Category Archives: ISIS

ISIS now controls 50 percent of Syria

Islamic State now controls over 50% of Syria, after its capture of the ancient city of Palmyra. The group took control of Palmyra on Wednesday after a week-long siege. Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al Assad collapsed away after at least 100 Syrian regime troops were killed overnight in fighting against ISIS. The terrorist group also reportedly began to massacre members of the Shaitat tribe, who had previously rebelled against ISIS in Deir Ezzor. At that time, ISIS killed 800 of their members. ISIS has imposed a curfew in the city and has conducted weeps to find remaining members of Assad’s forces. The capture of Palmyra brings Islamic State closer to the government controlled strongholds of Homs and Damascus. ISIS control of the ancient city also severs supply lines to Deir Ezzor.

ISIS also now has control of the Arak and al-Hail gas fields near Palmyra. These fields power most of the Syrian regime’s strongholds in the west. Control of these fields has given ISIS control over a large portion of the country’s electricity supply.

ISIS now controls over 95,000 square kilometres in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The group controls majority of Raqqa province, which is the group’s de-facto “capital”, and also controls most of Deir Ezzor. ISIS has also taken parts of Hassakeh and the Aleppo countryside, as well as parts of the Homs countryside and the Yarmouk refugee camp in southern Damascus. The group also controls most of the Syrian Desert. The areas it holds are mostly sparsely inhabited.

Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was once a Silk Road hub a cultural centres of the ancient world. It is home to beautiful ruins of antiquity, including the Temple of Bel, built in the first century. ISIS considers the preservation of historical ruins a form of idolatry. UN and Syrian officials fear that ISIS plans to destroy the ruins, as it did in the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud and in Iraq’s Mosul Museum. In the absence of opposition, the group can enter and destroy the historic city’s ancient ruins. ISIS has used the destruction of heritage sites as a form of profit; selling looted remnants of destroyed ruins on the black market. The group also uses the destruction of these sites as propaganda.

The cohesion and strength of Syrian troops has been called to question amid the fall of Palmyra. Forces fell away from the city rapidly, surprising many observers, considering the importance of Palmyra and its proximity to supply routes. Syria’s main cities, including Damascus, are located in the west, near the border with Lebanon or on the Mediterranean coastline. These cities have been the priority for the Syrian military. It appears the troops are focusing their attention on protecting areas to the west, rather than fighting for areas currently occupied by the terrorist group.

ISIS leader death unconfirmed as group launches bus attack in Karachi

On Wednesday, Iraq’s Defence Ministry reported that Abu Alaa al-Afari, second in command of Islamic State, had been killed in an air strike in country’s north. The Ministry’s website shows footage of what an air strike on the “Martyrs Mosque” in the village of al-Iyadhiya near Tel Afar. The ministry said Afari was killed in a coalition attack on a mosque, where he was meeting with other militants.

However US Central Command has vehemently denied that a coalition air strike had hit the mosque, and said it could not confirm any claims that the deputy commander had been killed.

The Iraqi government has previously announced the death of Islamic State militants who had not been killed. Recent reports suggested that IS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi had been incapacitated by an air strike in the same region of Iraq. The Pentagon has also denied those reports.

In Turkey, foreign ministers of NATO nations met to examine how to fight Islamic State. The ministers met in Antalya discuss, among other things, instability in in Syria and Iraq, where IS controls broad swaths of territory. US Secretary of State John Kerry said his NATO counterparts wanted to see a clearer defense agreement with Gulf Arab states to fight terror ahead of a summit that President Barack Obama will host at Camp David on Thursday.

Meanwhile, a branch of Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a bus attack in Karachi, Pakistan on Tuesday. Men on motorbikes followed bus, which was carrying men, women, and children of a minority sect of Ismaili Muslims. The bikers fired on the bus with automatic weapons as it travelled through the city. When the bus stopped, gunmen forced their way on board and killed dozens of commuters at close range. The six gunmen killed 45 people and injured 13. It was the deadliest single sectarian attack in Pakistan since the suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in southern Shikarpur district killed 61 in January.

A survivor from the shootings said the gunmen began a systematic execution once on the bus. “They want to target us because we are not Muslims according to most people in Pakistan,” he said. Ismaili Muslims are part of an international community of Shia Muslims who follow the Aga Khan, a Europe-based spiritual leader and business tycoon. In Pakistan, many citizens hold to a strict interpretation of the Muslim faith, and consider Ismailis, Ahmedis, and other minority sects of Islam to be “un-Islamic”. To members of Islamic State or other Sunni-based terrorist groups, anyone who does not adhere to their strict and radical brand of Islam is considered heretical.

