Taliban captured joint military base, 180 soldiers surrendered to Taliban.

      Afghan Media reports that Taliban have taken control of a joint military base in northeastern Badakhshan province of Afghanistan and approx 180 soldiers have surrendered to Taliban after a 5 days siege. Sources say that Afghan National Army also surrendered their weapons and equipments to Taliban.

The Afghan authorities had already warned Govt to take immediate action otherwise many lives of soldiers will be lost. According to Afghan National Media, 25+ Afghan soldiers have been killed in the battle. This attack is part of the Taliban country wide operations under the name “Azm”. Taliban have took several districts and key villages and check posts since the start of operation Azm.

Last days, hundreds of Taliban fighters armed with heavy and light weapons launched a coordinated attack on security check posts in Yamgan district, forcing the Afghan troops to tactically step back in a bid to prevent the civilian casualties.

The U.S. air war against the Islamic State, in numbers

This will not be quick," President Obama told reporters at a Monday briefing in the Pentagon, referring to the ongoing U.S. air war against the Islamic State. "This is a long-term campaign. ISIL is opportunistic and it is nimble. . . . It will take time to root them out."

Obama was referring to the acronym used by his administration for the jihadist organization that still controls swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.

As my colleague Missy Ryan reports, Obama pointed to notable victories enabled by American air strikes:

Obama highlighted battles in which U.S.-aligned fighters have prevailed against the group, including combat in the Syrian cities of Kobane and Tal Abyad and the Iraqi city of Tikrit. He said Islamic State fighters have lost more of than a quarter of the populated territory they had captured in Iraq.

But the jihadists, despite having no state support, remain an entrenched, dogged foe. This a reflection of the particular complexity of the fight. The Obama administration is justifiably keen to limit its role in a yet another conflict Middle East, especially one that has crossed borders and involves coordinating with a mess of factions and state actors on the ground. It's also wary of inflicting civilian casualties.

Micah Zenko, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, crunches the numbers of the U.S. air campaign, and sets it against other recent missions. Despite the U.S. air war against the Islamic State now entering a second year, it has conducted far fewer sorties and dropped fewer bombs than during the shock-and-awe campaign in Iraq in 2003 or NATO's operations against Serbian forces in 1999.

Understand that these are all distinct military operations with their own objectives, combination of coalition partners, and rules of engagement, and that this data is challenging to compile. However, for a military campaign that allegedly intends to inflict a “lasting defeat” on the dispersed and large militant army that is the Islamic State, there is a relatively limited — though understandable given the concern of civilian casualties — number of bombs being dropped each day.

Still, according to U.S. estimates, the American bombing campaign has hit nearly 8,000 Islamic State targets and killed some 12,500 Islamic State fighters. It's important to note, as Zenko does, that civilians have still died amid the U.S. air strikes. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that the U.S.-led coalition is responsible for the deaths of 162 civilians, including 51 children and 35 women.

More Than 120 Irani Backed Houthi Killed in Coalition Airstrikes

More than 120 Iranian-backed Houthi militias and loyalists to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh were killed during an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition on Yemen’s central governorate of Amran, Al Arabiya News Channel reported Tuesday.

The Saudi-led coalition also targeted Houthi gatherings in the western Hodeidah province, as well as the southern city of Aden and the central city of Ibb.

It also hit a Houthi military convoy on its way to the southwestern city of Taiz, according to the channel.

Also on Tuesday, the U.N. envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed continued meetings with Houthi officials in Sanaa to try to broker a ceasefire to allow aid deliveries, according to the Reuters news agency.

The United Nations has been pushing for a halt to air raids and intensified fighting that began on March 26 this year.

More than 3,000 people have been killed since then as the Arab coalition tries to stop the Houthis moving across the country from the north.

The U.N. says more than 80 percent of Yemen’s 25 million people need some form of humanitarian aid.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/07/07/Scores-of-Houthi-militias-killed-in-coalition-air-strikes.html

Islamic State affiliate Wilayat #Sinai attempts unsuccessfully to rattle the Egyptian Army

On the morning of July 1, 2015, Sinai witnessed a new series of highly complicated developments, following strategic changes in the ongoing war between the Islamic State affiliates in Egypt, Wilayat Sinai (formerly known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis) and the Egyptian army. This step is dangerous because Wilayat Sinai attempted to maneuver on the field to control Sheikh Zuweid city, the second largest city in North Sinai and the most important border city that is less than 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) away from the occupied Palestinian territories.

