Da’esh – In late Oct 16, the Committee on the Internal Security of the US Congress published a report on the revenue of various terrorist organizations. Inside Syria Media Centre analyzed the documents and compared this information to the facts at our disposal. Please notice that the investigation will be published in several parts. The analysis of the report shows that organizations like the IS use 7 main sources of income. They include oil and gas, goods like grain, fertilizers, cement, salt, etc. and trading antiquities in the black market. In addition, the other funding sources are racketeering, robbing, kidnapping, aid from the Gulf countries and taxation. The new methods of capital’s management and growth also include criminal activity in Western countries, crowd funding (2% of the budget), as well as online and charitable Islamic funds’ donations.
Oil trade
The report contains peculiar facts and figures confirming the information about the schemes. For example, in early 2016, the IS controlled up to 50% of crude oil production in Syria and up to 10% in Iraq i.e. about 300 oil fields were under ISIS control. At the same time, the terrorists’ revenue in 2015 reached $1 billion with more than $500 million coming from oil trade. According to the US Committee, the same year jihadists produced per day up to 80-120 thousand barrels amounting from $2 to 4 million. It should be noted that 125 terrorist supervisors monitored the work of more than 1,600 oil workers. The IS smuggled oil not only to Turkey but also to customers in Europe via improvised plastic pipelines along the Syrian-Turkish border. The leading business media using their sources in Iraq and in Washington claim that the Islamic State’s oil revenue totals $40-50 million per month. The main volume is produced on the territory of the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor.
Agriculture
The data in the document shows that terrorists control up to 400 thousand farmers in Iraq, earning from wheat and barley’s trading up to $200 million per year.
After capturing the fertile territories in the delta of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, ISIS captured a vast territory that has brought a significant proportion of Iraqi-Syrian crop. This step aggravated the food security situation in the region. There is still no precise estimates of the amount of profit earned by the Islamic state from food trade. However a report “Islamic State Financing and US Policy Approaches” (link to the report: PDF) submitted to the US Congress in April 2015, reveals that wheat and barley’s trading at the black market could bring IS an annual income of approximately $200 million (taking into account the fact that ISIS sells its products with a 50% discount). Some experts point out that the Islamic State is practicing the so-called ‘laundering’ of products by mixing the booty with the yield from other regions to make it difficult to determine their origin. The terrorists also earn money by grabbing farms’ machinery and leasing it to the former owners.
Antiquities trade at the black market
Antique-trade is another source of income. For instance, the IS earns up to $100 million per year for trading antiquities which then “accidentally” appear in London and New York. Actually, terrorists aren’t personally involved in the archeological excavations but issue licenses to the so-called ‘black archeologists’ imposing a tax on their activity (20% in Aleppo, 50% in Raqqa). According to the American Association of Antiquaries, the main streams of antique smuggling reach Western countries through Lebanon and Turkey, as well as through Saudi Arabia and Qatar. (Link: Looted in Syria – and sold in London: the British antiques shops dealing in artefacts smuggled by Isis). According to various estimates, the total cost of smuggled ancient objects totals about $100 million a year. Inside Syria Media Center will continue to investigate the other income items of international terrorist organizations. In the next part, we will talk about taxes on the territories controlled by the terrorists, as well as slave trade and donations.
To be continued.
The original source of this article is Insider Syria Media Center
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-isis-daesh-terrorists-financing-schemes-unveiled/5556609
Da’esh/Iraq/Mosul – The United Nations said on the 4 Nov 16 that ISIS has kidnapped 1,600 civilians from Hammam al-Alil, a district about 20 km south of the militant group’s stronghold of Mosul in Iraq, and asked residents to hand over children, especially boys, to recruit them as child soldiers. The UN made its statement as Iraqi security forces, who were advancing north along the Tigris river toward Mosul, reached the last major town before the city a police commander said. Major-General Thamer al-Husseini said federal police forces entered Hammam al-Alil which Iraqi army forces have been attacking for several days. “Our units entered the Salahiya district of Hammam al-Alil,” Husseini told Iraqi television. “We have Hammam al-Alil covered from more than one side and I think within hours we will be able to announce to the Iraqi people the clearing of Hammam al-Alil and surrounding areas.”