Both Islamic State and a Pakistani Taliban splinter group rushed to claim responsibility. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on Twitter accounts that described the Ismaili victims as “infidels”. Further, printed leaflets left near the scene of the attack also claimed it was the work of ISIS. The message said that the attackers were avenging, among other things, the “torture of Sunni women by the army” and the “killing of our fighters by the Karachi police”.

However, Jundullah, a Pakistani Taliban splinter group, also rushed to claim responsibility. A spokesman for the group said, “These killed people were Ismaili and we consider them [non-Muslim]. We had four attackers. In the coming days we will attack Ismailis, Shias and Christians.” Some Pakistani Taliban militants have pledged allegiance ISIS, however it is believed that the group’s presence in Pakistan is small.

Karachi is two years into an operation to target criminal gangs and terrorists in the city. The government of Sindh, the province of which Karachi is the capital, responded to the attacks by announcing the suspension of senior police officials and promising financial compensation for the families of victims.

ISIS ‘hours away’ from Capturing Ramadi

15 April– Falih Essawi, the deputy head of Iraq’s Anbar Provincial Council, has stated militants from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) could be “hours away” from taking the key city of Ramadi. Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, is the capital of Iraq’s Anbar Province. Essawi said it is unclear how long government troops can hold their front line, adding that security is “collapsing rapidly in the city.”

ISIS was dealt a major blow earlier in April when Iraqi troops recaptured Tikrit. Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi said that after the recapture of Tikrit, the next military mission would be to clear ISIS militants from Anbar. Despite this announcement, ISIS fighters have intensified their offensive in Anbar province.

ISIS took control of southern routes into Ramadi in 2014. Over the weekend, the militants captured its northern routes and several districts in the city. An assault that included suicide and car bombs killed 10 Iraqi security forces and wounded the head of the Iraqi military operations in Anbar, General Qassim al-Muhammadi.

Earlier today, ISIS made advances in three eastern areas:  Albu Soda, Albu Ghanem and parts of Soufiya. In Soufiya, the militants bombed a police station and took over a power plant. Heavy fighting near the provincial capital caused residents to flee from three villages after they were captured by ISIS fighters. Departing residents said that in the east, fighting is now two kilometres away from local government buildings.

Essawi has called for reinforcements from the Iraqi government for and the US-led coalition, just a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met with President Barack Obama in Washington to seek more support for the fight against ISIS. In recent weeks, the US military has carried out multiple airstrikes against ISIS targets in the region.

On Sunday, ISIS targeted the headquarters of an Iraqi Army brigade stationed in the Thar Thar area. The region, northwest of Baghdad, is strategic. ISIS control of Thar Thar allows them a logistical supply line between the Anbar and Salahaddin provinces. The assault marks the second time in as many months that the group has captured Iraqi military headquarters in the region. The attack has been confirmed in the Iraqi media. Reports suggest that the assault began with three suicide bombers attacking the headquarters.

The Anbar Province covers nearly 140,000 square kilometres of land, extending from the Euphrates in the east to borders with Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia in the west, northwest and southwest. The vast, mostly desert region is home to approximately 1.5 million people. The province has major highways which link it through Baghdad, as well as Amman and Damascus. Clearing the area of ISIS fighters will be difficult and costly, but the recapture of the province will cut ISIS supply routes to Mosul, and strain the group’s communication lines with eastern Syria. Iraq is acutely aware of the repercussions of ISIS falling into the hands of Ramadi. It is a strategic imperative.

ISIS Cyberattack on TV5Monde; FBI issues warning

An “extremely powerful” cyberattack claimed by supporters of Islamic State of Iraq and il Sham (ISIS) has left French broadcaster TV5Monde working to regain control of its 11 news channels and websites for three hours. The attack occurred around 10 pm local time. Hackers took down the television channels and posted material on the broadcaster’s Facebook and Twitter feeds. The station’s network director, Yves Bigot, said operations were “severely damaged.” The station’s programming and Facebook page are now back up, but its website remains under maintenance.

The hackers posted documents on the TV5Monde Facebook page which they claim are the identity cards of relatives of French soldiers involved in anti-Islamic State operations. The hackers also posted threats against the troops. France is part of the international coalition fighting against ISIS insurgents.

TV5Monde, which broadcasts around the world, is working with police and national security to determine how their security was breached. It is not yet known how the group accessed station operations, but it appears to have been conducted by the “Islamic State Hacking Division.” The hackers referred to themselves as the “CyberCaliphate” on TV5Monde’s Facebook page, which also took credit for the recent hacking of US military servers.

