Islamic State launch gunboat attack on river-side town: "Degrade and Destroy" Islamic State

U.S. banks on strong Iraq coalition, but allies are hesitant Sat, Sep 13 04:36 AM EDT image By John Irish PARIS (Reuters) - The United States says it is "comfortable" it can forge an international coalition to fight Islamic State, but with Western and Middle Eastern allies hesitant, it risks finding itself out on a limb. President Barack Obama this week unveiled a rough plan to fight the Islamist militants simultaneously in Iraq and Syria, thrusting the United States directly into two different wars in which nearly every country in the region has a stake. The broad concept of a coalition has been accepted in Western capitals and on Thursday 10 Arab states, including rivals Saudi Arabia and Qatar, signed up to a "co-ordinated military campaign". "I'm comfortable that this will be a broad-based coalition with Arab nations, European nations, the United States, others," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in Ankara on Friday. But he added it was "premature" to set out what tasks individual coalition partners would shoulder. And the devil could be in the details. "This coalition has to be efficient and targeted," said a senior French diplomat. "We have to keep our autonomy. We don't want to be the United States' subcontractor. For the moment they haven't made their intentions clear to us." The United States and Britain pulled out of striking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last year hours before French planes had been due to take off, leaving President Francois Hollande embarrassed and isolated. This time around Paris wants clear commitment and international legality for any action in Syria. In Iraq, it wants a political plan encompassing all sides of society to be in place for the period after Islamic State (IS) is weakened. "The coalition must be the most legal possible," said former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine. "It needs members of the Security Council and as many Arab countries as possible and there has to be a follow-up. Otherwise it will all start again in three months. There needs to be a long-term vision." That is the idea of a conference in Paris on Sept. 15 that will bring Iraqi authorities together with 15-20 international players. The talks come ahead of a U.N. Security Council ministerial meeting on Sept. 19 and a heads of state meeting at the U.N. General Assembly at the end of the month. "The goal is to coordinate aid, support and action for the unity of Iraq and against this terrorist group," Hollande, the first Western leader to travel to Iraq since Islamic State's advances in June, told reporters in Baghdad on Friday. France has so far sent weapons to Kurdish fighters in Iraq and humanitarian aid. It is likely to send about 250 special forces troops to help direct strikes for Rafale fighter jets. But what it can offer is limited. France's forces are stretched, with more than 5,000 troops in Mali and Central African Republic. Its planned 450 million euros overseas defense budget for 2014 is already over a billion euros, at a time when the government is under severe pressure to cut spending. BRITAIN KEEN - TO A DEGREE Britain, Washington's main ally in 2003, has sent mixed messages. It has stressed the West should not go over the heads of regional powers or neglect the importance of forming an inclusive government in Iraq. Like France, it is also cautious about action in Syria because of legal questions and Syrian government air defenses. In Iraq, it has delivered humanitarian aid, carried out surveillance, given weapons to Kurds and promised training. On military action, Britain supports U.S. air strikes and Prime Minister David Cameron has repeatedly said Britain itself has ruled nothing out except combat troops on the ground. "We need to keep working closely and talking, thinking about the strategy. It shouldn’t be presented too much as ‘here is the plan, these are the roles, who wants what’," said a British government official. With an election less than nine months away, the British government is well aware of public opposition to Britain's role in invading Iraq with the United States in 2003. Cameron is also scarred by the memory of an embarrassing parliamentary defeat last summer, when he recalled MPs during the summer recess only to fail to win their approval to leave open the possibility of military action against Syria. Members of the government have said they would again try to seek authorization from parliament for involvement in any strikes, unless it became necessary to act quickly due to a humanitarian emergency or a threat to Britain. "As the global resolve to tackle (IS) strengthens, we will consider carefully what role the United Kingdom should play in the international coalition," Foreign Office Minister David Lidington said on Friday. "The basic fact is that no decisions about UK military action have been taken or are being asked of us at the moment." Most other European countries appear unwilling to go beyond humanitarian and logistical aid. Germany and the Czech Republic have promised to help arm the Kurds. But Berlin has been adamant it will not take part in air strikes. NATO is ready to facilitate and coordinate airlift supplies, and could offer training to Iraqi forces. "We have to try to support and sustain the local protagonists who may be able to stop and contain Islamic State in those areas," Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti said. "The Americans have chosen to carry out air strikes. We haven't yet chosen that," she said. ARABS AND TURKS ON BOARD? The U.S.-led coalition will want active military support from Middle Eastern states, to at least avoid the appearance of waging a Western "crusade". In the campaign to bring down former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the United Arab Emirates contributed to air strikes, while Qatar provided weapons to rebels. But in Iraq, the stakes for regional players are higher. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan and Egypt are unlikely to want to take a key role in military operations. "The situation is critical on our border because (Islamic State) are close. Yes, Saudi Arabia is ready to help, but America must first show it is with us now," said a Saudi Arabian military officer in Paris last week. Turkey, a NATO member which shares long borders with both Syria and Iraq, has so far also conspicuously avoided committing itself to the new military campaign. U.S. officials have played down hopes of persuading Ankara to take a combat role, focusing more on Turkey's efforts to stem the flow of foreign fighters crossing its territory and the provision of humanitarian aid. From the early days of the Syrian conflict, Turkey has backed mainly Sunni rebels fighting Assad. Although it is alarmed by Islamic State's rise, it is wary about any military action that might weaken Assad's foes. It is also nervous about strengthening Kurds in Iraq and Syria. Turkey's own Kurdish militants waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and are engaged in a delicate peace process. Pro-government newspapers on Friday welcomed Ankara's reluctance to take a frontline role in the coalition, questioning whether U.S.-led military action was the answer and drawing parallels with 2003, when Turkey's parliament rejected a U.S. request to use Turkish territory to invade Iraq. "In a coalition, you are not expected to do the same things. Some can provide humanitarian help, others financial and others military support," said another French diplomat. "The importance is that everything is coherent." (Additional reporting by Adrian Croft in Brussels, Kylie MacLellan in London and Jazon Szep in Ankara; Editing by Andrew Roche and Tom Heneghan) ====

