ISIS on the hunt for 3 British girls who ran away from their militant husbands.
ISIS on the hunt for these 3 British girls who ran away from their militant husbands.
Three British teenage jihadi brides - feared to be three London classmates who ran away to Syria in February - are said to have escaped the clutches of their
militant husbands and attempted to flee from the ISIS' .
ISIS are now on a frantic bid to track down the girls thought to be about 16.
According to the facebook page of an anonymous anti-ISIS blogger in Iraq,Mosul Eye, the girls had fled on May 2
'Three girls, (Foreigners - British) married to ISIL militants, reported missing, and ISIL announced to all its check points to search for them. It is believed that those girls have escaped,''The latest info I got on them is they are still on the run, but still in Mosul, and ISIL is thoroughly searching for them and hasn't captured them yet.'They are Brits, not immigrants, and they are very young teens (around 16 years old). That's all I have about them for now.'
The exact identity of the girls and their fate is not known, but their reported ages match those of the three friends from east London, who ran away to join ISIS in February.
Shamima Begum, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana - who were all pupils at Bethnal Green Academy - flew to Turkey together, before crossing the border into war-torn Syria earlier this year.
It is understood they were following another 15-year-old girl, another friend who travelled there in December.
Queen of
One of the three British schoolgirls who were thought to have travelled to Syria in February has tweeted a snap of a takeaway meal with a caption purportedly confirming she is with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Fifteen-year-old Amira Abase posted a picture of what seemed to be a regular Middle Eastern takeaway meal of kebabs, fried chicken and pita bread. In the tweet, Amira said she was sharing the meal with a 16-year-old girl, nicknamed “Um Ayoub,” who posted that she wanted to “behead some kafirs [unbelievers]” in one of her previous tweets.
Amira’s caption for the picture read: “dawla takeaway w/ @um_ayoub12.”
“Dawla” literally means “The State” in Arabic, and it is a shortened name used by ISIS supporters pertaining to the “Islamic State.”
Amira’s tweet gives a glimpse of her new life as a supposed member of the group.
The tweet also comes after reports suggesting that Amira and her two other friends were seen in an ISIS camp, undergoing weapons training and studying Islamic Sharia law.
Amira Abase left London with her friends Shamima Begum, 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, and is believed to be living in Raqqa.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) chief Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi has called the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar a fool and an illiterate warlord, according to Liveleak. This is apparently part of the ISIS vs Taliban Jihad announcement.
ISIS also claim that they have racked up much more street cred in the last 2 years than Taliban had in the past decade; which is kind of true. ISIS are the new kids on the beheading block - younger, edgier with their own Twitter handles and everything.
And the ISIS HR guys had been poaching Taliban fighters by the hundreds in Pakistan, according to Pakistani intelligence. Nabi Jan Mullahkhil, police chief of a province in Afghanistan told a local radio channel that he'd seen documents revealing that both the groups had announced Jihad - the holy war - against each other.
And guess what they're fighting over?
Women? Nope. Drugs? Possibly. The war is going to happen in Helmand province, which is Taliban central and Afghanistan's largest opium producer. There must be at least some CIA guys cracking open a bottle of champagne at headquarters. Michael Bay is already getting his new Transformers reboot ready.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and the Taliban are denying involvement in a terrorist attack that left many poor civilians dead in Eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, according to media reports.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s Khaama Press and other news outlets report that ISIS and the Taliban have declared jihad against each other.
Khaama Press notes that the Taliban opposes ISIS and vice versa.
ISIS leader Abdu Bakar Al-Baghdadi has reportedly called his Taliban counterpart Mullah Mohammad Omar “a fool and illiterate warlord.”
“Al-Baghdadi has said that Mullah Omar does not deserve a spiritual or political credibility,” writes Khaama Press. “While on the other hand Taliban fighters have been ordered by their leaders not to let [ISIS] flag raise in Afghanistan.”
