Kurds take 10 villages from Islamic State in north Iraq

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters walk with their weapons as smoke rises from the site of clashes, south of Daquq, north of Baghdad August 26, 2015

Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes drove Islamic State militants out of 10 villages in Iraq's Kirkuk province on Wednesday in an offensive to secure their territory to the north, Kurdish military sources said.

The assault began at dawn in the Daquq area, around 175 kilometres (110 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. By evening, Kurdish forces had taken an area of around 250 square kilometres, the sources said.

An aide to a top Kurdish commander taking part in the offensive said five peshmerga had been killed, most of them by improvised explosive devices.

The frontline between Kurdish peshmerga forces and Islamic State in northern Iraq has hardly budged for months.

The Kurds already control most of the territory they claim as their own, and have little incentive to push further into predominantly Sunni Muslim Arab towns and villages, except where they pose a direct threat to their region.

"This area (near Daquq) posed a danger to the main road from Kirkuk to Baghdad and the Kurdish and other villages adjacent to the areas occupied by Daesh," Brigadier General Aras Abdel Rahman said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The peshmerga have emerged as an important ally for the United States in its aerial campaign against Islamic State. Together they have pushed back the Sunni insurgents in northern Iraq, and the peshmerga has thus expanded the territory of its autonomous region.

Last summer, the Kurds took full control of the disputed city of Kirkuk after the Iraqi army abandoned its bases there, but western parts of the province such as Hawija remain under Islamic State control.

The Kurds have since carried out several offensives aimed at creating a buffer around the oil-rich city, which they say they will never relinquish.

BREAKING: ‪#‎Iraq‬ PM declares 'liberation' of ‪#‎Tikrit‬ from ‪#‎ISIS‬

Iraqi security forces and Shi'ite paramilitary fighters hold an Islamist State flag, which they pulled down in Tikrit, March 31, 2015

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Tuesday declared the "liberation" of Tikrit from the Islamic State group, after a weeks-long operation that was Baghdad's biggest yet against the jihadists.

Abadi "announces the liberation of Tikrit and congratulates Iraqi security forces and popular volunteers on the historic milestone," his official Twitter account said, referring to allied paramilitaries who have played a major role in the fighting.

And Abadi's spokesman Rafid Jaboori told that: "Iraqi forces reached the centre of Tikrit, raised the Iraqi flag and are now clearing the city."

But it was not immediately clear if resistance in the city by the Islamic State (ISIS) group had ended entirely, and the massive challenge of defusing explosives planted in roads and houses remains ahead.

Iraqi soldiers and police and Popular Mobilisation units -- paramilitary forces dominated by Shiite militias -- began the battle to retake Tikrit on March 2.

They were able to recapture towns near Tikrit and then surrounded it, but faced difficulties pushing into the city and the operation stalled.

Over the objections of militia forces, a US-led anti-IS coalition began carrying out air strikes in support of the operation, prompting some of the groups to announce they were halting offensive operations.

Iran had been the main foreign backer of the operation for several weeks, and some militiamen accused Washington of attempting to hijack their victory.

In the end, the US carried out air strikes in spite of the presence of militias and the militias took part in the recent fighting despite Washington's role.

IS spearheaded a major militant offensive that overran much of Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland last June, and large chunks of Nineveh and Anbar provinces are still under their control.

Official : Arab states see a month of Yemen strikes, maybe longer

People watch a vehicle which belonged to Shi'ite Muslim rebels burn during clashes in Aden March 26, 2015

An Arab alliance attacking Shi'ite Muslim Houthi forces in Yemen initially plans a month-long campaign, but the operation could last five or six months, a Gulf diplomatic official said on Saturday.

The official, from a country that belongs to the alliance, said Shi'ite Iran, the Houthis' main foreign ally, was likely to retaliate indirectly, by encouraging pro-Iranian Shi'ite activists to carry out armed attacks in Bahrain, Lebanon and eastern Saudi Arabia.

Iran, in a tug-of-war with Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia for influence across the Middle East, has denied supporting the Houthis militarily, and has criticised the Gulf Arabs for their military action.

Since the Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes against them early on Thursday, the Houthis, seeking to overthrow the Western- and Saudi-allied President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, have continued to make gains.

But the official, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the attacks would go on until Yemen was able to resume a U.N.-backed political transition interrupted by the Houthis' seizure of Sanaa in September.

