United States/Middle East – A major Iraqi fight back against the jihadists of ISIL will not start until next spring, according to leaks of Washington's strategy for the war. Iraqi ground troops will lead a counter-offensive in the west and north of the country, aiming to cut Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's supply lines to Syria, force them back on Iraq's second biggest city Mosul, and retake it by the end of 2015. They will be supported by 1,600 American troops currently advising and training the Iraqi army, and possibly more to be sent, but not taking part in operations. The United States will provide air power, as it is doing at present. The leak, published in the New York Times, gives one answer to a key issue for America's plans identified by analysts - the problem of training Iraqi troops even as they are trying to hold ISIL at bay. It says in the first instance only nine brigades of Iraqi troops, and three more Kurdish ones, will be trained, perhaps 24,000 men in total. The report assumes that the Iraqi and Kurdish troops and Shia militias currently fighting will be able to hold out until the spring. It also demands that a new Iraqi national guard will find recruits from among the Sunni population of ISIL-held areas to hold recaptured territory without alienating the local population. However, an ISIL offensive near Baghdad last week captured an area controlled by the Albu Nimr tribe, which had allied itself to the government. Around 200 captives, including women and children, have since been shot dead by ISIL, as a warning to other Sunni groups tempted to follow suit. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11206499/US-military-strategy-for-defeating-Isil-in-Iraq-leaked.html)
United States/Yemen – Al Qaeda said on the 8 Nov 14 that it had tried to assassinate the US ambassador to Yemen with two bombs that were discovered minutes before they were due to explode. The explosives were planted on the 6 Nov 14 outside the house of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the media arm of Al Qaeda's Yemen branch said in a statement posted on Twitter. They were intended to be detonated when Ambassador Matthew Tueller left following a roughly hour-long visit to the house in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, it said. There was no official confirmation of the failed plot.
United States/Yemen – Al Qaeda said on the 8 Nov 14 that it had tried to assassinate the US ambassador to Yemen with two bombs that were discovered minutes before they were due to explode. The explosives were planted on the 6 Nov 14 outside the house of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the media arm of Al Qaeda's Yemen branch said in a statement posted on Twitter. They were intended to be detonated when Ambassador Matthew Tueller left following a roughly hour-long visit to the house in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, it said. There was no official confirmation of the failed plot.
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