December 1, 2015
REPORTS FROM IRAQ
Among today’s major developments:
Airstrikes hit more Daesh targets in Ramadi city.
Sunni Arab leader and former Finance Minister Rafaa Al-Issawi convicted on corruption charges.
Arab leader on Kirkuk Governorate Council killed by unknown assailants.
Ninewa MP blasts Barzani for demanding territorial concessions as a condition for Peshmerga participation in Mosul liberation.
Pro-Turkey militias attack Syrian Democratic Forces expanding in northeastern Syria.
ANBAR
Ramadi
The spokesman for Anbar GC says many Daesh terrorists were killed and several hideouts and weapons storehouses destroyed in airstrikes on Daesh locations in different parts of Ramadi city. [Maalomah]
The IWMC says the IAF killed 4 Daesh terrorists and destroyed a hideout and a vehicle in Ramadi city, while Coalition airplanes conducted 11 sorties in the city, killing four terrorists and destroying Daesh locations and hideouts. [AIN]
Iraqi Joint Operations Commander confirmed yesterday’s reports that Iraqi forces have asked Ramadi’s citizens to vacate the city as soon as possible in advance of the imminent government assault. [MoD Website]
The Anbar Operations Commander says the IAA targeted Daesh in Albu Dhiab north of Ramadi, killing five Daesh fighters and destroying a vehicle. [Sumaria]
An Iraqi JOC source says Iraqi forces cleared the Al-Jamiya area north of Ramadi from Daesh and captured large stretches of the International Highway. [Harbi]
Iraqi forces clashed with Daesh fighters in Tal Mshaihda east of Ramadi, an Anbar Police source said. 30 Daesh members were killed while four Iraqi security personnel were wounded including a major, the source added, saying that Iraqi forces were able to recapture the position after Daesh took it and held it for a couple of hours. [Ghad]
The Chairman of Khaldiya District Council says that during the battle the IAA destroyed six Daesh vehicle bombs attacking Tal Mshaihda. [Maalomah]
Daesh’s version is that it attacked Iraqi forces in Tal Mshaihda, destroying 9 tanks and 3 Humvees and burning down 15 small structures. [Dump] Daesh publishes photos of the battle in Tal Mshaihda. [JustPaste] [Dump]
A video of Iraqi forces after the battle in Tal Mshaihda. [YouTube]
The IWMC says Rapid Intervention units killed 6 Daesh snipers, defused 7 booby-trapped houses, and destroyed 68 IEDs east of Ramadi. [Mawazin]
The IAA killed five Daesh terrorists in a boat, apparently trying to sneak into east Hsaiba, the IAA commander says. [Baghdadia]
Iraqi forces captured the Ramadi Glass Factory west of Ramadi, a security source said. [Ghad]
A video of Iraqi forces clearing the Hay Al-Sikak area southwest of Ramadi. [Harbi]
A video allegedly of the contents of a Daesh member’s cell phone found in Ramadi [Iraqia]
Falluja
Iraqi Army 24th Brigade Unit destroyed a vehicle bomb, killing the terrorist inside, in the Abedi area near Falluja. [BOC Facebook Page]
The IWMC says Iraqi forces killed 14 Daesh terrorists and wounded 4 and destroyed a vehicle in Qarma. [AIN]
Daesh publishes photos of shelling and rocketing Iraqi forces in different parts of Falluja District. [JustPaste] [JustPaste] [JustPaste]
Hit/Haditha
The MoI’s Al-Suqoor Intelligence Cell and the Joint Operations Command destroyed a Daesh suicide bomber location and an IED storehouse in Hit, killing 21 Daesh members and wounding many others. Daesh issued a curfew in the area and executed four of its members, accusing them of providing information to Iraqi forces. [Mada]
The Jazeera Operations Commander says Iraqi artillery shelled several Daesh targets in the Rabi’ area east of Albu Hayat, killing 10 Daesh members. [Sumaria]
Coalition planes launched an airstrike on Daesh’s Hisbah (religious police) headquarters in the Al-Jabal area in Hit, destroying the site and killing four Daesh members, a security source says. [Baghdadia]
Iraqi planes dropped leaflets over Hit, urging residents to keep away from Daesh banners and not to raise the banners. [Sumaria]
DaeshDaily comment. The interesting question may be whether this signals a larger campaign to recapture Hit or is just a public advisory to avoid potential bombing locations.
