Posts

Australian ISIL Terrorists in Iraq and Syria Doubled within Last Year: FM

The number of Australians fighting for the ISIL terrorist group in Syria and Iraq doubled in the past year but was not expected to continue to grow so rapidly, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.

Australia has been increasingly concerned about the ability of ISIL, also known as Daesh, to lure citizens to the conflict and at least 20 nationals are believed to have died there.

“We estimate that there are around 120 Australians currently in Iraq and Syria supporting Daesh and other terrorist groups,” Bishop told reporters in New York.

“That is double the number that I reported here 12 months ago.”

Bishop said estimates were that 30,000 foreigners from at least 100 countries had joined ISIL.

“Our numbers have doubled since last year but I don’t expect it to double again by next year,” she said from New York where she has been attending the United Nations General Assembly.

“We are having some success in interrupting the flow of foreign terrorist fighters, but I wouldn’t say we have yet turned the tide.”

Australia raised its terror threat level to high a year ago and since then has introduced new national security laws and conducted counter-terrorism raids amid concerns about radicalisation.

Canberra has also cancelled passports and prevented a number of people from leaving the country on fears they were heading to the Middle East to join ISIL.

“So the numbers are still increasing but we hope to stem the trajectory through our efforts,” Bishop told Australian media.

The Australian minister said the government was also concerned about convicted terrorists who are being released from jails in Asia, including in Indonesia, and the risks they posed if not rehabilitated.

“It is also a concern that we have that this kind of perverted ideology could be spread within the prison system as it has been in other countries,” Bishop said.

/149

Yazidi Slave Reveals: American Jihadi is ‘Top ISIS Commander’

A Yazidi slave girl has claimed the high-ranking ISIS commander who held her prisoner was a white American who directed the terror group’s attacks and received personal letters from its leader.

Nada, 19, told MailOnline that US citizen Abu Abdullah al-Amriki (the American), 23, boasted about how beautiful women from all over the world wanted to join him in Syria and that he always kept a vial of poison on him – in case he was captured in battle.

She was bought by the ISIS emir – or local leader – at a slave auction in Islamic State’s de-facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, in October.

 

The tall, pale man with black hair and short beard bought nine girls in total but sold seven of them on.

Nada was taken to one of his ‘many’ heavily-guarded houses in Manbij, Aleppo, where she lived with the other Yazidi girl and her son.

The teenager, who is now in America, told her harrowing story to the US government after escaping with her captor’s phone. Her fellow Yazidi hostage, known as ‘Bazi’, is also in the country – she will give evidence against Abu Abdullah to Congress and wants the FBI to press charges against him.

MailOnline cannot independently verify these claims and Nada said she has never seen his picture before on videos or images released by ISIS.

She said Abu Abdullah was a very important figure in Islamic State and a stream of armed balaclava-clad militants from all nationalities visited the house.

She said:  ‘Many guests were coming and he was always explaining things to them. He was drawing maps of the fighting. He was telling everyone how to fight, about how to make an ambush. 

‘He was always ordering people to move and how to make a plan. He always carried a pistol and an AK47. 

‘There were also sniper rifles in the house, lying around. He also carried a policeman’s stick which he used to beat me and the boy [another prisoner] with. He also slapped the boy.

‘They didn’t let me enter the room when they were talking. They only let me enter the room when they were talking tea to them.’

Nada described the wiry commander, who spoke Arabic badly, as a ‘nervous’ man who doused himself in strong perfume and yelled at her constantly.

He was so frightened of being captured that he always kept a vial of poison in his pocket, so he could commit suicide if  his enemies ever took him alive.

One group of four men – who were always masked – visited Abu Abdullah regularly to bring him letters from ISIS’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, said the woman.

Nada said: ‘If Abu Abdullah was not at home, I’d have to sign for it. I was just receiving it and putting it in his room.

‘The mail contained letters and the envelope was from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The masked man who brought the mail from al-Baghdadi talked in English.

Abu Abdullah, who converted to Islam around four years ago and has many different identities, told Nada that he regularly travels to the United States to see his family, but there is no way to verify his sensational boast.

She said: ‘He showed me pictures of his family – he had a girl and a boy. He said his family were not around, that they were far away.’

Nada was captured in the northern Iraqi city of Tal-Afar, around 32 miles from Sinjar, in around August 2014.

The terror group abducted more than 500 Yazidi women and young girls and slaughtered 5,000 as its fighters stormed through the region.

ISIS views Yazidis, whose religion includes elements of Christianity and Islam, as ‘devil-worshippers’.

The extremists take the females as their personal sex slaves and execute the men who do not convert to their twisted brand of Islam.

