Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Cameron pledges to address causes of extremism in 2016
• France 'not finished with terrorism' says Hollande
• War on IS 'starting to pay off': French minister
• AP Poll: Islamic State conflict voted top news story of 2015
• New Year revelers unfazed by attack worries _ in most places
• Iran's president orders stepped-up missile production
• Laughing gunmen taunted victims in Paris concert hall: witnesses
• Families of Wounded Veterans Learn the Art of Candy Making
• Ohio high court won't hear appeal over veteran's pet ducks
• Turkey killed 3,100 PKK rebels in 2015: Erdogan
• Gulf stocks dive over low oil prices, geopolitics
• Before Mosul, Iraqi army may face fight at the gates of Baghdad
• Iran denies it fired rockets near U.S. warship in Gulf
• Germany to tighten checks on Syrian asylum applicants
• More than 55,000 killed in Syria in 2015: monitor
• IS claims deadly shooting in Russia's Caucasus
• Majority of Americans - And Candidates of Both Parties - Say Christians Face Genocide in Middle East
• U.S., allies conduct 24 strikes against Islamic State: U.S. military
• Erdogan vows no respite in Turkey's war on Kurdish militants
• ISIS and fumbling control of nuclear materials: Center's investigations into global threats in 2015
• U.S.-trained commandos in Philippines kill 10 militants: usinarmy
• Notable deaths in 2015
• 2016: A Look Ahead
• US-led strikes in Syria, Iraq hit IS 'middle-management'

Cameron pledges to address causes of extremism in 2016 Posted: 31 Dec 2015 04:04 PM PST Prime Minister David Cameron pledged on Friday to address the root causes of extremism in Britain this year as part of a wider plan of social reform to be built on the country's recovering economic foundations.

France 'not finished with terrorism' says Hollande Posted: 31 Dec 2015 01:10 PM PST President Francois Hollande said in his New Year's Eve address to the nation Thursday that France "has not finished with terrorism yet". Speaking six weeks after gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in Paris, Hollande said the threat of another attack "remains at its highest level". After a "terrible" year in which jihadists also attacked the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket and a heavily armed man attacked passengers on a high-speed train in France, Hollande said his "first duty" was to protect the French people.

War on IS 'starting to pay off': French minister Posted: 31 Dec 2015 12:34 PM PST French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told forces on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf Thursday that the war against the Islamic State group was starting to bear its fruit. "The war (against IS) is being played out here," he said aboard the Charles de Gaulle, which is participating in the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes on IS in Syria and Iraq. "Several weeks ago, France was hit at its heart," Le Drian told 250 French troops gathered in the carrier's aircraft hangar among Rafale and Super Etendard jets.

AP Poll: Islamic State conflict voted top news story of 2015 Posted: 31 Dec 2015 11:55 AM PST NEW YORK (AP) — The far-flung attacks claimed by Islamic State militants and the intensifying global effort to crush them added up to a grim, gripping yearlong saga that was voted the top news story of 2015, according to The Associated Press' annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors.

New Year revelers unfazed by attack worries _ in most places Posted: 31 Dec 2015 11:18 AM PST In Bangkok, police-flanked partygoers will ring in the new year at the site of a deadly bombing that took place just months ago. In Paris, residents recovering from their city's own deadly attacks will enjoy scaled-back celebrations. And in Belgium's capital, authorities anxious after thwarting what they say was a holiday terror plot have canceled festivities altogether.

Iran's president orders stepped-up missile production Posted: 31 Dec 2015 10:41 AM PST TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday ordered the accelerated production of missiles in response to possible new U.S. sanctions.

Laughing gunmen taunted victims in Paris concert hall: witnesses Posted: 31 Dec 2015 09:40 AM PST In the midst of the bloodbath at a music hall in Paris, one of the gunmen laughed and played the xylophone left behind after the band had fled the stage, according to new accounts emerging six weeks after France's deadliest terror attacks. The chilling accounts survivors told to investigators are the latest to emerge from the sprawling probe into the most deadly of the coordinated attacks on the French capital claimed by the Islamic State group. Three men got out, guns in hand and wearing suicide vests -- Samy Amimour, Omar Mostefai and Foued Mohamed-Aggad.

