The ongoing fight to retake Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) is taking place in a political arena, rather than a battlefield, where Iraq’s rival ethnic and religious groups are duking it out over how to go about liberating the strategically important city, reports Foreign Policy (FP).
The Navy SEAL killed in an ISIS attack near Mosul has been identified as Charles Keating IV, 31, of Arizona.
A U.S. Navy SEAL was killed when the Islamic State broke through Kurdish lines to attack a Peshmerga position “approximately three to five kilometers behind the forward line of troops,” according to Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook.
An American serviceman has become the second to be killed by Islamic State after fighters broke through the line of defense during an operation in northern Iraq. Defense Secretary Ash Carter confirmed Tuesday that the serviceman died near the city
Fox News reports that “members of the broad coalition poised to retake the key city” of Mosul have admitted the long-awaited decisive battle against the Islamic State has stalled because Iraqi forces broke and ran from battle again.
The Iraqi military has announced that it is halting its operation to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS), as they wait for Baghdad to send police and military reinforcements to continue capturing the villages surrounding Iraq’s second-largest city.
A fighter for the Kurdish Peshmerga named Ferhang tells Breitbart News Daily with host Stephen K. Bannon: “We are very determined to fight the evil that is in front of us. The Peshmerga are fighting this evil for the world. That’s why I think it’s important for the world to support the Peshmerga against this evil.”
Iraqi army troops, due to bad weather conditions, were forced to suspend their offensive to seize back Mosul, northern Iraq’s largest second city that was conquered by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) last year, according to the Iraqi peshmerga forces commander.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting alongside the Iraqi military on the mission to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State warn that the Iraqi army is “too weak” to fight ISIS, even with its advanced weaponry, while the peshmerga is better trained but ill-equipped to fight alone.
Mohamad Jamal Khweis, the Virginia resident taken into custody by Kurdish fighters after he bailed on the Islamic State, delivered the understatement of the year when he told a Kurdish TV interviewer that he “made a bad decision” by joining ISIS and “was not thinking straight.”
The Obama administration is contemplating providing an emergency aid package to the cash-strapped Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq because it has been unable to pay its Peshmerga force, which has received military assistance from Russia.
Kurdish peshmerga fighters say they have detained an American, 27-year-old Virginia resident Muhammad Jamal Amin, after he defected from the Islamic State and tried to escape into Turkey.
Ynetnews reports: A Palestinian-American member of the Islamic State group gave himself up to an Iraqi Kurdish military unit in the country’s north, an Iraqi Kurdish general said Monday. The circumstances of the surrender were not fully disclosed, but it marked
Most reporting on the Syrian Kurds depicts them as fairly unified behind their Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia against the menace of the Islamic State. In truth, there are Kurdish opposition parties, and they have been complaining about the PYD using heavy-handed tactics to suppress them.
According to an eyewitness in Northern Iraq, Islamic State jihadists used chemical weapons against the Kurdish Peshmerga this week. Dave Eubanks with the Free Burma Rangers witnessed the use of chemical weapons by the terror group during a current relief mission in Iraqi Kurdistan, where he is helping internally displaced persons (IDP) and doing medical treatment and training.
The Yazidi all-female battalion group the Sun Ladies continues to grow in Iraq to fight against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
#UnitedWeWin is a short documentary that follows four university students that travel to the front lines of Iraq to see what the international community is doing in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Peshmerga forces have rejected a recent report by human rights NGO Amnesty International, accusing them of burning and destroying Arab homes in northern Iraq, as baseless, Rudaw reports.
CNN describes a 12-year-old boy nicknamed “Nasir” as “one of the lucky ones,” because he managed to escape from the Islamic State’s suicide bomber program. He says some of his fellow trainees were as young as 5 years old.
American and other Western volunteers fighting the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria recently told the Kurdish outlet Rudaw they were gearing up for a new offensive against the jihadists in the new year. One American volunteer recalled how thousands demanded photos with him on a routine visit to a mall in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
A newly released video captured Kurdish freedom fighters blowing up an Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) suicide bomber, who was attempting to drive a Ford pickup truck carrying a ton of TNT across the Kurdish frontline near Mosul in northern Iraq.
For the first time in months Islamic State militants mounted a major attack in northern Iraq late Wednesday, but its forces were soundly repelled by Kurdish Peshmerga forces aided by U.S. and coalition air strikes.
To the extent the fight abroad surfaced as a topic, however, a common refrain reared its head, leaving many questions unanswered: “we should arm the Kurds.”
Turkey claimed it would not remove troops already in Iraq, but agreed not to send more as it continued to work with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
The government of Turkey announced Friday that it has deployed 150 soldiers and 20 tanks to Mosul, Iraq, to participate with the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
Heavy weapons from the United States destined for Iraq’s Kurdish peshmerga forces fighting the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) have arrived in Kuwait and are expected to be delivered in a month, a senior peshmerga official told Rudaw.
While nominally working against a common enemy—the Islamic State (ISIS)—the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a U.S.-designated terrorist group, has occupied a number of Christian Assyrian villages in Iraq. The Marxist group has also invaded a home owned by a commander of the anti-ISIS Christian militia Dwekh Nawsha.
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The United States is expected to deploy up to 200 special operation forces to combat the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria, including some who will participate in ground combat operations, U.S. defense officials have said.
The Iraqi Kurdistan military, known as the Peshmerga, boast hundreds of female recruits fighting the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani suggested in an interview this week that his forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga, could travel to Raqqa, Syria and participate in an assault to liberate it from the Islamic State (ISIS).
The Popular Mobilization Units (Hashd al-Shaabi), a Shiite militia movement in Iraq, has continued to attack Kurdish territory in an attempt to push back Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and take full control of the area, reports BasNews.
As the cheer of victory over the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) begins to dim in newly liberated Sinjar, Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have begun the work of rebuilding a city ravaged by the terrorist group. On Thursday, KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani announced plans to return electricity to Sinjar.
After more than a year under the control of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), Kurdish Peshmerga forces have liberated Sinjar City. As the impromptu street parades end and the local Yazidi population slowly trickles back in, civilians must begin the arduous reconstruction of a city in ruins.
Kurdish forces are reporting they have uncovered two mass graves while on patrol in Sinjar, Iraq, on Sunday, after liberating that city from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) control.
After the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) captured Sinjar, the surviving Yazidis fled onto Mount Sinjar. A year later, those forced from their homes will do anything to take back everything stolen by the terrorist group.
The war against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) has reportedly presented an old gun shop in the Iraqi Kurdistan capital of Erbil with opportunities for new streams of revenue.
The life of a Kurdish peshmerga fighter is not easy. Rudaw reports on the latest hardship bedeviling those on the front lines against ISIS: Swarms of insects, large and aggressive enough to raise concerns about the health of those caught in their path.
Yazidi militias organized to fight the Islamic State in Sinjar, northern Iraq are protesting that the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist terrorist group operating out of Syria and Turkey, have prevented them from launching a mission to recapture Sinjar City after the terrorists stormed the region in 2014.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) launched a relatively rare attack behind Kurdish lines in northern Iraq, briefly occupying a local government compound located in the vicinity of several oil-producing fields.
SINJAR MOUNTAIN, Iraq– While the U.S. is claiming to be on the move against ISIS, the reality on the ground is that ISIS has brought in more than 100 vehicles as reinforcements in the Sinjar area alone, with an increase in heavy shelling by Islamic State on Sinjar Mountain.
