Played for Jewish soccer club
Berisha is reported to have played for a Jewish soccer club in Frankfurt and was not radicalized prior to studying at university. Makkabi Frankfurt coach:
This was a guy who used to play with Jewish players every week, he was comfortable there and he seemed so happy.
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.
‘ISIS threatens region’
Abadi says during crisis talks in Tehran that ISIS and other groups are intent on dividing Muslims.
Iraq is not fighting terrorism only. It is an extensive war with all these groups. It’s a threat to the region and these terrorist groups are trying to create a division between Shiites and Sunnis
USAF: ISIS air power is a joke
U.S. Air Force officials say the group’s air power is effective for propaganda but doesn’t pose a threat. Official:
If ISIS is flying, or is thinking about flying, it will not be doing so for very long
ISIS is reported to have acquired three Soviet-built Mikoyan MiG-21 Fishbed and MiG-23 Flogger fighters and a number of Aero Vodochody L-39 Albatross aircraft, traditionally used for advanced training and light attack. Marine Corps fighter pilot:
I’d sell my first born to engage all three… by myself
Video of stoning
A video released on ISIS-affiliated social media pages shows a woman being stoned to death. The charges against the woman are not clear, but a cleric accuses her of committing adultery. The woman pleads for forgiveness with a man that she refers to as her father, before the sentence is carried out.
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.
Missing Sydney teenager in video
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Abdullah Elmir, who went missing from Sydney’s Bankstown suburb several months earlier, appears in the video under the name Abu Khaled:
To Tony Abbott, I say this. These weapons that we have, these soldiers, we will not stop fighting. We will not put down our weapons until we reach your lands and until we take the head of every tyrant and until the black flag (of ISIS) is flying high in every single land.
As the Prime Minister has said on many occasions, ISIL is a threat that reaches out to Australia and our allies and partners
Yazidi woman begs West to bomb brothel
0 CommentsA Kurdish activist says a friend embedded with the peshmerga took a phone call from a Yazidi woman, who begged for the brothel where she is being held by ISIS to be bombed. She said she had been raped 30 times in only a few hours, and that she planned to kill herself even if set free. Interview:
If you know where we are please bomb us… There is no life after this. I’m going to kill myself anyway – others have killed themselves this morning.
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.
Five Brits join weekly
Speaking during a national security conference in London, United Kingdom senior police officer Sir Hogan-Howe reveals that a minimum average of five British citizens are traveling to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. Tracking and reacting to the threats of home terrorists who obtain experience from ISIS training grows worse, what he calls “potentially militarized individuals.” After citing some examples, Sir Hogan-Howe:
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. We know that over 500 British nationals travelled to join the conflict. Many have returned and many will wish to do so in the coming months and perhaps in future years. The Met say they have made 218 arrests for terrorist-related activity this year, an increase of about 70% in three years. A large part of this increased arrest rate is due to terrorist activities, plots and planning linked to Syria. The trend is, I think, set to continue.
Helps Kurdish fighters into Kobani
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says the country is assisting Iraqi Kurdish reinforcements to cross the border.
Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government announced that they are in cooperation with Turkey and the U.S.. Actually, we are helping peshmerga forces to enter into Kobani to give support.
Given security detail after ISIS threat
Bachmann is given a security detail after ISIS threatens her online. The U.S. Capitol Police Dignitary Protection Division detail have been briefed on ISIS and the detail will continue until Bachmann retires at the end of this Congress.
Yazidis call for airstrikes
Yazidis trapped at Mt. Sinjar say they need air support as ISIS renews its assault on the area. Khalid Qassim Shesho, , a 44-year-old fighter trapped in the Sharfadin shrine:
We have so little ammunition, and they are advancing. I can see five Humvees without using binoculars. We need planes!
Beheaded man with Down Syndrome
Kurdish rights activist Bazran Halil and his wife, Raushan, say the group beheaded a man with Down Syndrome in Kobani and impose horrific punishments for violating what they say is Islamic law. Bazran in an interview in Turkey:
There was a man with Down Syndrome. He couldn’t understand the situation, to flee, or to run away from the frontline. When ISIS arrived they beheaded him and took photos, shared them on social media and said ‘we killed an atheist, a Kaffir’.
