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“They come to the house and take the children and accuse them of being spies,” stated another source. “If the mom cries and gets upset at them, they accuse of her [sic] being a spy too and take her to the jail and later kill her.”

However, the forces insisted the area is not 100% safe. They withdrew 635 residents to nearby Habbaniyah, but there are many areas that still contain terrorists. The officials arrested 12 alleged militants who attempted to escape by blending in with the civilians.

Terrorism expert Michael Pregent said it is normal for the Islamic State to execute fighters who lose valuable territories. They did the same thing when militants lost Tikrit.

“They continue to lose territory, we’ve seen a growing number of defections and a rise in the number of alleged internal spies – many of whom they have killed mercilessly without demonstrating significant evidence of internal espionage,” said Clint Watts, Fox fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, adding: ISIS pattern of internal killings looks remarkably similar to al Shabaab’s decline in Somalia. As Shabaab lost ground and defectors increased, internal killings and harsher punishments were meted out across the terror group further accelerating the loss of local popular support.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Saturday urged Trump not to be “trapped” by an alleged Israeli plan to provoke a war through attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq.

The United States blames Iran-backed militias for regular rocket attacks on U.S. facilities in Iraq, including near the U.S. embassy. No known Iran-backed groups have claimed responsibility.

The city is many times bigger than any other that the ultra-hardline militant group has ever captured, and it was from its Grand Mosque in 2014 that the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a "caliphate" that also spans parts of Syria.

“It was mustard agent in a powderized form – the same thing we have seen [Isis] use to little effect many times in the past in both Syria and Iraq.”

“No service members showed signs or symptoms of mustard exposure. This attack has not impacted our mission in any way, nor have we changed our security posture in the area around Qayyarah.”

Some chemical agents and precursor materials for their manufacture had been stored on Iraqi territory formerly controlled by Isis. The US military has insisted since 2014 that there is no evidence Isis obtained access to them. Alternatively, some of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s substantial chemical stocks have been known to survive a 2013 agreement brokered by Russia and backed by the US for their destruction.

Speaking of a potential chemical attack, Pentagon spokesman Davis said: “We are well trained and equipped for this, as are our ISF [Iraqi security force and [Kurdish] Pesh partners.”

the prime minister is fighting for his political life, fending off withering attacks from all sides. Success in Fallujah could help his case.

Iraqis will once again suffer rolling blackouts that threaten to spark widespread anti-government protests like those that roiled the country last year.

"Daesh is the ultimate corruption and whoever prevents us from fighting Daesh is corrupt," he added, using a pejorative Arabic acronym for ISIS.

he extremist Sunni group is unlikely to give up Fallujah without a fight.

given the symbolic importance of the fight, both to Abadi himself and the military, Iraqi security forces will also be reluctant to give up.

With sky-high stakes on both sides, the battle is likely to wear on to a bloody conclusion, said Khatib.

That is a small fraction of the approximately 500 dead and 3,000 wounded that Iraqi forces suffered in their push to secure the eastern half of the city during an earlier, 100-day offensive.

the Iraqi strategy has been to mount an attack on multiple axes to present the militants with more problems than they can handle. But the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has responded at times by concentrating its firepower on what it believes to be the Iraqis’ main line of attack.

In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

more than 2,400 nerve-agent rockets unearthed in 2006 at a former Republican Guard compound.

In late 2005 and early 2006, soldiers collected more than 440 Borak 122-millimeter chemical rockets near Amara, in southeastern Iraq. And in the first nine months of 2006, the American military recovered roughly 700 chemical warheads and shells, according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Some tents are spray-painted with messages like "help us, it's cold" and "borders are racist." Refugees stand in long lines waiting for food, usually bread with a piece of cheese.

It's gotten harder in recent weeks for refugees to get across the border so they can continue toward what they hope will be safe havens like Germany and Sweden.Macedonia is allowing only a few dozen Iraqis and Syrians to cross the border each day, which has created a backlog in Greece

A spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees told CNN on Sunday that office was told by the Greek border police that Macedonia will now restrict acceptance of refugees from Iraq and Syria by province.

The geographical restrictions would mean that Syrians from the provinces of Damascus, Homs, Qamishli, Latakia and Tartus as well as Iraqis from the provinces of Baghdad, Diyala and Kirkuk and from Iraqi Kurdistan would not be allowed to continue on the route.

"There were strikes and people ran away. I happened to have my ID in my pocket, hers was in the house. We ran away, people were running away barefoot," he says, remembering the day they fled. If they had known what would happen, Ahmed says, they never would have come. They were sold a dream by those who made the journey before them.

