‘You will conquer Rome and own the world’
Al-Baghdadi says in a recruiting video for ISIS that the self-declared caliphate, now known as Islamic State, will defeat the Vatican and conquer the globe.
Rush O Muslims to your state. It is your state. Syria is not for Syrians and Iraq is not for Iraqis. The land is for the Muslims, all Muslims. This is my advice to you. If you hold to it you will conquer Rome and own the world, if Allah wills.
Kurds seize Kirkuk
Kurdish peshmerga fighters take complete control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk – known as the ‘Kurdish Jerusalem’ – after government troops flee as ISIS advances across the north of the country and takes the city of Mosul. Kirkuk governor Najmaldin Karim:
The army disappeared.
Shoresh Haji, a Kurdish member of Iraq’s Parliament:
I hope that the Kurdish leadership will not miss this golden opportunity to bring Kurdish lands in the disputed territories back under Kurdish control. It is a very sad situation for Mosul, but at the same time, history has presented us with only one or two other moments at which we could regain our territory, and this is an opportunity we cannot ignore.
Declares Islamic state
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria declare that they have set up a caliphate spanning large areas of the two countries. In recently released audio and written announcements, a person claiming to be the groups official spokesman called on all Muslims to swear allegiance to the caliphate, which means Islamic state. The group says its flag now flies from Aleppo province in northwestern Syria to Diyala province in eastern Iraq, although CNN could not confirm this. The group announced that it was changing its name to just the “Islamic State.”
Declares ‘Caliphate’
ISIS declares itself a Caliphate, calling on other factions to pledge allegiance in a statement posted on jihadist websites. The group says that it has renamed itself Islamic State to reflect its new status. Spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani declares ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi the head of the Islamic world:
He is the imam and khalifah (Caliph) for the Muslims everywhere.
US drones over Baghdad
A US official confirms to CNN that US drones began flying over the city over the past 24 hours to provide extra protection for the 180 US military advisers that are currently located there. The use of the drones for offensive strikes against the insurgent Islamic State in Iraq and Syria fighters would require approval from President Obama.
Magazine 4th edition
ISIS propaganda wing Al-Hayat Media Center publishes the fourth edition of the Islamic State magazine (pdf here). Expanded to eight pages from six and retitled IS Report, the publication leads with a feature titled ‘Smashing The Borders of the Rebels’ and a cover photo showing militants freely crossing the Syria-Iraq border. The subtitle – ‘The Battle of Asadullah Al-Bilawi’ – is an apparent reference to the group’s operation to take control of Mosul, named after a now-deceased ISIS commander. The cover story focuses on in-depth analysis of the historical background of regional geopolitics, including the Sykes-Picot agreement which determined the borders of modern-day Iraq and Syria. It says the group took control of the border region between Nineveh province in Iraq and al-Barakah province in Syria, demolishing ‘artificial barriers’ set up as ‘crusader partitions’ by the Western powers in an effort to restore the Islamic caliphate:
Last week, the mujahidin of the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham reached yet another signicant milestone on the path to restoring the prophetic khilafah.
It says it executed 1,700 Iraqi soldiers in the battle for Mosul, and includes a photo feature apparently showing the men being marched to their deaths.
Takes control of oil fields
Sunni militants in Iraq take control of several oil fields. The militants launched a dawn raid on the Beiji refinery, which along with a nearby power plant supplies Iraq with approximately one-third of its fuel and one-tenth of its electricity. A Western diplomat tells Britain’s Daily Telegraph:
We have used the word crisis about Iraq before, but this is the real thing. Iraq’s political leaders now mostly realize the problems. But has it translated into action yet? It has not.
Officials: Iraq warned of ISIS theat
Iraq received warnings about the “growing threat” from Sunni militants in Iraq as early as the beginning of 2014. US intelligence agencies say:
During the past year, the intelligence community has provided strategic warning of Iraq’s deteriorating security situation. We routinely highlighted (ISIS’) growing threat in Iraq, the increasing difficulties Iraq’s security forced faced in combating (ISIS), and the political strains that were contributing to Iraq’s declining stability…We knew exactly what strategy they were going to use, we knew the military planners.
Aside from the warnings from US intelligence agencies, both The Telegraph and Daily Beast are claiming Kurdish sources did warn American and British officials that ISIS was gaining strength and was ready to advance, but it “fell on deaf ears.”
1075 killed this month
According to a U.N human rights team in Iraq, at total 1075 have died this month, including at least 757 civilians and 599 injured in Nineveh, Diyala and Salah al-Din provinces between June 5th and June 22nd as troops led by Shiite-led government in Baghdad failed to stop the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS.
This figure — which should be viewed very much as a minimum — includes a number of verified summary executions and extra-judicial killings of civilians, police, and soldiers who were hors (de) combat
4,000 Shiite Turkmen families flee
Around 4,000 Shiite Turkmen families have fled from the northern villages of Chardaghli, Brawchi, Karanaz and Bashir to Shiite areas after residents report expulsions and massacres by ISIS. An organizer says about 400 families — at least a few thousand people — have registered in the Kirkuk neighborhood of Wasiti while many more are thought to be in other parts of the city and the town of Tuz Khurmatu:
But there are around 4,000 families in all
Expels Shiite Turkmen from villages
ISIS expels Shiite Turkmen from villages in an operation that leaves between 15 and 25 people dead including an old man and a woman, children and youths. The attacks take place in neighbouring Chardaghli, Brawchi and Karanaz 50 miles south of Kirkuk in Salahduin province, which links west to Baghdad, as well as Beshir, 30 miles north of the other three villages. Residents from each village say that after they left, their Sunni neighbors burned down their homes, set fire to their wheat, and stole their sheep, while insurgents blew up some Shiite mosques. Hassan Ali, a 52-year-old farmer who has fled to Kirkuk:
You cannot imagine what happened, only if you saw it could you believe it
Around 7,000 Shiites fleeing Beshir come under sniper fire as they pass neighboring Sunni villages. Residents of three Sunni northern villages also abandon their homes to flee into Sunni-majority areas through fear of reprisals.
