| Sunni tribes, abandoned by Iraq, key to Islamic State fight Posted: 20 Jun 2015 02:22 PM PDT  HABANIYAH, Iraq (AP) — Parading across a desert base, hundreds of Sunni tribesmen who graduated a crash training course stood ready to take on the Islamic State group on behalf of a government that many believed left them to die at the hands of the extremists.
|
| Jolie decries 'explosion of suffering' after visiting refugees in Turkey Posted: 20 Jun 2015 01:02 PM PDT  Hollywood actress and director Angelina Jolie on Saturday described a spiraling global refugee crisis as an "explosion of human suffering" whose causes the international community refuses to confront. Jolie, who serves as a United Nations special envoy for refugees, was speaking at a news conference in southeastern Turkey, home to Syrians and Iraqis displaced by war, on World Refugee Day. The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in a report last week that there were now more refugees than at any other time in history, with 59.5 million people displaced from their homes worldwide.
|
| Roadside bomb kills 14 family members in southern Afghanistan Posted: 20 Jun 2015 12:39 PM PDT  A roadside bomb killed at least 14 members of an Afghan family, including women and children, in the country's volatile south Saturday, officials said, in the first major attack in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the Marja district of Helmand province, a hotbed of Taliban insurgents who are intensifying their annual summer offensive. The militants had recently rebuffed requests from senior Afghan clerics to halt attacks during the fasting month of Ramadan even as a surge in violence has sent civilian casualties soaring.
|
| A short chronology of the Islamic State group Posted: 20 Jun 2015 07:32 AM PDT April 18, 2010 — U.S. and Iraqi forces kill two top leaders of al-Qaida's branch in Iraq. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes the terror group's new leader. |
| Cigarette smuggler skirts deadly edge of IS smoking ban Posted: 20 Jun 2015 07:31 AM PDT  ESKI MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — It was a heart-racing moment. The cigarette smuggler was stuck in line at a checkpoint as, up ahead, Islamic State militants were searching cars. He was running a big risk: The militants have banned smoking and lighting up is punishable with a fine or broken finger. Selling cigarettes can be a death sentence.
|
| State of fear: Survivors tell of life under IS rule Posted: 20 Jun 2015 07:30 AM PDT  ESKI MOSUL, Iraq (AP) — When the Islamic State fighters burst into the Iraqi village of Eski Mosul, Sheikh Abdullah Ibrahim knew his wife was in trouble.
|
| U.S., allies conduct 16 air strikes in Iraq, six in Syria Posted: 20 Jun 2015 06:28 AM PDT  U.S. and coalition forces targeted the Islamic State on Friday with 16 air strikes in Iraq and six in Syria, the U.S. military said in a statement on Saturday. In Iraq, one strike hit a checkpoint for the Islamic State and also destroyed a storage container near Al Qaim, according to the statement. Striking a checkpoint is intended "to reduce their ability to restrict the movement of, and extort from, the population in Daesh-held areas," said Colonel Wayne Marotto, chief of public affairs for the Combined Joint Task Force, in the statement, referring to the militant group as "Daesh." The brunt of the force, though, was near Mosul, where six strikes hit a tactical unit, staging area and tank, while destroying a heavy machine gun and Islamic State building.
|
| Five Libyan troops killed by mortar in Benghazi - source Posted: 20 Jun 2015 04:05 AM PDT  At least five Libyan troops were killed late on Friday when a mortar landed in the eastern city of Benghazi where pro-government forces have been fighting against a mix of Islamist militant brigades, medical sources said. Benghazi is just one front in a complex conflict involving Libya's two rival governments, and loose alliances of armed factions as well as Islamist militant forces taking advantage of the chaos to gain ground. "Five members of the Libyan National Army were killed when a mortar shell landed among them late Friday evening," the medical source at Benghazi's Al-Jala hospital told Reuters.
|
| Veteran Associated Press reporter, editor Laura Myers dies Posted: 20 Jun 2015 02:49 AM PDT  LAS VEGAS (AP) — Laura Myers, a veteran Associated Press reporter and editor who led the news cooperative's coverage of foreign affairs as the country reeled from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and spent the past five years covering politics for Nevada's largest newspaper, died Friday.
|
| A year on, no quick fix to halt IS 'caliphate' Posted: 19 Jun 2015 11:43 PM PDT  A year after its establishment, the Islamic State group's self-declared "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq remains well-funded and heavily armed, and experts say it could be around for years to come. The would-be state headed by IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi -- called Caliph Ibrahim by his followers -- has suffered setbacks in the months since it was proclaimed. A US-led coalition is carrying out strikes against the group throughout its territory and this week it lost the key Syrian border town of Tal Abyad to Kurdish forces.
|
| U.S. man arrested for attempting to provide support to Islamic State Posted: 19 Jun 2015 08:05 PM PDT A U.S. man was arrested on Friday in Ohio for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State militant group, the U.S. Justice Department said. Amir Said Abdul Rahman Al-Ghazi, 38, was also charged with possessing a firearm as a convicted felon and trafficking marijuana, prosecutors said. Al-Ghazi was arrested in North Olmstead in northeastern Ohio, the Justice Department said. |
