Three Americans kidnapped
The US Embassy in Iraq says that its nationals are “missing” after local media outlets say that three Americans had been kidnapped in Baghdad. Local security forces conduct house-to-house searches, but have not yet found the missing Americans. Citing privacy concerns, embassy officials decline to identify the Americans involved. State Department:
The safety and security of Americans abroad is our highest priority.
Market bombings
ISIS say they were behind two suicide bombs in Baghdad that killed at least 23 people and wounded more than 60. Among the dead were police and civilians. The suicide bombers hit police checkpoints in market places during morning rush-hour. The bombers were said to have been on foot and wearing explosives vests. Four people are killed in a third blast in a nearby district, but it is unclear who was behind it.
Iraq bombings
Jihadists kill 33 people in two suicide bombings in Iraq, including 20 at a central market area in Huwaydir. Islamic State claims responsibility.
Car bomb kills 120
A car bomb kills 120 people and injures hundreds of citizens at a busy market in Khan Bani Saad, north of the capital Baghdad. The Islamic State says one of its members drove three tonnes of explosives into a crowd. Police:
Some people were using vegetable boxes to collect children’s body parts.
Claims Iraq bombing responsibility
ISIS claims responsibility for an attack targeting a gathering of Shiite militias in Khan Bani Saad, which is in Diyala province, about thirty five kilometers north of Baghdad. Most of the residents are Shiites. Videos posted on social media show a large swath of fire at the scene, with bodies and debris over a wide area. Several multistory buildings appeared to have been heavily damaged by the blast.
Blows up army headquarters
ISIS kills forty Iraqi soldiers by blowing up more than three hundred explosives placed under army headquarters at Anbar, Iraq. Sabah Karhoot, chairman of the region’s governing council :
ISIS militants were digging and planting IEDs under an HQ of an Iraqi army while the security forces knew nothing about it
Destroys ancient city of Nimrud
ISIS militants bulldoze the ancient Iraqi city of Nimrud in a fresh attack on country’s cultural and historical heritage. Jack Green, chief curator of the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago:
It’s the deliberate destruction of a heritage and its images, intended to erase history and the identity of the people of Iraq, whether in the past or the present
Turning churches into torture chambers
ISIS is reported to be turning Christian churches into torture chambers and stripping the former places of worship of ancient relics, which they are smuggling to Western collectors to help fund their terrorist activity. Christians are being held captive in make-shift torture chambers set up in raided churches in Qaraqosh. Jerusalem Post report:
This is why they are crucifying Christians — which includes children — destroying churches and selling artifacts. ‘The reality is, this group will stop at practically nothing to raise funds for its terrorist mission.
Met chief: Five Britons a week travel to join jihad
Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe says the figure is a minimum, and the ‘drumbeat of terrorism in the UK’ is now ‘faster and more intense’.
Those are the ones that we believe have gone. There may be many more who set out to travel to another country and meandered over to Syria and Iraq in a way that is not always possible to spot when you have failed states and leaky borders.
Reaper drones may get attack role
The UK government is reported to redeploy drones based in Afghanistan to Iraq and Syria, where they may get authorization to deploy Hellfire missiles. They will be based in Kuwait and controlled via satellite link from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. Whitehall official:
The Reapers would be very useful for intel on Isis in Syria for ourselves and our allies; that would be their primary purpose. Their use in combat would obviously depend on parliamentary approval – unless we have a need for them to secure the wellbeing of British subjects or prevent a humanitarian crisis.
Launches 15 attacks
ISIS launches 15 near-simultaneous attacks on Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. It also attackes peshmerga forces at the Mosul dam and nearby in the Nineveh Valley, and at Mt. Sinjar. Hazhar Ismail, brigadier general at the Ministry of Peshmerga:
ISIS failed in their attempt to control the village of Sharaf ad-Din after Peshmerga forces repelled the attack and managed to kill a number of ISIS militants.
The group seized two villages in an area close to Sharaf ad-Din, in Sinjar, but the villages were unpopulated as a result of ISIS attacks in August.
Dragons Egg weapons cache may have been opened
Soldiers are concerned that the contents of the most secret bunker of Saddam Hussein’s regime, known as the Dragon’s Egg, may have been unsealed after reports that ISIS may be using chemical weapons. The X-shaped bunker was sealed with cement and was treated differently from other storage spaces at the Al Muthanna facility, says Lt. Joshua Hartley, who was stationed there in 2008 with the weapons company of the U.S. Marine Corps Second Division’s First Battalion.
We were made aware of a particular bunker on the north side [of Al Muthanna] which we were informed was sealed and remotely monitored. We were not to approach, and definitely not to attempt to enter.