According to testimonies that Al-Monitor obtained from Sheikh Zuweid locals, Sinai militants took over Sheikh Zuweid areas for more than 10 hours on July 1. They were forced to retreat due to huge losses in their ranks after the battle was settled in favor of the Egyptian air force, which targeted militants while they were positioned between civilian houses in the city.

Mohamed Ali, a Sheikh Zuweid inhabitant, told Al-Monitor, “The militants controlled the city since 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. [on July 1] after they pushed the Egyptian army out, besieged it and forbade it from entering [Sheikh Zuweid]. Most roads were booby-trapped and militants were deployed between inhabited houses.”

Wilayat Sinai’s control of Sheikh Zuweid for over 10 hours begs a question: How did this happen in the city where the Egyptian army has been deployed for the past two years, since the onset of the war against terrorism?

An expert on Sinai affairs and armed militias told Al-Monitor, on condition of anonymity, “The start of the July 1, 2015, war is a field maneuver conducted by Wilayat Sinai to occupy a city under the Egyptian army’s control.”

He noted, “I was told by reliable sources that the plan to control Sheikh Zuweid was set by Wilayat Sinai higher military command and that it is similar to their plans to take over the cities in Iraq and Syria. Wilayat Sinai alerted its members to implement [IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi] Baghdadi’s next plan and deployed all its militants who are estimated at 200 in Sinai,” he added. “Wilayat Sinai’s plan was made up of several stages. The first stage consists of attacking two army checkpoints along the road connecting Sheikh Zuweid to El-Gorah locale of Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) to incur the biggest number of losses in army ranks and seize the weapons and mechanisms to be used in the advanced stages of the plan. The second stage consisted of waging a simultaneous attack on 10 army checkpoints along the international highway [that] ends at the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip. This would be implemented by using machine guns and long-range missiles — a method used to distract and confuse the estimations of troops. In parallel, Wilayat Sinai militants planted mines and bombs along the internal roads of Sheikh Zuweid and their surroundings and the roads connecting them to other cities, and in the vicinity of Al-Zohour camp — the largest military camp in Sinai," he said.

“Sinai province started implementing the plan at 6 a.m. on July 1 by attacking the Abu Refai and Sedra checkpoints in the surroundings of Sheikh Zuweid, and at the same time using a booby-trapped car and pushing around 20 militants to clash with the army at the checkpoints and kill the rest [of the army members] after the invasion of the booby-trapped cars,” he added.

According to the same source, “Wilayat Sinai faced some obstacles while trying to implement the first plan. An Egyptian army soldier in Sedra checkpoint detected the booby-trapped car 10 meters [32 feet] before it reached [the target]. He struck it with an RPG, causing it to blow up before arriving. The army violently clashed with Wilayat Sinai militants who were seriously harmed. The other booby-trapped car managed to invade the Abu Refai checkpoint, and Wilayat Sinai finished off the soldiers, seized weapons and videotaped the operation. The second stage happened at the same time. Ten military checkpoints in Sheikh Zuweid and its environs were attacked with machine guns and mortars. This stage aimed at disconcerting the army rather than causing tangible losses,” the source noted.

The third stage that the source thinks helped partially control Sheikh Zuweid city temporarily involved Wilayat Sinai militants planting bombs on all the city’s main roads and byroads as well as those connecting the city to other cities.

The first purpose was to besiege the soldiers positioned in Al-Zhour camp and prevent them from moving or sending military reinforcements to regions of clashes. The second aim was to cut off supplies and military movements between targeted military headquarters and checkpoints to facilitate the mission of finishing off the besieged soldiers. The fourth purpose was to forbid the entry of military reinforcements into the city and prevent the entry of ambulances coming to save the wounded soldiers as a result of the attacks.

The same source believes that Wilayat Sinai failed to proceed with its plan for several reasons. First, the group did not enjoy a popular base in Sheikh Zuweid. Therefore, its scheme to lure the army to the mined roads in Sheikh Zuweid was aborted.

A source close to the troops in Sheikh Zuweid told Al-Monitor that the military forces smelled trouble at first, especially after Wilayat Sinai spread its control on the ground. But the officers in charge of the troops’ moves refused to come out after being alerted by the inhabitants about the mining of all roads, which were practically turned into minefields. The officers felt the presence of a plan aimed at draining ground troops and attempting to control the largest military camp in the city.

