Tag Archives: Mosul

Coalition now training brigades that will fight ISIS in Mosul, spokesman says

The United States-led coalition against the Islamic State is currently helping the Iraqi Security Forces put together the force that will try to retake the city of Mosul, a spokesman said Friday.

Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, made the announcement while addressing a news briefing in Washington. He was speaking via video link from Baghdad.

Warren told reporters it would still be “many months” before the Iraqi Security Forces began their campaign to recapture Mosul, which the Islamic State has occupied since June 2014.

“Right now our focus is ‘Let’s start training some brigades. Let’s start building some combat power. Let’s continue to train some police and start building up some combat power,’” he said.

Mosul is the capital of Nineveh province in northern Iraq and is one of the nation’s largest cities.

Warren told reporters the coalition still needs to assemble approximately 10 brigades, consisting of some 2,000 to 3,000 people in all, and wanted to first place them through additional training.

A basic training process takes eight weeks, Warren told reporters, with supplemental options for people like medics or snipers. But the number of troops that can be trained at once has varied.

“Over the last month or so, we’ve gotten about 900 police officers and roughly two brigades through training,” Warren told reporters. “This was the most graduates that we’ve had in a month. There’s been weeks or months where it’s been significantly less.”

He said the coalition has trained about 20,000 members of the Iraqi Security Forces, including police and tribal fighters. But he said even the ones who helped secure a key victory at Ramadi, a city that had been under Islamic State control, should receive additional training before Mosul.

“We believe that all of the forces that we’ve already trained and run through Ramadi are certainly capable of moving to Mosul, but we have made a decision that we want to run them through another cycle of training,” Warren told reporters. “Are they trained? Yes. Could they go to Mosul now? Yes. But we would prefer to give them additional training before they go.”

Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, was captured by the Islamic State last year.

Iraqi officials announced that the military had raised the nation’s flag over a key government complex in Ramadi late in December, and forces have been working to secure outlying parts of the city ever since. On Friday, Warren told reporters that those efforts were continuing.

Warren also told reporters the coalition launched 676 airstrikes against the Islamic State in January, 522 of them in Iraq and 154 in Syria. Most of them were concentrated near Ramadi, Mosul and Raqqa, the Syrian city which the Islamic State considers its capital.

ISIS Releases Video Showing Executions

Islamic terrorist group ISIS has released a video showing a series of brutal executions in what they say is an instructional video on dealing with spies.

The video, filmed in the ISIS stronghold of Mosul, shows the brutal killing of a dozen condemned men.  In the first segment, men are placed into a car and then a terrorist blows up the car with a rocket propelled grenade.  The screams of the men in the car can be clearly heard on the recording.

In the second section, they lower men in a cage into a swimming pool to drown and use an underwater camera to show the men dying.  In the third, they line kneeling men up and wrap an explosive cord around their necks which is then detonated.

The film is intercut with footage of the condemned men allegedly confessing to their “crimes.”

The video comes on the heels of a major ISIS operative being killed in an air strike outside of Mosul.  A Pentagon spokesman revealed Wednesday that Ali Awni al-Harzi of Tunisia, a person of interest in the 2012 Benghazi attack, died in a June 15th strike.

“His death degrades ISIL’s ability to integrate North African jihadists into the Syrian and Iraqi fight and removes a jihadist with long ties to international terrorism,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said.

ISIS Destroys Christian Cemetery in Mosul

The Middle East Media Research Institute is reporting that the terrorist group ISIS has destroyed a Christian graveyard in Mosul.

Pictures of the terrorists smashing headstones in Mosul were posted online titled “Leveling Graves and Erasing Pagan Symbols.”

“The April 16 destruction of Christian graves in Mosul, Iraq by the Islamic State (ISIS) is part of the organization’s ongoing campaign against Christianity, in the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world,” said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

The terrorists claim that Islamic teaching requires them to destroy any grave higher than ground level.  Images on the graves must also be destroyed.