Nabi Jan Mullahkhil, the police chief of Afghanistan’s Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold along the Pakistan border, reportedly told Mashaal Radio he has documents showing that both groups have declared jihad on each other.
The announcement comes after both groups denied involvement in Saturday’s suicide bombing in Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.
At least 35 people were killed and more than 100 others wounded in the attack.
Maulvi Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost, identified as both the spokesman for ISIS in Afghanistan and the jihadist group’s self-proclaimed leader in the country, told The Daily Beast and Pajhwok Afghan News that ISIS was not involved in the deadly suicide attack.
The Daily Beast adds that U.S. officials agree and suggest that the Taliban is likely responsible.
“We have not yet seen evidence of ISIS direction or support of the attacks. Jalalabad continues to be an area with significant Taliban influence and this attack fits the pattern of past Taliban attacks in the region—underscoring that this attack does not represent a fundamental change in the security environment,” Army Lt. Col. Chris Belcher, a spokesman for NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, told The Daily Beast. “Along with our partners in the Afghan security forces, we are looking closely to determine any connection with ISIS.”
Muslim Dost, who was once held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, “strongly condemned the attack,” claiming that ISIS “never kills civilians and innocent people,” notes Pajhwok Afghan News.
He reportedly accused “Pakistan intelligence agencies” of spreading lies about ISIS’s involvement to damage the jihadist group’s reputation.
Nangarhar, where the attack took place, borders Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which has been described by the Pentagon as a Taliban sanctuary.
“ISIS was not behind the deadly blast in Jalalabad, and we condemn such an attack,” Muslim Dost told The Daily Beast. “This is an act of the Pakistani agencies to damage reputation of the ISIS.”
The Daily Beast suggests that neither the Taliban nor ISIS wants to be held responsible for the attack because it resulted in the massacre of mostly poor Afghan civilians.
ISIS members have reportedly been confirmed to be operating in Afghanistan.
Early this year, ISIS announced its expansion into the Khorasan, a historic name for a region that includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts of India, and other surrounding countries.
Nevertheless, unnamed U.S. officials told The Daily Beast “there is no evidence of widespread funding or fighters traveling from the Arab world to places like Afghanistan.”
“Rather, U.S. officials said, they see ISIS trying to reach a more basic goal: to establish relationships with fellow jihadists. Former Taliban members in Afghanistan have ‘defected’ to ISIS; militants in Libya have pledged allegiance, as has Boko Haram in Nigeria,” adds The Daily Beast. “But so far, these officials added, they aren’t seeing the terror groups banding together in an operational or strategic sense.”
A 16-year-old Eritrean migrant who escaped captivity under the Islamic State (Isis) in Libya has exclusively told IBTimes UK that the jihadists forced him to watch the beheading and shooting of Eritrean and Ethiopian Christians.
Nael Goitom, 16, fled IS captivity along with four other Eritreans minors on 7 April after the extremists decided to move their Libyan camp in the desert to hide from the fighting in the area.
"We thought: it's better to try to escape than to wait to be slaughtered by them," he told IBTimes UK in an interview. They walked for four days before reaching a settled area and asking for help.
Under more than a month of IS captivity, the Christian boys were forced to learn the Koran to become "Cubs of the Caliphate". "They asked us 'what do you choose, to be killed or to become Muslims?' Of course we choose the latter. 'We'll fight for you', we said," Nael said.
But the most harrowing account regards the execution of dozens of Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians in Libya by IS militants, which was shown in a 30-minute video featuring extensive rants against Christianity and the West.
The final part of the clip shows a group of men dressed in black who are said to be hostages in southern Libya held by a group of IS fighters clutching machine guns.
Then, the prisoners are shot in the back of the head. The video also depicts masked militants escorting a group of men in orange jumpsuits along a beach. The men's severed heads are later shown in the sand.
'We were forced to watch IS cutting heads'
"They made me watch everything," Nael said. "After the kidnapping they put us in one big hole, Eritreans and Ethiopians."