Iraqi artillery shelled Daesh hideouts in two areas in Baghdadia subdistrict, killing 30 Daesh members, a security source says. [Baghdadia]
SALAHUDDIN
Baiji
The IWMC says Iraqi forces destroyed a Daesh hideout and killed a sniper in the Sukariyat area in Siniya. [Mawazin]
The IWMC says Dijla Operations Command troops destroyed a Daesh military camp in the Himrin Mountains area. [Mawazin]
Iraqi forces found a weapons and explosives cache with dozens of IEDs and Katyusha rockets inside, a security source says. [Baghdadia]
Tikrit
An unknown armed group stormed the Tikrit General Hospital and opened fire on two individuals inside, killing them both, a Salahuddin police source said. [Mada]
Samarra
A PMF source says the IAA destroyed a Daesh hideout and a vehicle west of Samarra. [Harbi]
Elsewhere in Salahuddin
IFP forces captured two Daesh members trying to infiltrate into Balad, according to the Iraqi Federal Police Commander. [Baghdadia]
Iraqi forces with IAA helicopter support stopped the latest Daesh attack on the Allas and Ajil oil fields, destroying three vehicles and killing and wounding several of the attackers. [Ghad]
Dozens of families fleeing Daesh-held territory in Kirkuk and Ninewa governorates have reached Salahuddin Governorate and received aid from the authorities there, a local source said. [Mada]
A video of the car bomb explosion in Tuz on Nov 28 [YouTube]
BAGHDAD
A Criminal Court in Baghdad has sentenced former Finance Minister, Rafaa Al-Issawi, to seven years in prison on corruption charges. [Mada]
DaeshDaily comment. Issawi is a major Sunni political leader whose highly publicized run-in with Al-Maliki, including government arrest of his bodyguards, helped to destabilize Iraqi politics and contributed to the Daesh takeover of Sunni provinces in Iraq. The corruption charges are apparently unrelated to that history but his conviction is likely to be yet another issue some Sunni Arabs have with the government.
A leader of the Union of Patriotic Forces, the Sunni coalition in the CoR, has said the United States prefers to delay the liberation of Iraq from Daesh in order to avoid having PMFs hold territory taken from Daesh. In his remarks, MP Abd Al-Adhim Al-Ujman said the US prefers that tribal forces hold territory retaken from Daesh, and as such prefers to delay operations given that these forces are not yet ready for the task. [Sumaria]
UNAMI, the United Nations Mission in Iraq, says a total of 888 Iraqis were killed and 1237 wounded during the month of November. [Sumaria]
Baghdad Operations Command forces found a hideout containing nine IEDs and a number of explosives in the Um Najem area of north Baghdad. [BOC Facebook Page]
An Iraqi Army 60th Brigade unit killed three terrorists and wounded another in the Atar area northwest of Baghdad. [BOC Facebook Page]
A 60th Brigade unit killed a Daesh member and wounded two others as well as destroying a machine gun-carrying vehicle in the al-Obeid area in northwest Baghdad. [BOC Facebook Page]
Security forces found three IEDs, an explosives vest, and other explosives in various areas of Baghdad. [BOC Facebook Page]
The Iraqi government has reportedly welcomed the decision of Germany to expand its involvement in the campaign against Daesh following the recent terror attacks in Paris. [Xendan]
An advisor to the CoR speaker Saleem al-Jubouri has denied reports which claim the Speaker visited Turkey recently to take part in a national reconciliation conference. [Sumaria]
DaeshDaily comment: The so-called national reconciliation conference about which some reports have circulated was apparently held without any major announcement in advance, and is reportedly backed by an Anbar businessman with ties to several unregistered or falsely registered companies that have been among those able to fraudulently access large sums of dollars in hard currency from the Iraqi Central Bank. The same businessman is also reportedly tied to the scandal in which Daesh was able to obtain a large number of Toyota vehicles which it uses in its operations.
