Audio recording released
A 17-minute recording apparently of Baghdadi’s voice is released, his first public statement since U.S. airstrikes began against ISIS, and comes six days after he was reported to have been injured in a strike. Baghdadi is said to vow that ISIS will resist the ‘crusader campaign,’ and calls for ‘volcanoes of jihad,’ while saying that the group prefers death to humiliation of defeat or surrender. Recording:
God has ordered us to fight. For that reason the soldiers of the Islamic State are fighting… they will never leave fighting, even if only one soldier remains. They will never leave fighting, because they reject humiliation.
ISIS, Al Qaeda in accord
A Syrian opposition commander and a high level militant say leaders from the two groups met between midnight and 4 a.m. at a farmhouse in northern Syria to agree to stop fighting each other and fight together against their opponents. The accord is believed to be fragile, and won’t soon extend to a full merger of the Islamic State (ISIS) and Nusra, Syria’s Al Qaeda affiliate. But it is expected to increase the level of opposition that more moderate rebels fighting against both the extremist groups and the Assad government, and backed by the U.S.-led international coalition, are facing in the conflict.
Calls the war against ISIS ‘illegal’
Paul calls the war against ISIS ‘illegal’ in an op-ed piece published by the Daily Beast.
This war is now illegal. It must be declared and made valid, or it must be ended.
Video shows slave market
Video appears to show ISIS fighters bargaining over prices for Yazidi women at a slave market. One man says that he will pay more for a girl with blue eyes, while another says he wants a 15-year-old girl with green eyes. Fighter:
Today is distribution day, God willing. Everyone takes his share.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=303_1414937675
UK troops to return to Iraq
Training teams will be sent to the semi-autonomous Kurdish zone, the first UK troop presence in the country since its withdrawal in 2011. Whitehall spokesman:
If Iraq fails or the government becomes sectarian then that is a massive problem
The number of troops isn’t specified.
Terrorists post 90 tweets a minute
The Saudi-based Sakina NGO finds that terrorist groups including ISIS post 90 propaganda tweets a minute. ISIS, Al-Nusra and other groups posted 129,600 tweets in October. Sakina official:
The nature of the extremist can be understood by analysing his posts, identifying his social circle and understanding his internal motives and history
Sydney Shias fear beheading after man shot
The Shia community in Sydney warn that tensions could escalate to an ISIS-style beheading, after an Islamic leader is shot outside his Islamic prayer centre in an industrial part of Greenacre suburb. The preacher is hit in the shoulder and head by pellets hours after people drive past the Shia centre, shouting threats about ISIS. His injuries aren’t life threatening. Shia community leader:
This is a warning, a strong warning. Something bigger could happen. I hear a lot of people in the community warning that something like beheading people could happen here. There is a lot of talk in the community that they need more action from the authorities to prevent this.
Kills 50 tribespeople
ISIS militants are reported to have lined up and shot 50 men, women, and children from the Sunni Al Bu Nimr tribe in the village of Ras al-Maa, north of Ramadi. The number of tribespeople killed in the last few days is now 150.
Air strikes kill 232 civilians in two weeks
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says airstrikes by the Assad government have killed at least 232 civilians in the last two weeks. Among the weapons deployed, the regime has dropped least 401 barrel bombs on rebel-held areas in eight provinces. The regime says that it only uses the weapons against terrorists. A refugee camp in Idlib was hit. A man who says his house in Anadan has been destroyed by barrel bombs three times:
Barrel bombs kill those we love most, they destroy houses, dreams and memories, and leave us without any hope that the killing will ever stop.
U.S.-armed groups surrender to Al Qaeda
Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front, who were meant to form the main line of attack against ISIS and have been receiving heavy weapons including GRAD rockets and TOW anti-tank missiles, surrender military bases and weapons supplies to Nusra, the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, as it storms villages in Idlib. Nusra members announce on Twitter that they have seized the TOW missiles. Some of the rebels are reported to defect to Nusra.
20-30 Gitmo detainees join radical groups
Intelligence and Department of Defense officials believe that 20-30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees released within the last two to three years have joined groups like ISIS, Al Nusra and Al Qaeda. Of the 620 detainees released from Guantanamo Bay, 180 have returned or are suspected to have returned to the battlefield. Officials say most of those 20 to 30 are operating inside Syria, while some are providing support including financing to radical groups from outside the country.
More than 2,500 Yazidi women kidnapped
A researcher at the University of Bristol’s Gender and Violence Research Centre says at least 2,500 women from the minority sect have been kidnapped and subjected to abuse. Nazand Begikhani:
These women have been treated like cattle. They have been subjected to physical and sexual violence, including systematic rape and sex slavery. They’ve been exposed in markets in Mosul and in Raqqa, Syria, carrying price tags.
