Yahoo! News: Iraq

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• Three killed as Libya forces close on central Sirte against Islamic State
• Russian warship made 'unprofessional' maneuver: U.S. official
• US says up to 116 civilians killed in counterterror strikes
• Airstrike kills 2 Islamic State commanders near Mosul
• Air strike kills two Islamic State military commanders: Pentagon
• U.S. says kills up to 116 civilians in strikes outside war zones
• Two 'senior' IS military leaders killed in Iraq strike: Pentagon
• Trying to pry his son from IS, medic killed in Turkey attack
• US reveals death tolls from drone and air strikes
• Bill Clinton and his loose-cannon episodes
• IS fled last stand in Fallujah but fears of comeback linger
• Libya govt forces say key sector seized in IS bastion
• WWI soldiers mingle with commuters in artist's Somme tribute
• Libyan forces battle Islamic State street-to-street in Sirte
• Attention in Istanbul bombing focused on Chechen extremist
• Obama to reveal civilian deaths from US drone strikes
• Tunis father on IS rescue bid dies in Istanbul airport attacks
• Home-grown radicals a weak spot in Turkey's fight against Islamic State
• Civilians fleeing Iraq's Falluja should not be 'coerced' to return: aid agencies
• Lebanon faces tough options as backlash against Syrian refugees grows
• In Iraq's Fallujah, broken remnants of IS's 'state'
• ISIS Attacks Aren't About 'Hating Freedom'
• Iranians hold annual anti-Israel rallies to mark al-Quds day
• Hillary Clinton and Benghazi look different through lens of history
• Islamic State kills Christian priest in Egypt's North Sinai
• Iran anti-Israel protests highlight regional conflicts
• U.N. expects residents to start returning to Falluja by August
• Iran's Rouhani accuses West of exploiting Sunni-Shi'ite rift, raps Israel
• Assad: Western nations quietly collaborating with Syria
• Tunisian prisoners tell of life with Islamic State in Libya
• Too much Brussels in EU, new presidency says after UK exit
• How Was Your Day … Palestinian-American Muslim Jew?

Three killed as Libya forces close on central Sirte against Islamic State Posted: 01 Jul 2016 05:36 PM PDT By Patrick Markey MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan forces fighting to free the city of Sirte from Islamic State forces have surrounded a conference hall in the area still held by militants after air strikes and clashes that killed at least three pro-government fighters, senior officials said. Forces allied with Libya's unity government began a campaign two months ago to free Sirte from Islamic State, after militants took advantage of fighting between rival factions to gain territory and control the coastal city last year. Three fighters were killed and more than 30 injured during fighting on Friday after Islamic State militants were driven out of the residential 700 district in fierce clashes involving rockets, mortars and gun battles, a senior commander and hospital officials said.

Russian warship made 'unprofessional' maneuver: U.S. official Posted: 01 Jul 2016 04:54 PM PDT By Idrees Ali WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Russian warship carried out "unprofessional" maritime operations in close proximity to a U.S. Navy ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, a U.S. Defense official said on Friday. This is the second time the same Russian vessel has come within close proximity of a U.S. Navy ship this month. On June 17, the Yaroslav Mudryy came within 315 yards (288 meters) of the USS Gravely, an incident U.S. officials called "unsafe and unprofessional," but which the Russian Defense Ministry disputed.

US says up to 116 civilians killed in counterterror strikes Posted: 01 Jul 2016 02:59 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Peeling back some of the secrecy of America's drone strikes on suspected terrorists, the Obama administration on Friday said it has killed up to 116 civilians in counterterror attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and other places where the U.S. is not engaged in active, on-the-ground warfare.

Airstrike kills 2 Islamic State commanders near Mosul Posted: 01 Jul 2016 02:51 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says that a U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed two senior Islamic State commanders last Saturday in northern Iraq, including a fighter considered to be the group's deputy minister of war.

Air strike kills two Islamic State military commanders: Pentagon Posted: 01 Jul 2016 02:48 PM PDT A U.S.-led coalition air strike killed Islamic State's deputy minister of war and a military commander in Mosul on June 25, a Pentagon official said on Friday. "Their deaths, along with strikes against other ISIL leaders in the past month, have critically degraded ISIL's leadership experience in Mosul and removed two of their most senior military members in Northern Iraq," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement, using an acronym for the militant group that is also known as ISIS and Daesh. The strike near Mosul killed Basim Muhammad Ahmad Sultan al-Bajari, the deputy minister of war, who oversaw the militant group's capture of Mosul in 2014, Cook said.