“It is important to note that ISIS is documenting its destruction and desecration of Christian sites and its attacks on Christian communities, and on other minorities’ sites and communities, and is disseminating these images worldwide via social media,” Stalinsky told Fox News. “By doing this, ISIS is not only showcasing what it is doing, but is also mocking the West by demonstrating that it is doing so freely, with no one trying to stop it.”

Mosul has been under the control of the terrorists since June 2014.

ISIS Destroys Biblical City of Calah

The Biblical city of Calah has been wiped from the face of the Earth by Islamic terrorists.

ISIS has released a video showing their destruction of the town of Calah, also called the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud.

The 7-minute video shows ISIS using sledgehammers, drills and other heavy equipment to destroy ancient artifacts before setting off three barrel bombs that completely destroy the historical site.

The town is 22 miles south of Mosul and was believed to date back to the 13th century B.C.

The town is mentioned in Genesis 10:11 as being built by Nimrod, who the Bible says is the first “mighty man” on Earth.

“Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.”  (Genesis 10:8-12 ESV)

The United Nations has called the action a war crime.

In a new crime in their series of reckless offenses, they assaulted the ancient city of Nimrud and bulldozed it with heavy machinery, appropriating archaeological attractions dating back 13 centuries B.C.,” a statement from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization reads.

“This is yet another attack against the Iraqi people, reminding us that nothing is safe from the cultural cleansing under way in the country: it targets human lives, minorities, and is marked by the systematic destruction of humanity’s ancient heritage,”UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova said.

Iraqi Army Drives ISIS From Tikrit

The Iraqi army has declared victory in their battle to retake the city of Tikrit from the Islamic extremist group ISIS.

Troops are working to clear out the last pockets of terrorist support within the city but Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi went to the city and raised an Iraqi flag over the city’s center.

“Most of Tikrit today is liberated, only small parts remain [outside our control],” Interior Minister Mohammed al-Ghabban told reporters.

The Prime Minister attributed their success to taking the terrorist group by surprise.

“We managed to take (ISIS) by surprise,” the Prime Minister said. “And our air force … in addition to coalition air force, helping Iraqi forces, managed to deal severe blows to ISIS and the enemies of Iraq. And our ground forces with the blood of Iraqis, Iraqis alone with their own blood, were able to liberate this land.”

The battle for the hometown of Saddam Hussein has taken a month and been the biggest offensive against the terrorist outfit.  The attack had been stalled until the United States launched an air offensive against terrorist headquarters and weapons storage centers in the city.

The army now plans to focus on recapturing Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq.

ISIS Cuts Off Women’s Hands For Using Cell Phone

New reports of the brutality of ISIS are coming from Iraq including their chopping off the hands of women who were using cell phones.

A witness reported that ISIS caught women using cell phones in the city of Mosul and proceeded to cut off their hands for it.  Five men who were caught using cell phones were bound and whipped for “illegal use of the devices.”

“The ISIS militants cut three women’s hands off for unknown charges,” the man claimed. “They also whipped five people for using cell phones to contact their relatives while standing on the celebration stage in the Cultural Compound in central Mosul.”

The terrorists then told the citizens of Mosul if they were found using a cellphone, they would be given at least 30 lashes.

“In order to shut one of the doors of penetration the enemy uses to attain its goals and strike with exactness by means of its war and remote-guided aircraft, it has been decided to forbid the use of any electronic device or a system that has access to service to enable precise location of positions,” the ISIS statement declared.

The terrorist group has cut off all landlines into the city and destroyed cell phone towers to keep the town isolated from the world.

Top ISIS Leader Killed In Mosul

A top commander within the terrorist group ISIS has been killed during a U.S. airstrike in Mosul.

Radwan Taleb al-Hamdouni, who had overseen the terrorist organization’s operations in Mosul, died after the U.S. strike according to multiple local sources.  He was inside a car and died along with his driver.

Hamdouni was given a funeral that was widely attended by members of the terrorist group according to Mosul residents.