A survivor, asked what she would say to the 70-year-old Arab man who took her home and ordered her to convert to Islam at gunpoint:
I wouldn’t want to tell him anything. I just want to kill him.
She says she has given up a dream of being a doctor that she had before being taken by ISIS.
Australia threat led to U.S. alert
House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., says a recent message to ISIS recruits in Australia to attack in their own country rather than traveling to Syria was part of the threat stream that led to Homeland Security increasing security at federal buildings. He says 14 recruits were ready to travel:
They got a note back from ISIL that said: ‘No, No.What we want you to do, stay in Australia. We want you to randomly kidnap people off the street behead them, videotape it, send it to us for further propaganda’.
He says the Australian beheading plot in mid-September was the culmination of that message. Terror activity in Canada, the U.S., Germany, France, Spain and parts of Europe has similar motivation:
What you know now is these folks are sending out that message that spontaneous terrorism is the word of the day, and that’s what’s so concerning to individuals that they’re radicalizing these folks to attack government officials. They wanted to have a high-profile event in a Western country.
Iraqi Kurds enter Kobani
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the first 10 Iraqi peshmerga entered the city Thursday, and more are expected within hours. Kurdistan regional government spokesman:
The force is equipped with heavy guns including mortars, canons, rocket launchers, etc… This force will not engage in frontline combat but will have a support role.
He says the Kurdish fighters in the city say they have enough troops but need weapons and ammunition. More peshmerga fighters could be sent if needed.
‘Plot to weaponize virus’
Spanish authorities say they have found discussions by jihadists in chat rooms on how to weaponize the virus, and are taking them seriously. Interior ministry:
The use of Ebola as a poisonous weapon against the United States [was discussed in a forum] linked to ISIS
‘New world order’
Hagel says ISIS is reordering global geopolitics:
I think we are living through one of these historic, defining times. I think we are seeing a new world order. What we’re seeing in the Middle East with ISIL is going to require a steady, long-term effort. It’s going to require coalitions of common interests, which we are forming.
Reports: Rehana not dead
Reports state that Rehana has not been killed by ISIS as claimed by the group and reported in some media. Kobani-based journalist:
She is my friend and I confirm that she is alive. And the picture of beheaded female fighter is not Rehana’s picture
According to the journalist, Rehana is now in Turkey. Another friend tells the Mail Online that the beheaded victim of ISIS was not Rehana:
The facial features [of the head in the ISIS photo] are not hers
https://twitter.com/RashadAbdlQader/status/526847424909041665
Airstrikes haven’t slowed recruiting
Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Kirby says ISIS is still able to recruit in large numbers:
They are facing some attrition through these operations not just from the air but from the ground. But there’s no question that they still possess the ability to reconstitute their manpower and that’s just an indication of the strength of their ideology right now, which is why we’re working hard to counter that, and the fact that this is going to be a long struggle.
He confirms ISIS personnel have been targeted and killed, along with vehicles and installations.
Kobani news report
ISIS releases a video showing Cantlie apparently reporting on the situation in Kobani. (Full video here.) In the unedited footage a black-dressed Cantlie with a goatee beard and longer hair says the battle for the city is over, and notes that it is quiet except for very occasional sporadic automatic weapons fire, which can be heard in the background. He cites Patrick Cockburn’s article in The Independent about how Kobani was on the brink of falling to ISIS. He also quotes U.S. administration officials as saying the town was strategically unimportant, and Kerry’s statement indicating that Turkish president Erdogan is unwilling to help the Kurds. The video starts out with aerial footage said to be from an ISIS drone of ‘Ayn Arab,’ its Arabic name.
All I see here in the city is mujahideen, no YPG, PKK, or peshmerga in sight.
He says no journalists are in the city and media are getting their information from Kurdish commanders and the White House:
America is very keen for Kobani to be seen as a symbol of victory
He says the battle is over:
The battle is coming to an end. The mujahideen are going from street to street and just mopping up now…Urban warfare is about as tough and as nasty as it gets, and it is something of a specialty of the mujahideen
Escaped to Turkey
A Kobani-based journalist says Rehana escaped the most recent clashes in Kobani and is living as a refugee in Turkey, likely in the southern Şanliurfa province:
She is in Turkey. I will try to gain her number because I lost the connection with her. She evacuated Kobane and I stayed in Kobane. At the beginning of the last clashes Rehana left Kobane.