Families of Wounded Veterans Learn the Art of Candy Making Posted: 31 Dec 2015 09:15 AM PST Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) took more than a dozen family support members to Sweet Pete's, near city hall in downtown Jacksonville. WWP knows the important role family members play in an injured veteran's recovery. WWP also knows the stress family members can face as they help their loved one cope with the changes they are dealing with following a visible or invisible wound.

Ohio high court won't hear appeal over veteran's pet ducks Posted: 31 Dec 2015 08:49 AM PST COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by a military veteran who sought to defy local law and keep pet ducks that he says help relieve his post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

Turkey killed 3,100 PKK rebels in 2015: Erdogan Posted: 31 Dec 2015 07:40 AM PST Turkish security forces killed 3,100 Kurdish militants in 2015, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday, vowing no let-up in a relentless offensive to oust rebels from towns and mountains in the southeast. "In 2015, 3,100 terrorists were neutralised in operations at home and abroad," he said referring to the military operations on PKK strongholds in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. "Our security forces are flushing out the terrorists from every inch of the mountains and the towns and will continue to do so," he said.

Gulf stocks dive over low oil prices, geopolitics Posted: 31 Dec 2015 07:15 AM PST Stock markets in the Gulf states ended 2015 in negative territory on Thursday, following a massive decline in oil prices and regional turmoil. The Saudi stock market, the largest in the region, led the slide by shedding 17 percent in 2015 followed by Dubai which dipped 16.5 percent. Gulf Cooperation Council states were forced to cut back this year after oil prices fell by more than 60 percent since mid-2014 to below $40 a barrel.

Before Mosul, Iraqi army may face fight at the gates of Baghdad Posted: 31 Dec 2015 07:10 AM PST By Ahmed Rasheed and Stephen Kalin BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces may face a big battle near Baghdad before they can try to retake the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul: Falluja, a long-time bastion of Sunni Muslim jihadists at the capital's western gates. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's government and the U.S.-led coalition backing it have been cagey so far in plans for Falluja, which lies between Baghdad and Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province that the Iraqi military recaptured this week from the militants. Falluja was the first Iraqi city to fall to Islamic State in January 2014, six months before the group that emerged from al Qaeda swept through large parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.Abadi said on Monday the army would head next to Mosul, the biggest urban center under Islamic State control.

Iran denies it fired rockets near U.S. warship in Gulf Posted: 31 Dec 2015 07:01 AM PST Iran denied on Thursday that its Revolutionary Guards launched rockets near a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Gulf on Saturday and condemned U.S. plans for new sanctions over its ballistic missile program. The dispute comes after Iran and six world powers, including the United States, reached a deal in July that will remove certain U.S., European Union and U.N. sanctions on Tehran in exchange for Iran accepting curbs on its nuclear program.

Germany to tighten checks on Syrian asylum applicants Posted: 31 Dec 2015 06:50 AM PST Germany will reinstate individual interviews for Syrian asylum-seekers from Friday, the interior ministry said, essentially tightening an official procedure that had been relaxed for citizens of the war-torn country. In a bid to swiftly process a million migrants who have arrived in Germany this year alone, Berlin had earlier simplified the asylum seeking procedure for those from war-torn countries like Syria and Iraq. Confirming a report in Bild newspaper Thursday, a spokeswoman from the Interior Ministry said that the procedure would be reinstated from January 1, 2016.

More than 55,000 killed in Syria in 2015: monitor Posted: 31 Dec 2015 06:12 AM PST More than 55,000 people were killed in Syria in 2015, the country's fifth year of war, including over 2,500 children, a monitor said Thursday. The total number of dead since the beginning of the conflict had reached more than 260,000, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, though the number of those killed in 2015 was lower than the 76,021 people who died in 2014. In 2015 alone, the monitor documented the deaths of 55,219 people, including 13,249 civilians.