Raushan:
For smoking, they chop your fingers off. Drinking is punished by jail. And if a woman is seen in the company of a man who is not her relative, she is stoned to death.
They say ISIS also abducted a group of high-schoolers in Aleppo for exams and made the boys study Shariah law in a mosque, shocking them with electric cables if they did not learn quickly enough.
Kidnap attempt inside Turkey
Militants from the group make an abduction attempt on Abu Issa, the commander of a Kobani-based group, and his son in the southeastern town of Urfa 20 miles inside the border. Abu Issa and his son escape when one of the third-party people smugglers used by ISIS to transport people and weapons into Syria panics after spotting Turkish soldiers. Abu Issa is shot and wounded during the attempt. Turkey has stated that ISIS does not have a presence within the country.
American fighter in Kobani
Woodard, a security guard from Meridian, Miss., says he paid his own way to Turkey and was smuggled into the battle zone after hearing about ISIS atrocities on the news. He says he is not the only American fighting for the Kurds – there are two or three others.
I’ve killed two, in my first battle in Jezaa, and that’s it so far. Hopefully my numbers will go up. I never thought I’d be over in Syria killing people, but they’ve killed innocent people.
He says he doesn’t fear capture by ISIS:
It’s not frightening to me. If I have one bullet left, I’ll take my own life before that happens. I’m not gonna get put on YouTube by ISIS, and let them put me on my knees and cut my head off for publicity.
Mississippi veteran joins fighting
The Kurds have another alley fighting with them against ISIS, one of few unofficial U.S. boots on the ground. His name is Jeremy Woodard, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan tours. Jeremy is a security guard from Mississippi, paying his way to Turkey and smuggling into the war zone. The veteran even uses sign language to communicate with his foreign comrades. Woodard:
I figured if I came over here more Americans and other people from other countries would come here. I’ve killed two, in my first battle in Jezaa, and that’s it so far. Hopefully my numbers will go up. I never thought I’d be over in Syria killing people, but they’ve killed innocent people. It’s not frightening to me. If I have one bullet left, I’ll take my own life before that happens. I’m not gonna get put on YouTube by ISIS, and let them put me on my knees and cut my head off for publicity.
Aid, bribes may be going to ISIS
Food, medical supplies, and other aid provided by USAID, European donors, and the UN may be being channeled to ISIS, along with money paid to bribe the group to allow convoys through. Unnamed aid coordinator:
The convoys have to be approved by ISIS and you have to pay them: the bribes are disguised and itemized as transportation costs.
The person says the kickbacks are either paid by foreign or local non-governmental organizations that distribute the aid, or by the Turkish or Syrian transportation companies contracted to deliver it. Jonathan Schanzer with the D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies:
I am alarmed that we are providing support for ISIS governance. By doing so we are indemnifying the militants by satisfying the core demands of local people, who could turn on ISIS if they got frustrated.
‘Target-rich environment’
U.S. officials say the ISIS offensive on Kobani is concentrating the group’s manpower in a small area and presenting a target for air strikes. U.S. CentCom chief Army Gen. Lloyd Austin:
The enemy has made a decision to make Kobani his main effort…Now, my goal is to defeat and ultimately destroy ISIL. And if [the enemy] continues to present us with major targets … then clearly, we’ll service those targets, and we’ve done so very, very effectively here of late
White House Press secretary Josh Earnest says the administration sees the assault as an opportunity:
That has created a rather target-rich environment around Kobani for American and coalition air strikes that when they see clusters of fighters or they see depots of material or supplies that are critical to the success of those fighters, it’s easier to take them out.
Repelled in Kobani
Kurdish fighters are holding positions in the city near the Turkish border despite being outnumbered and the use of suicide bombers by ISIS, as well as the destruction of the city’s three hospitals. U.S. air strikes are continuing to support the efforts to repel ISIS.
Luqman Ahmad, a 34-year-old civilian:
We are very happy because we have heard from Jarablus and Raqqa that they have a lot of casualties from Isis – they have received a lot of bodies. We are very happy because the YPG [the People’s Protection Units] made progress today too in the west as well as the south. Inshallah we’ll have the same in the east soon.