Another reason that prompted the retreat of Wilayat Sinai militants and the settlement of the battle in favor of the Egyptian army was because the F-16 Falcons hunted down Wilayat Sinai in the Sheikh Zuweid streets and surroundings, causing great damage. Over 55 militants, including first-rank ones, were killed, and the cries of others asking their fellows to retreat slowly could be heard. They did not expect the combat planes to shell Wilayat Sinai militants while they were positioned among civilians. According to the expert, the raids were accurate, despite the death of some civilians.

“Wilayat Sinai lost a large number of militants and was deeply affected. This was a catastrophe for the group compared to the low overall number of militants [in Sinai]. But Wilayat Sinai will try to expand its activities to send out messages to the media to the effect that it wasn’t affected or defeated. But it will definitely need several months to make up for the ammunition and human losses in its ranks, depending on the injustices that the Egyptian regime will deal to the people and that will constitute a breeding ground for militants,” the expert said.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/07/egypt-sheikh-zuweid-wilayat-sinai-attack-egyptian-army.html

Islamic Battalions Helping Ukraine Against Russians

MARIUPOL, Ukraine — Wearing camouflage, with a bushy salt-and-pepper beard flowing over his chest and a bowie knife sheathed prominently in his belt, the man cut a fearsome figure in the nearly empty restaurant. Waiters hovered apprehensively near the kitchen, and try as he might, the man who calls himself “Muslim,” a former Chechen warlord, could not wave them over for more tea.

Even for Ukrainians hardened by more than a year of war here against Russian-backed separatists, the appearance of Islamic combatants, mostly Chechens, in towns near the front lines comes as something of a surprise — and for many of the Ukrainians, a welcome one.

“We like to fight the Russians,” said the Chechen, who refused to give his real name. “We always fight the Russians.”

He commands one of three volunteer Islamic battalions out of about 30 volunteer units in total fighting now in eastern Ukraine. The Islamic battalions are deployed to the hottest zones, which is why the Chechen was here.

Fighting is intensifying around Mariupol, a strategic seaport and industrial hub that the separatists have long coveted. Monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe say they have seen steady nighttime shipments of Russian military equipment on a rail line north of here. Recently, the Ukrainian authorities released photos — which they said were taken by a drone flying north of the city — that showed a massing of heavy weapons, including tanks and howitzers, on the rebel side.

Anticipating an attack in the coming months, the Ukrainians are happy for all the help they can get.

As the Ukrainians see it, they are at a lopsided disadvantage against the separatists because Western governments have refused to provide the government forces with anything like the military support that the rebels have received from Russia. The army, corrupt and underfunded, has been largely ineffective. So the Ukrainians welcome backing from even Islamic militants from Chechnya.

“I am on this path for 24 years now,” since the demise of the Soviet Union, the Chechen said in an interview. “The war for us never ended. We never ran from our war with Russia, and we never will.”

Ukrainian commanders worry that separatist groups plan to capture access roads to Mariupol and lay siege to the city, which had a prewar population of about half a million. To counter that, the city has come to rely on an assortment of right-wing and Islamic militias for its defense.

The Chechen commands the Sheikh Mansur group, named for an 18th-century Chechen resistance figure. It is subordinate to the nationalist Right Sector, a Ukrainian militia.

Neither the Sheikh Mansur group nor Right Sector is incorporated into the formal police or military, and the Ukrainian authorities decline to say how many Chechens are fighting in eastern Ukraine. They are all unpaid.

Apart from an enemy, these groups do not have much in common with Ukrainians — or, for that matter, with Ukraine’s Western allies, including the United States.

Right Sector, for example, formed during last year’s street protests in Kiev from a half-dozen fringe Ukrainian nationalist groups like White Hammer and the Trident of Stepan Bandera. Another, the Azov group, is openly neo-Nazi, using the “Wolf’s Hook” symbol associated with the SS. Without addressing the issue of the Nazi symbol, the Chechen said he got along well with the nationalists because, like him, they loved their homeland and hated the Russians.

To try to bolster the abilities of the Ukrainian regular forces and reduce Kiev’s reliance on these quasilegal paramilitaries, the United States Army is training the Ukrainian national guard. The Americans are specifically prohibited from giving instruction to members of the Azov group.

Since the Afghan war of the 1980s, Moscow has accused the United States of encouraging Islamic militants to fight Russia along its vulnerable southern rim, a policy that could deftly solve two problems — containing Russia and distracting militants from the United States. The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has accused the Western-backed Georgian government of infiltrating Islamic radicals into the North Caucasus, though he has not offered proof.

In Ukraine, the Dzhokhar Dudayev and Sheikh Mansur units are mostly Chechen, but they include Muslims from other former Soviet areas, such as Uzbeks and Balkars. The third unit, Crimea, is predominantly Crimean Tatar. There is no indication of any United States involvement with the groups.