He said Gulf Arab concern over the Houthis' influence in Yemen had been heightened in January by satellite imagery showing Houthi forces repositioning long-range Scud missiles in northern districts near the Saudi border.

The Scuds, with a range of between 250 km (150 miles) and 650 km (400 miles), were aimed northwards at Saudi territory.

He said Yemen's military had about 300 Scuds, the bulk of which were believed to be in the hands of the Houthis and allied military units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and that the campaign so far had destroyed 21 of them.

Struggle For Stability

Yemen, by far the poorest country on the Arabian peninsula, has struggled to regain stability since mass protests in 2011 that eventually unseated Saleh after 33 years in power. Hadi led a national dialogue that was discussing a new constitution when the Houthis took the capital and pushed him aside.

The Gulf diplomatic official said the coalition would not accept that the Houthi "coup" had succeeded, and wanted Yemenis to push for a resumption of the U.N.-backed process.

He said it could take five or six months for the campaign's aims to be realised, but there was room for everyone, including Houthis, in that process of forging a new constitution.

The official said Houthi forces were being trained and supported on the ground by about 5,000 experts from Iran and its regional allies, the Hezbollah group in Lebanon and Iraqi Shi'ite militias.

He said the Houthis were today a "quintessentially Yemeni tribal" movement, but with a few years of Iranian training would become a more formidable force, capable of ruling much of the country.

It was widely recognised that Hadi lacked a significant power base, the official said.

But Arab states supported Hadi as he was Yemen's legitimate head of state and had a role as a temporary, transitional figure leading the U.N.-backed reform process, which was meant to shepherd Yemen to stability after decades of autocracy followed by political upheaval.

Saleh's political party called on Friday for a cessation of hostilities by both sides, a statement carried by the party's website said. The Gulf diplomatic official welcomed that, but said it would be good to hear Saleh say it in his own words. 

#Egypt's Al-#Azhar head blames "enemies' plot" for rising militancy

Ahmed El-Tayyeb's remarks came on opening session of Al-Azhar-sponsored international conference to fight terrorism

Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb, Egyptian Imam of al-Azhar Mosque

Head of Egypt's top Sunni Islamic institute, Al-Azhar said on Wednesday he wished the West would experiment their weapons in the desert instead of the bodies and property of the Arabs, as he gave the opening remarks for an international terrorism-fighting conference.

Egypt is part of the international coalition to fight terrorism, with high expectations from the international community about the significance of its role in fighting radical religious thought and spreading moderate Islamic teachings through its Al-Azhar organisation.

Ahmed El-Tayyeb said a variety of political, societal and religious reasons stand behind the rising wave of militancy across the Middle East, but the "enemies' plot" could be a main cause.

"The plot plays on the sectarian and racial tension along with providing these parties with weapons," he said.

"I just wish the arms factories in the west would experiment with their weapons and their efficiency in the desert instead of the bodies and the installations of Arabs."

The two-day conference, sponsored by Al-Azhar, was attended by Egypt's Coptic Pope, 600 Muslim clerics and heads of Christian churches from 120 countries.

The conference comes at a time when militant groups are gaining cross-border alliances.

Earlier in November, Egypt's leading Sinai-based group, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis swore allegiance to the Islamic State militant group, which has claimed control over large parts of Syria and Iraq.

Other militant groups across the region, including in Libya, also pledged loyalty to IS, allegedly led by Iraqi militant Abu-Bakr Al-Boghdadi.

El-Tayyeb on Wednesday said the plots aim at "keeping Israel the strongest and richest country in the region."

He spoke of the US invasion of Iraq being predicated on "fabricated reasons" as part of a plot to break up the Iraqi army, one of the strongest in the region at the time. He added that fighting and divisions have spread to Syria, Libya and Yemen.

"God only knows when the war machine will be silenced in these stricken countries and when they will take their own decisions without regional and international pressure or interferences," he said.

The conference comes as part of the campaign by Egypt clerics and moderates to brush off the extremist image of Islam, increasingly exported by militant activity.

"ISIS attempt to export their vision of their new beguiled religion that came to people with slaughter, beheading and forced exile for those who disagree with it," El-Tayeb said. He condemned their brutality as "barbaric crimes" with the cover of Islam.