The police forces are trying to capture the town are part of an Iraqi force advancing on the southern front toward Mosul. Special Forces, who swept in from the east, have already entered the city, while Peshmerga forces are sealing off north-eastern flanks and mainly Shiite Popular Mobilization forces are trying to cut off the western side. ISIS fighters retreating north to Mosul have forced thousands of residents of villages and towns such as Hammam al-Alil to travel alongside them as human shields against air strikes, villagers said. The United Nations said the militants transported 1,600 abducted civilians from Hammam al-Alil to the town of Tal Afar west of Mosul and took another 150 families from the town to Mosul the next day. They told residents to hand over children, especially boys above the age of nine, in an apparent recruitment drive for child soldiers, UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said. “Also on the 2 Nov 16 ISIL reportedly used loudspeakers to order the residents of Lazaghah and Arij villages, about 5 km from Hammam al-Alil city center, to leave their villages or be severely punished,” Shamdasani said. She added: “They’ve been knocking on people’s doors and asking for their boys.” The spokeswoman said families that did not comply were threatened with severe punishment. Al Arabiya News Channel’s correspondent said schools are being used to hold these kidnaped civilians as captives, adding there are civilians who are being executed for collaborating with the Iraqi forces. The correspondent said there are also executions being committed of ISIS members themselves.
Iran/Yemen/Houthis – Fars news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said on the 4 Nov 16 that Houthi missile units pounded the Yemeni forces’ military positions in the capital city of Sanaa with the ballistic “Zalzal-2” missile. It added that forces’ gathering in the centre of the Malah region of Sanaa came under attack by the ballistic Zalzal-2 missile, according to the news agency’s army source. “It was a precision missile strike and [it] hit the target,” the source said without expanding on the damage and toll inflicted. The agency quoted “a prominent analyst” Seyed Sadeq al-Sharafi as saying that militias “are developing their missile power to target Riyadh and Dubai in the future, after they increased their missile and military capabilities and expanded the range of their military operations against the enemies.” The Zelzal-2 is an Iranian developed long-range unguided rocket in use by the Iranian military, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Previously, Iran’s foreign minister repeatedly rejected the reports confirming that his country supplied the Shiite militias in Yemen with missiles. The official IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as saying these are “baseless accusations.” The latest news comes a few weeks after news that warships from the US Navy and allied nations intercepted four weapons shipments from Iran to war-ravaged Yemen since April 2015, according to a US admiral.
Iran/IAEA – The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on the 9 Nov 16 that for the second time, Iran has exceeded the 130 metric ton threshold for heavy water, which is used to cool reactors that can produce weapon-grade plutonium. The agency’s report noted that Iran had served notice it would resolve the issue by exporting five metric tons, substantially over the 100 kilogram excess amount. The shipment will be leaving Iran within the next few days. Voice of America reports that days earlier, the IAEA had raised the issue with authorities in Tehran: “On the 2 Nov 16, the director general expressed concerns related to Iran’s stock of heavy water to the vice president of Iran and president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, … Ali Akbar Salehi,” the IAEA said in a confidential report obtained by Reuters. The deal went into effect, and a month later, in Feb 16 the IAEA had noted for the first time that Iran had exceeded its allowed limit of heavy water. In Feb 16, Iran exceeded the limit by 130.9 tons. Some of the excess amount was shipped to the United States under an arrangement which was criticized by lawmakers in Congress, who regarded the arrangement as a way to facilitate Iranian violations of the nuclear deal. Analysts note that the IAEA report comes just as Donald Trump has been elected president. During the campaign, Trump called the agreement “the worst deal ever negotiated” and said he would “police that contract so tough they (the Iranians) don’t have a chance.” In a Mar 16 speech Trump declared that his “Number-One priority” would be to “dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” Republicans opposed the accord, and if both houses of Congress voted to withdraw from the deal, Trump is less likely than Obama to veto the congressional move. Iran said, however, that Trump will not be able to undo the multi-party deal because, in the words of President Hassan Rouhani, the accord “cannot be overturned by one government’s decision.” While noting the excessive amount of heavy water produced by Iran, the IAEA said on the 9 Nov 16 that Iran continued to live up to its side of the nuclear agreement.
