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SOUTHWEST ASIA, April 13, 2017 U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, conducting 24 strikes consisting of 100 engagements against ISIS targets yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

In Syria, coalition military forces conducted seven strikes consisting of 21 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Raqqa, seven strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units and destroyed a vehicle and a fighting position.

Additionally, officials reported, eight strikes were conducted near Raqqa from April 11 into yesterday that engaged an ISIS staging area, a weapons storage cache and a command-and-control node.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted nine strikes consisting of 79 engagements against ISIS targets, coordinated with and in support of Iraqs government:

-- Near Beiji, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed an ISIS fuel truck, a mortar system and a weapons cache.

-- Near Mosul, six strikes engaged five ISIS tactical units and destroyed 11 fighting positions, five vehicles, two vehicle bombs, two vehicle-bomb factories, a medium machine gun, a rocket-propelled-grenade system and a mortar system; damaged 15 ISIS supply routes and a fighting position; and suppressed 10 mortar systems, six fighting positions, two artillery systems and a rocket system.

-- Near Rawah, a strike destroyed six ISIS-held buildings and a vehicle bomb factory.

-- Near Tal Afar, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a fighting position, a weapons cache and an ISIS fuel truck.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The destruction of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria also further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct external operations throughout the region and the rest of the world, task force officials said.

The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted.

Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect. For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said.

Excerpt from:
Counter-ISIS Strikes Hit Terrorists in Syria, Iraq - Department of Defense

Since June 2014,when Islamic State attacked northern Iraq,the desks at Mar Ephrem seminary in Hamdaniya, a city 18 milessoutheast of Mosul, have stood empty. Today, they are dusty and rooms once teeming with priests and nuns in training are dark; student ID cards, with titles such asSyrian Catholic: Parish of Bashiqa, Iraq,litter the floor anda statue of the Virgin Mary lies smashed. Now, Isis are gone. But in their wake an eerie quiet remainsand the path of destruction is a visible reminder of their legacy, with thousands ofhouses destroyedin the fierce battle to retake the city lastOctober. And for the Christians who live in Hamdaniya, the question remains: will they ever be able to return to theplace they have called home for thousands of years?

Before Isis came, Hamdaniya (also known asQaraqosh and Bakhdida, the Turkish and Assyrian names for the same place, by locals) was the largest Christian city in Iraq. It formed part of a mosaic of communities stretching across the Nineveh plains to Mount Sinjar near the Syrian border. Hundreds of thousands of Yazidis and Christians, and members of smaller local sects such as the Kakai, also lived there. Isis systematically sought to exterminate and cleanse these groups, and when its fighters arrived, the Islamists expelled Christians from Mosul. Those who left were among the lucky ones: in Sinjar, thirty mass graves of Yazidi men and women executed in August 2014 have been found by Kurdish Peshmerga who liberated the areas.Thousands of womensold into slavery by Isis are still missingand around450,000 Yazidisare living in internally displaced persons camps. Yet with Isis gone, the prospect of returning home for many of those forced to flee remains distant.The areas they used to live in Sinjar often lack electricity, schools and hospitals; much-needed international aid is nowhere to be seen. While for many, the continued conflict with Isis on the borders of their region makes life insecure.

Having travelledto Iraq half a dozen times in the last two years, Ive seen how communities are desperatelytrying to reconstruct and move on. The current reality is not reassuring. Across Nineveh plains, the Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga have liberated communities but the Isis zealots left behind them a swath of destruction. They tunnelled under houses and through walls during two years of occupation. They blew up holy shrines, and built bomb factories in church buildings, hoping it would hide them from coalition airstrikes. They burned businesses and planted IEDs to kill civilians who return.

For local Christians, the damage is particularly devastating.Near Karemlesh, two ancient holy graves have been left ransacked during the war.In March 2015, Isis blewup a 10thcenturymonastery in Mosul and the 4thcentury MarBahnam monasterysouth of the city.Isis alsodestroyed the 3,300year old ancient city of Nimrud, which was once capital of the Assyrian empire. Their reign in this region was brief, but the damage the Islamists inflicted on precious artefacts of history is permanent.Austen Henry Layard, the 19thBritish century traveller and archaeologist who explored Nimrud in the 1840s wrote that the site was so large there is enough to fill twenty museums. He shipped some artefacts back which form the basis of exhibits at the British Museum. But now, many of the artefacts that were left in place are gone:the archaeology from Nimrud preserved in world museums serves as a reminder of what has been lost forever.