"This confrontation requires exporting moderate religious speech, which will set aside religion from the circle of manipulation...that threatens the society's safety and the nation's unity," top Lebanese Shia cleric Aly Al-Amin said.

Egypt's Coptic Pope Tawadros II, also giving opening remarks, stressed that Christianity calls for love, acceptance and peacefulness among one another.

Egypt's Christians, who make up nearly 10 percent of the population, have long complained of the discrimination and the waves of sectarian strife that occasionally soar for different, especially in the south of the country.

"We pray every day for the city we're living in, for our neighbors, our borders, the president, the army and the government," Tawadros said. "The Egyptian church has always lived patriotically, and never claimed a timely authority."

#US #troops in #Iraq 's #Anbar as anti- #ISIS #campaign expands

Iraqi security forces take part in an intensive security deployment against Islamic State militants in the town of Amriyat al-Falluja in Anbar province, November 9, 2014

A team of US troops was on the ground in Iraq's Anbar province on Tuesday as Washington steps up efforts to help Iraqi forces battle the Islamic State jihadist group.

The Pentagon confirmed about 50 military personnel were at Al-Asad air base to assess it for the possible deployment of a larger contingent of advisers and trainers to assist Iraqi security forces.

President Barack Obama has announced plans to double the number of American troops in Iraq to up to 3,100 as US-led efforts against the jihadists enter what he called a "new phase".

Parts of mainly Sunni Anbar province have become a stronghold for IS, which has seized control of swathes of Iraq and Syria, and some of Baghdad's forces who were hard-pressed by the jihadists fell back to Al-Asad air base.

The sprawling desert airfield was hub for US forces from 2003 until 2011, when it was transferred back to Iraqi control.

The 50 American military personnel assessing the base were not in evidence on Tuesday, but a slew of English-language signs and the colourful Easter decorations still hanging in a dining hall pointed to the former US presence.

A string of battlefield defeats for Iraqi forces in Anbar has led to warnings that the province, which stretches from borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to the western approach to Baghdad, could fall entirely.

Some of Anbar's powerful tribes are battling the Sunni extremist group, and have played an important role in keeping more of the province from falling.

Parliament speaker Salim al-Juburi visited Anbar tribal leaders at Al-Asad on Tuesday to "raise morale" and appeal for "weapons and equipment to face the danger of terrorism," he told AFP.

Sheikh Ashur Jabr Hamadi, one of the tribal leaders at Al-Asad, said the lack of ammunition was a problem, but the "most important thing we need is air cover".

Washington has forged an alliance of Western and Arab nations to take on IS, and launched a barrage of air strikes against it in Syria and Iraq.

Strikes on Friday were said to have targeted a gathering of IS leaders, but there has been no confirmation of reports IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed or wounded.

US officials have insisted American troops will not engage in combat and are instead pushing for local forces to tackle IS on the ground.

For Syria, the United States has approved plans to train 5,000 recruits from among rebel forces battling President Bashar al-Assad, but Washington came under fire Tuesday for having a "confused" strategy.

"The coalition is fighting the symptom of the problem, which is (IS), without addressing the main cause, which is the (Syrian) regime," said Hadi al-Bahra, leader of the opposition National Coalition.

"The whole operation has been confused. Air strikes will not be able to win the battle against extremism. You have to defeat (IS) on the ground," he told .

"And you have to deal with the main cause and source of extremism, which is the regime itself."

After meeting Bahra on Monday, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond promised "a significant contribution" to equip and train the moderate opposition.

Kurds fighting IS in Kobane made advances Tuesday in the south of the Syrian town bordering Turkey, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syrian Kurdish chief Saleh Muslim said his forces were advancing "street by street" and would "recapture the town in a very short time".

The battle against IS has overshadowed the civil war in Syria, where more than 195,000 people have been killed since the start of an uprising in March 2011.

The UN is now pushing a plan for what envoy Staffan de Mistura calls a fighting "freeze" in limited areas.

Assad has said he is ready to consider such a plan for Syria's second city Aleppo, and de Mistura said Damascus had shown "constructive interest".

But the rebel Free Syrian Army effectively rejected the freeze, setting virtually impossible-to-achieve conditions.

The UN refugee agency said meanwhile it had been forced to slash the number of people it can help prepare for winter in Syria and Iraq for lack of funds.