Along the front about seven miles to the east, the battalions career about in civilian cars, AK-47 rifles poking from the windows, while the regular army holds back in a secondary line of defensive trenches.

The Chechens, by all accounts, are valuable soldiers. Ukrainian commanders lionize their skills as scouts and snipers, saying they slip into no-man’s land to patrol and skirmish.

The Chechens are also renowned for their deft ambushes and raids. In the Chechen wars, insurgents had a policy of killing officers and contract soldiers who were taken prisoner, but conscripted soldiers were spared.

In Ukraine, the Chechens’ calls of “Allahu akbar,” or God is great, are said to strike fear in the hearts of the Russians.

In the interview, the Chechen commander said his men liked to fight with little protective gear. “This is the way we look at it,” he said. “We believe in God, so we don’t need armored vests.”

In the interview at the restaurant, a steakhouse and favorite haunt of Right Sector, the Chechen said he was about 45, had fought against Russia in both Chechen wars and had seen a good deal of violence. When he talks about combat, his eyes grow dark and inscrutable.

For the Ukrainians, the decision to quietly open the front to figures like the Chechen — who are making their way here from Europe and Central Asia — has brought some battle-hardened men to their side. The Chechen had been living in France, and he founded the Chechen battalions last fall along with Isa Musayev, an émigré from Chechnya who had been living in Denmark.

Mr. Musayev, the Chechen said, had received approval from senior members of the Ukrainian government, but “there were no documents, nothing was written,” he said, adding that Mr. Musayev was killed in fighting in February.

Though religious, the Chechen groups in eastern Ukraine are believed to adhere to a more nationalist strain of the Chechen separatist movement, according to Ekaterina Sikorianskaia, an expert on Chechnya with the International Crisis Group.

Not everyone is convinced. The French authorities, on edge over Islamic extremism in immigrant communities, detained two members of the Sheikh Mansur battalion this year on accusations of belonging to the extremist group Islamic State, the Chechen said. He denied that the two were members of the group.

“All of Europe is shaking with fear of the Russians,” he said. “It’s beneficial for Europe that we fight here as volunteers. But not everybody understands.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/world/europe/islamic-battalions-stocked-with-chechens-aid-ukraine-in-war-with-rebels.html?referrer=

Islamic State Baghdadi Foils Attempted Coup

The first attempted coup against IS leader Baghdadi has been foiled and 13 of the group's senior leaders have been executed, reflecting growing divisions within the group.
An attempted coup against the Islamic group's leader, Ibrahim Awwad al-Badri, better know as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was  recently foild by the extremist group, Iraqi and Syrian sources have told al-Araby al-Jadeed.

The attempt failed and 13 leading members from Morocco, Syria, Yemen, and Kuwait, as well as a Chechen and a Kurd were all killed by the group for involvement in the abortive coup. 

They included five well known senior figures in the group's General Military Council. 

Reportedly the coup was due to intense disagreements over the group's military operations, its decision to expand and include jihadist groups in Syria, Libya and Afghanistan, and last month's Saudi mosque bombings.

"The coup was foiled a few days before it took place. The plan was to target Baghdadi's convoy with improvised explosive devices south of the Syrian city of Raqqa and kill him," an anonymous source from the Iraqi city of Mosul told al-Araby al-Jadeed.

The source said Baghdadi had monopolised decision-making within the militant group and transformed its Sharia Committee into a ceremonial body with no real say. They explained this contradicts the concept of shura (consultation) that has been used to govern the group over the past three years.

A traitor reportedly revealed the coup two days before it was due to be carried out. Baghdadi arrested the plotters, beheaded them, and hung their heads in one of the group's main training camps until Ramadan began.

A Syrian fuel merchant who deals with the IS reported that the group's leaders no longer unanimously support Baghdadi.

"Baghdadi said the 13 leaders were beheaded because they were US and Saudi spies. In reality they were found guilty of taking part in a well-planned assassination attempt," the merchant added.

A tribal source from Iraq's Anbar governorate told al-Araby al-Jadeed it was hoped this meant the group was beginning to disintegrate earlier than expected.

"It is natural that there are disagreements and divisions within the group, because it grew rapidly and expanded over large areas in a short time period," said retired General Mohammad al-Khalidi, an expert in Iraqi armed groups.

http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/politics/2015/7/7/islamic-state-baghdadi-foils-attempted-coup#sthash.QdgzTtAc.dpuf