The 'ISIS Widows' and the myth of the innocent jihadi spouses.

Source picture here

The 'ISIS Widows' and the myth of the innocent jihadi spouses. (JPost).

One woman recalled being raped by an Islamic State fighter. First the fighter’s wife would come in and put makeup on her. Then the wife would force her to dress up. Then, when his wife was done “preparing” her, the husband would come and rape her. According to an account published this year, the survivor remembers the rapist calling her “kuffar,” the Islamist word for sub-human or “unbeliever.”

Today the ISIS “widows” are the center of sympathy.

The thousands of Yazidi slaves that ISIS captured in August 2014 tell a different story of the ISIS women.

One told a reporter from Alternet that some of the jihadists’ wives were “worse” than the men. A Yazidi woman named Seeham said that the ISIS women would shout abuse at her.

One of the women forced her to shave her body and “brought sexy clothes to wear for her husband and helped him rape me by tying me to the bed.” It got worse. Seeham had a little daughter. Read the full story here.

The role of women in jihadism should not be underestimated. Women are just as dedicated to the jihadist ideal as men. The most recent publication of the AIVD is available in English now: 'Jihadist women, a threat not to be underestimated'. https://t.co/2UZScEU7HM

— AIVD (@AIVD) December 18, 2017

Video - Egypt's Grand Mufti Shawki Allam: 'We Do Not Have the Authority to Pronounce ISIS Unbelievers'.

Video - Egypt's Grand Mufti Shawki Allam: 'We Do Not Have the Authority to Pronounce ISIS Unbelievers'. HT: Memri.

The Grand Mufti of Egypt Shawki Allam said, when asked in a recent TV interview why the state's religious establishment had failed to pronounce ISIS unbelievers, that: 

"No matter what [a person] does with his life, as long as he does not renounce [the two shahadas], this does not lead to his expulsion from the fold of Islam." "Declaring the expulsion of such a person from the fold of Islam is the prerogative of the judiciary," he said in the Sada Al-Balad TV interview, which aired on August 17.

Hmmm.....ISIS has nothing to do with Islam. :) 

Ex-Gitmo detainee Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar arrested in France - allegedly part of "recruiting network linked to" ISIS.

Ex-Gitmo detainee Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar arrested in France - allegedly part of "recruiting network linked to" ISIS. (nydailynews).

Detainee Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar has demonstrated a commitment to jihad, and would likely engage in anti-US activities if released. 

A former Guantanamo Bay inmate released by the Obama 'admin' is among six people from an alleged jihadi recruiting network linked to the Islamic State group who were detained on Tuesday, a French judicial source said.

Among the suspects arrested was Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar, who was freed from the U.S. detention center in Cuba in 2009 after France agreed to accept him, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

Lahmar was one of six Algerians detained in Bosnia in 2001 on suspicion of plotting to bomb the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. The Justice Department later backed off the allegations, but held the men at Guantanamo for years. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to take him in April 2009, and Lahmar moved to Bordeaux later that year.

The French official said Lamar, at 48, is the oldest of the four men and two women who were arrested and said that there were no indications the group was plotting an attack.

Five of the suspects were detained in Bordeaux, one in Paris.

Video - Raw video: The MOAB aftermath in Afghanistan.

Video - Iraqi federal police freed 11-years-old Yazidi girl from ISIS Captivity in west Mosul.

Video - ISIS Behind the Mask - CNN Special Report

ISIS claims responsibility for Westminster Attack, says attacker was a "soldier of the Islamic State"

#Breaking: #ISIS claims responsibility for #WestminsterAttack, says attacker was a "soldier of the Islamic State" pic.twitter.com/1p3iBMfB6e

— Jihad Threat Monitor (@memrijttm) March 23, 2017

15/ BREAKING: ISIS claims responsibility for #London terror attack in statement published by Amaq. @akhbar pic.twitter.com/09b26w5jLz

— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) March 23, 2017

Video - The People Behind ISIS Media System Speak in an Al-Arabiya TV Documentary.

The People Behind ISIS Media System Speak in an Al-Arabiya TV Documentary. (MEMRI)

An in-depth documentary, titled “Studio of Horror,” was broadcast by Al-Arabiya TV on February 9. It takes a close look at the media machinery of ISIS, interviewing personnel who worked in its media industry and discussing the filming methods and effects used in execution videos. According to one of those interviewed, “When you step into the ISIS media office, you feel as if you have entered a huge international production company,” with a budget of 2-2.5 million dollars.

Video - Killed child soldiers, wrecked tanks: witness report from Palmyra battlefield

Video - Mosul - ISIS’ Horror Stories Leak from ‘Khasfa’ Mass Grave.

Video - ISIS’ Horror Stories Leak from ‘Khasfa’ Mass Grave.(AS).

Mosul- The horror stories about ISIS’ mass killings at a cavernous hole in the desert near Mosul became legendary over the years.

Soon after the group took control of the Iraqi city more than 2½ years ago, the 100-foot-wide sinkhole five miles southwest of the airport became a site for summary executions. Some victims were made to line up at the edge of the hole and were shot before being kicked inside, while others were tossed in alive, residents said. Sometimes bodies were just trucked in for dumping.