The teenager was taken to Manbij, a north-Syrian town which earned the nickname ‘little London’ because of the high numbers of British jihadists who live there.

Manchester twins Salma and Zahra Halane, 17, are thought to live in the town where English and German are commonly spoken.

Danish charity worker Ahmad Walid Rashidi, who was held captive in Manbij for over a month, met a blue-eyed British fighter in its police station.

He told the Sunday Times: ‘It’s like a little London or a little Berlin. Manbij is definitely the most foreign-influenced place in Syria.’

Rashidi, 23, said foreign fighters were paid around £20 a month and received free food and medicine, while jihadi brides got a £2 allowance.

During Nada’s 20-day captivity, the American jihadi also showed her pictures and footage of American girls who he claimed were coming to Syria to join ISIS.

She said: ‘There were beautiful girls or women from everywhere, from every country – he showed me them.

‘He said: “They are free and they want to come and join us, so why is it that you want to leave? Why do you want to run away? This is a good country.”

‘Abu Abdullah told me that I and the other girl will have a long life with him as servants – and our children will grow up to be jihadis like them.’

The ‘other girl’ was a Yazidi known only as Bazi, 20, who was held hostage alongside Nada after she was abducted during the ISIS assault on Sinjar in August 2014.

Bazi told CNN that Abu Abdullah would pray and wash himself before he raped her and how she pleaded with him not to touch Nada.

She said: ‘The first time he raped me, he tried to rape the other girl who was with me but I told him since I felt I’m already raped, I don’t want the other one [to be raped].

‘So I became responsible for the other one. I told him to treat her as a servant for him, because he was sheikh, an emir, so he would just have her as a servant. I convinced him the whole time until we were able to escape from his house.’

Bazi’s physical description of Abu Abdullah matched Nada’s and she also claims he told her about visiting his family in America but, again, the claims cannot be independently confirmed.

The American terrorist and his ‘team of bodyguards’ beat them after each of their five failed escape attempts. He once prevented Bazi from seeing her son for an entire week, Nada told MailOnline.

One day, when Abu Abdullah and his guards went to battle in northern Iraq, Nada stole his phone and ran to another house in Manbij.

She said: ‘When they were away fighting in Kobani, me and the other girl broke the door and left with the boy.’

They kept a low profile until the Assayish – police from the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) – came to rescue her.

She gave Abu Abdullah’s phone to the KRG, who interviewed her and took her to a refugee camp in northern Iraq.

Here, she was interviewed by US government officials who visited the settlement and showed her pictures of another American jihadi who went by the nom-de-guerre, Abu Zeyd.

She said: I recognized it. Abu Zeyd was a beautiful man – he had long blond hair, and no facial hair. But I don’t know who he is. They had no pictures of Abu Abdullah.’

Traumatised, Nada struggled to speak for around 10 days after reaching the relative safety of the camp.

She eventually got in touch with a man inside ISIS territory, who smuggles Yazidis out for money, to see if he could help her brother who was still a prisoner.

Her contact told her that Abu Abdullah is still alive.

Nada is one of hundreds of women and young girls who have escaped from Islamic State’s clutches, only to tell of how they endured unimaginable cruelty and sexual abuse.

In May, a 17-year-old Yazidi girl described how she and her little sister were raped daily by a depraved jihadist before they were both sold at a ‘slave auction’ in Syria.

An even younger Yazidi girl known only as Bahar, 14, once told of how she was forced to undergo medical exams to ‘prove’ her virginity before she was sold to ISIS fighters in another twisted auction.

/149

Poll: Bashar Assad Wins the Title of ‘Historical Arab Leader’

Asking thousands of fans on her facebook page who deserves to win the title of the historical Arab leader, Mahra saw an astonishingly large number of visitors on her page in the first few minutes.

Some 54.7% of those who took part in the polling voted in President Bashar al-Assad’s favor, saying he deserves to be called the historical leader of the Arab world.

The voters also wrote in their comments on Mahra’s facebook post that Assad deserves the title since he managed to stand against a rising tide of terrorists entering his country with the help of the army despite the hard siege that the world attempted to lay on him and his nation.

This is while other Arab leaders, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and former head of the UAE Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, could just win 3 votes.

The conflict in Syria, which started in March 2011, has reportedly claimed more than 240,000 lives up until now.

The US and its allies including France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are known as the major supporters of the militants fighting Syria’s government forces.

This is while many regional and western officials have eventually come to the conclusion that settling the crisis in Syria without President Assad is impossible.

