Two Syrian Anti-ISIL Journalists Beheaded in Turkey

Members of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently have been discovered and killed by Isis before, but this is the first time that the group has been targeted outside Syria, and shows Isis’s power to operate in Turkey.

Asked whether the use of USA special operations troops in northern Syria to coordinate with local forces was a model that would be adopted in Iraq, Carter said “we will continue to consider” this and other ways to achieve better results against the militants, who control large portions of Iraq and Syria.

The Arab groups in the new alliance are operating under the name “The Syrian Arab Coalition”. “Moreover, they’ll be the kind of force that is more likely to be accepted by the population of Raqqa, and that’s important”. “We just know that it was Isil”, he said. “In the near term we will apply pressure to them”.

The fundamental factor driving the Middle East into ever deeper chaos and bloodletting is the continuing, ever more volcanic eruption of United States militarism.

“May Allah Save the Soldiers of the Caliphate”, said one. Earlier this month, USA cargo planes dropped small arms and ammunition to Arab groups fighting IS in northern Syria in what appeared to be preparation for the attack. “Our forces are your national forces, so support and join them”, the Syrian Democratic Forces added.

Those steps include working with the Iraqi government to establish a special operations task force to target Islamic State leaders directly, to enhance USA assistance to Jordan and Lebanon in their Islamic State fight, and to deploy additional air assets into the region. There was one strike each near al Qaim, Kisik, Mosul, Qayyarah, Sultan Abdallah and Tal Afar, the coalition said.

Abdulkadir’s last post in his Facebook profile was about a military group called the Thuwar Ar Raqqa or Raqqa Revolutionaries declaring the entire city of Raqqa as a military zone as part of its plan to remove the Islamic State from the provincial capital.

The “actionable intelligence” in that case proved faulty, as none of the Kurdish hostages being sought were present at the site, and many of those “rescued” turned out to be ISIS members being held by the Islamist militia as suspected spies.

The Pentagon is preparing a new escalation of USA military operations in Iraq and Syria, including “direct action on the ground”, according to testimony Tuesday by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

It “marks a major shift in USA policy – a shift that is occurring without congressional debate (and) is unlikely to succeed in achieving our objective of defeating IS”, said Sen.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, that has a network of activists around the country, said dozens of families have fled Raqqa for villages outside the city, fearing an imminent attack. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profitto those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.