Takes four strategic towns
ISIS takes four strategic towns located along a highway from Syria to Baghdad and could help the militants gain control of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Iraqi forces withdrew from Haditha, about 270 kilometers (about 168 miles) northwest of Baghdad, during the overnight hours. Sunni tribes considered friendly to the Iraqi army took over security for the town, but officials believe it will fall to ISIS. Iraq’s military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, told reporters there was a “strategic withdrawal” in some areas but did not detail the specific locations.
‘150 Australians in Syria’
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says that about 150 Australians are fighting in Syria:
In Syria, it seems that over a period of time they have moved from supporting more moderate opposition groups to the more extreme, and that includes this brutal extremist group ISIS
Radicalized fighters could pose a domestic threat:
We are concerned that Australians are working with them [ISIS], becoming radicalized, learning the terrorist trade, and if they come back to Australia, of course it poses a security threat. I’ve canceled a number of passports on the advice of intelligence agencies.
Texan terror suspect ‘tied to Florida case’
A separate Florida case appears to share ties to a complaint against Round Rock, Tx., native Rahatul Ashikim Khan. The Florida case alleges that possible co-conspirators had been funding three groups, designated by the U.S. as terrorist organizations, that have operated in Iraq, Syria and Somalia. The Texas complaint alleges that between March 2011 and January 2012, Khan worked with others to assist a confidential informant who claimed to want to move to Somalia and join al-Shabaab. His co-conspirators are unidentified but two have been charged in the Florida case with supporting foreign terrorist organizations.
Google removes ‘Dawn’ app
Google removes the ISIS app ‘Dawn of Glad Tidings’ from the Play store after it is widely reported by media. The app, which posts ISIS-created content including hashtags, links and images over users’ Twitter accounts, has been available for around two months and has been downloaded thousands of times. Google spokesman:
We remove any applications that breach our community guidelines.
‘Dawn’ app
ISIS publishes an Arabic-language Android app titled ‘Dawn of Glad Tidings’ or ‘Dawn.’ After users provide personal information, the app tweets content created by ISIS including hashtags, images and links over the user’s account. With hundreds of users, the app reaches an all-time high of 40,000 tweets in a day during ISIS’s invasion of Mosul. This places an image of an armed fighter gazing at the ISIS flag flying over Mosul with the caption ‘We are coming, Baghdad,’ near the top of image searches for the Iraqi capital city.
$2 billion in funds
ISIS has over $2 billion in the bank, more than some small countries such as Tonga and the Marshall Islands, according to information captured on a batch of 160 flash disks. The majority of the wealth comes from seizure of assets by the group in its takeover of Mosul. A senior intelligence official:
By the end of the week, we soon realised that we had to do some accounting for them. Before Mosul, their total cash and assets were $875 million. Afterwards, with the money they robbed from banks and the value of the military supplies they looted, they could add another $1.5 billion to that
It also has income from oilfields in northeastern Syria captured in 2012, smuggling of raw materials, and looting of the Assad administration’s crumbling government assets, but the extra cash allows the group to operate as a de facto caliphate in its own right:
They had taken $36m from al-Nabuk alone [an area in the Qalamoun mountains west of Damascus]. The antiquities there are up to 8,000 years old. Before this, the western officials had been asking us where they had gotten some of their money from, $50,000 here, or $20,000 there. It was peanuts. Now they know and we know. They had done this all themselves. There was no state actor at all behind them, which we had long known. They don’t need one.
Military regroups
The Iraqi military achieves a stalemate with ISIS and makes some minor advances in areas north of Baghdad as the government attempts to rebuild the capacity of the armed forces. Fighting outside Tikrit, 87 miles (140km) north of Baghdad, comes as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issue recruiting calls for Shiite civilians. Al-Maliki assesses the security forces:
The Iraqi fighter is well known for his courage and valor, he has never been known to be defeated or deserted […] What happened in Mosul was a conspiracy and a connivance.
Pamphlet on statehood
Islamic State in Iraq, the group that will later become ISIS, publishes a pamphlet challenging the concept of statehood having absolute control over territory. It lists freeing Sunnis from prison as among its most important goals. On administering services to citizens under its control:
Improving their conditions is less important than the condition of their religion.
Ar-Raqqawi Reddit AMA
Ar-Raqqawi answers questions about life under ISIS in the self-professed Caliphate’s capital. On whether there are positives from the implementation of Shariah law:
In my opinion ISIS has done nothing good, except we aren’t being shelled anymore, so that’s the bright side. They aren’t really trying to win the hearts and minds here. They run the “Da’wah” tents for children, but those are dangerous. They’ve convinced many kids to join ISIS, without their parent’s knowledge. It’s brainwashing.
There’s always a “barrier”between ISIS members and civilians. Today an ISIS guy dressed in civilian clothing went into a store and said “could I buy some cigarettes, but I don’t want the ISIS guys to know”. The shop owner closes shop, and hands him a pack. The guy then leaves and calls up an ISIS truck, and they search his shop and burn the cigarettes.