Iran/Yemen – Arab coalition helicopters and naval units intercepted two boats off the port of Salif, north of the Hudaydah governorate in the Red Sea and forced them to stop for inspection and found arms, ammunition and modern telecommunications equipment on board it was reported on the 16 Nov 16. This comes two days after the coalition's air force destroyed two boats at the entrance of the Salif port for smuggling weapons to Houthi militias. According to the media center of the popular resistance in the Hudaydah governorate, the smugglers who were on the two boats were interrogated and confessed that they were on their way from Iranian regional waters to the Yemeni Salif port to deliver the load to the Houthis. Surveillance and investigative operations revealed that militias are using a number of islands, such as Zagar and Hanish, to smuggle arms and equipment with the help of Iran. After the coalition forces imposed their control on these two islands earlier this year, the militias used the Kamaran island, which is close to the Hudaydah port and which is the only inhabited island. Iranian smuggling ships either unload their cargo in these islands or in militias' boats in the sea to later be transferred to western shores in Yemen. A number of western reports revealed that arms have been smuggled through the area of Zabab, 30 kilometers north of Bab al-Mandeb, and the Mocha port, 60 kilometers north of Bab al-Mandeb and west of the Taiz governorate. Arms have also been smuggled through Hudaydah such as through al-Khoukha which is 90 kilometers north of Bab of al-Mandeb and through the major Hudaydah port. And most recently, smuggling operations were detected through al-Salif port which is 70 kilometres north of the Hudaydah port. According to local and international reports, smuggling operations included thermal rockets, ammunition, spare parts and huge missiles that were unloaded from Iranian ships in the middle of the sea in the Gulf of Aden on medium-sized boats which most of the time unloaded in the Mocha and Hudaydah ports despite the surveillance imposed by coalition forces on the western shores of Yemen.
Iraq – A suicide bomber targeted Shia pilgrims north of Baghdad, killing at least 11, including Iranians. The attack in Iraq's capital on the 6 Nov 16 came as thousands of troops attempted to capture the ISIL-held city of Mosul, some 400 kilometres to the south. A provincial spokesman said the group was killed at a checkpoint as a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car near the pilgrims. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but ISIL frequently carries out suicide bombings targeting Iraq's Shia majority, whom it considers heretics.
Iraq – Suicide bombers driving ambulances packed with explosives detonated their vehicles at a checkpoint and a car park for Shi'ite pilgrims in two Iraqi cities on the 6 Nov 16 killing at least 21 people and injuring dozens. The twin attacks took place in Tikrit and Samarra. They appeared to be part of a series of diversionary attacks by the ultra-hardline Sunni Islamists, who have struck the Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk, the capital Baghdad and a western desert town during the three-week Mosul campaign. In Tikrit, a bomber detonated his explosives-laden ambulance at the southern entrance to the city during the morning rush hour, killing 13 people, police and hospital sources said. Another attacker detonated a vehicle in a car park for pilgrims visiting one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines, al-Askari mosque in Samarra, south of Tikrit. The bomb killed at least eight people, local officials said, including two Iranian pilgrims. The local operation command, a joint military and police unit, said the vehicle used in Samarra was also an ambulance. Authorities in both cities declared curfews, fearing possible further attacks. Iraqi troops and security forces, backed by a US-led international coalition, are battling ISIS in the northern city of Mosul. Special Forces have entered eastern districts, where they faced fierce resistance from the militants who deployed car bombs, snipers and mortar fire against them.
Iraq/Da’esh – A group of attackers armed with suicide vests and light weapons killed at least six people southwest of Baghdad on the 14 Nov 16, local officials said. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Ain al-Tamer, involved six suicide bombers, some of whom may have been killed by security forces before they could blow themselves up. Masum al-Tamimi, a member of the Karbala provincial council, said that the six attackers tried to infiltrate Ain al-Tamer village early in the morning. But they clashed with security forces before withdrawing to the Al-Jihad area and detonating explosives there, Tamimi said, putting the death toll at eight. The interior ministry issued a statement on the attack, saying that five of the bombers were killed by security forces while the sixth detonated explosives inside a house. The ministry put the death toll at six.
