Category Archives: Islamic State

Archaeologists unearth 2,700-year-old rock carvings in Iraq

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Experts find artefacts from ancient empire during restoration of historic site destroyed by Islamic State

Archaeologists in northern Iraq have unearthed 2,700-year-old rock carvings featuring war scenes and trees from the Assyrian empire, an archaeologist has said.

The carvings on marble slabs were discovered in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, where experts have been working to restore the site of the ancient Mashki Gate, which was bulldozed by Islamic State militants in 2016.

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French cement firm admits paying IS nearly $6m to keep Syrian plant open

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Lafarge agrees to $778m fine after pleaded guilty in US trial to conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organisation

The French cement company Lafarge pleaded guilty on Tuesday to paying millions of dollars to the Islamic State group in exchange for permission to keep open a plant in Syria, in a case the US justice department called the first of its kind. The company also agreed to penalties totalling about $778m (£688m).

Prosecutors accused Lafarge of turning a blind eye to the conduct of the militant group, making payments to it in 2013 and 2014 as IS occupied a broad swath of Syria and as some of its members were involved in torturing or beheading kidnapped westerners. The company’s actions occurred before it merged with a Swiss company Holcim, to form the world’s largest cement-making business.

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First British woman and her child repatriated to UK from Syrian camp

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Woman, said to have been trafficked, is only adult allowed back since end of Islamic State ground war

A British woman and her child have been repatriated from a Syrian camp, the first time an adult has been allowed to come back to the UK from detention since the end of the ground war against Islamic State.

The Foreign Office said that British policy to those held in Syria remained unchanged, and that it considered requests for help on “a case by case basis”, but campaigners said it was a significant first step.

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UN rebukes Finland for violating rights of its children held in Syria camps

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Child rights committee says Helsinki must do more to repatriate those detained as relatives of suspected Islamic State fighters

A UN watchdog has accused Finland of violating the rights of Finnish children stuck in Syrian prison camps holding suspected jihadists and their families.

Adding to mounting criticism directed at western countries, the UN child rights committee said Finland had a responsibility to make serious efforts to bring the children home.

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Young and sick children to be first Australians repatriated from Syrian detention camps

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About 60 wives, sons and daughters of slain or jailed IS combatants to be rescued from Roj camp, but some women face arrest upon return to Australia

The youngest, most unwell and most vulnerable of the Australian children currently held in squalid Syrian detention camps will be the first ones repatriated to Australia. But some of their mothers could face arrest – and potential charges – upon return to the country.

The Australian government is currently implementing plans to repatriate about 60 Australian women and children – wives, sons and daughters of slain or jailed Islamic State combatants – who have been held for more than three years in the dangerous detention camps in north-east Syria.

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Families of Australians held in Syrian detention camps welcome ‘incredibly exciting’ news of planned repatriation

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One man whose daughter and grandchildren are in the Roj camp says the government has not notified family members of rescue missions

A lawyer for Australians trapped in Syrian detention camps say conditions are “volatile and unsafe” inside the camps as winter approaches, with interruptions to food and water supply, and the need for their repatriation growing increasingly urgent.

Guardian Australia reported on Sunday that the government was preparing an operation to start repatriating more than 60 Australians – widows and children of slain or jailed Islamic State fighters – who are in the al-Hawl and Roj detention camps. About 20 are adults, many of whom say they were coerced or tricked into travelling to Syria by husbands who have since died.

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Australian children rescued from Syrian camps need tailored support to reintegrate into society, expert says

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Shane Healey urges government to establish holistic and ‘individualised’ process for kids who spent formative years in violent conditions

A former ADF Special Operations intelligence analyst who is now an expert on countering violent extremism says Australian children brought out of Syrian refugee camps will require intensive support to successfully integrate into the community.

“It’s a long, intensive and individualised process but, done holistically, will have excellent results,” Shane Healey said. “Australia has the capability and the expertise to support these children.”

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Australia to launch rescue mission for women and children trapped in Syrian detention camps

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Exclusive: More than 20 Australian women and more than 40 children related to Islamic State combatants held in al-Hawl And Roj camps

The Australian government is preparing to launch a mission to rescue dozens of Australian women and children trapped in Syrian detention camps.

More than 20 Australian women and more than 40 children – the widows, sons and daughters of slain or jailed Islamic State combatants – remain within the al-Hol and Roj detention camps in north-east Syria.

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France must rethink case of IS-linked women refused re-entry, rules ECHR

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Families argued detention in Syria exposed the two women and their children to inhumane treatment

The European court of human rights has condemned France over its refusal to repatriate French women who travelled to Syria with their partners to join Islamic State and are currently being held with their children at Kurdish-run prison camps.

The ruling will be studied closely by other countries who still have citizens detained in camps in north-eastern Syria, including the UK.

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Hundreds of Hazaras killed by ISKP since Taliban took power, say rights group

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Human Rights Watch says Taliban is failing to protect Shia minority from violent attacks on mosques, schools and workplaces

Hazara communities in Afghanistan are being targeted in violent attacks by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, with more than 700 people killed in 13 attacks in the past year, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

In the report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the Taliban of doing little to protect Hazara and other religious minorities from suicide bombings and deadly attacks, and failing to provide adequate medical care and assistance to victims and their families, despite pledging to do so when they took power in August 2021.