Daesh says it killed an Iraqi Army “source” and wounded another in Arab Jabour in south Baghdad. [JustPaste] Daesh also says it attacked an Iraqi Army convoy in Arab Jabour with light and midsize weapons. [JustPaste]
Daesh says it shelled the Ameriya police station in west Baghdad with three mortars and a rocket. [JustPaste]
A Baghdad Operations Command source says security forces captured a Daesh explosives storehouse in Abu Ghraib in west Baghdad. [Harbi]
Daesh claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on a Shia gathering in Shaab in north Baghdad and said it was conducted by an Iraqi. [Dump]
According to security sources:
- An IED exploded targeting a security convoy in Saba al-Bor in north Baghdad, wounding four soldiers. [Mada]
- Two bodies of unknown men were found bearing gunshot wounds in Husseiniya in north Baghdad. [Ghad]
- The bodies of two unknown men were found bearing gunshot wounds to the heads and chests in Jurf Al-Naddaf in south Baghdad. [Mada]
- A roadside IED exploded in Rashid in south Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding three. [Baghdadia]
- An IED exploded near an industrial area in Hay al-Amil in southwest Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding five. [Mada]
- An IED exploded near a popular market in Abu Ghraib in west Baghdad, killing two people and wounding eight. [Mada]
- A sticky IED exploded under a small bus in the Hurriya area of northwest Baghdad, killing one person and wounding five others. [Mada]
A video of another suicide bomber killed before attacking Shia pilgrims in Baghdad. [YouTube]
DIYALA
Baquba
Daesh publishes photos of breaking through an Iraqi Army location in Buhriz just south of Baquba and executing the soldiers there. [JustPaste]
Daesh says its terrorists attacked Shia pilgrims in a small bus near Buhriz without giving information about casualties. [JustPaste]
Elsewhere in Diyala
Displaced families are returning to the Sadiya area, the Sadiya subdistrict directorate said, announcing that there have not been any new instances of forced displacement recorded in the area. [Sumaria]
KIRKUK
Unknown armed men shot and killed Mohammed Khalil Al-Jubouri, a Kirkuk Governorate Council member who headed the GC’s Arab bloc, after stopping his vehicle at a checkpoint in the road in the Tisein area of Kirkuk city, a security source says, adding that the Councilman’s wife was also severely wounded in the attack. [Ghad] She subsequently died in the hospital. [Ghad]
Daesh has been forcing individuals who seek to leave the areas under its control to pay a reported sum of US$300 each, a security source says, adding that the organization has made an unspecified large amount of money from such payments given that many people are seeking to leave. [Mada]
Daesh has abducted 35 individuals belonging to the Kurdish Ansar al-Islam terrorist group and the pro-Baathist Naqshbandi group in the Qadessiya junction of Rashad District, 35 km (22 miles) southwest of Kirkuk city, a Kirkuk security source said, explaining that the abductions apparently come as retaliation for the two armed groups’ killing of a prominent Daesh commander. [Sumaria]
Daesh has reportedly moved dozens of its fighters from Rashad toward villages in the adjoining Daquq District, a local security source said. [Sumaria]
Three women hanged themselves in Hawija after Daesh compelled them to marry its members, a local source said. [Sumaria]
An MP from Kirkuk says the Iraqi government has failed to protect the Arabs in Kirkuk. He says they failed to prevent Daesh from capturing Arab areas in Kirkuk, and that the assassinations have not stopped since 2003. [Sumaria]
A local source says two unknown men on a motorcycle shot and killed an Egyptian Daesh commander in Hawija. [Maalomah]
NINEWA
Mosul
