WoW ! Obama says need to ‘snuff out’ militant groups like Islamic State

President Barack Obama said on Friday the goal of an international coalition he is helping to form is to “ultimately snuff out” the type of extremism demonstrated by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

It is a “sobering time,” said Obama at a Democratic fund-raising event in Baltimore following his decision to authorize U.S. air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria for the first time, and to add to targeted areas in Iraq.

The threat from Islamic State has had an important silver lining, he said. It has focused the world’s attention on the need to “ultimately snuff out this particular brand of Islamic extremism that really has no place in the 21st century.”

Obama is leading an effort to form a coalition of Western allies and Gulf Arab states to take on the extremist group, whose savage methods have included beheading two American journalists.

“We’re going to be able to build the kind of coalition that allows us to lead, but also isn’t entirely dependent on what we do,” said Obama, who wants to avoid a
repeat of the Iraq war and has vowed not to send large numbers of U.S. combat troops there.

Obama met with NATO allies last week in Wales and later this month will hold a leaders security conference at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, aimed at gaining commitments from nations willing to join the coalition.

Saudi Arabia has agreed to host a training mission for those Syrian rebels deemed moderate by the United
States. The Baltimore fund-raising event was held at the home of Howard Friedman, a former head of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Residents in the heavily Jewish neighborhood spilled out into their
front yards, many waving pro-Israel signs.

“Thank you for standing by Israel,”

Friedman told Obama in introducing him to the small crowd at the fund-raiser.

Source: Reuters

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WoW ! Governor of Iraq Sunni heartland says U.S. to help against militants

The governor of Iraq’s Sunni heartland province of Anbar said he has secured a promise of U.S. support in a battle against the Islamic State, reviving an alliance that helped thwart an earlier
Sunni militant threat, from al Qaeda.

Ahmed Khalaf al-Dulaimi told Reuters his request, made in meetings with U.S. diplomats and a senior military officer, included air support against the militants who have a tight grip on large parts of his desert province and northwestern Iraq.

Dulaimi said the Americans had promised to help.

“Our first goal is the air support. Their technology capability will offer a lot of intelligence information and monitoring of the desert and many things which we are in need of,”

he said in a telephone interview.
“No date was decided but it will be very soon and there will be a presence for the Americans in the western area.”

The was no immediate comment from U.S. officials. After its capture of the northern metropolis of Mosul in June, a swift push by the Islamic State to the
borders of the autonomous ethnic Kurdish region alarmed Baghdad and last week drew the first U.S. air strikes on Iraq since the withdrawal of American
troops in 2011.

Source : Reuters

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WoW ! America to the rescue. US military begin airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq

Less than a day after US president Barack Obama authorized US air strikes on Islamist militants, ISIS, in Iraq, American military jets have launched devastating air raids, killing many ISIS members. This afternoon two F18 war planes attacked ISIS and their vehicles with 500lb laser-guided bombs.

ISIS is said to be the most well equipped and richest terror group in the world after they sized weapons from Iraqi military and also took weapons left behind by the US after they left Iraq in 2011. Some months back, they attacked Iraqi central bank and took $400million in cash. America has also dropped relief supplies to hundreds of thousands of non-Muslim who are trapped in Sinjar mountains after fleeing their homes following deadly attacks by ISIS.

U.S. warplanes bombed Islamist fighters marching on Iraq’s Kurdish capital on Friday after President Barack Obama said
Washington must act to prevent “genocide”. Islamic State fighters, who have beheaded and crucified captives in their drive to eradicate unbelievers, have advanced to within a half hour’s
drive of Arbil, capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region and a hub for U.S. oil companies.

They have also seized control of Iraq’s biggest dam, Kurdish authorities confirmed on Friday, which could allow them to flood cities and cut off vital water and electricity supplies.
The Pentagon said two F/A-18 aircraft from an aircraft carrier in the Gulf had dropped laser-guided 500- pound bombs on the fighters’ artillery and other air
strikes had targeted mortar positions and an Islamic State convoy.

