| Iraq announces start of Falluja operation, some residents flee Posted: 22 May 2016 04:26 PM PDT  By Stephen Kalin and Ahmed Rasheed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the launching of an offensive to retake the Islamic State stronghold of Falluja after the military told residents on Sunday to get ready to leave before fighting started. "Zero hour for the liberation of Falluja has arrived. The moment of great victory has drawn near and Daesh has no choice but to flee," Abadi said on his official Twitter feed, using an Arabic acronym for the jihadist group.
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| Iraq announces start of operation to retake Fallujah Posted: 22 May 2016 04:04 PM PDT  Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Monday announced the start of a military operation to retake the city of Fallujah from the Islamic State group. The fight to recapture the jihadist bastion, which has been out of government control for nearly two and a half years, will be one of the toughest in Iraq's war against IS. "We are beginning the operation to liberate Fallujah," Abadi said in a statement.
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| Top US commander makes secret visit to Syria Posted: 22 May 2016 11:19 AM PDT  NORTHERN SYRIA (AP) — On a secret trip to Syria, the new commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said he felt a moral obligation to enter a war zone to check on his troops and make his own assessment of progress in organizing local Arab and Kurd fighters for what has been a slow campaign to push the Islamic State group out of Syria.
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| Iraq Green Zone breach may set stage for more violence Posted: 22 May 2016 10:06 AM PDT  The latest breach of Baghdad's Green Zone by angry protesters may set the stage for further violence between demonstrators and security forces, as well as sharpening political divisions in Iraq. Supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr broke into the Green Zone -- a fortified Baghdad area that is home to Iraq's main government institutions as well as various embassies -- and stormed the premier's office on Friday.
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| Iraqi forces prepare offensive on IS-held Falluja Posted: 22 May 2016 09:50 AM PDT  By Stephen Kalin and Ahmed Rasheed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's military said on Sunday it was preparing to launch an offensive to retake the Islamic State stronghold of Falluja and told residents to get ready to leave before fighting started. Falluja, a long-time bastion of Sunni Muslim jihadists, was the first city to fall to Islamic State, in January 2014, six months before the group swept through large parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria. The jihadists have been preventing residents leaving for months.
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| Belgium defiant two months after IS attacks Posted: 22 May 2016 09:32 AM PDT  Belgian premier Charles Michel vowed Sunday that the West will ultimately defeat Islamic State group "terrorists", as the royal family hosted a ceremony marking two months since the deadly Brussels bombings. King Philippe, speaking to an audience of 500 at the royal palace in Brussels, thanked the doctors, police and other emergency services who helped on March 22, when 32 people were killed at Zaventem airport and the Maalbeek metro station. "If we are here in the palace, it is to express the support and gratitude of all the Belgian people," said the monarch, who with his wife Queen Mathilde visited the injured in hospital the day after the attacks.
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| Iraq says its forces preparing for Fallujah battle Posted: 22 May 2016 08:55 AM PDT  Iraqi forces are heading to Fallujah to launch a long-awaited operation to retake the city from the Islamic State jihadist group, the prime minister's spokesman announced on Sunday. "Your sons the heroic fighters in the armed forces are ready to achieve a new victory... they are going to the city of Fallujah to clear it from the Daesh (IS) gang," Saad al-Hadithi said in a statement. The announcement apparently settles the issue of which IS-held city Iraq should seek to retake next -- a subject of debate among Iraqi officials and international forces helping the country fight the jihadists.
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| IRAQ GREEN ZONE Posted: 22 May 2016 08:41 AM PDT Map locates the Green Zone in Iraq; 2c x 2 inches; 96.3 mm x 50 mm; |
| Iraq denies using live fire against Green Zone protesters Posted: 22 May 2016 07:59 AM PDT  Iraq denied on Sunday that its security forces had used live ammunition against protesters who broke into Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone this week. Sources from four hospitals and Baghdad's central morgue said four protesters had been killed and 90 injured by gunshot wounds on Friday in the zone, which is in the center of the capital and is home to parliament, government offices and embassies. "There is no evidence that the two deaths were caused by direct gunfire on the protesters, and there are no other cases," he said in a speech broadcast on state television.
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| Islamic State group leader urges attacks in Europe and US Posted: 22 May 2016 06:32 AM PDT CAIRO (AP) — An Islamic State group spokesman has urged sympathizers in Europe and the U.S. to launch attacks on civilians there if they are unable to travel to the group's self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq. |
| The impressive rise in global teamwork Posted: 22 May 2016 05:33 AM PDT Welcome to the worldwide web – no, not the internet kind – but rather what has become an expanding web of cooperation – from the Arctic to outer space – that is tackling humanity's biggest issues. Despite the difficulty of measurement, the Council of Foreign Relations has tried to tally up this phenomenon over the past two years. The Council has asked hundreds of experts at 26 think tanks across the globe to assess cooperation on 10 major issues, from terrorism to trade. |
| The humanitarian revolution: What happens when emergencies don't end? Posted: 22 May 2016 05:23 AM PDT When Gordon Brown unveiled a new fund for educating children displaced by conflict and disaster, the former British prime minister was admittedly trying to shake the world of global aid by the lapels. The Education Cannot Wait fund is perhaps the boldest statement to date of a growing conviction within the global aid community – that the separation between life-saving humanitarian intervention and life-enhancing development assistance makes less and less sense. Traditionally, the two have been different, with emergency intervention focused on an acute crises and development assistance dealing with chronic problems. |
| As humanitarian needs grow, USAID chief says the world must act Posted: 22 May 2016 04:32 AM PDT  More complex humanitarian disasters such as the war in Syria and the Ebola epidemic threaten to overwhelm the international community's ability to respond, the head of the leading U.S. aid agency told Reuters in an interview. Gayle Smith, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), described a global humanitarian system stretched to the limit by the number of disasters and a growing funding gap compounded by emergency responses that cost more than traditional relief methods. "This is not the time to cut resources," Smith said.
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| Taliban leader Mansour 'likely killed' in US drone strike Posted: 21 May 2016 09:43 PM PDT  An American drone strike targeted and "likely killed" Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a remote area of Pakistan, US officials said, in a major and rare American military raid in the country. The air strike, authorized by President Barack Obama, also killed a second adult male combatant as the pair traveled in a vehicle southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal near the Afghan border, a US official said. "Mansour was the target and was likely killed" by the strikes, which were carried out around 6:00 am (1000 GMT) by multiple unmanned aircraft operated by US Special Operations Forces, the US official added, speaking on conditions of anonymity.
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