Lt. General Vincent Stewart, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said on Thursday that he feared Iraq and Syria might never recover from the Islamic State invasion, Syrian civil war, and related stress factors. “I’m having a tough time seeing it come back together,” Stewart confessed, as quoted by the Associated Press.
During a week in which the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet has fought off three violent mobs at two of its headquarters, a rival columnist supportive of Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has threatened the life of Hurriyet writer Ahmet Hakan, noting that the AKP has “been merciful today and you are still alive,” but that can always change.
Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper has suffered a second, bolder attack on headquarters in both Istanbul and Ankara, following an attack earlier this week in which Islamists broke office doors with stones and sticks, while yelling, “Allahu akbar.”
The head of Turkey’s People’s Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş, stated this week that his Kurdish-friendly party had experienced more than 400 attacks by Islamists and Turkish nationalists in the last two days.
Contents: Egypt’s army starts ‘The Martyr’s Right’ operation in North Sinai; Turkey’s troops enter northern Iraq to hunt PKK after terror attacks; Violence spreads in cities across Turkey; Pro-government mobs in Turkey storm Hurriyet offices for alleged Erdogan misquote; Turkey appears to be approaching civil war.
No sooner did the Turkish government release two British reporters for Vice News, arrested while covering clashes between police and the militant youth wing of the Kurdish PKK party, than they arrested a Dutch reporter working in the Kurdish region of Turkey.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist terror group, has claimed 31 Turkish soldiers were killed in the latest clashes with national authorities, a death toll Turkey denies. Violence continues unabated in PKK-controlled areas, as Turkey’s government vows to eradicate the Kurdish group.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered an angry speech on Thursday condemning Europe and “the West” for its responsibility in creating the migrant crisis currently consuming Europe, accusing Western countries of turning the Mediterranean Sea into a “graveyard.”
Former CIA director and retired Army general David Petraeus is suggesting America should team up with al-Qaeda to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
According to the Kurdish news agency Rudaw, two unknown gunmen carried out a hit-and-run attack on the Islamic State’s radio station in Mosul this weekend.
ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Kurdish forces attacked Islamic State insurgents in a cluster of villages in Iraq’s northern province of Kirkuk on Wednesday, bent on securing territory they have gained in the course of rolling back the jihadists since last
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told Reuters the government and the U.S. agreed on a “comprehensive” air operations against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) on the border of Syria. However, U.S. officials denied any agreement took place.
Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News sent some reporters to tour the Silvan district of Diyarbakir province in southeastern Turkey on Friday, after two days of fighting between Kurdish PKK separatists (or, more precisely, their “youth wing,” the YDG-H) and Turkish security forces.
A recent report by the Iraqi parliament blamed former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for losing the vital city of Mosul to the Islamic State, going so far as to recommend criminal charges against Maliki and his colleagues.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) declared an autonomous region in the Dersim province on Tuesday. The PKK is a Marxist-Lenin group and noted as a terrorist organization by the U.S., EU, and NATO.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) has released its first Turkish-language video, a fiery rant by an unidentified graybeard surrounded by the usual armed thugs in which the Turkish people are urged to reject democracy, overthrow the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, fight the United States, and do everything they can to assist the Islamic State and its “Caliph,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The United States has announced that its Patriot defensive missile batteries will be pulled from Turkey and “redeployed” to the U.S. this fall, ostensibly to receive “critical modernization upgrades” following a “review of global missile defense posture,” as the U.S. Embassy in Turkey put it.
Senior U.S. officials believe the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS) deployed mustard gas against Kurdish fighters this week in what would be the first confirmed use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) by the terror state. There were also reports last month of possible chlorine gas deployment by ISIS in Iraq, but those reports have not yet been confirmed, and Reuters points out that “chlorine is not a banned chemical agent.”
The United States believes Islamic State militants likely used mustard agent in an attack on Kurdish forces in Iraq earlier this week, the first indication the militant group has obtained a banned chemical weapon, the Wall Street Journal reported on
Two days after American F-16s arrived at Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base, authorities are confirming that manned American airstrikes are being conducted from Turkey into Syria, the first time since the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) that such activity has occurred. The arrival of American troops to Syrian skies follows confusion regarding whether Turkey and the United States have agreed to create a “buffer zone” free of jihadis and Kurds in Syria.
Iraqi Peshmerga officials told Kurdish media outlet Rudaw that the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) is using chemical weapons against Peshmerga soldiers in Makhmur, Iraq.
For the first time since Turkey declared it had launched a military campaign to create an “ISIS-free zone” in Syria following the terror attack in Suruç, Turkey, the Islamic State has initiated a new, alarmingly successful offensive near the Turkish border.
The Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria, is reportedly pulling back from the proposed buffer zone area, which suggests they think the Americans and Turks are serious about the project.
A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter named Mamend Rasul claims that, while he was off fighting against ISIS, serving as a company commander, a force supported by the Western powers and heavily relied upon to keep the rapacious terror state in check, Turkish F-16s bombed the Iraqi village of Zergaly where his family lived, killing his 63-year-old sister, 61-year-old brother, and a cousin.
As mentioned last week, President Obama’s desultory attempt to influence the bloody chaos in Syria with a mere handful of U.S.-trained and equipped Syrian rebels brought contempt and stunned disbelief from across the Arab world.