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Should Shamima Begum be allowed to return to the UK to argue her case?

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A new book says Met police knew she was helped to join IS by a Canadian spy, reinforcing concerns she was victim of trafficking

It is not new – although it is eyecatching – to report that Shamima Begum, then 15, was helped to travel to Syria and join Islamic State by a Canadian agent. Mohammed al-Rashed was picked up by the Turkish authorities in March 2015, and said at the time he was an informant for Canadian intelligence, and had helped Begum travel from Istanbul airport to the Syrian border a few days earlier.

What is new is the suggestion that the Metropolitan police knew about Canada’s behind-the-scenes involvement for some time. A book, The Secret History of the Five Eyes, out this week, reveals that Canadian intelligence officers went shortly after to the British police to admit their connection to Rashed, boosting the argument that the teenager from Bethnal Green and her two friends were in fact trafficked.

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Islamic State member El Shafee Elsheikh sentenced to life in prison

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The former British national was involved in taking hostage and beheading American journalists and aid workers

A federal judge on Friday handed a life sentence to an Islamic State cell member who had a role in a hostage-taking scheme leading to the beheadings of American journalists and aid workers.

The punishment from Judge TS Ellis III for the former British national El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, came after a jury convicted him in April at the end of a six-week trial.

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Al-Qaida chief’s killing comes as group gains ground in African conflict zones

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UN says terror organisation, whose affiliate recently attacked Mali’s most important military base, ‘is once again the leader of global jihad’

It was one of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s last victories. Just over a week before the al-Qaida leader was killed in Kabul by missiles fired from a US drone, militants from the organisation’s biggest affiliate in sub-Saharan Africa attacked the most important military base in Mali.

The tactics of the attack were familiar – suicide bombers blowing a gap in defences to allow gunmen to reached stunned defenders – but the operation marked a major escalation.

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Dfat concerned about ability to help Australians overseas amid international crises, documents show

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Department’s incoming brief to Penny Wong warns of consular and passport issues as well as citizens detained in Syria

The incoming brief for the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong contained the stark admission that cascading international crises including Afghanistan and Ukraine “have strained our ability to provide a high-level consular service to Australians overseas”.

The heavily redacted document, given to the incoming minister as part of a briefing to help them get across Australia’s foreign affairs portfolio and obtained by Guardian Australia under FOI laws, warned the “need for global collaboration and solutions is more acute than ever”.

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Sydney teen Yusuf Zahab believed to have died in IS attack on Syrian jail after begging Australia for help

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Family say they are ‘heartbroken and angry’ and claim the previous government knew about their son’s detention for more than three years

A south-west Sydney teenager is believed to have died in a Syrian jail months after begging the Australian government for assistance.

Yusuf Zahab, 17, had been detained in Guweiran prison in Hasaka city alongside suspected members of the Islamic State for three years when it was attacked by IS in January in an attempt to free its fighters.

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Australian government wrongly cancelled citizenship of man on death row in Iraq, family claim

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Ahmad Merhi, who travelled from Sydney to Syria and is accused of joining Islamic State, says he is now stateless as he awaits hanging

The former Coalition government wrongly cancelled the citizenship of an Australian man on death row in Iraq, leaving him stateless as he awaited hanging on terrorism charges, his family and lawyers claim.

Ahmad Merhi, originally from Sydney, travelled to Syria in 2014. He was captured in the country in 2017.

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Suspected Islamist attack frees hundreds of prisoners in Nigeria

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Inmates on the run after gunmen armed with explosives attack prison near capital, Abuja

Hundreds of prisoners, including scores of terrorists, were on the run in Nigeria after suspected Islamist militants attacked a prison near the capital, Abuja.

Gunmen armed with explosives blasted into Kuje medium-security prison, on the outskirts of Abuja, at about 10pm on Tuesday, freeing nearly 900 of the prison’s 994 inmates, government officials said.

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Turkey should face international court over Yazidi genocide, report says

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Exclusive: Investigation by group of prominent human rights lawyers also criticises Syria and Iraq

Turkey should face charges in front of the international court of justice for being complicit in acts of genocide against the Yazidi people, while Syria and Iraq failed in their duty to prevent the killings, an investigation endorsed by British human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy has said.

The groundbreaking report, compiled by a group of prominent human rights lawyers, is seeking to highlight the binding responsibility states have to prevent genocide on their territories, even if they are carried out by a third party such as Islamic State (IS).

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Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam found guilty of murder and jailed for life

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Abdeslam was only survivor of 10-man terrorist unit that struck in city, killing 130 people, in 2015

Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the 10-man unit that carried out coordinated terror attacks in Paris in 2015, has been found guilty of murder and sentenced to full life in prison, the toughest sentence available under French law.

Abdeslam, 32, a Brussels-born French citizen, was found guilty of taking part in the series of bombings and shootings across the French capital, which killed 130 people and injured more than 490.

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UK lawyers gather evidence for action against countries over Yazidi genocide

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Yazidi Justice Committee has been working privately for more than two years to show states failed to protect minority group

A group of high-level British lawyers have been working privately on compiling evidence to show that one or more countries failed in their international obligations to prevent genocide against the Yazidis in northern Iraq.

The lawyers, who formally announced their collaboration as the Yazidi Justice Committee (YJC) on Tuesday, have been working over the past two and a half years to investigate the genocide committed from early 2013 by Islamic State.

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