A senior Iraqi military commander says troops have captured the government complex in western Mosul from the Islamic State group. The advance comes more than two weeks since the new push started to clear the city’s western side of IS.
Category: Iraq
U.S.-backed Iraqi forces capture al-Hurriya bridge in Mosul, spokesman says
The al-Hurriya bridge is the second to be secured by the Iraqi forces in the city, after securing one located further south, in the offensive that started on the western part of Mosul on Feb. 19. “We control the western end of the bridge,” said a senior media officer with Rapid Response, the elite unit of the interior ministry leading the charge through the districts alongside the Tigris river. All of Mosul’s five bridges over the Tigris have been destroyed but their capture and repair would help the offensive against the militants, who have controlled the northern Iraqi city since 2014.
Ten Things You Need to Know Today: Sunday 5 Mar 2017
Donald Trump has been urged to provide evidence to support his sensational claim that Barack Obama ordered his phones to be tapped during the election campaign. Republican senator Ben Sasse said the US President’s allegations were “serious” and he should explain the alleged wire-tapping and how he came to know about it.
World News Schedule at 2200 GMT/1700 Et
A spokesman for Barack Obama rejects claims by U.S. President Donald Trump that the then-president had wiretapped Trump in October during the late stages of the presidential election campaign, saying it was “simply false.” , moved, by David Shepardson, 917 words) WASHINGTON – The White House budget director confirms that the Trump administration will propose “fairly dramatic reductions” in the U.S. foreign aid budget later this month.
Trump seeks ‘historic’ defence build-up, IS offensive
President Donald Trump is seeking what he called a “historic” increase in military spending of more than 9%, a huge rise even as the United States has wound down major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and remains the world’s strongest military power. Also Monday, a Pentagon-led preliminary plan to defeat Islamic State was delivered to the White House and US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis briefed senior administration officials.
British IS ‘suicide bomber was former Guantanamo Bay detainee’
The British IS fighter is said to have detonated an explosives-filled vehicle in a village to the south of Mosul, Iraq. A British Islamic State fighter who is believed to have carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq was a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, according to reports.
Three Immediate Priorities for McMasterby Tom RoganIn 2005, Colonel…
Attempting to secure Tal Afar, a city in northern Iraq, McMaster faced a big problem: He was witnessing an insurgency that was warping from nationalism into , and he knew that the U.S. Army’s “kinetic” focused strategy was making things worse. But, unlike many other field commanders, McMaster decided to buck the Army groupthink.
Not Over: Trump Ban still ruining life of Iraqi Interpreter for US Military
In 2006, when I arrived at Camp Taqqadum in Iraq to embed with the U.S. Marines, I was immediately invited for tea by the unit’s interpreter. A quiet, exceedingly courteous father of three young girls, Haider told me how he spent three months at a time away from his family, but didn’t dare carry their pictures.
Iraqi forces launch push to retake western Mosul from IS
Authorities say they’ve found the body of a man who was swept down a rain-swollen gully during Southern California’s powerful storm. Authorities say they’ve found the body of a man who was swept down a rain-swollen gully during Southern California’s powerful storm.
Leaflets dropped over western Mosul to warn of Iraqi military offensive
The Iraqi Air Force dropped millions of leaflets over western Mosul late Saturday warning residents of an offensive by ground forces on the ISIS-held part of the city, which has so far been targeted only by airstrikes. Iraqi forces have had control of the eastern part of the city, which is divided by the Tigris River, since January.
Bono praises Mike Pence at Munich Security Conference
Good Morning America Showdown! Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan spark rumors of on-set tension after photos emerge of pair in animated talk during taping Girl, 17, who was feared to have been abducted by sex traffickers in Las Vegas is FOUND a day after her distraught mother released a video plea for her return 550lb woman, 75, is found with her skin MOLDED to her chair after being left to sit in the same place for months ‘Shaping and spreading a skein of lies’: Kellyanne Conway attacked by her alma mater’s president in scathing letter rebuking Trump administration The ultimate sacrifice: Heartbreaking moment a grieving widow meets her hero Green Beret husband’s coffin on the airport tarmac – leaving scores of plane passengers in tears Teacher-turned-stripper who ‘slept with her 17-year-old student hundreds of times’ is sentenced to three months in jail and must register as a sex … (more)
The Latest: Pence meets leaders of Iraq, Iraqi Kurds
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Fake News vs Facts: Here’s how President Trump’s press conference claims measure up
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. The facts: By almost every economic measure, Barack Obama inherited a far worse situation when he became president in 2009 than he left for Mr Trump.
Ap Fact Check: Trump piles up the questionable assertions
President Donald Trump made a messy case that he “inherited a mess” from his predecessor. Economic stats and territorial losses of Islamic State insurgents don’t support his assertions about the problems handed to him on those fronts.