Kurds/Da’esh/Mosul – ISIS has deployed drones strapped with explosives, long-range artillery shells filled with chlorine and mustard gas and highly effective snipers, a top Iraqi Kurdish security official said in an interview on the 6 Nov 16. Masrour Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Security Council, said ISIS deployed these drones so far during the three-week operation to recapture Iraq’s second largest city Mosul. Barzani said Iraqi forces are expected to face much fiercer resistance from ISIS in the next phase of the battle for Mosul, including booby traps that can blow up entire neighbourhoods. “The fight against ISIS is going to be a long fight,” he said. “Not only militarily but also economically, ideologically.” Barzani said Iraqi forces have made quick progress clearing out ISIS fighters from eastern Mosul after Kurdish Peshmerga units broke through its first lines of defence. “As they are getting more desperate, expectations are that they might fight more fiercely as you close in,” he added. The official said “there are many different IEDs (improvised explosive devices)” ISIS puts in various locations. He added: “So in one house they are putting one IED and trying to hide it. And once it explodes then the entire neighbourhood explodes.”
Jordon/United States – Three US troops were killed in a shooting attack outside a Jordanian training facility on the 4 Nov 16 a US official said, following earlier reports that one or two US personnel were dead. "A total of three US service members died today in the incident in Jordan," the official said. "Initial reports were that one was killed, two injured. The two injured service members were transported to a hospital in Amman, where they died." "The service members were in vehicles approaching the gate of a Jordanian military training facility, where they came under small arms fire," the official added. "We are working with the Jordanian government to gather additional details about what happened." The shooting took place at the gate of the Prince Faisal airbase in al-Jafr, southern Jordan, when the car carrying the US trainers failed to stop, the Jordanian army said, adding that a Jordanian officer was also injured. US forces have trained a small group of vetted Syrian rebels in Jordan, and American instructors have trained Iraqi and Palestinian security forces in Jordan as well over the past few years. The White House said it would work with Jordan to determine the circumstances that led to the shooting deaths of three US military trainers. "The United States is quite interested in getting to the bottom of what exactly occurred. Our expectation is that the government and military officials in Jordan will assist us in that investigation," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
Oil trade
The report contains peculiar facts and figures confirming the information about the schemes. For example, in early 2016, the IS controlled up to 50% of crude oil production in Syria and up to 10% in Iraq i.e. about 300 oil fields were under ISIS control. At the same time, the terrorists’ revenue in 2015 reached $1 billion with more than $500 million coming from oil trade. According to the US Committee, the same year jihadists produced per day up to 80-120 thousand barrels amounting from $2 to 4 million. It should be noted that 125 terrorist supervisors monitored the work of more than 1,600 oil workers. The IS smuggled oil not only to Turkey but also to customers in Europe via improvised plastic pipelines along the Syrian-Turkish border. The leading business media using their sources in Iraq and in Washington claim that the Islamic State’s oil revenue totals $40-50 million per month. The main volume is produced on the territory of the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor.
Agriculture
The data in the document shows that terrorists control up to 400 thousand farmers in Iraq, earning from wheat and barley’s trading up to $200 million per year.
After capturing the fertile territories in the delta of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, ISIS captured a vast territory that has brought a significant proportion of Iraqi-Syrian crop. This step aggravated the food security situation in the region. There is still no precise estimates of the amount of profit earned by the Islamic state from food trade. However a report “Islamic State Financing and US Policy Approaches” (link to the report: PDF) submitted to the US Congress in April 2015, reveals that wheat and barley’s trading at the black market could bring IS an annual income of approximately $200 million (taking into account the fact that ISIS sells its products with a 50% discount). Some experts point out that the Islamic State is practicing the so-called ‘laundering’ of products by mixing the booty with the yield from other regions to make it difficult to determine their origin. The terrorists also earn money by grabbing farms’ machinery and leasing it to the former owners.
