The Nation Newspaper

Tag: IS militants

  • IS militants kill 120, capture 350 people in Iraq

    IS militants kill 120, capture 350 people in Iraq

    Islamic State (IS) militants have executed no fewer than 120 people and captured over 350 others in Mosul, Provincial Governor, Atheel al-Najafi, said on Monday.

    “With the people’s rising rejection of the IS, executions and detentions are mounting in different parts of the city,’’ Al-Najafi, the governor of Nineveh province of which Mosul is the capital, said.

    The victims, some of whom had been held hostage by the IS for months, were executed by gunshots to the head.

    According to al-Najafi, those captured by the IS are mainly police officers, current and former army officials, electoral commission employees, former parliamentary candidates and religious scholars.

    Mosul, Iraq’s second city, was captured by the IS in 2014 as part of its territorial push into the region which include large parts of Syria and Iraq.

  • IS militants seize Libyan airport

    Islamic State militants in Libya said they have seized the airport in the city of Sirte, as the group continues to make advances in the country.

    The news was announced by the group and by a Libyan militia that withdrew from the coastal city’s airport on Thursday.

    Most of Sirte, former leader Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown, fell to IS last week, the BBC reports.

    In a statement, the group said it had also seized the Great Man Made River water project.

    The irrigation project, the world’s largest, supplies fresh water to Libyan cities and was also the base for the opposition Battalion 166, which has now fled.

    The battalion, and other Islamist militias, run the capital, Tripoli, although their government is not recognised by the international community.

    The al-Ghardabiya airport also housed an airbase, that was seized by militias after being bombed by NATO forces during the battle to oust Gaddafi in 2011.

  • IS militants shoot, behead 30 in Libya

    A video purportedly made by Islamic State and posted on social media sites on Sunday appeared to show militants shooting and beheading about 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya.

    Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of the video, but the killings resemble past violence carried out by IS, an ultra-hardline group that has expanded its reach from strongholds in Iraq and Syria to conflict-ridden Libya.

    The video, in which militants call Christians “crusaders” who are out to kill Muslims, showed about 15 men being beheaded on a beach and another group of the same size, in an area of shrubland, being shot in the head.

    Both groups of men are referred to in a subtitle as “worshippers of the cross belonging to the hostile Ethiopian church.”

    Libyan officials were not immediately available for comment.

    Ethiopia said it had not been able to verify whether the people shown in the video were its citizens.

    “Nonetheless, the Ethiopian government condemns the atrocious act,” government spokesman Redwan Hussein said.

    He said Ethiopia, which does not have an embassy in Libya, would help repatriate Ethiopians if they wanted to leave the North African country.

    The United States also condemned the “brutal mass murder,” with the White House saying the killing of the men “solely because of their faith lays bare the terrorists’ vicious, senseless brutality.”

    Militants professing loyalty to IS have claimed several attacks on foreigners in Libya this year, including an assault on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli and the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in February.

    The killing of the Egyptians prompted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to order air strikes on IS targets in Libya.

     

  • Canada to extend air strike camapaign against IS militants

    Canada will extend its air strike campaign against Islamic State (IS) into Syria, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has announced.

    “In our view, ISIL [IS] must cease to have any safe haven in Syria,” Mr Harper said in the House of Commons.

    Canada’s mission against IS will also be extended for one year, beyond October’s election and well into 2016.

    Opposition leaders have criticised Mr Harper for drawing Canada into a war with unclear objectives.

    The move means Canada will be the first Nato country, other than the United States, to strike inside Syria.

    IS controls land on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border – and the US expanded its air strike campaign against the militant group into Syria in September.

    It has been joined in similar strikes by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

    The Canadian prime minister announced the change as he asked for a vote on the measure in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

    “The government recognises that ISIL’s power base, indeed the so-called caliphate’s capital, is in Syria,” Mr Harper said, adding fighters and heavy equipment were moving across the border from Iraq for protection against strikes.

    Mr Harper said Canada would not seek the “express consent” of the Assad government.

    “Instead, we will work closely with our American and other allies, who have already been carrying out such operations against ISIL over Syria in recent months.”

    The measure is expected to pass as Mr Harper’s Conservative Party controls the House of Commons.

    Thomas Mulcair said Canada had “no place in this war”

    The major opposition parties voted against the initial approval of military force against IS.

    New Democrat Party leader Tom Mulcair told the Commons on Tuesday Canada had “no place in this war”, while Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said Mr Harper had been “steadily drawing Canada deeper into a war in Iraq”.