Residents of Mosul whispered about the deaths at the sinkhole, or “khasfa,” as it is called. But with communications limited and locals too fearful to speak out publicly, it was only after Iraqi forces retook the area last month as they closed in on the city’s western side that the scale of the killings at the site began to emerge. Based on anecdotal evidence, Iraqi officials say thousands may have perished there in recent years.

It may be years more, though, before the mass grave gives up its secrets.


No one knows the depth of the hole under the water at the bottom. The militants have filled it and booby-trapped it with explosives, making excavation particularly complex.

 The khasfa, though, could be ISIS’s biggest mass grave.

“It’s swallowed the lives of thousands,” said Muthanna Ahmed. He said he worked near the site for five months and witnessed summary executions. “It was terrifying, very deep and dark.”

Ahmed said victims’ shoes and dried blood lined its rim, while some decaying bodies that got caught on the sinkhole’s rugged edge were still visible. A -gruesome video posted on ¬YouTube in January 2015 shows a similar scene.

The sinkhole was near an ISIS oil refinery, and the militants regularly rounded up workers and Mosul residents who were buying fuel to watch the execution-style killings. Victims included former police and army officers, as well as those accused of spying or working with the Iraqi government, witnesses said.

Hussam al-Abar, a provincial council member, said 3,000 to 5,000 corpses might languish in its depths, though he bases that estimate on lists of missing people that he concedes could have been killed and buried somewhere else.

“Given the capacity of the central government and local government, I think it’s impossible to take out the bodies,” he said. “We’d need international assistance. It would be impossible for Iraqis alone.”

Jassim Omar, 33, said he witnessed about 10 executions there. The first was about a month after the city fell to the militants. About 25 prisoners from Badush prison in Mosul were brought to the sinkhole and killed, he said.

“If you want to scare someone from Mosul, just mention the khasfa,” he said.

The militants killed hundreds of the prison’s inmates when they took over the city, according to human rights groups. Most of the victims were Shi’ites, Yazidis and Christians, all of whom the militants consider to be apostates, while many Sunni inmates were allowed to go free. Read the full story here.

Isis paying smugglers up to $2,000 in recruitment drive among child refugees in camps.

Isis paying smugglers up to $2,000 in recruitment drive among child refugees in camps. (Guardian).

Sunday 5 February 2017 00.04 GMT Last modified on Sunday 5 February 2017 00.08 GMT

Islamic State is paying the smugglers’ fees of child refugees in a desperate attempt to attract new recruits, according to a report highlighting the potential vulnerability of unaccompanied minors to radicalisation.

The report, from counter-extremism thinktank Quilliam, also says that an estimated 88,300 unaccompanied children – identified by the European Union’s police agency Europol as having gone missing – were at risk of being radicalised.

Citing failures in the approach of Europe, particularly the UK, towards protecting child refugees travelling alone, the report, published on Monday, warns that jihadi groups, including Isis and Boko Haram, have attempted to recruit within refugee camps using financial incentives, as well as working with the people smugglers.

Quilliam said that Isis had offered up to $2,000 (£1,600) to recruit within camps in Lebanon and Jordan. Last year, Jordanian special forces reportedly found what they described as an Isis sleeper cell inside a refugee camp near Irbid, north Jordan. Additional reports indicated that Isis had tried to recruit refugees by supplying food previously withheld from camp residents.

Researchers identified a number of risk “hotspots” where refugees and young people were particularly vulnerable to recruitment by extremist organisations. One of the most acute of these is the north African coast where Quilliam said Isis fighters have offered £800 to those who join them.

Another so-called hotspot is the south Libyan town of Qatrun, where reports have indicated that Isis, which is believed to have between 4,000 to 6,000 fighters in the region, has waived £450 smuggler fees to allow refugees to travel north if they joined its ranks. Read the full story here.

Video - Muqtada Al-Sadr: 'Iraqi Militias Must Not Get Involved in Wars outside Iraq; Iraqi Army, Not Militias, Must Be in Charge of Mosul Liberation'

Trump has no influence on the predetermined American policy. I see him as a mere pawn on the chessboard. He is meaningless. He can only implement the predetermined policy. If he is brave, and wants to do things that run counter to the predetermined American policy, he will be committing [political] suicide. Transcript HT Memri.

18 Indonesians including one Family, with Kids, Held Over ISIS Links after being deported from Turkey.

Indonesian Family, Including Kids, Held Over ISIS Links after being deported from Turkey.(NDtv).

Indonesian police have detained a family of five, including three children, after they were deported from Turkey for allegedly seeking to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State (IS) group, an official said Thursday.

The family left Indonesia for Turkey in August, from where they planned to cross to Syria to join IS, police said.

But they were caught by Turkish soldiers this month and deported back to Indonesia, arriving late Tuesday on the resort island of Bali, local police spokesman Hengky Widjaja said.

"We interrogated them for two days," he said. "This morning they were sent for further questioning by the national police (in Jakarta)."

