ISIS/ISIL conflict in Syria/Iraq (No OpEd, No Politics)

Scratch said:

It is a big problem. The entire idea of statehood, in the form of a nation state, is not one that has grown with many of these people over time. In many places that are of interest here, I feel a little like the population to a large extent is opportunistic rather than dedicated when it comes to service for their "nation".
Often times, those nations' boudaries also don't necessarily reflect where the people affected see themselves belonging to.

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Franklin said:

This is from Syria I don't know who is doing the shooting but this is just sick.

[video=youtube;mgwO6oni-wY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgwO6oni-wY[/video]

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mobydog said:

I re-watched twice. . and I believe that kid got shot at the chest, somewhere in the middle of the clip. No way, he could have lived. Just saying.

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Zool said:

I listened to the audio and it sure sounds like the 'Freedom Fighter' dialogue we've come to expect now out of Syria & Iraq.
Any and all support for these fanatics should be cut. Full stop. The word 'moderate' does not fit anywhere into their ideology or goals.

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Equation said:

I know...did the kid got hit by a real bullet or what? I didn't see any puff of pink cloud (blood splatter) coming out from him at all.

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Members of a massive Dutch motorcycle gang, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, recently joined Kurdish forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq, vowing to “exterminate the rodents.”

The leader of No Surrender -- which has dozens of chapters in the Netherlands and across Europe -- told state broadcaster NOS on Friday that three of its members have traveled to Mosul in Northern Iraq to take up the fight against ISIS, AFP reports.

A photo posted on a Dutch-Kurdish Twitter account last week shows a heavily-tattooed man in military garb flashing the “victory” sign alongside a Kurdish fighter inside a bunker.

“Ron from The Netherlands has joined the Kurds to exterminate the rodents of [ISIS],” a caption with the photo reads, according to the New York Post.

Countries around the world have been trying to stop people from joining the jihadists in the Islamic State, but a Dutch public prosecutor says it’s OK for its citizens to fight against them.

"Joining a foreign armed force was previously punishable, now it's no longer forbidden," Wim de Bruin told AFP on Tuesday. "You just can't join a fight against the Netherlands."

Dutch citizens are also not allowed to join the Kurdistan Workers' Party because it is blacklisted as a terrorist organization, De Bruin added.

Meanwhile, Kurdish militiamen fought pitched street battles Wednesday with the extremists in a Syrian Kurdish border town near Turkey, making small advances, activists and officials told The Associated Press.

In the border town of Kobani, members of the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, were advancing hours after the U.S.-led coalition stepped up airstrikes against ISIS in and around the town, said Asya Abdullah, a Syrian Kurdish leader.

Abdullah, the co-president of Syria's powerful Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, told The Associated Press that Kurdish fighters have advanced near the hill of Tel Shair that overlooks part of the town, taking advantage of the air raids that slowed the push by the militants. Abdullah spoke by phone from Kobani.

U.S. Central Command said Wednesday that 18 airstrikes near Kobani destroyed 16 ISIS-occupied buildings. One airstrike near the Haditha Dam in western Iraq destroyed an ISIS armed vehicle and guard shack, while four airstrikes in Baiji destroyed an ISIS building, a Humvee and artillery.

In mid-September, the Islamic State group launched its offensive on Kobani -- also known under its Arabic name of Ayn Arab -- and captured dozens of nearby Kurdish villages, as well as about a third of the town. The fighting in and around Kobani has killed more than 500 people and forced more than 200,000 people to flee across the border into Turkey.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists around the country, said Wednesday's clashes were taking place in the eastern neighborhoods of Kobani as well as the southern edge of the town.

The Observatory also reported several airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition in the town Wednesday and plumes of smoke rising from the strikes were visible across the border in Turkey.

Also Wednesday, Syria's Foreign Ministry dismissed Turkey's calls for a no-fly zone on the Syrian territories as a "flagrant violation" of the U.N. charter and international law.

"Syria categorically rejects the establishment of no-fly zones on any part of the Syrian territories under any pretext," the ministry said.

