS will "use cash reserves from Mosul's banks, military equipment from seized military and police bases and the release of 2,500 fighters from local jails to bolster its military and financial capability."

What's been its key to survival?

Al Baghdadi avoided al-Zarqawi's mistakes by avoiding the alienation of powerful tribal figures.

When it captured Falluja, west of Baghdad, in January, it worked with local tribal leaders rather than raise its black flag over the city.

One of the group's ideologues, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, even admitted: "As for our mistakes, we do not deny them. Rather, we will continue to make mistakes as long as we are humans. God forbid that we commit mistakes deliberately."

How is it drawing support?

ISIS is, in essence, trying to capture and channel the resentment of the Sunni street. And in both Syria and Iraq, it is trying to win favor through dawa -- organizing social welfare programs and even recreational activities for children, distributing food and fuel to the needy, and setting up clinics.

Again, having the money matters. The price it demands is enforcement of the strict Sharia code.

How does Syria fit into the picture?

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN this week that ISIS looks at Syria and Iraq as "one interchangeable battlefield and its ability to shift resources and personnel across the border has measurably strengthened its position in both theaters."

The explosion of violence in Syria was a gift to al Baghdadi.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lost control over large parts of the North and the long border with Iraq.

The group, still known as ISI at the time, could build a rear base where it could recruit foreign fighters, organize and escape from any Iraqi army operations.

Al Baghdadi may have sent operatives across the border as early as the autumn of 2011, and the group later changed its name -- adding "al Sham" for Syria.

It moved swiftly to take control of the Syrian province of Raqqa, aided by the al-Assad regime's focus on Homs and Aleppo.

What is its relationship with other al Qaeda groups?

As it has grown in strength, the group's vision of a caliphate under its control has expanded.

ISIS already control 1/3 of Iraq

ISIS just stole $425 million, Iraqi governor says, and became the ‘world’s richest terrorist group’ - The Washington Post

ISIS world's richest terrorist group

expect more bombing elsewhere around the world

[amingb]

nganong sa China man ninyo gusto sila mag samok2x ??

maypa mag samoksamok sila sa pilipinas, adto sila manila, malacanyang bombahan nila.

Pa member tas Alkida ... hehehee Banda na namo .. kinsa pa member diha ... Hardcore / Death Tirada .... samok2xkon nato ang goberno pina-agi sa atong musika ....