IS claims deadly shooting in Russia's Caucasus Posted: 31 Dec 2015 05:49 AM PST The Islamic State group has claimed it was behind a deadly shooting at an ancient citadel in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region of Dagestan, an area increasingly becoming a hotbed of extremism. Tuesday night's attack near the historic citadel of Derbent, which left one person dead and 11 injured, is the second claimed by IS in the Russian Caucasus since September, according to local news portal Caucasian Knot. The Russian authorities are battling to prevent residents from joining up with the brutal jihadist group in Iraq and in Syria, where Moscow has been waging air strikes over the past two months.

Majority of Americans - And Candidates of Both Parties - Say Christians Face Genocide in Middle East Posted: 31 Dec 2015 05:15 AM PST NEW HAVEN, Conn., Dec. 31, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- By a wide margin, most Americans agree with the presidential candidates of both parties in calling ISIS' atrocities against Christians in the Middle East "genocide," according to a KofC-Marist poll conducted this month. Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee and Martin O'Malley have all called the situation genocide. By almost 20 points, 55 percent to 36 percent, Americans agree that this targeting of Christians and other religious minorities meets the U.N. definition of genocide.

U.S., allies conduct 24 strikes against Islamic State: U.S. military Posted: 31 Dec 2015 04:39 AM PST The U.S.-led coalition carried out 24 strikes against Islamic State militants on Wednesday, putting pressure on the group around Ramadi and Mosul in Iraq and along the Mar'a line in Syria, the U.S. military said in a statement on Thursday. Warplanes carried out nine air strikes near Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, which fell to Islamic State fighters in 2014. The coalition has stepped up strikes around Mosul over the past two weeks, hitting it more than 90 times, a pace three times that of the previous two-week period.

Erdogan vows no respite in Turkey's war on Kurdish militants Posted: 31 Dec 2015 04:14 AM PST By Nick Tattersall and Melih Aslan ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday vowed no let-up in a military campaign which he said had killed more than 3,000 mostly Kurdish militants this year in some of the heaviest fighting since their insurgency began three decades ago. In a New Year statement, Erdogan said Turkey had "the resources and determination" to deal with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which first took up arms in 1984 to push for greater autonomy in the largely Kurdish southeast. The violence has preoccupied the NATO member's armed forces and complicated international efforts to fight Islamic State in neighboring Syria, where a Kurdish group linked to the PKK is fighting the jihadists.

ISIS and fumbling control of nuclear materials: Center's investigations into global threats in 2015 Posted: 31 Dec 2015 02:00 AM PST Stories from the past year about ISIS and securing nuclear materials from terrorists worldwide.

U.S.-trained commandos in Philippines kill 10 militants: usinarmy Posted: 30 Dec 2015 07:41 PM PST U.S.-trained army commandos in the Philippines killed 10 al Qaeda-linked militants in a clash on a southern island, a military spokesman said on Thursday, as security forces intensify a search for foreign hostages. A lieutenant was among eight Philippine soldiers killed or wounded in a clash with about 300 members of the Abu Sayyaf militant group on Jolo island late on Wednesday, spokesman Major Filemon Tan told reporters. "Our troops are pursuing the Abu Sayyaf who broke into small groups and withdrew to the interior of the island," Tan said, adding that 15 militants had also been wounded in the fighting.

Notable deaths in 2015 Posted: 30 Dec 2015 06:49 PM PST Paris (AFP) - From legendary Egyptian actor Omar Sharif to Germany's ex-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Nobel-winning author Gunter Grass, here are some of the notable figures who died in 2015:

2016: A Look Ahead Posted: 30 Dec 2015 05:39 PM PST Suffice it to say that in my look ahead to 2015 last year, I did not predict that Donald Trump would lead in the quest for the Republican presidential nomination. Today, the National Park Service administers over 400 locations, including 59 parks, and employs 20,000 people. One of the places overseen by the Park Service is Pearl Harbor, part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument.

US-led strikes in Syria, Iraq hit IS 'middle-management' Posted: 30 Dec 2015 04:31 PM PST US-led strikes against Islamic State group officials in Iraq and Syria are robbing the jihadists of one of their most valuable resources: experienced mid-level commanders. Ten of the group's higher-ups, including one with "direct" ties to the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks, were killed in air strikes in December alone, the US military said. "Because of their operational role and their experience, these figures are an invaluable human resource and a huge loss for IS," said Mathieu Guidere, a jihadism expert at the University of Toulouse.

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