In relevant remarks on Saturday, Australia’s foreign minister called for a political solution to the foreign-backed militancy in Syria, stressing the need for a national unity government involving Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In an interview with English-language broadsheet newspaper the Australian published on Saturday, Julie Bishop said there is an emerging consensus that the incumbent Damascus government would likely have a pivotal role in fortifying the Syrian state and stopping the ISIL Takfiri militant group from gaining ground.

“It is evident there must be a political as well as a military solution to the conflict in Syria,” the top Australian diplomat said, noting that Canberra would play its part in achieving such an objective.

“There is an emerging view in some quarters that the only conceivable option would be a national unity government involving President Assad,” Bishop pointed out.

Bishop’s comments come as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on September 24 that any talks on ending the conflict in Syria should involve Assad.

“We have to speak with many actors, this includes Assad, but others as well. Not only with the United States of America, Russia, but with important regional partners, Iran, and Sunni countries such as Saudi Arabia,” she told a press conference in Brussels.

On September 22, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told French-language daily Le Figaro that a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis is impossible without the country’s president.

“If we require, even before negotiations start, that Assad step down, we won’t get far,” Fabius underlined.

/149

Yemeni Forces Take Control of Saudi Post, Village in Jizan

The Yemeni forces took control of the Saudi military post of Ka’b al-Jaberi and the village of Mohannad in Jizan, leaving a group of Saudi soldiers dead and injured.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry said that a member of the ministry was killed by a mortar shell fired from Northern Yemen on the border between the two countries.

“Military shells fired from the Yemeni territory killed Ali Bin Fahad Abu Mahasen, a member of the mujahideen administration branch in Jizan region,” the spokesman said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen for 188 days now to restore power to Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 6,469 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by Ansarullah revolutionaries of the Houthi movement.

Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

/149

Iran’s Rouhani: Acceptance among major powers that Syrian leader Assad remain in power

Ahlul Bayt News Agency – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said he saw a widespread acceptance among major powers that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad should stay in office.

“I think today everyone has accepted that President Assad must remain so that we can combat the terrorists,” Rouhani told CNN.

“In Syria, when our first objective is to drive out terrorists and combating terrorists to defeat them, we have no solution other than to strengthen the central authority and the central government of that country as a central seat of power,” said Mr Rouhani, who is visiting New York for the UN General Assembly.

Iran has voiced concern over a future without Assad. But Mr Rouhani said he also saw a future role for opponents of Assad.

“As soon as this government reaches the various levels of success and starts driving out the terrorists on a step-by-step basis, then other plans must be put into action so as to hear the voices of the opposition as well,” Mr Rouhani said.

Meanwhile Mr Rouhani said that Iran was not in direct talks about Syria with the United States.

/129

Al-Khalifa congratulated Saudis for organizing successful Hajj

Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi said all the more strange that the Bahraini Al Khalifa dynasty congratulated the Saudi’s for organizing a successful Hajj. “Is this not ignorance and stupidity?”

During his advanced jurisprudence class at Qom’s Grand Mosque, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi stated that there is no doubt that the mismanagement of the Hajj pilgrimage by the Saudi authorities caused this tragedy and added that the accident was preventable but the authorities either did not want to or could not take the necessary steps to prevent it.

Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi referred to the Saudi regime’s mishandling of this incident, and explained that such an incident of this extent is rare and unique: “Unfortunately, instead of first sympathizing with the family of the bereaved, failing to determine a group to investigate the cause of the accident are punish the offenders and compensating the victims for their losses or adopting measures (even with the help of others) so that such incidents are not repeated in the future, they said ‘this was due to divine fate and destiny which are inevitable!’ This is pure mismanagement!”

He criticized the Saudi’s excuse, saying: “Can we remove road controls and say the death toll from the accidents that will occur are caused by divine fate and destiny?”

The teacher in the Islamic Seminary of Qom explained that the House of Saud have not understood the meaning of divine fate and destiny, saying: “Even worse is that the Saudi Grand Mufti [Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al al-Shaykh] had stated that some pilgrims want to be killed in Mina and to reach a high station [in the hereafter] and put their selves in harm’s way.”

Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi said that if they had planned for such incidents and dealt properly [with the results] of this tragedy, it would not have been so severe.

“This incident was very unfortunate and surprising,” he added.

He said all the more strange that the Bahraini Al Khalifa dynasty congratulated the Saudi’s for organizing a successful Hajj. “Is this not ignorance and stupidity? We want them to come to their senses and to reform their approach,” he said.

The Iranian scholar emphasized that the Hajj pilgrimage belongs to the entire Islamic community and said one of the adverse effects of this issue is the attack on the sanctity of the Hajj which unfortunately, brought about great damages, adding: “These losses cannot be simply and easily compensated for.”

