The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has deployed 6,000 Peshmerga troops to the disputed Kirkuk region in Iraq, as Shiite militias have reportedly approached the city under the auspices of the government in Baghdad, which has rejected the KRG’s independence referendum.
Representatives of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq (KRG), including a spokesman for the Peshmerga, has requested the United States increase its aid to the group as the Peshmerga undergo a major restructuring intended to evolve them from one of the most effective militias in Iraq into the military of an independent Kurdistan.
Iraqi officials are preparing for the arrival of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to the nation’s largest city, Mosul, to declare victory after three years of Islamic State (ISIS) control.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday that a future war waged by Israel against Syria or Lebanon could draw thousands of fighters from countries including Iran and Iraq.
Iran has called in the Swiss charge d’affaires, who looks after US interests, to protest against comments by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson backing “peaceful transition” in the Islamic republic.
Concerns are growing amongst Iraqi Kurdish officials over the presence of Shiite-majority Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitaries in Northern Iraq where many territories remain controlled by the Islamic State.
Iraq has launched an investigation into alleged violations of human rights and other abuses against civilians purportedly committed by some of the country’s service members and their allies, including Iran-backed Shiite fighters.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government of carrying out “nothing short of a massacre” in Aleppo, where thousands on Thursday were evacuated under a ceasefire deal from the last rebel enclave in a city besieged by fighting for years.
Islamic State “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has released a new audio message encouraging his jihadis not to flee the battlefields of Mosul, the terrorist group’s last major stronghold in Iraq. The message follows reports that Baghdadi may be in danger himself as he has chosen to hide in Mosul, not the Islamic State “capital” of Raqqa, Syria.
A Reuters report has confirmed that Shiite militias closely aligned with the Iranian government and the terror group Hezbollah are actively participating in the liberation of Mosul, Iraq, from the Islamic State, following repeated denials from the Pentagon.
On the eerily quiet streets of Mosul, fighters from the Islamic State group are killing suspected spies, blocking roads and planting bombs ahead of a showdown with Iraqi forces.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — American troops, including some who are embedded with advancing forces, are “in harm’s way” as they collaborate with troops from Iraq, the Kurdish Peshmerga, and Iran-linked Shiite militias in the fight to retake Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), according to the Pentagon.
The United Nations says it bracing for the world’s biggest and most complex humanitarian effort in the upcoming battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul, which could make up to 1 million people homeless and see civilians used as human shields or even gassed.
Up to 3,000 Iranian-backed fighters, including members of the Lebanese-based narco-terrorist group Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have joined the Syrian troops and their Russian allies to launch a massive ground and air offensive against the rebel-held sector of Aleppo city, reports Fox News.
The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah publicized new footage from its July 2006 attack that launched the Second Lebanon War.
A powerful Iraqi Shiite cleric whose militiamen battled US forces after the 2003 invasion has said that hundreds more American troops being sent to Iraq are “a target for us”.
An American commander is contradicting the claim by Iraqi military leaders that the city of Fallujah has been “liberated” from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL/IS), claiming, instead, that only one-third of the city has been cleared of an ISIS presence, and the rest is littered with traps and bombs for incoming soldiers.
Shiite militias in Iraq, many of them backed by state sponsor of terror Iran, have been accused of torturing “hundreds” of Sunni civilians captured during the ongoing battle to retake Fallujah from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
A shadowy anti-American Iraqi jihadist is currently serving as the most influential commander of the Iran-backed Shiite militia movement taking part in the offensive to retake Fallujah from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), reports The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists are using “several hundred families” in Fallujah as “human shields” as they engage in bloody battles with Iraqi troops, backed by the United States and Iran-allied Shiite militias, for control over the strategic city, reports the United Nations Refugee Agency.
ISIS is fighting back Tuesday after its stronghold, Falluja, was surrounded by Iraqi forces.
Kurdish and Arab forces – including U.S.-backed Iraqi troops, Shiite militias linked to Iran, Peshmerga troops, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – have launched offensives targeting three major Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
A major offensive to recapture the key Iraqi city of Fallujah from the Islamic State is underway, with U.S. airstrikes pounding the area while Iraq sends in 20,000 troops and federal police forces, in addition to Shiite militia.
The Iraqi army is struggling in its efforts to retake Mosul in northern Iraq from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), revealed Reuters on Friday, the second day of an offensive described as the beginning of a broader campaign.
Iraq’s U.S.-backed military has launched an offensive to liberate the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
Iraqi militia groups supported by Iran have been seizing Christian property in Baghdad, including homes, businesses, and churches, in a process described as “ethnic cleansing” by Iraqi Christian community leaders.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) claimed it orchestrated Sunday’s triple suicide bombing that killed more than 70 people and injured at least 100 others in a Damascus suburb amid the United Nations-brokered peace talks to end Syria’s brutal civil war, which has been raging since March 2011.
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.
On Wednesday, masked gunmen wearing military uniforms kidnapped 18 Turkish nationals from a sports stadium they were building in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, according to their employer, Ankara-based Turkish conglomerate Nurol Holding.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) has released a new graphic video showing an execution of four Shiite “spies” being burned alive, allegedly in Anbar, Iraq’s largest province.
The Shiite militia movement in Iraq known as Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Units, has launched an attack to retake Fallujah from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), prompting the jihadist group to declare a state of emergency inside the city, Rudaw reports quoting an Iraqi military source.
Eight-hundred Middle East Christians have volunteered to join the Hashd al-Shaabi Shiite militias, known in English as the Popular Mobilization Units, the Iraqi Al Mada reported Sunday.
Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S., and Shiite militias linked to Iran, seized back “key parts of the northern refinery town of Baiji” from Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists on Sunday, according to media reports.
Syrian troops and Iraqi forces backed by Shiite fighters are bolstering their efforts to root out the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) from key territory in both countries.
A Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament claims there is a nearly 30,000-strong force made up of Iranian soldiers and military experts fighting against the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq.