An MP from Ninewa Governorate has accused KRG president Masoud Barzani of making Peshmerga involvement in the operation to liberate Mosul from Daesh “conditional” on the annexation of disputed areas to the IKR. Relatedly, a Badr MP has announced its rejection of the KRG’s alleged ambition to annex the Ninewa Plain and other disputed areas to the KRG, saying that such questions can only be resolved through dialogue and the constitutional process and not by force of arms. [Karemlash] [Karemlash]
Daesh executed the journalist Azhar Adnan Rashid, from the Mosul newspaper Al-Huduba, a Ninewa police source said, adding that the body of the journalist, who was abducted two months before, was turned over to the Mosul morgue. [BasNews]
A PUK official says Daesh executed Zuhair Al-Araiji, who was secretary to an ex-MP, after he was detained by the organization two weeks ago. He also says Peshmerga forces captured 12 individuals suspected of maintaining communications links with Daesh, in villages in the Tel Keif District east of Mosul, [PUKMedia]
Coalition planes killed more than 30 Daesh militants in Qayara including Abu Obeida, the local Daesh military commander, in airstrikes that reportedly targeted the Daesh sharia court near the main hospital in the area, a PUK official said. [PUKMedia]
The IWMC says Coalition airplanes bombed a Daesh checkpoint on the Hatra Bridge linking Ninewa to Baiji, killing 7 Daesh terrorists. [Mawazin]
A Peshmerga source says five Daesh terrorists were killed in an airstrike on Hay Al-Shuhada in Qayara and four others were killed in another airstrike on the Khabata village in Makhmur District. [Harbi]
Daesh publishes photos of the results of the bombing on Qayara. [JustPaste]
Makhmur
Daesh publishes a video allegedly of an American drone shot down in Gwer. [A3maq]
Northwest Ninewa
A Coalition airstrike on a Daesh convoy in Tal Afar killed 13 militants including the local military commander, known as Rownaq Muhammad Tahir Al-Afari, a PUK official said, adding that the airstrike also destroyed the four Daesh vehicles in the convoy. The same official said that Daesh had executed five civilians in Mosul city including three former Ninewa police officers, a former election candidate and, as reported earlier, the director of the Mosul sugar plant. [PUKMedia]
A PUK official says 11 Daesh members, including a local leader and 3 foreign fighters, were killed in Daesh internal violence in Tal Afar. [PUKMedia]
Daesh publishes photos of the battles near the Shandoukha village northeast of Tal Afar. [JustPaste]
Other Governorates
KURDISTAN
The Saudi monarch King Salman has received the President of the Kurdistan region, Masoud Barzani, in Riyadh, according to official Saudi media. Barzani arrived Tuesday with a delegation from the KRG and was received by the King and a number of high-ranking emirs. The visit comes after the KRG delegation was received in the UAE earlier in the week. [BasNews]
REPORTS FROM TURKEY
The Free Syrian Army has announced that it possesses copies of signed contracts linking Turkey to the purchase of oil from Daesh. [Xendan]
REPORTS FROM SYRIA
Northeast
The Syria Democratic Forces have cut the lines between Daesh positions in Shaddadi and the territory it controls in Iraq after taking new territory in the village of Hawaziya and other areas on the strategic line linking the two Daesh-held areas, northeast of Shaddadi city, according to a military source in the Hasaka countryside. The source also said that the SDF have seized the rural village of Umm Madfaa south of Hasaka after fighting that erupted yesterday in which 13 Daesh members were reportedly killed including a Tunisian commander. Daesh is continuing to move its members and their families out of the areas around Shaddadi towards Deir Ez-Zor, the source added. [BasNews]
Local sources said Daesh might leave Shaddadi city to the Democratic Syrian Forces in an arrangement brokered by local tribal leaders to save the city from further bombing and destruction. The sources say Daesh is withdrawing gradually from Hasaka southern countryside to Deir Ez-Zor. [ARA]
DaeshDaily comment. The fact that local tribes were apparently able to negotiate Daesh out of town is significant.