U.S. says kills up to 116 civilians in strikes outside war zones Posted: 01 Jul 2016 02:41 PM PDT By Phil Stewart, Jonathan Landay and Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government accepted responsibility on Friday for inadvertently killing up to 116 civilians in strikes in countries where America is not at war, a major disclosure likely to inflame debate about targeted killings and use of drones. President Barack Obama's goal for the release of the numbers, which are higher than any previously officially acknowledged but vastly below private estimates, is to create greater transparency about what the U.S. military and CIA are doing to fight militants plotting against the United States. "The numbers reported by the White House today simply don't add up and we're disappointed by that," said Federico Borello, executive director for the Center for Civilians in Conflict.

Two 'senior' IS military leaders killed in Iraq strike: Pentagon Posted: 01 Jul 2016 02:38 PM PDT A coalition air strike near the Islamic State bastion of Mosul in Iraq has killed two of the jihadist group's senior military leaders, the Pentagon said Friday. "Coalition forces conducted an air strike against two ISIL senior military commanders on June 25 near Mosul, Iraq, resulting in their deaths," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement, using an acronym for the IS group.

Trying to pry his son from IS, medic killed in Turkey attack Posted: 01 Jul 2016 01:47 PM PDT KSOUR ESSEF, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian pediatrician Fathi Bayoudh was trying to rescue his son from the Islamic State group's grasp, and had almost succeeded. Then, as Bayoudh waited to greet his wife in an Istanbul airport so they could help bring their 25-year-old son Anouar home, the suicide bombs exploded.

US reveals death tolls from drone and air strikes Posted: 01 Jul 2016 01:34 PM PDT The United States on Friday lifted the lid on one of the most controversial tactics of President Barack Obama's secretive counter-terror campaign, detailing for the first time the number killed in air strikes in countries like Pakistan and Libya. At the same time, the White House released an executive order outlining the steps that should be taken to reduce civilian casualties in America's ongoing battle against violent extremism. In a much-anticipated report, the Director of National Intelligence provided fatality estimates for the 473 strikes between 2009 and 2015 that he said were conducted outside America's principal war zones in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Bill Clinton and his loose-cannon episodes Posted: 01 Jul 2016 01:23 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Long regarded as having one of the shrewdest political minds among recent presidents, Bill Clinton has at times angered and alienated Democrats and Republicans alike while campaigning for his wife, Hillary Clinton.

IS fled last stand in Fallujah but fears of comeback linger Posted: 01 Jul 2016 12:32 PM PDT FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) — Clumps of hair from hastily shaven beards littered floors and filled wastebaskets in houses in the Iraqi city of Fallujah's western neighborhood, a dense block of low-rise homes that were the Islamic State militants' last stand before they largely fled, melting into the sprawling Anbar desert in the face of advancing Iraqi ground forces.

Libya govt forces say key sector seized in IS bastion Posted: 01 Jul 2016 12:21 PM PDT Libyan pro-unity government forces said they seized a key central district of the Islamic State jihadist group's coastal bastion of Sirte on Friday. Fighters allied to the Government of National Accord took control of a residential area called the "700 housing units" near Ibn Sina hospital and the city's Ouagadougou conference centre, the GNA's forces said on social media. A field commander, Siraj Daw, said that fighting was getting closer to the Ouagadougou centre which IS has been using as its field headquarters.

WWI soldiers mingle with commuters in artist's Somme tribute Posted: 01 Jul 2016 11:18 AM PDT LONDON (AP) — British commuters were met by the eerie sight of World War I soldiers in uniform as they made their way to work Friday, the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme.

Libyan forces battle Islamic State street-to-street in Sirte Posted: 01 Jul 2016 10:33 AM PDT By Patrick Markey SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Crouching on a rooftop, Libyan truck driver Riyad Swaid takes aim through breeze blocks at positions held by Islamic State fighters a few hundred meters away in the city of Sirte. Nearly two months into the battle, the militant group has lost control of Sirte's harbor and some of the residential areas near the center of what was late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's hometown. Islamic State started expanding into Libya in 2014 as political chaos deepened and conflict worsened, three years after the civil war that ousted Gaddafi.