Despite the damage, locals are keen to return but those that do remain in the minority.Some Christians joined a local militia during the war named the Nineveh Plains Protection Units which guards the Christian towns. Maybe 15-20 per cent will come back, most are waiting for immigration, there is no water of electricity here, Anis Khader, a member of the militia told me. In the churches that were burned and ransacked by Isis, the Christians have put up new posters of Jesus, but the desecrations remain and cant be easily disguised. In one church, a wooden cutout of the Virgin Mary has been beheaded. A monument for St. George also had its head cut off, whilecrosses have been prised from the walls.

Matti Rafo, a local Christian born in 1957, says the area has witnessed the worst destruction since the Persian invasion of 1743. At the church of St. George he bent to enter an old mud and brick shrine, uncovering ancient markings of a rare sanctuary that Isis had left untouched. The timelessbuilding had seen assaults in the past and people had returned and rebuilt it. Can todays Iraqis do the same? Or will the churches of Nineveh now fade into history?

View original post here:
Can Iraq's Christians ever recover from Isis? - Spectator.co.uk (blog)

German prosecutors have said a man arrested after a bomb attack on a bus carrying the Borussia Dortmund football team is a member of Islamic State but there is so far no evidence he was involved in the incident.

The man, a 26-year-old Iraqi identified only as Abdul Beset al-O, arrived in Germany last year via Turkey, according to a statement from the prosecutors office.

The Borussia Dortmund (BVB) bus was hit by three explosions from pipe bombs as it drove from the teams hotel to their home stadium in Dortmund on Tuesday night. Spanish defender Marc Bartra was injured by shrapnel, as was a police officer.

The Champions League match the team was due to play against AS Monaco was rescheduled and took place last night.

Abdul Beset al-O, who is believed to live in the western German city of Wuppertal, is due to appear before a judge on Friday morning as prosecutors seek to hold him for longer than 24 hours.

The investigations have yet to result in any evidence that the suspect took part in the attack, the prosecutors office said.

The statement said the man had been identified as an Isis member in Iraq, where he had led a 10-strong commando unit of fighters that had taken part in kidnappings, smuggling, killings and extortion. After his arrival in Germany, he is said to have maintained close contact with Isis members.

According to Spiegel, the mans telephone was tapped by German intelligence, who just days ago monitored a conversation he had with an unknown person, who told him: The explosive device is ready.

Investigators are also focusing on another man, a 28-year-old German identified as Abdullah Al Z, from Frndenberg, 26 miles (42km) east of Dortmund. According to Spiegel, police reportedly entered his house on Wednesday when he was sleeping with his child. The man was said to be in possession of a BVB umbrella from the team hotel.

The pipe bombs used in the attack were set off by military detonators that had been detonated remotely, probably via a mobile phone, according to some media reports on Thursday.

Three identical letters printed on single sheets in German, found near the scene of the attack, point to an Islamist motive, but investigators have said they are not typical of Isis writings, not least because they make concrete demands.

The letter demands the withdrawal of German Tornado surveillance planes from Syria, where they are involved in the military operation against Isis, as well as the closure of Ramstein, the US military air base in Germany. It also states that, with immediate effect, all unbelieving actors, singers, athletes and all prominent personalities in Germany and other crusader nations are on an Islamic State death list.

Two other claims of responsibility have been made, by a group of radical leftists as well as a far-right sympathiser. Investigators have said they are keeping an open mind.

But as pressure mounts on them to answer the question of who was behind the attack, which has deeply shocked Germany and led to a renewed debate about security in and around sporting and other events, criticism is growing over the decision to reschedule the Champions League match for less than 24 hours after the attack. Monaco won the game 3-2.

The strongest criticism for Uefas decision came from Thomas Tuchel, BVBs head coach, who said the team had been informed via text message that they would play on Wednesday night, but no one had consulted him or the players beforehand.

We had the feeling we were treated as if a beer can had hit our bus, he said, adding he was made to feel impotent because he was not allowed to have any say in the matter.