The airstrike comes as government forces focus on recapturing the city from the terrorists.  The terrorists, however, are attempting to overtake the city of Ramadi.

“Mosques are asking anyone who can carry weapons to confront the attackers,” provincial council member Hathal Fahdawi said regarding the resident’s attempts to stop the terrorist onslaught.

The terrorists are focusing on taking government buildings and police headquarters.

90 Percent of Iraq’s Orthodox Christians Displaced

Nine out of ten Orthodox Christians in Iraq have been displaced by the terrorist group ISIS.

Ghattas Hazim, the Greek Orthodox Bishop for Baghdad, says he fears for the future of Christianity in Iraq and the surrounding region because of the terrorists.  He says that of 600 Orthodox families remain in Baghdad because of fears the terrorists will take over the nation’s capital.

He said the only Christians left in Mosul are the ones who can afford to pay the “tax” levied on them by the terrorists or who are too ill or infirm to flee.

Hazim said that western nations, despite saying they are working to help the Christians displaced by the terrorists, have done nothing to help them.

“It is not true that the West is facilitating the emigration of Christians,” Hazim told The Christian Post. “I know many Christians and Orthodox in particular who went to embassies and did not get visas. Others resorted to the United Nations and other international organizations in order to emigrate and it did not work out.”

Hazim vowed to stay in Baghdad to keep the Word of God alive in the city no matter what may happen with the terrorists.

“I will carry the word of God to my parish in Baghdad and Kuwait: Fear not, little flock, for I am with you,” Hazim said. “If they persecute you, remember that they persecuted me before you. We will not fear, because this is not the first time in history that this has happened. We will stay, as long as faith remains and as long as our God exists, we will remain present.”

Iraqi Christians Believe Government Abandoned Them To ISIS

A Catholic priest is speaking up on behalf of tens of thousands of displaced Christians who believe the Muslim-led government in Iraq abandoned them to the Islamic extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

“The people are angry because the government just gave up on them. They told us that, in Mosul, where there had normally been a presence of 60,000 soldiers, after the onslaught of ISIS, in only a matter of hours, these soldiers abandoned them, laying down their weapons,” said Fr. Rami Wakim in The Catholic Herald.

Many Christians have been forced to flee to the Kurdish regions of the country where Kurdish fighter groups have protected them.

Fr. Wakim said that most of the churches in the region are unable to hold full services inside their sanctuaries because they are filled with people sleeping on mattresses and piles of clothing because they have nothing left after fleeing Mosul and other areas overtaken by the terrorists.

“People look up to priests and bishops as the only solution, the only help they can get at a time where — of course we need to pray with them — but at this time prayer alone doesn’t seem enough and actions are required,” Wakim added.

The influx of Christian refugees is overwhelming the refugee centers in many of the areas and some aid groups have been told that they will have to transport refugees to other villages.

Mosul’s Christians Describe Frantic Flee For Their Life

Christians forced to flee Mosul, Iraq because of the extreme Islamic terrorist group Islamic State are recounting their tales of horror as they fled for their lives.

“We heard the gunshots outside our door, and knew the terrorists were killing Christians,” Munira Aziz told Fox News. “But we hoped someone might rescue us. We cowered inside for two days, then knew we had to leave. We gathered some clothes and left at night.”

Aziz is now living inside a church in the northern Iraqi city of Sulemaniyah suffering from a broken hip.  All she has left is the clothes on her back.

Aziz said that thousands of Christians were killed simply because they had no way to flee the city.

“There were Christians everywhere we went. In every garden, and in every doorway, there are just so many with nothing and with nowhere to go,” Aziz told Fox News. “But I am so happy now we are safe, we are the lucky ones.”

The exiled believers have stood firm in their faith.

“People say it would be easy to become a Muslim, but my religion is everything I now have — why would I give that up?” a refugee said. “I would die first.”

The Christians in exile are hoping that the recent advances by Kurdish fighters with the help of U.S. airstrikes will allow them to return their homes and churches.