"Then one day they came over and brought black clothes and asked 47 people to wear them. Then, they took them to the sea. They also carried 10 minors, I was among them. I saw when IS shot them dead. We kept screaming," he continued.
The jihadists reportedly did the same with the rest of the group – about 14 people – who were forced to wear orange jumpsuits. "We were forced to watch IS cut their heads," Nael said.
The boy was kidnapped on 3 March after he crossed Libya from Sudan along with other 61 Eritrean men, 10 Eritrean women and 8 Ethiopians. About 20 or 30 armed IS members stopped the Tripoli-bound caravan of migrants in the middle of the southern Libyan desert and they started asking religious questions.
"They wanted to know who was Muslim among us. We Christians had crosses and pictures of Jesus, so we really couldn't hide it," he said.
'I keep seeing people being slaughtered and shot one by one'
The Islamic State video warns Christians they will not be safe unless they embrace Islam or pay protection money
Somalians were allowed to continue, while Eritreans and Ethiopians were driven to the IS camp in the desert. There were about 300-400 members of the jihadist group in the camp and for days the prisoners, who were tied and held in a large hole, were told that "the boss will come and decided our destiny".
Nael recognised three Eritreans fighting for IS. "We hoped they were going to help us, but instead they showed no emotions," he said.
After his escape, Nael and four other minors – Yohannes Mebrahtu, Thomas Ghiwet, Abraham Naizghi and Aman Shishay – walked for four days before running into a Sudanese man who drove them towards the Sahara where most of the refugees gather. Then, a smuggler got them into Tripoli, where Nael's brother lives.
Despite the lucky escape, Nael is still traumatised by the ordeal.
"I'm starting to process it now. Until a few days ago it was just a matter of survival. Now I have a lot of nightmares, I keep seeing people being slaughtered and shot one by one," he said.
Exclusive: Baghdadi no longer in day-to-day control of terror group as he recovers from injuries sustained during attack in March, according to sources
Who is Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? A video explainer discussing the mysterious leader of Islamic State (Isis)
The leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been seriously wounded in an air strike in western Iraq, sources have told the Guardian.
A source in Iraq with connections to the terror group revealed that Baghdadi suffered serious injuries during an attack by the US-led coalition in March. The source said Baghdadi’s wounds were at first life-threatening, but he has since made a slow recovery. He has not, however, resumed day-to-day control of the organisation.
Baghdadi’s wounding led to urgent meetings of Isis leaders, who initially believed he would die and made plans to name a new leader.
Two separate officials – a western diplomat and an Iraqi adviser – separately confirmed the strike took place on 18 March in the al-Baaj a district of Nineveh, close to the Syrian border. There had been two previous reports in November and December of Baghdadi being wounded, though neither was accurate.
The diplomat confirmed an air strike on a three-car convoy had taken place on that date between the village of Umm al-Rous and al-Qaraan. The attack targeted local Isis leaders and is believed to have killed three men. Officials did not know at the time that Baghdadi was in one of the cars.
Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi official who advises Baghdad on Isis, told the Guardian: “Yes, he was wounded in al-Baaj near the village of Umm al-Rous on 18 March with a group that was with him.”
Baghdadi is understood to have been spending much of his time in al-Baaj, about 200 miles west of the Isis stronghold of Mosul. “He chose this area because he knew from the war that the Americans did not have much cover there,” said a source privy to some of Baghdadi’s movements. From 2003 (the US military) barely had a presence there. It was the one part of Iraq that they hadn’t mapped out.”
Al-Baaj, a Sunni tribal area, has long remained outside of state control even under ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s regime, and was considered a safe haven for jihadists from 2004 onwards.
Residents have long used smuggling networks as well as small valleys and tracks to import goods from nearby Syria and to other parts of Sunni areas of Iraq in Nineveh and Anbar. Al-Qaida in Iraq and all its subsequent incarnations, including Isis, had largely unfettered access to the routes until al-Baaj became a focus of US surveillance earlier this year.