Antiquities trade at the black market
Antique-trade is another source of income. For instance, the IS earns up to $100 million per year for trading antiquities which then “accidentally” appear in London and New York. Actually, terrorists aren’t personally involved in the archeological excavations but issue licenses to the so-called ‘black archeologists’ imposing a tax on their activity (20% in Aleppo, 50% in Raqqa). According to the American Association of Antiquaries, the main streams of antique smuggling reach Western countries through Lebanon and Turkey, as well as through Saudi Arabia and Qatar. (Link: Looted in Syria – and sold in London: the British antiques shops dealing in artefacts smuggled by Isis). According to various estimates, the total cost of smuggled ancient objects totals about $100 million a year. Inside Syria Media Center will continue to investigate the other income items of international terrorist organizations. In the next part, we will talk about taxes on the territories controlled by the terrorists, as well as slave trade and donations.
To be continued.
The original source of this article is Insider Syria Media Center
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-isis-daesh-terrorists-financing-schemes-unveiled/5556609
Da’esh/Iraq/Mosul – The United Nations said on the 4 Nov 16 that ISIS has kidnapped 1,600 civilians from Hammam al-Alil, a district about 20 km south of the militant group’s stronghold of Mosul in Iraq, and asked residents to hand over children, especially boys, to recruit them as child soldiers. The UN made its statement as Iraqi security forces, who were advancing north along the Tigris river toward Mosul, reached the last major town before the city a police commander said. Major-General Thamer al-Husseini said federal police forces entered Hammam al-Alil which Iraqi army forces have been attacking for several days. “Our units entered the Salahiya district of Hammam al-Alil,” Husseini told Iraqi television. “We have Hammam al-Alil covered from more than one side and I think within hours we will be able to announce to the Iraqi people the clearing of Hammam al-Alil and surrounding areas.”
The police forces are trying to capture the town are part of an Iraqi force advancing on the southern front toward Mosul. Special Forces, who swept in from the east, have already entered the city, while Peshmerga forces are sealing off north-eastern flanks and mainly Shiite Popular Mobilization forces are trying to cut off the western side. ISIS fighters retreating north to Mosul have forced thousands of residents of villages and towns such as Hammam al-Alil to travel alongside them as human shields against air strikes, villagers said. The United Nations said the militants transported 1,600 abducted civilians from Hammam al-Alil to the town of Tal Afar west of Mosul and took another 150 families from the town to Mosul the next day. They told residents to hand over children, especially boys above the age of nine, in an apparent recruitment drive for child soldiers, UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said. “Also on the 2 Nov 16 ISIL reportedly used loudspeakers to order the residents of Lazaghah and Arij villages, about 5 km from Hammam al-Alil city center, to leave their villages or be severely punished,” Shamdasani said. She added: “They’ve been knocking on people’s doors and asking for their boys.” The spokeswoman said families that did not comply were threatened with severe punishment. Al Arabiya News Channel’s correspondent said schools are being used to hold these kidnaped civilians as captives, adding there are civilians who are being executed for collaborating with the Iraqi forces. The correspondent said there are also executions being committed of ISIS members themselves.
Iran/Yemen/Houthis – Fars news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, said on the 4 Nov 16 that Houthi missile units pounded the Yemeni forces’ military positions in the capital city of Sanaa with the ballistic “Zalzal-2” missile. It added that forces’ gathering in the centre of the Malah region of Sanaa came under attack by the ballistic Zalzal-2 missile, according to the news agency’s army source. “It was a precision missile strike and [it] hit the target,” the source said without expanding on the damage and toll inflicted. The agency quoted “a prominent analyst” Seyed Sadeq al-Sharafi as saying that militias “are developing their missile power to target Riyadh and Dubai in the future, after they increased their missile and military capabilities and expanded the range of their military operations against the enemies.” The Zelzal-2 is an Iranian developed long-range unguided rocket in use by the Iranian military, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Previously, Iran’s foreign minister repeatedly rejected the reports confirming that his country supplied the Shiite militias in Yemen with missiles. The official IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as saying these are “baseless accusations.” The latest news comes a few weeks after news that warships from the US Navy and allied nations intercepted four weapons shipments from Iran to war-ravaged Yemen since April 2015, according to a US admiral.