The station has restored broadcast of one signal across all of their channels, however they cannot “send out pre-recorded broadcasts nor restart the production of our news shows,” according to Bigot. He added that it could take days for broadcasts to return to normal, adding that the attack must have required “weeks” of planning. The station is broadcast in nations around the world, including the US, Canada and Britain.

A day before the attack on TV5Monde, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned that attackers claiming to be sympathetic to the extremist group ISIS are targeting websites that have vulnerable WordPress plugins.

WordPress is a website hosting system which also has a community third-party developers who have created some 37,000 plugins. Occasionally, security vulnerabilities in one of the plugins can put a large number of websites at risk by allowing hackers to gain unauthorized access, inject scripts, or install malware on the affected sites. The attackers have reportedly hit news organizations, religious institutions, and commercial and government websites. The hackers have defaced websites that share some of the common WordPress plugins with vulnerabilities that are easily exploited, the FBI said.

The FBI advisory states, “Although the defacements demonstrate low-level hacking sophistication, they are disruptive and often costly in terms of lost business revenue and expenditures on technical services to repair infected computer systems.” The attackers have voiced support for ISIS; they are likely conducting attacks in order to gain notoriety.

On Tuesday, the security company Sucuri issued an advisory for a flaw it found in the WP-Super-Cache plugin. The plugin is utilised by up to a million WordPress sites.  The vulnerability in the plugin could allow an attacker to add a new administrator to a site, or create a “backdoor” using WordPress’s theme edition tools.

The same day as the FBI warning was issued, The homepage of AustismIreland.ie showed a photograph of a soldier with their face covered, alongside the words “ISLAMIC STATE HACKERS”

“Hacked By Moroccanwolf and ABdellah elmaghribi ~ Moroccan Attacker ~ I love IS”.

The image remained on the site for six hours before it was removed. CEO of Irish Autism Action, Kevin Whelan, confirmed that the hack “appears to have happened to a number of sites” and was not directed at the charity in particular. It is likely that the hackers scanned several websites to identify vulnerable sites, and conducted hacks at random. The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre were also part of a worldwide hack affecting users of a vulnerable WordPress plugin.

Yemen Calls for Gulf Military Intervention

23 March– Yemen’s foreign minister Riyadh Yaseen has called on Gulf Arab military intervention in Yemen to stop territorial advances by Houthi fighters opposed to President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. In a televised interview, Yaseen said, “They’re expanding in territory, occupying airports and cities, attacking Aden with planes, detaining whom they please, threatening and gathering their forces.” Yasseen added, “We have expressed to the Gulf Cooperation Council, the United Nations as well as the international community that there should be a no-fly zone, and the use of military aircraft should be prevented at the airports controlled by the Houthis.”

The call for assistance comes as Yemen’s rebel Houthis escalated attacks against President Hadi, who fled to Aden last month after escaping house arrest at the hands of Houthis in Sanaa. Over the weekend, he made a defiant speech challenging the Houthis in his first public address since leaving Sanaa.

Rebel leader Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, who is reportedly backed by supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, vowed to send fighters into the southern part of the country where Hadi has taken refuge against the rebels. In one of his customary long and heated speeches over the weekend, al-Houthi said the move is meant to target al-Qaeda and other militant groups, as well as forces loyal to Hadi in the south. He referred to President Hadi as “puppet” to international and regional powers, and called the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar conspirators against Yemen.

Al-Houthi’s speech came a day after the Houthis called for a general mobilization against forces loyal to Hadi, and shortly after Houthi rebels seized the country’s third largest city of Taiz, an important station in its advance. The militia had also seized Taiz’s airport. Thousands of protestors swelled into the streets to oppose the capture of the city; the rebels dispersed them by firing into the air and beating them back with batons. The Houthis have taken control of the capital and six provinces.

Amid the unrest, terrorist groups are also gaining greater ground. Over the weekend, al-Qaeda seized the town of al-Houta amid growing violence. And on Friday, ISIS affiliates claimed responsibility for two bombs at mosques in Sana’a, killing up to 150 people. If their responsibility is verified, this marks the first large-scale actions in Yemen, and could drive Yemen further into instability.

In light of the escalating unrest, US troops evacuated al Anad air base on Sunday About 100 American troops and Special Forces units were stationed at the air base. UK Special Forces have pulled out of Yemen as well. The troops were reportedly airlifted from the capital Sana’a over the weekend. Jeff Rathke, US State Department spokesman, said in a statement: “Due to the deteriorating security situation in Yemen, the US government has temporarily relocated its remaining personnel out of Yemen.” The UK Government has not commented on the withdrawal of British troops.

The CIA and US military have carried out drone strikes against insurgents in Yemen for many years. Diplomats from the United States and several European nations fled Yemen in February amid embassy closures resulting from deteriorating security conditions.