Christians, many of them already refugees who had sought shelter in peshmerga-controlled areas, were
suddenly forced to flee. Tens of thousands of Christians fled on Thursday when the Islamic State overran their hometown, Qaraqosh. Shamil Abu Madian, a 45-year-old Christian, told Reuters he had first quit the city of Mosul when it fell in June. He initially sheltered in a town protected by the peshmerga, but was forced to flee again in panic in the middle of the night when the Kurdish peshmerga troops suddenly vanished.

“We were not able to take anything with us except some clothes in a nylon bag,” he said. ”

People are living on sidewalks, in public gardens, anywhere.” A U.N. humanitarian spokesman said some 200,000 people fleeing the Islamists’ advance had reached the town of Dohuk on the Tigris River in Iraqi Kurdistan and nearby areas of Nineveh province. Tens of thousands had fled further north to the Turkish border, Turkish officials said.

Obama, who brought U.S. troops home from Iraq to fulfil a campaign pledge, insisted he would not commit ground forces and had no intention of letting
the United States

“get dragged into fighting another war in Iraq”.

Questions were quickly raised in Washington about whether selective U.S. attacks on militant positions and humanitarian air drops would be enough to shift the balance on the battlefield against the Islamist forces.

“I completely support humanitarian aid as well as the use of air power,”

Republican Senator Lindsey
Graham tweeted after Obama’s announcement.

“However the actions announced tonight will not turn the tide of battle.”

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WoW ! Obama authorizes limited air strikes against militants in Iraq

President Barack Obama said on Thursday he had authorized U.S. air
strikes to blunt the onslaught of Islamist militants in northern Iraq and began airdrops of supplies to besieged religious minorities to prevent a

“potential act of genocide”

Obama, in his most significant response yet to the crisis, said he approved “targeted” use of air power to protect U.S. personnel if Islamic State militants
advance further toward Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, or threaten Americans anywhere in the country.

He said air strikes, which would be the first carried out by the U.S. military in Iraq since its withdrawal in 2011, could also be used if necessary in support of Iraqi and Kurdish forces trying to break the Islamists’ siege of a mountaintop where tens of thousands of civilians are trapped.

“Earlier this week, one Iraqi in the area cried to the world, ‘There is no one coming to help’,”

said Obama, who had been reluctant to deepen U.S. military re- engagement in Iraq.

“Well, today America is coming to help.”

In late-night remarks televised from the White House to a war-weary American public, Obama insisted he would not commit ground forces and had no intention of letting the United States

“get dragged into fighting another war in Iraq”

Obama took action amid international fears of a humanitarian catastrophe engulfing tens of thousands of members of Iraq’s minority Yazidi sect driven out of their homes and stranded on Sinjar mountain under threat from rampaging militants of Islamic State, an al Qaeda splinter group. Many Iraqi Christians have also fled for their lives.

“We can act carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide,”

said Obama, who described the militants as “barbaric.”

Obama was responding to urgent appeals from Iraqi and Kurdish authorities to help halt Islamic State’s relentless advance across northern Iraq and to deal with the unfolding humanitarian crisis. However, questions were quickly raised in Washington about whether selective U.S. attacks on militant positions and humanitarian airdrops would be enough to shift the balance on the battlefield against the Islamist forces.

“I completely support humanitarian aid as well as the use of air power,”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted after Obama’s announcement.

“However the actions announced tonight will not turn the tide of battle.”

BLACK FLAG OVER CHECKPOINT

The reason for U.S. alarm was clear.
Reuters photographs on Thursday showed what appeared to be Islamic State fighters controlling a checkpoint at the border area of the Kurdistan, little over 30 minutes’ drive from Arbil, a city of 1.5 million that is headquarters of the Kurdish regional government and many businesses. The fighters had raised the movement’s black flag over the guard post. However, a Kurdish security official denied that the militants were in control of the Khazer checkpoint.

The regional government said its forces were advancing and would

“defeat the terrorists,”

urging people to stay calm.
Obama, who has carefully avoided direct involvement in most other recent Middle Eastern crises, made clear that preventing a humanitarian catastrophe and averting the threat to American lives and interests in Kurdistan were ample justification for the use of U.S. military power. However, seeking to keep some pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Obama insisted on the need for an Iraqi government that

“represents the legitimate interests of all Iraqis”

in order to reverse the militants’ momentum. With the refugees on the mountaintop desperately short of food, water and medicine, U.S. aircraft began dropping emergency aid in the area shortly before Obama spoke on Thursday.