Iran/IAEA – The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on the 9 Nov 16 that for the second time, Iran has exceeded the 130 metric ton threshold for heavy water, which is used to cool reactors that can produce weapon-grade plutonium. The agency’s report noted that Iran had served notice it would resolve the issue by exporting five metric tons, substantially over the 100 kilogram excess amount. The shipment will be leaving Iran within the next few days. Voice of America reports that days earlier, the IAEA had raised the issue with authorities in Tehran: “On the 2 Nov 16, the director general expressed concerns related to Iran’s stock of heavy water to the vice president of Iran and president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, … Ali Akbar Salehi,” the IAEA said in a confidential report obtained by Reuters. The deal went into effect, and a month later, in Feb 16 the IAEA had noted for the first time that Iran had exceeded its allowed limit of heavy water. In Feb 16, Iran exceeded the limit by 130.9 tons. Some of the excess amount was shipped to the United States under an arrangement which was criticized by lawmakers in Congress, who regarded the arrangement as a way to facilitate Iranian violations of the nuclear deal. Analysts note that the IAEA report comes just as Donald Trump has been elected president. During the campaign, Trump called the agreement “the worst deal ever negotiated” and said he would “police that contract so tough they (the Iranians) don’t have a chance.” In a Mar 16 speech Trump declared that his “Number-One priority” would be to “dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” Republicans opposed the accord, and if both houses of Congress voted to withdraw from the deal, Trump is less likely than Obama to veto the congressional move. Iran said, however, that Trump will not be able to undo the multi-party deal because, in the words of President Hassan Rouhani, the accord “cannot be overturned by one government’s decision.” While noting the excessive amount of heavy water produced by Iran, the IAEA said on the 9 Nov 16 that Iran continued to live up to its side of the nuclear agreement.
Iran/Yemen – Arab coalition helicopters and naval units intercepted two boats off the port of Salif, north of the Hudaydah governorate in the Red Sea and forced them to stop for inspection and found arms, ammunition and modern telecommunications equipment on board it was reported on the 16 Nov 16. This comes two days after the coalition's air force destroyed two boats at the entrance of the Salif port for smuggling weapons to Houthi militias. According to the media center of the popular resistance in the Hudaydah governorate, the smugglers who were on the two boats were interrogated and confessed that they were on their way from Iranian regional waters to the Yemeni Salif port to deliver the load to the Houthis. Surveillance and investigative operations revealed that militias are using a number of islands, such as Zagar and Hanish, to smuggle arms and equipment with the help of Iran. After the coalition forces imposed their control on these two islands earlier this year, the militias used the Kamaran island, which is close to the Hudaydah port and which is the only inhabited island. Iranian smuggling ships either unload their cargo in these islands or in militias' boats in the sea to later be transferred to western shores in Yemen. A number of western reports revealed that arms have been smuggled through the area of Zabab, 30 kilometers north of Bab al-Mandeb, and the Mocha port, 60 kilometers north of Bab al-Mandeb and west of the Taiz governorate. Arms have also been smuggled through Hudaydah such as through al-Khoukha which is 90 kilometers north of Bab of al-Mandeb and through the major Hudaydah port. And most recently, smuggling operations were detected through al-Salif port which is 70 kilometres north of the Hudaydah port. According to local and international reports, smuggling operations included thermal rockets, ammunition, spare parts and huge missiles that were unloaded from Iranian ships in the middle of the sea in the Gulf of Aden on medium-sized boats which most of the time unloaded in the Mocha and Hudaydah ports despite the surveillance imposed by coalition forces on the western shores of Yemen.
Iraq – A suicide bomber targeted Shia pilgrims north of Baghdad, killing at least 11, including Iranians. The attack in Iraq's capital on the 6 Nov 16 came as thousands of troops attempted to capture the ISIL-held city of Mosul, some 400 kilometres to the south. A provincial spokesman said the group was killed at a checkpoint as a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden car near the pilgrims. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but ISIL frequently carries out suicide bombings targeting Iraq's Shia majority, whom it considers heretics.
