The Iraqi government has declared the end of ISIS’s rule in Mosul after recapturing the remains of the historic Grand al-Nuri Mosque in the terror group’s de facto capital in the country. “Their fictitious state has fallen,” said Iraqi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool. The victory marks the end of more than eight months…
Top officials in Syria and at the Kremlin dismissed the White House’s accusations late Monday that Bashar al-Assad’s regime appears to be preparing another chemical attack on civilians. Ali Haidar, Syria’s minister for national reconciliation, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s charges were just part of a new diplomatic campaign against…
The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that Russian airstrikes outside the Islamic State’s de facto capital Raqqa, Syria, on May 28 are believed to have killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, along with dozens of other high-ranking and midlevel ISIS commanders. “According to information that is being checked through various channels, Islamic State leader Ibrahim…
Fifteen people were killed and an additional 47 injured early Tuesday after a car bomb detonated outside an ice cream shop in central Baghdad. The Islamic State terror group claimed responsibility for the attack, which reportedly involved a remotely detonated device inside a car. The attack occurred just after midnight, when many families head out…
Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, made an unannounced trip to Iraq over the weekend with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Joseph Dunford, a senior U.S. official said Sunday. The official said that Kushner wanted to show his support for Iraq’s government, and get a better understanding of…
Following pressure from the Pentagon and State Department, President Trump’s next executive order on immigration will take Iraq off the list of countries whose citizens are temporarily barred from entering the United States, several U.S. officials told The Associated Press. The officials said that Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen will stay on the…
On Thursday, Iraqi’s militarized federal police launched an attack to seize Mosul’s airport from the Islamic State while Iraqi special forces entered the sprawling Ghazlani military base nearby. The attack began with U.S.-led airstrikes overnight, followed by a coordinated assault on the airport, and Iraqi forces have captured the runway and are fighting scattered ISIS…
President Trump on Monday announced that he had picked Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a respected military strategist, as his new national security adviser. McMaster replaces Michael Flynn, who was ousted last week for withholding information on his communication with Russia’s ambassador from Vice President Mike Pence. In an appearance at his Mar-a-Lago club in…
Defense Secretary James Mattis on Monday said that the U.S. would not try to seize Iraq’s oil, an idea President Trump floated last month that has upset Iraqi leaders. Some local lawmakers have been pressuring Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to cut back on the country’s cooperation with the U.S. due to Trump’s oil threat and…
On her visit to Chris Matthews’ “Hardball” show on Thursday night, Kellyanne Conway make up a fictional “massacre” when justifying the President’s ban on refugees and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries. “I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came…
Airports all over the United States spun into crisis over the weekend after President Trump signed an order closing the nation to refugees and to people from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Lawyers and protesters rushed to the aid of American residents who were barred from reentry, and legal battles began all over the country. Despite…
ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos During an interview with ABC News, Donald Trump claimed once again that if he were president in 2004, he would have been able to keep Captain Humayun Khan alive. Khan died in combat in Iraq. “Had I been president, Captain Khan would be alive today,” Trump said. “We…
Radio shock-jock Howard Stern this week addressed for the first time his 2002 interview with Donald Trump, during which the current GOP nominee expressed his support for the impending Iraq War. “I was up late watching the debate,” Stern said of Monday evening’s presidential debate, during which the controversial interview was cited. “I hung in…
NBC host didn’t challenge Trump’s false claims about Iraq and Libya. Donald Trump did not oppose the Iraq War from the beginning. In September 2002, the month before then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) voted in favor of the congressional authorization to use force in Iraq, Trump went on Howard Stern’s radio show and said he supported…
British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote to President George Bush nine months before the invasion of Iraq “with an assurance that he would be with him, whatever,” a long-awaited official government inquiry into the invasion has found. The finding is grabbing early headlines in reporting of the Chilcot Report, published today, which documents the entire…