Yet Another Report Claims ISIS Leader Has Been Injured
A man purported to be the reclusive leader of the militant Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has made what would be his first public appearance at a mosque in the centre of Iraq’s second city, Mosul, according to a video recording posted on the Internet on July 5, 2014, in this still image taken from video. There had previously been reports on social media that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi would make his first public appearance since his Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant changed its name to the Islamic State and declared him caliph.
Today in History
On Feb. 13, 1967, the Beatles’ double A-sided single “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” was released in the United States by Capitol Records. In 1741, Andrew Bradford of Pennsylvania published the first American magazine.
Today in History Monday, Feb. 13, 2017
On Feb. 13, 1967, the Beatles’ double A-sided single “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” was released in the United States by Capitol Records. In 1741, Andrew Bradford of Pennsylvania published the first American magazine.
With Trumpa s Travel Ban on Hold, Iraqi Family Arrives in Nashville in 2nd Attempt to Reach US
Iraqi citizen Fuad Sharef Suleman and his family landed in Nashville, Tennessee, Sunday night to start a new life, more than a week after they were barred from entering the United States because of their country of origin. It had taken Suleman more than two years to receive U.S. immigrant visas for him, his wife and three children.
Trump says immigration order not a ‘Muslim ban’ as protests, detainments hit airports
The fallout from President Trump’s temporary ban on refugees to the U.S. struck with full force Saturday, blocking some travelers from boarding their planes overseas, compelling others to turn around upon arrival in the U.S., and prompting customs agents at New York’s JFK Airport to detain at least a dozen people, including a former Iraqi translator for the U.S. military in Baghdad. Speaking to hundreds of demonstrators at JFK Airport, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., called the ban ineffective, discriminatory, “disgusting,” and said it “goes against every ounce of our traditions from George Washington onward.”
Barack and the press sniff each other’s asses
WTF was that nonsense today? The press fawns over Barack. Yet again. He tells them that it’s their duty to be skeptical and then lies that they were skeptical of him and his claims.
Discredited Former New York Times Reporter Disregards Her Own Record While Smearing Chelsea Manning
A prominent journalist who spread lies the U.S. government used to sell the war in Iraq-which led to the deaths of an estimated 1 million-plus people-implied that whistleblower Chelsea Manning has blood on her hands for exposing U.S. atrocities in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Manning, who has been serving a 35-year prison sentence for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, had her prison sentence commuted on Tuesday, January 17, after years of pressure from grassroots activists and advocacy groups.
BC-AP News Digest
The main event is Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday, but there are some signs that more Americans are coming to Washington for the day of protests on Saturday, a stark change from past transitions of power from one president to the next. By Jessica Gresko.
Religion Of Peace: Muslims Toss Gay Off Building to Start Off New Year
Highly disturbing images have emerged showing ISIS members throwing a man off the top of a building in Mosul as punishment for being gay. The twisted terrorists blindfolded their victim, believed to be in his late 20s or early 30s, carried his body to the top of a building and then hurled him off.
Confirmation Hearing Update: General “Mad Dog” Mattis, Defense Secretary
Up next we have General Mattis for position of Secretary of Defense. Typically this position must be held by someone who has been a civilian for at least 7 years, a qualification Mattis has not met since he just left uniform service in 2013.
Response to 2011 deaths of US troops shed light on Trump Pentagon pick
The Iranian-supplied rockets were raining down on Gen. James Mattis’ troops throughout the spring and summer of 2011 with greater and greater intensity.
Is Middle East Instability An Opportunity To Apply Leverage?
A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter launches mortar shells towards Zummar, controlled by Islamic State , near Mosul September 15, 2014. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah – RTR46B59 As I have written , even without ISIS, the Middle East, the epicenter of radical Islam, is a complex political-military environment dominated by the Sunni-Shia religious conflict, but influenced by ethnic aspirations, tribal rivalries, regional hegemony, superpower competition and ever-shifting allegiances.
Iraq: Gunmen snatch female journalist from her Baghdad home
The fury of the winter storm that swept into the northern Great Plains on Christmas Day has weakened, but thousands remain without power in the Dakotas and Michigan. The fury of the winter storm that swept into the northern Great Plains on Christmas Day weakened heading into Tuesday, but thousands remained without power in the Dakotas and Michigan.
A Bigger Problem Than ISIS?
On the morning of August 7, 2014, a team of fighters from the Islamic State, riding in pickup trucks and purloined American Humvees, swept out of the Iraqi village of Wana and headed for the Mosul Dam. Two months earlier, had captured Mosul, a city of nearly two million people, as part of a ruthless campaign to build a new caliphate in the Middle East.