Baghdadi had at least one earlier brush with death when US jets attacked a two-car convoy on the outskirts of Mosul on 14 December. His close aide Auf Abdul Rahman al-Efery was killed when a rocket fired from a war plane hit one of the cars. Baghdadi was believed to be in the second car, which was not hit.
In recent months, air strikes have been increasingly effective in targeting the Isis leadership. Baghdadi’s deputy, Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, and the head of the group’s military operations in Iraq were both killed in early December.
After seizing control of a large chunk of Iraq and Syria last June, and threatening Baghdad and Irbil, Isis has recently lost substantial ground in both countries. An offensive led by Shia militias and the Iraqi military took back Iraq’s fourth city, Tikrit last month, as well as close to 7,000 sq km in the centre of the country.
A Kurdish push from the north in January reclaimed close to 20,000 sq km. Both offensives appear to be paving the way for an assault in Mosul, which is not expected before the autumn. Isis remains in full control of Mosul, as well as Anbar province and much of eastern Syria.
The border between the two countries is largely redundant and, despite air strikes, the group remains in control of six crossing points that allow a ready flow of funds, fighters and weapons. Baghdadi had declared the swath of land from eastern Aleppo to central Iraq to be part of a Caliphate that he leads.
While Baghdadi invokes authority as a religious leader, the constant threat from the skies has led to some of its command and strategic decisions being made by other member of the leadership. Since Baghdadi’s wounding, Isis’s military and Shura councils have become increasingly prominent in decision-making, the source close to the organisation revealed.
The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants reported on Tuesday that three asylum seekers who left Israel for a third country over the past year have been executed by the Islamic State in Libya. According to the report, the victims were identified by family members and friends.
The three Eritrean asylum seekers were probably kidnapped together with a group of Christian Ethiopians. The group's gruesome execution was filmed and distributed by ISIS on Sunday.
At least one of the three asylum seekers, T., was held in the Holot detention center in the Negev before leaving Israel. T.'s relative, Mesi, told Haaretz that the family identified him in the ISIS video. "He appears in the video and in the photographs, definitely," she said. "He had been in Israel since the end of 2007. He decided to go back after the [Israeli[ Ministry of Interior told him he would be better off."
According to Mesi, T. "went back to Uganda or Rwanda – I think Rwanda – where they are not accepted. From there he went on to Sudan, and from Sudan to Libya." She said that he was not able to remain in Libya, and tried to reach Europe by boat. "I understood that the boat was returned to Libya," she said, "where they were arrested. Rumors have it that the extreme Islamic group snatched them from the jail itself."
Mesi said she tried to dissuade T. from going to a third county. "They told him he would be better off if he flies. I asked him not to. He didn't tell us he had signed [papers] to leave." She added that she and other friends of T. tried to tell him things could change for the better, "that [asylum seekers] would be released from Holot."
Mesi added that she did not keep in touch with T. after he left Israel, but received updates from his brother, who resides in Norway. "He told me that T. arrived in Sudan and Libya and that he hadn't spoken to him in a long time because he was in Libyan prison." She said T.'s brother saw the images of ISIS' execution, but did not think his brother was among the group of Ethiopian Christians.
Last month, the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authorityconfirmed a report in Haaretz that the authority intends to begin deporting asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan to third countries in Africa, even without their consent.
The authority is not disclosing the identity of those countries or the nature of the agreements, but they are apparently Uganda and Rwanda, where about 1,500 asylum seekers have already been sent over the past year after signing a statement that their departure was voluntary.
Under the new policy, asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan will be able to be deported without their consent. Those who refuse will also be placed at the Saharonim Prison in south Israel for an indefinite period
ISIL executes 28 Ethiopian Christians in Libya.