Attention in Istanbul bombing focused on Chechen extremist Posted: 01 Jul 2016 10:14 AM PDT ISTANBUL (AP) — Attention focused Friday on whether a Chechen extremist known to be a top lieutenant in the Islamic State group was involved in the suicide attacks that killed 44 people at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport.

Obama to reveal civilian deaths from US drone strikes Posted: 01 Jul 2016 10:00 AM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday will disclose the number of civilians killed in U.S. military and CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Africa since he took office and will issue an executive order that makes protecting civilians a more integral part of planning U.S. military operations, the White House said.

Tunis father on IS rescue bid dies in Istanbul airport attacks Posted: 01 Jul 2016 09:40 AM PDT Saida Bayoudh's only son joined the Islamic State group and her husband Fathi flew from Tunisia to Turkey to bring him home. Instead the father returned alone to be buried Friday, a victim of the Istanbul airport attack. Hundreds of men and women, many of them in tears, turned out for the funeral of Saida's husband, Fathi Bayoudh, who was laid to rest in the cemetery of his home town of Ksour Essef, south of Tunis.

Home-grown radicals a weak spot in Turkey's fight against Islamic State Posted: 01 Jul 2016 09:22 AM PDT By Humeyra Pamuk ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A few months after he started attending meetings of a hardline Islamic community group in a poor Istanbul suburb, 25-year-old Murat Kipcak stopped reading the Koran and going to the mosque. Soon after, he sent word that he, his young child, and his wife had traveled to Iraq to join Islamic State, his father Tahir told Reuters at his home in Sultanbeyli, a district on the eastern outskirts of Turkey's largest city. Murat's story - a working class high school graduate turned radical Sunni militant within months - highlights Turkey's vulnerability as it tries to prevent Islamic State from carrying out further attacks like this week's at Istanbul airport.

Civilians fleeing Iraq's Falluja should not be 'coerced' to return: aid agencies Posted: 01 Jul 2016 08:43 AM PDT By Lin Taylor LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Civilians who have fled Falluja should not be coerced to return because of poor conditions in displacement camps or by Iraqi authorities, aid agencies say, as insecurity remains rife and explosives have not been cleared in the city. A report on Thursday from the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said Iraqi authorities will allow civilians displaced by the assault on Islamic State-held Falluja to start returning home as early as August. The UNHCR, noting the government's plans, said the level of destruction will make their return difficult in the short term and explosives would pose a hazard to residents.

Lebanon faces tough options as backlash against Syrian refugees grows Posted: 01 Jul 2016 08:31 AM PDT A deadly wave of attacks by Syrian suicide bombers and fears of further attacks has generated a backlash against the Syrian refugee population that has inundated tiny Lebanon over the past four years. Analysts have long warned that if the more than 1 million Syrians here, almost all of them Sunnis, become radicalized, they could pose the gravest mid- to long-term threat to Lebanon's already precarious stability. Strict residency requirements have left around half the refugee population without legal status, according to human rights activists.

In Iraq's Fallujah, broken remnants of IS's 'state' Posted: 01 Jul 2016 08:25 AM PDT The Islamic State group flag flying over Iraq's Fallujah is in tatters and its fighters are dead or gone, leaving behind a broken city of bomb-rigged buildings and empty streets. Only scattered signs of IS's self-declared "caliphate" remain in Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad that was seized by anti-government fighters in early 2014 and later became a key jihadist stronghold. The story of Fallujah's de facto independence from Baghdad, which some Sunnis initially hailed as liberation from a discriminatory government, has ended in mass displacement and destruction from which it will take years to fully recover.

ISIS Attacks Aren't About 'Hating Freedom' Posted: 01 Jul 2016 06:37 AM PDT On Wednesday on CNN, Marco Rubio said the Islamic State, which Turkish officials believe carried out this week's attack at Istanbul's Ataturk airport, had two motivations. First, "they ultimately want them to be a part of the caliphate." Sure, but "ultimately," ISIS wants every place on earth to be part of its caliphate. That doesn't explain why the organization struck Turkey now. Rubio's second explanation was more convincing: "They're looking to punish Turkey for allowing U.S. airstrikes to be conducted from an airbase within Turkey. … They've made that abundantly clear."