The 39-year-old father received his masters degree in Australia and their youngest child -- now aged three -- was born in Australia, authorities said.

The other two children are aged seven and 12.

Seventeen Indonesians were also arrested at the weekend after being deported from Turkey due to suspicions they were trying to reach Syria to join IS.

The emergence of IS has provided a potent new rallying cry for radicals in Indonesia, which has long struggled with Islamic militancy, and sparked fears of a revival of long-defunct extremist networks.

A gun and suicide attack in Jakarta last year, that left four civilians and four assailants dead, was the first attack claimed by IS in Southeast Asia, and the first major assault in Indonesia for seven years.

Video - Teens Fighting with ISIS Captured by Syrian Democratic Forces.

Footage taken by the Syrian Democratic Forces shows their capture of three children who had been fighting alongside ISIS. The children tell their captors that they had been coerced into fighting with ISIS. One of the militia fighter says that the children are under 15 years, but that ISIS "plant in their heads the idea that we are pigs and apostates" and "sends them to the front in order to fight us." Syrian Democratic Forces member: Surrender! You too, lie down! Lie down, quickly now! ...

Video - Real Housewives of ISIS....Another way of taking the fight to ISIS.

Video - Jordanian Chief of Staff Lieut.-Gen. Mahmoud Freihat: ISIS Controls Refugee Camps in Jordan; By the End of 2017, ISIS Will be in its Final Stages

Hmmmm.......many Syrian refugees in Canada originate from Jordan: Canada opens refugee processing centre in Jordan with 3 cabinet ministers on hand

Video - Blogger, "Syrian Girl" Interviewed by Paul Joseph Watson on origins of ISIS

Video - Blogger, "Syrian Girl" Interviewed by Paul Joseph Watson on origins of ISIS. HT Infidelbloggers.

Video - Eritrean Woman Who Escaped from ISIS Recounts Her Ordeal

France, Belgium ID ISIS 'brain'of Paris & Brussels attacks; seen here in an Amnesty campaign in 2010.

Source

France, Belgium ID ISIS Oussama Atar,'brain'of Paris & Brussels attacks; seen here in an Amnesty campaign. (Telegraph).

French investigators have identified a Syria-based extremist of dual Belgian and Moroccan nationality as a suspected coordinator of attacks in Paris and Brussels, sources close to the case have told French media.

Amnesty international was campaigning  in 2010 to provide him with medical help not to have him released, they stated today.
 .
Oussama Ahmad Atar, a 32-year-old thought to be a member of Isil, was already a suspect in the Brussels attacks on March 22 but has now been linked to the November 13, 2015 atrocities in Paris.

"He's the only coordinator from Syria to have been identified during the investigations," one of the sources told AFP.

Investigators in Belgium and France were long unsure as to who was the person behind Abou Amahad, a nom de guerre long linked to the terror attacks that killed 130 in Paris on November 13 and 32 in Brussels on March 22.

According to Le Monde, he was identified from a strip of several photograph as Oussama Atar by one of the terror suspects he had sent to Europe to commit atrocities.

Atar’s name had already been mentioned in the Belgian & French press in August as a potential “mastermind” of the Brussels attack with no further details. Now a “certain consensus” exists that he coordinated the attacks in both capitals remotely from Syria.

Atar is the cousin of Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui - two brothers who blew themselves up in the March Brussels airport and metro attacks, also linked to the Paris attacks. Read the full story here.

ISIS Leader Baghdadi 'Hiding in Mosul', Better to die as a Martyr for the cause?

ISIS Leader Baghdadi 'Hiding in Mosul', Better to die as a Martyr for the cause? (Aina) (Independent).

The Iraqi Army has entered Mosul for the first time in over two years at the start of a battle which is likely to end in a decisive defeat for Isis. The significance of the fight for Mosul will be all the greater for Isis because its self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is believed to be still inside the city, a senior Kurdish official has told The Independent.

Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, said in an exclusive interview that his government had information from multiple sources that "Baghdadi is there and, if he is killed, it will mean the collapse of the whole [Isis] system."

Isis would have to choose a new caliph in the middle of a battle, but no successor would have the authority and prestige of Baghdadi, the leader who surprised the world by establishing the caliphate after capturing Mosul in June 2014.

Baghdadi has kept himself concealed for the last eight or nine months according to Mr Hussein, who added that the caliph had become very dependent on Isis commanders from Mosul and Tal Afar, a city just to the west of Mosul.

The presence of Baghdadi in Mosul may complicate and prolong the battle for Mosul as his surviving adherents fight to the death to defend him.

Mr Hussein said that "it is obvious that they will lose, but not how long this will take to happen." He said that Kurdish Peshmerga forces had been impressed by the extraordinary number of tunnels that Isis had dug in order to provide hiding places in the villages around Mosul. Hmmm....Better to die as a Martyr for the cause than to run to fight another day? Read the full story here.

 Update: Seems Baghdadi is willing to die as a 'Martyr'.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi calls on followers to obey their emirs as an act of worship.

— Hassan Hassan (@hxhassan) November 2, 2016