Haven't seen this in any news.. do Ethiopians count to anybody?
http://t.co/FftKncAa2I
— marlyn (@virtualactivism) April 19, 2015
The men are held at the neck and forced to kneel by fighters in combats with balaclavas covering their faces
The footage also shows around 12 men being shot in a desert area, believed to be in the south of the country
A video released by the Islamic State group on Sunday appears to show the killing of two different groups of captured Ethiopian Christians by the extremist group's Libyan affiliates.
The 29-minute online video purports to show militants holding two groups of captives. It says one group is held by an Islamic State affiliate in eastern Libya known as Barka Province and the other by an affiliate in the south calling itself the Fazzan Province.
A masked fighter brandishing a pistol delivers a long statement, saying Christians must convert to Islam or pay a special tax prescribed by the Quran.
The video then switches between footage of the captives in the south being shot dead and the captives in the east being beheaded on a beach.
It was not immediately clear who the captives were or when they were captured. It was also not clear how many captives were killed.
The video bore the official logo of the Islamic State media arm Al-Furqan and resembled previous videos released by the extremist group, including one in February in which Islamic State militants in Libya beheaded 21 captured Egyptian Christians on a beach.
The Islamic State group has been able to gain a foothold amid the chaos in Libya, where two governments backed by rival alliances of militias are battling each other as well as extremist groups.
The Islamic State group is also advancing in Iraq, where the extremists captured three villages near the city of Ramadi in the western Anbar province and were locked in heavy clashes with Iraqi troops.
More than 90,000 people have fled the Islamic State group's advance in Anbar, a United Nations humanitarian agency said Sunday.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement that civilians are fleeing Ramadi as well as the three nearby villages captured by the Islamic State group a few days ago. It said humanitarian agencies have moved quickly to provide assistance, including food, water and shelter.
"Our top priority is delivering life-saving assistance to people who are fleeing -- food, water and shelter are highest on the list of priorities," said Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq.
Grande expressed concern over the safety of the displaced people, who are mainly heading to Baghdad and the IS-held city of Fallujah.
"Seeing people carrying what little they can and rushing for safety is heart-breaking," she added.
Iraqi officials in Anbar have described Ramadi as a ghost town, with empty streets and closed shops.
Iraqi troops backed by Shiite militias and U.S.-led airstrikes managed to dislodge the IS group from the northern city of Tikrit earlier this month.
But the troops have struggled against the militants in Anbar, which saw some of the heaviest fighting of the eight-year U.S. military intervention that ended in 2011.
ISIS group on Sunday released a video purporting to show the executions of some 30 Ethiopian Christians captured in Libya.
In the footage released online, one group of about 12 men are seen being beheaded by militants on a beach and another group of at least 16 being shot in the head in a desert area.
Text on the screen identifies the men as "followers of the cross from the enemy Ethiopian Church".
One group of about 12 men are seen being beheaded by militants on a beach
In February, ISIS militants released a video of the murders of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians also in Libya.
The kidnapped migrant workers were seen allegedly beheaded by ISIS in the propaganda video.
ISIS had claimed that the men had been captured to avenge what they say is the kidnapping of Muslim women by the Egyptian Coptic Church.
ISIS has released a near 30-minute video showing the executions of people purported to be Ethiopian Christians in two different regions in Libya. The video, in English, was released by the Islamic State’s official propaganda wing, and opens with a call for ISIS supporters to target Christians. ISIS fighters are seen destroying art inside churches, bell towers and symbols.
One set of captives was beheaded in an area the group calls Barqa Province, alongside the Mediteranean believed to be Derna, Libya. It is the same place the group is believed to have killed 21 Egyptian Christians in February, beheading them on the beach. Egypt responded with air strikes in Libya, and Derna was reported to have been one of the targets. The other group of captives were shot dead in a southern part of the country, Fazzan Province, by a group also claiming loyalty to ISIS.
Christians are told in the video they can live peacefully in the Islamic State if they accept Sharia law and agree to pay a special tax to their Islamic rulers. The video ends with a masked man standing with a group of armed men, saying the Christians were in killed “revenge for Muslim blood spilled by Christians.”
