US-led forces pound Islamic State stronghold in Syria
Source: The Times of Israel
Large series of airstrikes target Jihadist capital of Raqqa, destroying infrastructure and transit routes, spokesman says BY AFP July 5, 2015.
US-led coalition forces said they carried out a series of 16 airstrikes Saturday on the Islamic State in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, in one of the biggest assaults on the extremists.
The significant airstrikes tonight were executed to deny Daesh the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gilleran said in a coalition statement, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
This was one of the largest deliberate engagements we have conducted to date in Syria and it will have debilitating effects on Daeshs ability to move from Raqqa.
Coalition forces successfully engaged multiple targets throughout Raqqa the extremists de facto capital the statement said, destroying IS structures and transit routes.
Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-led-forces-pound-islamic-state-stronghold-in-syria/
Happy Independence Day, ISIS.
63splitwindow
(2,657 posts)romanic
(2,841 posts)Wipe them off the face of the earth, then give the Kurds their land, rebuild the antiquities ruined by ISIS, and take every single US-made weapon out of Iraq so no other extremists can use them in the future. Maybe then, the region can stand a chance at stability.
former9thward
(31,925 posts)These statements remind me of Vietnam where the U.S. would claim victories as the North moved ever closer to Saigon.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)former9thward
(31,925 posts)Don't know how old you are but that is a Vietnam reference.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Raqqa may indeed fall. But ISIS would still control Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, along with big chunks of Iraq and Syria. Short of a ground invasion with a hundred thousand troops or so, ISIS isn't going anywhere just yet.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)rollin74
(1,969 posts)fuck daesh
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Last edited Sun Jul 5, 2015, 05:22 PM - Edit history (1)
Iraq conflict - IS 'trafficking Yazidi women for sex'By Yolande Knell - 24 September 2014
More than 3,000 Yazidi women and children have been captured by Islamic State militants and are being trafficked for sex, the BBC has learned.
Those who have escaped have spoken of being raped, tortured and starved.
Tens of thousands of members of Iraq's Yazidi minority fled from Islamic State (IS) in August and are now homeless.
Human rights activists say more than 5,000 men, women and children are still missing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29339696
Syrian women pull off their burkas to show they are free from ISIS
Marie Le Conte - 6 Jun 2015
My Note: See the anguish and relief on her face after escaping the hated ISIS. I can almost hear her scream.
A woman takes off her burqa as she enters Rojava (pic: Jack Shahine /Shervan Derwish)
This picture, taken by the border between Syria and Turkey, shows the amazing moment women take off their black burqas to celebrate being out of ISIS-held territory.
The snaps were captured by cameraman Shervan Derwish, as the car drove into the autonomous region of Rojava, which is held by the Kurdish YPG.
Under the Islamic State so-called caliphate, women have to wear the black shapeless burqas, whether they want it or not.
http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/06/syrian-women-pull-off-their-burkas-to-show-they-are-free-from-isis-5233062/
'Treated like cattle': Yazidi women sold, raped, enslaved by ISIS
Erbil, Iraq (CNN) -- Jana was a 19-year-old in her final year of high school, with dreams of becoming a doctor. Then, ISIS came to her village last August, and her world collapsed.
She described to me in chilling detail, how the jihadis first demanded that members of her Yazidi religious minority convert to Islam. Then they stripped villagers of their jewelry, money and cellphones. They separated the men from the women.
A United Nations report explained what happened next. ISIS "gathered all the males older than 10 years of age at the local school, took them outside the village by pick-up trucks, and shot them." Among those believed dead were Jana's father and eldest brother.
A different fate lay in store for the women...
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/30/world/meast/isis-female-slaves/index.html
ISIS: Enslaving, having sex with 'unbelieving' women, girls is OK
By Greg Botelho, CNN
Can you take non-Muslim women and children captive? Yes, says ISIS.
Can you have sex with them, even prepubescent girls? Yes, according to the Islamist extremist group.
Can you sell them or give them as gifts to others? The answer is yes, once again.
People in Mosul -- the Iraqi city now under control of the group calling itself the Islamic State -- got these and other messages loud and clear after sunset prayers Friday, when armed men handed out a color-printed pamphlet "Questions and Answers on Taking Captives and Slaves," three residents told CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/12/world/meast/isis-justification-female-slaves/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Independence for the conquered people cannot come soon enough.
"Women's rights are human rights, and human rights are women's rights."
~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, 1995, Beijing
bemildred
(90,061 posts)The US-led coalition against the Islamic State group says it has carried out a series of air strikes in Syria on its main stronghold, Raqqa.
The city is seen by the militants as the capital of the "caliphate" they declared in Syria and Iraq in 2014.
The US military described the 16 strikes as one of the largest assaults carried out in Syria so far.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 23 IS members and six civilians were killed in the attack.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33401251
bemildred
(90,061 posts)A US-led coalition has carried out some of its heaviest air strikes yet on Islamic States de facto Syrian capital, killing at least 30 people, including six civilians, according to a human rights monitor.
The strikes on Saturday night and Sunday morning also damaged infrastructure in Raqqa, the groups bastion in northern Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 30 people had been killed in US-led coalition strikes, including six civilians, among them a child. The rest were Isis fighters, the Britain-based monitor said.
---
The significant air strikes tonight were executed to deny Daesh (Isis) the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gilleran said in a coalition statement. This was one of the largest deliberate engagements we have conducted to date in Syria and it will have debilitating effects on Daeshs ability to move from Raqqa.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/05/us-led-air-strikes-on-isis-stronghold-leave-dozens-dead-including-civilians
romanic
(2,841 posts)but that's the reality of war. Innocent casualties. *sighs*
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)It's a terrible choice. The Kurds go in there knowing that if they do not defeat Isis then their families will be slaughtered. Isis kills or enslaves anyone they don't think are the right type of Muslim. They sell women to their soldiers to be raped. They do all of this proudly, even taping their horrors.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)The Kurdish forces are locked in battle only 30 miles away from the city, the news outlet said, citing local sources.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) Syrian Kurdish militias have approached the northern Syrian town of Raqqa, which is the de-facto capital of the Islamic State (IS) militant group, Al Jazeera reported Saturday.
On Friday, the US-led coalition launched airstrikes on IS in the area of Raqqa, as the Kurds have blocked the Islamists' main supply route from Turkey, witnesses said as cited by the Quatar-based broadcaster.
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20150704/1024204925.html
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)Elmer S. E. Dump
(5,751 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Looked just like something at freeperville in 2003. Celebrating yet more military spending and death. And then wondering why people don't vote any more.