The YPG issues a statement saying clashes with Jabhat Al-Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham continued southwest of Kobane, and Al-Nusra shelled Hay Al-Sheikh Maksoud in Aleppo killing a child and wounding 4 civilians and destroying 30 houses and 18 shops. The YPG also says Daesh attacked their positions west of Ain Eissa without giving more information. The YPG admitted today the explosion in Tal Tamr yesterday was from a car bomb and not from an old land mine as reported. [Hawar] [Hawar] [ROJ] [ARA]
DaeshDaily comment. The timing of the attacks by Nusra and Ahrar Al-Sham on the YPG and Jaish Al-Thuwar (a Syrian armed group within the Syrian Democratic Forces) raises serious issues. The Syrian Democratic Forces continue to make progress east of Raqqa and have captured many villages and a couple of cities from Daesh. It makes no sense that armed groups all claiming to be both anti-Daesh and anti-Assad are fighting each other unless you register that the attacks on the SDF are by groups allied with Turkey. Most of the SDF soldiers are YPG Kurds. Turkey is hostile to their territorial ambitions and wants to keep them (and by extension other SDF) out of Raqqa. Raqqa is precisely where the US would like to see them go. (We concede this is confusing, but don’t blame the messenger.)
Online activists uncovered the death of 6 Daesh media members in Hasaka last week. [Sumaria]
Daesh publishes a video of shelling and rocketing the YPG in northern Raqqa countryside. [A3maq]
Northwest
Daesh publishes a video of the Russian bombing on a water station in Khasfa in Aleppo’s eastern countryside. [A3maq]
A video of a Daesh recon drone shot down by Jabha Shamiya in Kufra in Aleppo. [YouTube]
South
Daesh said it detonated a booby-trapped motorcycle on a Syrian armed group in Yelda in Rif Damashq Governorate, killing three fighters. [JustPaste]
East
Daesh has reportedly executed two of its commanders, both of Moroccan origin, in Deir Ez-Zor, after they were pronounced guilty on “morals” charges in a Daesh sharia court, local sources said. One official was reportedly assassinated by unknown armed men as he left the Hisbah court in the Ashara area.
Local sources also reported that Daesh arrested 50 young men in Mayadin and Bukamal east of Deir Ez-Zor, removing them to the military airport where they were reportedly required to dig graves as punishment for offenses they had committed. Daesh continues its ban on Internet cafes in and around Mayadin, without announcing why the ban is in place or when it might be lifted. [Qasioun]
REPORTS FROM OTHER MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICAN COUNTRIES
Daesh audio newsletter for today [Archive]
Jordan. Unknown armed men shot at a police patrol in Irbid, killing an officer and another policeman. Local sources say such incidents, most likely conducted by Daesh, are increasing in the Kingdom but the Jordanian authorities are keeping silent about them. [Erem]
Lebanon. Al-Nusra released 16 Lebanese soldiers in exchange for 13 prisoners of the Lebanese Army. The Lebanese Army prisoners included Awwad Baghdadi’s ex-wife and her two children with a Kuwaiti Nusra leader who is her second husband. The exchange was done through a Qatari intermediary. [ARA] [Aawsat]
Libya. A military source says Libyan airplanes bombed a meeting of terrorist leaders in Ajdabiya and conducted 7 sorties on Benghazi. [AfriGate]
Tunisia. The Tunisia fires the Minister of Interior, a week after the major terrorist attack in Tunis. [IslamMemo]
Tunisian authorities arrested 28 more terrorism suspects during 347 raids. [Tunisien]
Algeria. The Algerian Ministry of Defense says the Army found 1.6 tons of explosives in Boumerdes, 50 km (31 miles) east of the capital. [IslamMemo]
Daesh says it damaged two Algerian Army vehicles with an IED in Qasantina. [JustPaste]
Other locations
Pakistan. Daesh said its terrorists attacked Din TV Station in Lahore with hand grenades, wounding two policemen and several employees. [JustPaste]
SOCIAL MEDIA SOURCES
Facebook Page of the Day
Jaish Al-Thuwar page
Daesh Twitter Accounts of the Day
https://twitter.com/AbuAlkhatab45