Iraq – Suicide bombers driving ambulances packed with explosives detonated their vehicles at a checkpoint and a car park for Shi'ite pilgrims in two Iraqi cities on the 6 Nov 16 killing at least 21 people and injuring dozens. The twin attacks took place in Tikrit and Samarra. They appeared to be part of a series of diversionary attacks by the ultra-hardline Sunni Islamists, who have struck the Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk, the capital Baghdad and a western desert town during the three-week Mosul campaign. In Tikrit, a bomber detonated his explosives-laden ambulance at the southern entrance to the city during the morning rush hour, killing 13 people, police and hospital sources said. Another attacker detonated a vehicle in a car park for pilgrims visiting one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines, al-Askari mosque in Samarra, south of Tikrit. The bomb killed at least eight people, local officials said, including two Iranian pilgrims. The local operation command, a joint military and police unit, said the vehicle used in Samarra was also an ambulance. Authorities in both cities declared curfews, fearing possible further attacks. Iraqi troops and security forces, backed by a US-led international coalition, are battling ISIS in the northern city of Mosul. Special Forces have entered eastern districts, where they faced fierce resistance from the militants who deployed car bombs, snipers and mortar fire against them.
Iraq/Da’esh – A group of attackers armed with suicide vests and light weapons killed at least six people southwest of Baghdad on the 14 Nov 16, local officials said. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Ain al-Tamer, involved six suicide bombers, some of whom may have been killed by security forces before they could blow themselves up. Masum al-Tamimi, a member of the Karbala provincial council, said that the six attackers tried to infiltrate Ain al-Tamer village early in the morning. But they clashed with security forces before withdrawing to the Al-Jihad area and detonating explosives there, Tamimi said, putting the death toll at eight. The interior ministry issued a statement on the attack, saying that five of the bombers were killed by security forces while the sixth detonated explosives inside a house. The ministry put the death toll at six.
Kurds/Da’esh/Mosul – ISIS has deployed drones strapped with explosives, long-range artillery shells filled with chlorine and mustard gas and highly effective snipers, a top Iraqi Kurdish security official said in an interview on the 6 Nov 16. Masrour Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Security Council, said ISIS deployed these drones so far during the three-week operation to recapture Iraq’s second largest city Mosul. Barzani said Iraqi forces are expected to face much fiercer resistance from ISIS in the next phase of the battle for Mosul, including booby traps that can blow up entire neighbourhoods. “The fight against ISIS is going to be a long fight,” he said. “Not only militarily but also economically, ideologically.” Barzani said Iraqi forces have made quick progress clearing out ISIS fighters from eastern Mosul after Kurdish Peshmerga units broke through its first lines of defence. “As they are getting more desperate, expectations are that they might fight more fiercely as you close in,” he added. The official said “there are many different IEDs (improvised explosive devices)” ISIS puts in various locations. He added: “So in one house they are putting one IED and trying to hide it. And once it explodes then the entire neighbourhood explodes.”
Jordon/United States – Three US troops were killed in a shooting attack outside a Jordanian training facility on the 4 Nov 16 a US official said, following earlier reports that one or two US personnel were dead. "A total of three US service members died today in the incident in Jordan," the official said. "Initial reports were that one was killed, two injured. The two injured service members were transported to a hospital in Amman, where they died." "The service members were in vehicles approaching the gate of a Jordanian military training facility, where they came under small arms fire," the official added. "We are working with the Jordanian government to gather additional details about what happened." The shooting took place at the gate of the Prince Faisal airbase in al-Jafr, southern Jordan, when the car carrying the US trainers failed to stop, the Jordanian army said, adding that a Jordanian officer was also injured. US forces have trained a small group of vetted Syrian rebels in Jordan, and American instructors have trained Iraqi and Palestinian security forces in Jordan as well over the past few years. The White House said it would work with Jordan to determine the circumstances that led to the shooting deaths of three US military trainers. "The United States is quite interested in getting to the bottom of what exactly occurred. Our expectation is that the government and military officials in Jordan will assist us in that investigation," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
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