Reidar Visser on Tuesday, 9 September 2014 1:40 no major promises have been issued along the lines of the pompous ( 1. Characterized by excessive self-esteem or exaggerated dignity; pretentious) Erbil agreement of 2010. In itself, perhaps not a bad thing. Also the timing of the whole process is admirable, for the first time entirely consistent with the Iraqi constitution. ISCI was awarded additional ministries, Badr and the Sadrists seem to have only two each, though the Sadrists also control one of the three deputy premier positions. Badr was at one point on the verge of boycotting the entire session after they were denied the interior ministry portfolio. As in previous government formations, the PM kept these portfolios for himself, though promising to present candidates within a week. The vice presidents have even less power, and it is an ironic sight to now have three major players in the previous term – Nuri al-Maliki, Ayad Allawi and Usama al-Nujayfi – in these sinecure-like positions. On a legal and constitutional note, parliament speaker Jibburi made it clear during the vote that he intends to follow a supreme court ruling that says “absolute majority” in the Iraqi constitution means “absolute majority of those present” as long as “absolute majority of parliament membership” is not expressly mentioned. This seems to indicate that whereas all blocs may have supported their candidates and made a strategic decision to be inside the government, wholehearted enthusiasm is still not widespread

. ====== Kerry calls new Baghdad government 'heart' of fight against Islamic State Wed, Sep 10 22:59 PM EDT image 1 of 7 By Jason Szep BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday endorsed Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's plans to mend Baghdad's relations with Sunnis and Kurds, and said Iraq's new government was "the heart and backbone" of the fight against Islamic State. Kerry, on a tour of the Middle East to build military, political and financial support to defeat the militants controlling parts of Iraq and Syria, said: "We all have an interest in supporting the new government of Iraq."

" "The coalition that is at the heart of our global strategy I assure you will continue to grow and deepen in the days ahead ... because the United States and the world will simply not stand by to watch as ISIL's evil spreads." he said, using an alternative acronym for Islamic State. A new and inclusive Iraqi government has to be the engine of our global strategy against ISIL. Now the Iraqi parliament has approved a new cabinet with new leaders, with representation from all Iraqi communities, it’s full steam ahead."