Iranians hold annual anti-Israel rallies to mark al-Quds day Posted: 01 Jul 2016 05:35 AM PDT TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranians staged anti-Israel rallies across the country on Friday, with protesters condemning the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and chanting "death to Israel."

Hillary Clinton and Benghazi look different through lens of history Posted: 01 Jul 2016 05:00 AM PDT The House Select Committee report on the United States embassy attack was as blunt as a poke in the chest. Recommended: How much do you know about Hillary Rodham Clinton? Earlier this week, the Republicans of the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued their final report on the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which killed a US ambassador and three other Americans.

Islamic State kills Christian priest in Egypt's North Sinai Posted: 01 Jul 2016 04:17 AM PDT Islamist militants gunned down a Christian priest in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as he was fixing his car, the Interior Ministry and the Coptic Orthodox Church said on Thursday. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened more attacks in the future. Father Rafael Moussa of the Mar Girgis church in Arish, capital of the North Sinai province, was getting his car fixed when the gunmen shot him, the ministry said in a statement.

Iran anti-Israel protests highlight regional conflicts Posted: 01 Jul 2016 03:39 AM PDT Tens of thousands joined the annual pro-Palestinian rally in Tehran on Friday, where the usual threats against Israel combined with newer concerns about a region mired in bitter disputes and war. Israel and its perceived supporters in the United States and Britain were still the main bogeymen of the Quds (Jerusalem) Day protests, which saw huge crowds rally across Iranian towns and in allied countries. "In Lebanon alone over 100,000 missiles are ready at all times to fly... at the heart of the Zionist regime," said General Hossein Salami, deputy chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards in a speech before Friday prayers at Tehran University.

U.N. expects residents to start returning to Falluja by August Posted: 01 Jul 2016 03:37 AM PDT The United Nations said Iraqi authorities will allow civilians displaced by the assault on Islamic State-held Falluja to start returning home as early as August. More than 85,000 people fled their homes during a month-long campaign that ended on Sunday when Iraqi authorities declared they had completely recaptured the city, an hour's drive west of Baghdad. The civilians at government-run camps, who make up about a third of Falluja's total population before Islamic State took over 2-1/2 years ago, are currently relying on handouts from the United Nations and aid groups.

Iran's Rouhani accuses West of exploiting Sunni-Shi'ite rift, raps Israel Posted: 01 Jul 2016 03:25 AM PDT By Parisa Hafezi ANKARA (Reuters) - Iran's President Hassan Rouhani accused Western powers of trying to exploit differences between the world's Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims to divert attention from the Israel-Palestinian conflict, state television reported on Friday. "We stand with the dispossessed Palestinian nation." Opposition to Israel, which Tehran refuses to recognize, has been a cornerstone of Iranian policy since its 1979 Islamic revolution. Shi'ite Muslim Iran backs Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups who oppose peace with Israel.

Assad: Western nations quietly collaborating with Syria Posted: 01 Jul 2016 03:19 AM PDT SYDNEY (AP) — Western nations publicly critical of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime have been quietly sending security officials to collaborate with his government, Assad said in an interview broadcast Friday.

Tunisian prisoners tell of life with Islamic State in Libya Posted: 01 Jul 2016 02:44 AM PDT By Aidan Lewis and Ahmed Elumami TRIPOLI (Reuters) - When a U.S. air strike hit Sabratha in western Libya on Feb. 19, it reduced a building on the southern fringes of the city to rubble, killing dozens of militants and exposing a network of Islamic State cells operating just near the Tunisian border. It also upended the lives of three young Tunisian women who were married to militants killed in the strike or its aftermath, and are now being held with their children in a Tripoli prison. The women's accounts, given in a rare interview, shed light on how Islamic State was able to operate largely undisturbed in Sabratha as the cell's mainly Tunisian members plotted attacks back in their home country.

Too much Brussels in EU, new presidency says after UK exit Posted: 30 Jun 2016 11:24 PM PDT Slovakia takes over the European Union's presidency on Friday determined to help reconnect the EU with its citizens and put decision-making back in the hands of Europe's nations as the bloc reels from ...

How Was Your Day … Palestinian-American Muslim Jew? Posted: 30 Jun 2016 05:00 PM PDT "The Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi advocated a one-state solution in Palestine-Israel, did you know that?"

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