He says it is an open secret that the bunker contained large amounts of the regime’s most dangerous nerve agents. Gen. Jack Kean, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, says the Dragons Egg and other caches could be used against troops:
Frankly, the weapons could be used by ISIS. Our troops’ mission was not to clean this up; that was something the Iraqis were supposed to do, and obviously they didn’t do a very good job of it. I know from talking to people who were involved, that the Sunni insurgents used some of these weapons as IED’s against us.
Close to completing Anbar takeover – report
Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn writes in The Independent that ISIS is close to taking over the province and threatening western Baghdad. He says that an ISIS offensive launched on Oct. 2 has captured almost all the cities and towns it did not already hold in Anbar , taking Hit, Kubaisa and the provincial capital Ramadi. Other cities, towns and bases on or close to the Euphrates River west of Baghdad fell in a few days, often after little resistance by the Iraqi Army, even when backed by US air strikes.
Turkish hostages free
Dozens of Turkish hostages are free after three months in captivity. They were captured in June by ISIS militants. Hostages included Consul general Ozturk Yilmaz and his family. It is unclear how they have been freed, but Erdogan thanks Turkish intelligence officials in a statement on his website.
I thank … every single member of the National Intelligence Agency from the director to the field operatives. I congratulate them for their big success from the bottom of my heart.
Executes eight Sunnis
ISIS executes eight people in a Sunni village over the course of two days. An eyewitness says that on Friday night a pair of masked ISIS gunmen openly murdered a police officer in al-Jumasah village, 75 miles north of Tikrit, after accusing him of spying for the Kurdish and Iraqi military forces. They gather residents in the village square to watch the execution:
Islamic State members said that this is the fate of anyone who opposes them. They presented as evidence CDs and copies of the man’s correspondences with the security forces.
A small group of villagers opens fire on the house of an ISIS officer after the policeman’s killing. On Saturday morning, 10 Islamic State cars drive around al-Jumasah with two masked informants who help identify 10 people suspected of attacking the ISIS member’s house. On Saturday evening, three are released and seven others – all but one relatives of the slain policeman – are executed.
Jeddah Communique
The leaders of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the Gulf Cooperation Council – the alliance of Sunni Arab Gulf nations that includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE – sign a document called the stating that they have formally Obama’s coalition against ISIS (full text here). The Jeddah Communique:
The ministers representing states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and the United States declared their shared commitment to stand united against the threat posed by all terrorism, including the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), to the region and the world … The participants resolved to strengthen their support for the new Iraqi Government in its efforts to unite all Iraqis in combatting ISIL and discussed a strategy to destroy ISIL wherever it is, including in both Iraq and Syria.
Mass grave found
A mass grave is found in Nineveh province northwest of Mosul, and is assumed to contain the bodies of prisoners executed by ISIS. Security official:
The residents in the city of Ahmidat, 34 km northwest of al-Mosul, have found a mass grave containing the remains of 400 unidentified bodies, presumably belong to those of whom were executed by firing squads at the prison of Badush [in] June.
Austrian girls detained
Austrian authorities detain two girls attempting to leave the country to join extremist groups in the Middle East. The girls are aged 16 and 14, and their parents are apparently of Iraqi origin. They are caught when the mother of a third friend who was supposed to be traveling with them becomes suspicious about the amount of luggage her daughter is packing. Police are now hoping to find out how they became radicalised, and whether anybody helped them plan their trip to Syria via Turkey.
Identified as top ISIS member
An investigation by ABC’s 7:30 program identifies 33-year-old Mohammad Ali Baryalei from Sydney as Australia’s most senior ISIS member. Baryalei is from an aristocratic Afghan family that came to Australia as refugees as a child, and has worked as a security guard in King’s Cross and made a brief appearance as an extra on the true crime show Underbelly. Police say that in 2013 he traveled to Syria to fight with extremist groups and has since become the top recruiter of Australians to ISIS, involved in its operational command in Syria and Iraq as a facilitator for Australians traveling to join jihad. Baryalei in an intercepted phone call with his handler in Sydney:
Four brothers coming this week. They are leaving Australia. Going to try to get them by the weekend. Abu Qaqa is the tall one that was doing Dawah with you. … The brothers yesterday, they were crying, affected, none of them wanted to stay in this country one second.
Kills 17 Sunnis
ISIS kills at least 17 Sunni tribesmen in an apparent revenge attack. The group deploys an explosives-laden Humvee – apparently captured from the Iraqi military – at an entrance to the town of Dhuluiya, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. Some of the district’s most prominent Sunni tribes, including the Al-Jabour, have been openly fighting the Sunni extremists of ISIS for the last two months.