At least 18 people trying to reach Greece drowned when their boat capsized off of Turkey's western coast, according to Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu news agency.

So far this year, more than 418 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Last year, more than 3,700 migrants died crossing the Mediterranean in attempts to reach Europe, making it the deadliest year on record for such deaths.

The Iraqi government and much of its military officer corps are mostly made up of Shi’a Muslims, whereas much of the areas ISIS has retained in Iraq are predominantly Sunni

the Iraqi military forces are often operating in areas where the local population may be more willing to tolerate, or even support ISIS

The U.S.-led coalition against ISIS expanded its aggressive bombing campaign against the group into Syria in September 2014 and has bombarded the terror group virtually daily since.

ISIS primarily focused its attention on its regional ambitions prior to the U.S.-led bombing campaig

One of the gunmen in a dual terror attack in Paris in January 2015 claimed that he was part of ISIS, though the other shooters in that attack were linked to an al Qaeda affiliate.

authorities in the U.S. announced they had arrested an Ohio man and ISIS supporter who planned to bomb the U.S. Capitol.

, Western intelligence agencies are concerned about those who travel to Syria and Iraq to fight with ISIS before coming back home.

These weapons, including many accumulated by Iraq over five war-torn decades, were designed or manufactured in 25 countries and range from assault rifles to tanks and anti-aircraft defense systems, the report said.

"ultimately reflects decades of irresponsible arms transfers to Iraq and multiple failures by the U.S.-led occupation administration to manage arms deliveries and stocks securely, as well as endemic corruption in Iraq itself."

he U.S. and other supplier nations have allowed them to freely flow through the region and fall into the hands of ISIS and other armed groups in the region, the human rights group charged.

The bulk of ISIS' arsenal, he said, is made up of older Soviet-era weapons, brought into Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War and the U.S. occupation between 2003 and 2007.

Amnesty International is calling for supplier states, including the U.S., to work with Iraqi authorities to quickly implement stricter controls on the transfer, storage and deployment of arms.

em, it doesn't mean the battle against the group's ideology or its ability to stage an insurgency is finished - whether in Iraq, Syria or the wider world.

Attacks may be at a lower level than they once were, but Iraqi towns and cities still fall prey to suicide bombers,

Our forces are in complete control of the Iraqi-Syrian border and I therefore announce the end of the war against Daesh [IS].

The Iraqi armed forces issued a statement saying Iraq had been "totally liberated" from IS.

"The United States joins the government of Iraq in stressing that Iraq's liberation does not mean the fight against terrorism, and even against Isis [IS], in Iraq is over," she added.

historic moment" but warned that IS still posed a threat, including from across the border in Syria.

aid it had "fully liberated" the eastern border town of Albu Kamal, the last last urban stronghold of IS

he mission to defeat bandit units of the Islamic State terrorist organisation on the territory of Syria, carried out by the armed forces of the Russian Federation, has been accomplishe

Russia's military presence in Syria would now concentrate on preserving ceasefires and restoring peace.

will escape over Syria's borders to carry out more attacks abroad.

Abdul Rahman said Kurds are consistently told it’s not a good time for independence. “From our perspective, it’s always a bad time,” she said. “If you’re looking for a moment when Iraq is stable and you have somebody reasonable to negotiate with, that’s never been the case in Iraq.”

Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. diplomat who has been a vocal advocate for Kurdish independence, says “it’s baffling” why the U.S. doesn’t recognize a Kurdish state. Galbraith, who was in the KRG for the recent referendum as an unpaid adviser to the Kurds, pointed out that the area has long been a bastion of stability in Iraq. “Could a place of 5 million people be a viable place?” he asked. “I would think so. It’s larger and more viable than half the states in the United Nations.”

A: The KRG is not economically viable. B: The political conditions were simply not prepared. We’re seeing that,” he said. “There’s a very sharp reaction from Iran. There’s a sharp reaction from Turkey. A sharp reaction from Baghdad. So the neighbors weren’t prepared for this. They weren’t willing to go along. There were a lot of issues that were not resolved.

Abdul Rahim, the KRG’s representative in Washington, lamented the “naive, greedy people who sold out Kirkuk.” She added: “Disunity is definitely our Achilles heel. Kurdish disunity is our worst enemy. Whatever we think of our opponents and detractors, our disunity is our worst enemy.”

Let us imagine that Iraqi Kurdistan declared independence, and Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq didn’t fight it but just closed their borders. How could we live? Let us say, we’ve got our oil—how could we export it? And you can be sure that if Kurdistan declares independence Iran will attack, Turkey will attack, Syria will attack—and Iraq will not accept it. We cannot resist all these countries.