Category Archives: Islamic State

Killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi gives Trump lifeline amid political battle

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President’s supporters framing the impeachment hearings as an unpatriotic attack on a leader keeping America safe

The killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has given Donald Trump a lifeline in the midst of a battle for his own political survival and he has grabbed it with both hands.

Trump’s fifty minute television appearance on Sunday to announce the successful mission began with a sombre announcement before drifting into something more rambling and vainglorious, foreshadowing how he will use it for political ends, and as a club to swing at his political enemies pushing for his impeachment.

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Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed in US raid – video

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Donald Trump confirmed on Sunday that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a US special forces raid in the north-west of Syria. According to the president, the Isis leader died 'running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way'. Trump made the announcement in Washington hours after tweeting: 'Something very big has just happened!'

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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death comes as new order takes shape in Middle East

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In aftermath of Isis’s toxic mix of chaos and intolerance, new spheres of influence are being demarcated

Reports of his death had been frequent – and exaggerated. But not this time. Even as US forces were flying to Iraq the remains of the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in Syria in the early hours of Saturday, a debate about his legacy was stirring.

For more than five years, Baghdadi, who was known by birth as Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri, was the most wanted man on the planet – a figure who had turned an already potent post-invasion insurgency in Iraq into a formidable terrorist juggernaut that changed the course of history.

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Donald Trump confirms Isis leader died in US raid – video

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The US president has said Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State, was killed in a raid by US special forces in north-west Syria. Baghdadi detonated a suicide vest after running into a dead-end tunnel, killing himself and three of his children, Donald Trump said

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Who was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and why is his death important?

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Self-declared caliph was operational leader of Isis and symbol of its Islamic credentials

Baghdadi is thought to have been born in the central Iraqi city of Samarra in 1971. Though a weak student, whose poor eyesight disqualified him from joining the Iraqi military, he rose to command al-Qaida’s Iraqi division and then broke away to form Islamic State (Isis).

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US plans to send tanks to Syria oil fields, reversing Trump troop withdrawal – reports

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  • Tanks to come from units already in Middle East, report says
  • Trump has said US ‘secured oil’ despite withdrawal

The US is reportedly planning to deploy tanks and other heavy military hardware to protect oil fields in eastern Syria, in a reversal of Donald Trump’s earlier order to withdraw all troops from the country.

The most likely destination for US armoured units is a Conoco gas plant near the city of Deir Ezzor, the site of a February 2018 clash between US special forces and Syrian regime-backed militias fighting with Russian mercenaries.

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UK man who fought Isis found guilty of terror offence in retrial

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Aidan James, 28, is first Briton to stand trial for travelling to Syria to join battle against Isis

A British man who trained to fight with Kurdish units against Islamic State has been found guilty of a terrorism offence in a retrial at the Old Bailey.

Aidan James, 28, from Formby in Merseyside, was found guilty of training in weapons with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) in Iraq.

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Britain makes move to bring home Isis children stranded in Syria

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Whitehall sources are working with local agencies to bring back minors born to Islamic State fighters

British officials have taken the first steps to repatriate children stranded in Syria by liaising directly with agencies on the ground to identify unaccompanied minors for “safe passage” back to the UK.

Whitehall sources have confirmed they are working with “various agencies” in north-east Syria – believed to include the International Committee of the Red Cross – to kickstart the process of transferring children of British parents linked to Islamic State back to the UK.

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‘We Syrians are being used as political tools… yet again’

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Despite last week’s US-brokered truce, fighting continues on the Turkish-Syrian border

It’s an unusually hot autumn in the plains of southern Turkey, where in some places nothing but wire fencing is all that separates this country from the chaos that has engulfed Syria over the last eight years.

Cotton, pistachio and olive trees grow on both sides of the border. But plumes of black smoke are only rising above towns on the Syrian side.

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Afghanistan mosque bombing: death toll rises

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State blames Taliban for blasts targeting worshippers during Friday prayers

Police and local residents were searching for bodies in the rubble of a mosque in the eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, after bomb blaststhat killed at least 69 people during Friday prayers.

The explosives had been placed inside the mosque in the Jawdara area of Haska Mena district.

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Belgium to evacuate Isis suspects from Syria detention camps

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Other European states also preparing to repatriate citizens accused of Isis links via safe zone

Belgium and other European states are preparing to evacuate citizens accused of having links to Islamic State from detention camps in north-eastern Syria through a newly declared safe zone being carved out by Turkish forces along the border.