In conclusion, Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi expressed hope that God will compensate [the victims] in different ways for this great loss to the Islamic world.

/257

First group of Iranian hajj pilgrims arrive Tehran

The first flight of Iranian hajj pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia landed at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport at 13:10 local time (09:40 GMT) on Monday.

Director general of Hajj Affairs at Iran Airports Company (IAC) Manouchehr Sepasi had reiterated that the Iranian pilgrims return flights will start today and continue until Oct 17.

Sepasi noted that some 64,100 Iranians have made the pilgrimage trip to perform Hajj.

Expressing regret over the fatal incident in Mina, he offered condolences to the Iranian government and the families of the killed pilgrims.

‘We are waiting for the permits of Iranian government and Iran’s Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization to return home the bodies of the Iranian pilgrims killed during a rush in the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina.’

The death toll of the Iranian pilgrims reached 169 on Monday.

/257

International Quranic figures condole deaths of renowned Iranian Quran reciters in Mina tragedy

Ahlul Bayt News Agency – A number of internationally-known Quranic figures sent messages of condolences over the deaths of two prominent Iranian Qaris (reciters) in a recent tragedy in Mina, near the Saudi city of Makkah.

At least 169 Iranian pilgrims, including the two reciters, Mohsen Hajihassani Kargar and Amin Bavi, have so far been confirmed dead in the crush during the Hajj rites on September 24, which claimed the lives of over 2,000 people.

Senior Egyptian Quran master Ahmed Ahmed Noaina in a message described the tragic event as a disaster and extended condolences to Iran’s Quranic community and the bereaved families of the two Qaris.

Muhammad Taha Abdul Wahab, another senior Quranic figure in Egypt also offered condolences over the deaths and prayed Allah to bestow His mercy and remission on the two and fortitude for the families. 

Egyptian Quran master Farajullah Shazli also expressed condolences on the death of prominent Iranian Qari Mohsen Hajihassani Kargar. He said these pilgrims who lost their lives during the Hajj rituals are martyrs. He prayed God to bestow His mercy and blessings on the victims of the tragedy.

Iraqi Quran master Adnan al-Salehi and internationally-acclaimed Quran master Yahya al-Sahaf also sent messages of condolence over the tragic deaths of Hajihassani Kargar and Bavi.

/129

Iran Rejects Arab Media Reports on Former Envoy’s Visit to S. Arabia

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham dismissed as false some media reports that claimed the former ambassador to Lebanon, who is among the Iranians missing after a recent crush near Mecca, has travelled to Saudi Arabia incognito and on a fake visa.

In a statement on Monday, the Iranian spokeswoman described the reports by some Arab media outlets as “hasty and incorrect,” saying that they are pursuing certain political purposes.

The Al Arabiya TV claimed official records show that the name of the former Iranian ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Roknabadi “does not appear among this year’s pilgrims”.

Afkham said that Roknabadi has gone on Hajj pilgrimage on his regular passport and that the Saudi authorities have precise information about all Iranian pilgrims, including Roknabadi.

There is no doubt about the former diplomat’s legal entry into Saudi Arabia, she added.

Roknabadi, who served as Iran’s ambassador to Beirut from 2010 to 2014, remains unaccounted for following the huge crush in Mina, Saudi Arabia, which killed hundreds of Hajj pilgrims last week.

About 2000 pilgrims died in the Thursday crush when performing religious rites. With the death toll rising, many pilgrims are still unaccounted for in the incident that marked the worst Hajj disaster in 25 years.

So far, 169 Iranian pilgrims have been pronounced dead and nearly 300 Iranians remain missing.

/257

Karbala officials, clergies condole with Imam Khamenei, people

Meanwhile during the course of the past two days representatives from the holy shrines of Imam Hussein (a.s) the shrine of His Holiness Abulfazl Al Abbas (a.s), that of Imam Ali (a.s), Al Daawa Party, Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council and a group of prominent clergies and state officials have in meeting with Iran’s Consul General Masud Hosseinian expressed their deep sympathy with the Iranian nation and the bereaved families.

Karbala religious leaders and state and party officials expressed sympathy with Imam Khamenei the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Iranian government, nation and the bereaved families.

They said that both Almighty Allah and the Islamic nations know quite well that the Saudi officials are in both worlds fully responsible for the human tragedy of the Muslim World.

Representative of Grand Ayatollah Safi said, ‘The pure bold of those martyrs will never be wasted and Almighty Allah will take revenge on His guests’ lost lives from the creators of that heinous crime.’

/106