At least 165 people were killed on Sunday as two bombs blasted Baghdad, one of which was claimed by ISIS. At least 225 people were injured. The deadliest attack took place in a major shopping district, killing 86 people, 15 of which were children. That attack is believed to be the deadlist single bomb attack…
A series of airstrikes by U.S. forces outside the Iraqi city of Fallujah killed 250 ISIS militants on Wednesday, reports said. The Iraqi Ministry of Defense posted video showing the strike against an ISIS convoy. About 40 vehicles were destroyed, officials told Reuters and ABC News. The airstrike came after Iraqi and U.S. officials declared…
The Islamic State (ISIS) has committed the crime of genocide against the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq, seeking to destroy the ethno-religious group of 400,000 through killings, sexual slavery and other crimes, United Nations investigators said on Thursday. “The genocide of the Yazidis is ongoing,” the independent investigators said in a report, which urged major…
The Islamic State terror group claimed res-ponsibility Wednesday for an attack in a predominantly Shiite Baghdad neighborhood that killed at least 64 people. Police say the bomb—among the deadliest in recent history in the Iraqi capital—was detonated in a parked car at a crowded outdoor marketplace. ISIS said in a Twitter post that it had…
The battle that killed a Navy SEAL fighting ISIS this week was caught on video, according to cellphone footage obtained by The Guardian. Charles Keating IV was killed during an hours-long firefight as American special-forces personnel and Kurdish commandos fought off ISIS militants. In the video, a Kurdish peshmerga at one point shouts “Please save…
Hundreds of anti-government protesters on Saturday entered the Iraqi parliament in Baghdad, carrying the national flag and chanting against the government. In order to enter parliament, they climbed over the walls fortifying the so-called “Green Zone.” The breach, which comes as political tensions in Iraq are reaching their boiling point, is the first of its…
The American ISIS defector who has been described as a “gold mine” of intelligence says he followed a young woman to join the militant group, “wasn’t thinking straight,” and immediately regretted his decision. “On the way there I regretted—I wanted to go back,” said Mohamad Jamal Khweis, 26. “I made a bad decision to go…
Secretary of State John Kerry has determined that the Islamic State group is committing genocide against Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. officials, as he acted to meet a congressional deadline. But Kerry’s finding, set to be announced Thursday, will not obligate the United States to take additional action against…
Turkey’s military hit Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq with airstrikes Monday, hours after a suicide bombing in Ankara killed 37 people and wounded 125. In the airstrikes, nine F-16s and two F-4 jets raided 18 positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), including ammunition depots, bunkers, and shelters. A woman suspected of belonging to…
ISIS militants claimed res-ponsbility for a truck bomb at an Iraqi checkpoint that killed at least 60 people and injured more than 70 others on Sunday. The suicide attack took place in Hilla, about 73 miles south of Bagdad. ISIS claimed the attack on the Amaz news agency website. “A martyr’s operation with a truck…
After a seven-month occupation by ISIS forces, the key western Iraqi city of Ramadi has been liberated, Iraqi military officials announced Monday, and a weeklong battle to retake the stronghold. “The security forces have entered the governmental buildings and raised the Iraqi flags over them after killing many ISIS militants, and the rest have escaped,”…
Just four days after launching a major assault on Ramadi, Iraqi forces think they’re close to recapturing the city from Islamic State. Government troops have consolidated their positions here, fighting their way deep into the ISIS stronghold for a final push on this provincial capital. They’re backed by air support from an international coalition led…
According to local officials, the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar has been seized from militants of the so-called Islamic State after a Kurdish-led offensive, backed by U.S. airstrikes. “The liberation of Sinjar will have a big impact on liberating Mosul,” regional president Massoud Barzani told the press, reportedly while overlooking the town from a mountain.…
Kurdish Iraqi fighters, with the help of at least 20 U.S.-led airstrikes, launched an offensive early Thursday to reclaim the ISIS-held town of Sinjar. More than 7,500 Peshmerga fighters began an assault on the mountain town as part of an effort to retake it and cut off a strategic supply route for ISIS militants between…
Trevor Noah reminded us of that time President Obama promise not to send troops into Syria to fight ISIS but despite this the President makes dubious changes to U.S. military strategy in the Middle East. “But here you are with your boots on the ground,boots on the ground, boots on the ground, looking like a…