It was as if Uefa in their offices in Switzerland had come to the decision on their own, he said. I would have liked a few more days for the team.

The European football body rejected the accusations, arguing the decision had been made jointly by BVB and AS Monaco on Tuesday evening.

Reinhard Rauball, the president of BVB, was also criticised for saying the team would deal with the trauma before he had apparently even spoken to them. They are professionals, he said. Im of the view that they can get over it.

Marcel Schmelzer, the captain of BVB, said that rather than spending the few hours before the match in the teams hotel, he had been with his family, and had ignored their advice not to watch a press conference given by the federal prosecutors spokeswoman on Wednesday afternoon. You just want to know what happened, he said.

I believe it would make it a tiny bit easier to deal with if we knew who was behind it, Schmelzer added. He said that, on hearing from prosecutors that shrapnel from one of the bombs had penetrated the headrest of one of the bus seats, it had became clear to him just how extraordinarily lucky we were. Were all aware of that.

He added that the team would have much preferred to have dealt with their trauma away from the pitch. We would have been very, very, very happy, had [the match] been able to take place on another day, he said. Regardless of the importance of this competition, were only humans.

Sokratis, a centre back for BVB, welled up as he thanked fans for their support after the game. He said later: We were treated like animals, not like people.

Another player, Nuri ahin, told Norwegian television: I dont know whether people will understand or not, but until I went on to the pitch in the second half, I was not thinking of football. ahin was brought on after half-time.

I know that football is important and I know that we earn a lot of money and have a privileged life. But we are also only people, and there is more to football in this world. Thats what we got to feel the night before last.

Read more here:
Man arrested after Borussia Dortmund attack 'led Isis unit in Iraq' - The Guardian

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Read the original:
America and Iran are jostling for influence over Iraq - The Economist

Emily Guthrie

Emily Guthrie currently works at Sanad for Peacebuilding, a nongovernmental organization based in Iraq. She has lived in Iraqi Kurdistan for over thre

When it comes to peacebuilding, women are often relegated to more traditional gender roles while their untapped capacity to wage peace is left ignored.

In discussions of conflict and its associated processes of resolution, women are often defined by their relationships to their male counterparts or as tokens representing the brutality of war. Women are either the sisters, mothers ordaughters of both perpetrators and peacemakers, or they are mere poster children of victims caught up in battles over power, land and ideology.

When we think of war and armed conflict, we envision traditionally masculine traits such as aggression, power and strength. So why is it that we do not envision opposing traits such as trust, cooperation and fairness when seeking peace? As seen worldwide, when it comes to peacebuilding women are often relegated to more traditional notions of gender roles while their largely untapped capacity to wage peace is left ignored.

Before discussing exactly how to challenge these notions and to incorporate female actors into peacebuilding processes, we must first ask if women do in fact contribute to greater peace and stability. According to a number of research studies, womens participation and equality are both contributing factors to successful conflict resolution efforts and strong predictors of a states peace and stability.

One study found that womens inclusion resulted in peace agreements that were 20% more likely to last at least two years and 35% more likely to last for 15years. As for predicting peace, research indicates that states with higher levels of gender inequality are more likely to undergo internal conflict and that gender equality indicators are stronger predictors of peace than more traditional indicators such as GDP, religion or democracy.

Currently, we see that women are drastically underrepresented in peace processes worldwide. In 2012, a UN Women examination of 31 major peace processes since 1992 found that women comprised 4 per cent of signatories, 2.4 per cent of chief mediators, 3.7 per cent of witnesses and 9 per cent of negotiators between 1992-2011. Furthermore, another study found that from 1990 to 2010, only 16% of peace agreements worldwide contained specific references to women.

So why exactly are women being left out of peace processes across the globe? In short, sexism is both a cause and an underlying contributor to other obstacles to inclusion as women and their interests are not seen as priorities. When it comes time to sit down at the negotiating table, processes tend to focus on belligerents and their representatives who do not want to diminish their authority through the inclusion of other actors.

Furthermore, institutional constraints such as timelines and deadlines make peacebuilders wary of actor proliferation and the task of identifying legitimate and influential parties. Finally, the effects of conflict greatly differ when it comes to men and women. Research shows that while men make up the majority of those killed directly in armed combat, women suffer much more from the indirect effects of war and may in fact have a higher mortality rate due to indirect factors such as infectious disease, domestic violence, economic devastation and human rights abuses.