“When we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye,”

Obama said.

The Defense Department said U.S. planes dropped 72 bundles of supplies, including 8,000 ready-to-eat meals and thousands of gallons of drinking water for threatened civilians near Sinjar. It said the planes flew from several air bases in the region and included one C-17 and two C-130 transport planes escorted by two F/A-18 Hornet fighter planes. They were over the drop area for less than 15 minutes, flying at low altitude.

“We intend to stay vigilant and take action if these terrorist forces threaten our personnel or facilities anywhere in Iraq, including our consulate in Arbil and our embassy in Baghdad,”

Obama said.

He sent in a small number of U.S. military advisers in June to help the Iraqi government’s efforts to fend off the Islamist militant offensive but he was reluctant to take direct military action. He had put the onus on Maliki, a Shi’ite Muslim, to form a more inclusive government to help defuse the crisis. Washington’s calculus appeared to shift after Islamic State, which routed the Iraqi military in the north and seized a broad swath of territory in recent months, made recent gains against Kurdish forces and moved toward Arbil.

The decision on air strikes came after urgent deliberations by a president who won the White House in 2008 on a pledge to disentangle the United States from the long, unpopular Iraq war. Until this week, most of Kurdistan had been protected by its own armed forces, called the peshmerga. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fleeing the Islamists, including Christians, Yazidis and others, have taken refuge in the Kurdish area.

The Islamic State’s Sunni Muslim militants have swept across northwestern Iraq in recent weeks. The Islamic State views as infidels Iraq’s majority Shi’ites and minorities such as Christians and Yazidis, a Kurdish ethno-religious community. Sunni militants captured Iraq’s biggest Christian town, Qaraqosh, prompting many residents to flee in fear that they would be subjected to the same demands they made in other captured areas: leave, convert to Islam or face death.

INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply appalled” by the attacks by Islamic State militants.

The U.N. Security Council condemned the group and called on the international community to support the Iraqi government. French President Francois Hollande’s office said after he spoke by telephone with Kurdistan president Masoud Barzani that Paris was prepared to support forces engaged in the defense of Iraqi Kurdistan. It did not say how. A senior U.S. official said Washington was expediting military assistance to Kurdish peshmerga troops.

Shares in energy companies operating in Iraqi Kurdistan plummeted on news of the sweeping Islamist advance toward oilfields in the region. The militants inflicted a humiliating defeat on Kurdish forces in the weekend sweep, prompting tens of thousands of Yazidis to flee. A Kurdish government security adviser said its forces had staged a tactical withdrawal. The Kurdish Regional Government’s Ministry of Interior said in a statement that

“our victory is close.”

Some of the many thousands trapped on Sinjar mountain have been rescued in the past 24 hours, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said, adding that 200,000 had fled the fighting. Many of the displaced urgently need water, food, shelter and medicine, he said before the U.S. airdrops began.

A spokesman for the U.N. agency for children said many on the mountain were suffering from dehydration and at least 40 children had died. Yazidis are regarded by the Islamic State as “devil worshippers” and risk being executed by militants seeking to establish an Islamic empire and redraw the Middle East map. The plight of fleeing Christians prompted Pope Francis to appeal to world leaders to help end what the Vatican called

“the humanitarian tragedy now under way”

in northern Iraq. The Islamic State poses the biggest threat to Iraq’s integrity since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Its fighters and their Sunni allies also control a big chunk of western Iraq.

The group has deepened sectarian tensions, pushing Iraq back to the dark days of the civil war that peaked in 2006-2007 under U.S.-led occupation. The Islamic State’s gains have prompted Maliki to order his air force to help the Kurds, whose reputation as fearsome warriors was called into question by their defeat.

Critics blame Maliki for Iraq’s crisis, accusing him of promoting the interests of fellow Shi’ites at the expense of Sunnis. Heavily armed Sunni tribes support the Islamic State, although they do not share its ideology.