Belgian officials informed family members of detainees held in two camps on Friday that they would attempt to take advantage of a five-day ceasefire to retrieve nationals allegedly tied to the terror group. The Guardian has learned that other European states, including France and Germany, are also looking at ways to take advantage of the window declared by US vice-president Mike Pence on Thursday to repatriate women and children.

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Fighting continues on Syria-Turkey border despite ceasefire

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Artillery fire and ground clashes reported in violation of US-brokered five-day truce

Fighting is continuing on the border between Syria and Turkey in defiance of a supposed five-day ceasefire negotiated between the US and Turkey.

Intermittent artillery fire and ground clashes were heard in the border town of Ras al-Ayn on Friday morning, one of the two main targets of the nine-day-old Turkish offensive, as the Turkish military and Syrian rebel proxies struggled to wrest control of the town from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

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Pence and Erdoğan agree on ceasefire plan but Kurds reject ‘occupation’

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  • Mike Pence strikes deal with Turkish president in Ankara
  • Agreement appears to cement key Turkish objectives

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has agreed with the US vice-president, Mike Pence, to suspend Ankara’s operation on Kurdish-led forces in north-east Syria for the next five days in order to allow Kurdish troops to withdraw, potentially halting the latest bloodshed in Syria’s long war.

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters would pull back from Turkey’s proposed 20-mile (32km) deep “safe zone” on its border, Pence told reporters in Ankara on Thursday evening after hours of meetings with Turkish officials.

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Biden warns Isis fighters will strike US over Syria withdrawal

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Former vice-president said at Democratic debate ‘they are going to damage’ the US and blasted Trump for abandoning Kurdish allies

The former US vice-president Joe Biden warned during a Democratic debate on Tuesday night that Islamic State fighters would strike the US as a result of Donald Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of American forces in northern Syria.

“We have Isis that’s going to come here,” Biden said. “They are going to damage the United States of America. That’s why we got involved in the first place.”

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Orphans thought to be British rescued from Isis camp after Turkish attacks

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Children taken to safety in Raqqa after hundreds of people fled camp holding Islamic State affiliates in northern Syria

Three orphans believed to be British citizens have been evacuated from an area in northern Syria that was the focus of recent attacks by Turkish troops and their allies.

The Guardian understands that the three children, Amira, 10, her sister, Hiba, eight, and their brother, Hamza, were evacuated from a camp for people associated with Islamic State in Ain Issa on Sunday. They were part of a group of 24 children taken to safety by the UN refugee organisation.

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Isis ‘Beatles’ should face trial in UK, says former director of public prosecutions

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QC says a US trial makes Britain look like a ‘banana republic lacking faith in our own institutions of justice’

The UK government has been accused of acting like “a banana republic” after suppressing charges against the British group of Isis militants known as “the Beatles” out of fears that trying them at home could set a precedent for mass jihadist repatriations.

Prosecutors charged one member of the group, Alexanda Kotey, with multiple counts of murder in 2016 but the Home Office made no attempt to bring him home to face justice because, sources say, then home secretary Theresa May felt it was politically problematic.

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Donald Trump says Kurds ‘didn’t help us with Normandy’ – video

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US president Donald Trump defends his decision to withdraw support for Kurdish allies in Syria by saying they did not help the US during the second world war, citing Normandy as an example. Kurdish forces did fight alongside the US against Isis for nearly five years before Trump's call to remove US troops from the region


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US ending support for Kurds in Syria will lead to genocide, says protester – video

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Protesters gathered outside the White House in Washington to demand Donald Trump reverse his decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria, warning that Kurds would be targeted in a Turkish offensive. The Turkish government claimed the US president had handed it the lead on the military campaign against Isis, and said its forces would be crossing into Syria 'shortly'

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Trump has handed over Isis fight in Syria, Turkey says, as offensive looms

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Ankara says military will cross border ‘shortly’, and claims US president gave green light, contradicting US denials

The Turkish government claimed that Donald Trump has handed it the leadership of the military campaign against Isis, and warned its forces would be crossing into Syria “shortly”.

Kurdish military leaders inside Syria said they were braced for the invasion and claimed there had been an Isis attack on its former stronghold of Raqqa. But reports from the city suggested the attack had been small scale.

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Donald Trump isolated as Republican allies revolt over US withdrawal from Syria

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Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell lead condemnation of foreign policy move that could prove ‘disaster in the making’

Donald Trump was dangerously isolated on Monday as, in a rare rebuke, some of his most loyal allies revolted against his decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria.

Related: US withdrawal from Syria leaves fate of Isis fighters and families in detention uncertain

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