Turkey has said it won't join the fight against the Islamic State extremists in Syria unless the U.S.-led coalition also goes after the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, including establishing a no-fly zone and a buffer zone along the Turkish border.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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An Israeli citizen who has joined up with Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State in northern Syria was convicted for involvement in a fraud ring that cheated elderly American citizens out of their money.

Gill Rosenberg, a 31-year-old born in Canada, was arrested in 2009 following a joint FBI and Israel Police operation and consequently spent three years in a US prison for posing as a lottery official and convincing unsuspecting seniors to pay for fictive services, according to the Walla news site. Channel 10 news reported that Rosenberg had originally been sentenced to a four-year prison term, but her sentence was eventually shortened and she was deported to Israel.

Rosenberg and the 11 other members of the ring — all Israeli nationals — were believed to have stolen up to $25 million, according to Channel 10.

On Sunday, Rosenberg posted to her Facebook page that she was in Nusaybin, Turkey, and was beginning her training alongside Kurdish fighters in the mountains on the border with Syria the same day. Israel Radio reported Tuesday that Rosenberg made contact with the YPG group, the People’s Protection Units in Syrian Kurdistan, via the Internet.
Gill Rosenberg (right) posing with a friend in a photo which is presumed to have been taken in Iraq and which was uploaded to Facebook on November 9, 2014, (photo credit: Facebook)

Gill Rosenberg (right) posing with a friend in a photo which is presumed to have been taken in Iraq and which was uploaded to Facebook on November 9, 2014, (photo credit: Facebook)

Yahel Ben-Oved, a lawyer who represented Rosenberg in her 2009 trial, told Reuters that while she could not confirm whether her former client had in fact set off to fight Islamist extremists in Syria, such a move was “exactly the sort of thing [Rosenberg] would do.”

Rosenberg set out from her home in Tel Aviv on November 2, stopping in Amman before flying to Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She told Israel Radio that she wanted to do her part for the Kurdish national struggle, and that she was hopeful her experience in the Israel Defense Forces would be useful to the Kurds.

According to Rosenberg’s Facebook page, she served in the IDF’s Home Front Command.

Rosenberg has posted pictures of herself in mountains of Iraq and Syrian Kurdistan.

“In the IDF, we say ‘Aharai’ – After Me. Let’s show ISIS what that means,” she wrote, using an alternate acronym for Islamic State.
Gill Rosenberg, in a photo which is presumed to have been taken in Iraq and which was uploaded to Facebook on November 9, 2014 (photo credit: Facebook)

Gill Rosenberg, in a photo which is presumed to have been taken in Iraq and which was uploaded to Facebook on November 9, 2014 (photo credit: Facebook)

Kurdish fighters have dealt the Islamic State a series of military setbacks in Iraq and forced a prolonged stalemate in the small Syrian border town of Kobani.

The prolonged fighting in Kobani is also distracting IS from more strategically important areas in Syria and Iraq where the militant extremists are already stretched on multiple fronts.

Nearly two months after IS launched its lightning assault on the Kurdish-dominated town near Turkish border, the group is bogged down in an increasingly entrenched and costly battle.

Syrian and Kurdish activists estimate nearly 600 Islamic State fighters have been killed — its heaviest losses since taking over large parts of Syria and Iraq in a summer blitz.

But despite seven weeks of fierce fighting and the reinforcements on both sides, fighting positions around Kobani remain much the same as they did several weeks ago, with IS controlling about 40 percent of the town, according to Syrian and Kurdish activists and observers.

IS has also recently suffered losses on several fronts in Iraq, where it is fighting government forces, peshmerga and Shiite militias aided by Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah group.

A group of 150 Iraqi Kurdish forces known as peshmerga deployed last week to Kobani with more advanced weapons including anti-tank missiles and artillery to help bolster their Syrian brethren defending the town. They have provided artillery cover for fellow Kurdish fighters, but it is too early to say whether this has already made any difference on the ground.

Lazar Berman and AP contributed to this report.

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