Due to this dichotomy in victimhood, peace negotiations often ignore continued threats against women once negative peace, or the cessation of violence, has been established.

These concerns are not entirely new to the international community and a number of efforts have been made to promote womens participation in peacebuilding activities. Passed on October 31, 2000, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 is perhaps the most widely mentioned expression of support for womens involvement in peacebuilding. It highlights the fact that in the post-Cold War era, civilians, and women especially, are more frequently the targets of violence and it outlines a number of principles for increasing womens participation in peacebuilding and decision-making. Since 2000, 63 countries have established national action plans to support the implementation of UNSCR 1325 and mentions of women in peace agreements have increased from 11% to 27%, likely as a result.

Iraq, which recently adopted its own National Action Plan (INAP) and was the first in the MENA region to do so, is poised to present an interesting test for such plans in reconciliation efforts leading up to and following the demise of the Islamic State (IS)within its borders. Despite increased hopes in the wake of a series of recent military victories there is growing concern about what exactly post-IS Iraq will look like.

Land disputes between the central government and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), the presence of and allegiance to multiple security actors, reprisal attacks and tribal conflict, difficulty in IDP returns, tensions between IDP and host communities, an ongoing economic crisis and numerous minority and ethnic conflicts provide enormous hurdles for future reconciliation and stability.

Research by Sanad for Peacebuilding found that barriers to womens inclusion in peacebuilding processes in Iraq largely fall in line with the rest of the world. In a focus group discussion, participants emphasized lack of womens capacity-building measures, family and social pressure to conform to traditional gender roles, pervasive use of negative stereotypes in the media and a lack of civic and human rights education programs as important contributors to womens continued exclusion.

Displaced Yazidis enter Kurdistan, Aug. 9, 2014 Ali Arkardy

Additional constraints, many of which are irreparable in the near future, also threaten overarching inclusion efforts. For instance, UN Iraq found that only 41.5% of Iraqi women believed that women should participate in political affairs and only 10% reported joining a clubhouse, social club, union, political party or a womens association.

Furthermore, male biases against womens social inclusion were further identified. United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) found that only about half of men aged 10-30 in Iraq supported womens right to work. Finally, Iraqi women and girls currently have much lower literacy rates in comparison to their male counterparts, and the figures are much larger in rural areas. In 2013, the illiteracy rate of women and girlsaged 12 and older was 28.2%, which was more than double the male rate of 13%. The illiteracy rate of women and girls aged 15 to 24 in rural areas was 33.6%. All of these figures constitute considerable impediments to womens capacity and social willingness to support and participate in peacebuilding processes.

While there is a vast array of boundaries affecting both womens inclusion and peacebuilding efforts in Iraq, a number of strategies may help mitigate their effects. First, the use of actor mapping, or the identification of influential actors, may help eliminate concerns regarding interest proliferation and representativeness.

Next, relevant entities are encouraged to provide trainings to increase womens peacebuilding capacities across numerous roles and modalities on the peacebuilding spectrum. Finally, rates of womens participation and their effects are virtually unknown in Iraq due to lack of gender disaggregated data from the government, local and international NGOs and international entities. The collection, use and examination of such data provide opportunities to have a better understanding of both gaps and opportunities.

The use of these strategies is paramount in central institutions such as the National Reconciliation Committee in the prime ministers office. The establishment of a monitoring framework in line with INAP, and the corporation of women in the committees stabilization mechanisms in areas such as Nineveh, Saladin, Anbar and Diyala will provide unique opportunities to capitalize on the crucial role that women play in society and to pave the way for womens future inclusion both in Iraq and in other conflict areas.

Furthermore, women should play a role in the design and implementation of trust-building mechanisms given womens vital role in communities nationwide.

The Iraqi National Action Plan has certainly provided a framework for womens inclusion in peacebuilding mechanisms moving forward. However, a conscious and concerted effort from the central government and KRG, local and international NGOs and international agencies needs to also be put forth in order to supplement the objectives of INAP. Otherwise, women will lose crucial opportunities to not only determine their futures but the future of Iraqi society as a whole.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

Photo Credit:Claudiad

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Original post:
Iraq's Women: From Poster Children to Peacemakers - Fair Observer