Source : Reuters

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WoW ! Iraq lawmakers convene to form new government in battle with ‘caliphate’

Newly elected Iraqi lawmakers
convene on Tuesday, under pressure to name a unity government to keep the country from splitting apart after an onslaught by Sunni Islamists who have declared a “caliphate” to rule over all the world’s Muslims.

The meeting of the new legislature in Baghdad’s fortified “green zone” could spell the end of the eight- year rule of Shi’ite Islamist Prime Minister Nuri al-
Maliki, with foes determined to unseat him and even some allies saying he may need to be replaced by a less polarizing figure.

Iraqi troops have been battling for three weeks against fighters led by the group formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Fighting
has raged in recent days in former dictator Saddam Hussein’s home city, Tikrit. ISIL, which rules swathes of territory in an arc from Aleppo in Syria to near the western edge of Baghdad in Iraq, has renamed itself simply the Islamic State.

It declared its leader, secretive guerrilla fighter Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to be the “caliph”, the historic title of the ruler of the whole Muslim world. Its insurgency in Iraq is backed by other Sunni armed
groups who resent what they see as persecution under Maliki.

The new parliament is meeting for the first time since it was elected in April, when results initially suggested it would easily confirm Maliki in power for a third
term. But with lawmakers now finally taking their seats only after the sudden collapse of the army in the north, politicians face a more fundamental task of staving off the collapse of the state, and the prime minister’s days in power could be numbered.

Maliki’s foes blame him for the rapid advance of the Sunni insurgents who seized the biggest northern city, Mosul, on June 10 and have since taken nearly all the Sunni areas of the country.
Although Maliki’s State of Law coalition won the most seats, it still needs allies to govern. Sunnis and Kurds demand he go, arguing he reneged on power-sharing
deals and favored his own sect, inflaming the resentment that fuels the insurgency.

Washington has not publicly called for Maliki to leave power but has demanded a more inclusive government in Baghdad as the price for more aggressive help.
In another move to beef up its military presence in Iraq, the United States said on Monday it was sending 300 more troops to Iraq.

U.S. Defense Department spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said about 200 forces arrived in the country on Sunday to reinforce security at the U.S. Embassy, its support facilities and Baghdad International Airport. A further 100 personnel were also due to move to Baghdad to “provide security and logistics support.”

“These forces are separate and apart from the up to 300 personnel the president authorized to establish two joint operations centers and conduct an assessment of how the U.S. can provide additional support to Iraq’s security forces,” Kirby said in a statement.

FIGHTING IN TIKRIT Maliki’s government, with the help of Shi’ite sectarian militias, has managed to stop the militants short of the capital but has been unable to take back cities its forces abandoned.

The army attempted last week to take back Tikrit but could not recapture the city, 160 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad, where ISIL fighters machine-gunned scores of soldiers in shallow graves after capturing it on June 12. Residents said fighting raged on the city’s southern outskirts on Monday.

Whether Iraq can survive as a state most likely depends on whether politicians can sustain the governing system put in place after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam in 2003, under which the prime minister has always been a Shi’ite, the largely symbolic president a Kurd and the speaker of parliament a Sunni.

On Friday, in an unusual political intervention, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shi’ite cleric and a figure long known for his caution, called on political blocs to fill those three posts before parliament meets on Tuesday. That deadline looks futile, with the blocs having met in recent days without naming the country’s leaders.

Two senior members of Maliki’s State of Law coalition have told Reuters that an alternative to Maliki from within his party was being discussed: “He understands it might come to that,” one senior Maliki ally told Reuters last week. Maliki’s own former chief of staff Tareq Najem is seen as a possible successor, according to diplomats.

The Sunni parties say they will not put forward their candidate for speaker until they see who the Shi’ites want for prime minister. The Kurds have yet to choose a president. “It will take a couple of weeks to agree on a package,” said Muhannad Hussam, a politician and aide to senior Sunni lawmaker Saleh al-Mutlaq.

Many worry that a drawn-out process will waste precious time in confronting the militants, who have vowed to advance on Baghdad. A Shi’ite lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, warned: “Things are bad. The political process is not commensurate with the speed of military developments.”

Source: Reuters