In a statement later, after a speech by President Barack Obama in Washington laying out his strategy that depends on a strong coalition, Kerry said the new Baghdad government "forms the heart and the backbone of our anti-ISIL efforts." Obama sought to rally Americans behind another war in a region he has long sought to leave, backed by what Washington hopes will be a coalition of NATO and Gulf Arab allies committed to a campaign that could stretch beyond the end of Obama’s term in 2016. U.S. officials said Saudi Arabia, where Kerry will meet many regional allies on Thursday, had agreed to host a training program for Syrian rebels who the United States hopes will eventually help in the fight against the Islamist State. Kerry told Abadi he was encouraged by his plans for "reconstituting" the military and his commitment to political reforms reaching out to all of Iraq's religious and ethnic communities. Abadi formed his government on Monday in what was billed as a break from the more abrasive style of his predecessor Nuri al-Maliki, whose policies were blamed by many Iraqis for fuelling sectarianism and pushing the country to the brink of collapse. Islamic State fighters seized large chunks of Iraq's north and west this year, welcomed by many of the Sunni Muslim minority, who blamed the government for targeting them with indiscriminate arrests and discriminatory policies. Abadi appealed to the international community to help Iraq fight Islamic State, urging them "to act immediately to stop the spread of this cancer." Abadi faces multiple crises, from the need to convince the Sunnis they should stand with Baghdad against Islamic State to persuading minority Kurds not to break away and convincing his own majority Shi'ites he can protect them from Sunni hardliners. Kerry highlighted Abadi's readiness "to move forward rapidly on the oil agreements necessary for the Kurds, (and) on the representation of Sunnis in government." In a sign of the eagerness among Iraq's political elite for a fresh start, new Parliament Speaker Selim al-Jubouri, a Sunni, told Kerry: "We are ... hopeful that we will be able to defeat terrorist organisations and establish democracy in Iraq." ENTRENCHED SECTARIAN TENSIONS Unlike his predecessor, Abadi enjoys the support of nearly all of Iraq's major political groups, and the two most influential outside powers, Iran and the United States. U.S. officials hope he will present a unified front to weaken Islamic State, which has seized a third of both Iraq and Syria. But it will be hard to placate all the forces in Iraq. On Wednesday, cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, head of a powerful Shi'ite movement, said Iraq should not cooperate with "occupiers", a reference to the United States. Sadr's opinions hold sway over tens of thousands of militants. Three car bombs exploded on Wednesday in a Shi'ite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 29, a police officer said. While it is unclear what steps will be taken to strengthen the Iraqi army after its collapse in the face of an Islamic State onslaught in June, the senior U.S. official said tentative plans for a new National Guard unit, announced by Abadi on Monday, were intended to deprive Islamic State of safe havens by handing over security to the provinces. Abadi in parliament on Monday described the proposed National Guard units as a means to absorb the Shi'ite militia groups now taking up the slack for a badly depleted army in fighting Islamic State. Iraqi and U.S. officials have said the units would be a mechanism for Sunni Muslims to defend their provinces against Islamic State. Kerry also touted the idea during his visit, saying he expected Abadi to take up the initiative in next week's cabinet meeting. Baghdad has lost control of the main Sunni provinces and the central government has yet to convince Sunnis it can be trusted. Sectarian tensions appeared as entrenched as ever, possibly worsened by a month of U.S. air strikes on Sunni jihadists. While Kurdish and Shi'ite fighters have regained ground, Sunni Muslims who fled the violence near the northern town of Amerli are being prevented from returning home and some have had their houses pillaged and torched. Sunni Arabs are also feeling a backlash in villages where they used to live alongside Kurds, who accuse them of collaborating with Islamic State. On Wednesday, Shi'ite militia north of Baghdad forced dozens of Sunni families from their homes during an offensive, stealing possessions and burning houses, a Shi'ite policeman and government source told Reuters, asking for anonymity to allow them to report on the offensive, which they said they opposed. While the U.S. official praised weeks of U.S. air strikes as "highly precise" and "strategically effective", he acknowledged much work lay ahead. "It’s going to be a very difficult, long road to get there," he said. Any campaign to defeat Islamic State could take one to three years, Kerry said. Kerry was to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah later on Wednesday, and travel on Thursday to Saudi Arabia for talks that will include Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which comprises Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. Saudi Arabia is unnerved by the rapid advance of Islamic State and fears it could radicalise some of its own citizens. A senior U.S. official in Washington, speaking after a phone call between Obama and Saudi King Abdullah to discuss cooperation on Islamic State, said there was "a commitment from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia ... to be a full partner with us," including by hosting the rebels' training program. Arab League foreign ministers agreed on Sunday to take all necessary measures to confront Islamic State. In Jordan, Kerry is expected to receive requests for extra military aid, including helicopters and border security equipment, along with part of the $500 million the Obama administration has proposed to accelerate training of moderate Syrian rebels, a Jordanian official told Reuters. French President Francois Hollande will travel to Baghdad on Friday ahead of a conference of regional and international powers in Paris on Monday to coordinate efforts to tackle Islamic State. (Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Baghdad, Isabel Coles in Arbil, Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman, John Irish in Paris, Adrian Croft in Milan and Angus McDowall in Riyadh; Editing by Janet Lawrence, David Storey and Eric Walsh) ==== Top News Blast kills leader of Syrian Islamist group, other top figures Tue, Sep 09 16:39 PM EDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - An explosion killed the leader of one of Syria's most powerful Islamist insurgent groups Ahrar al-Sham on Tuesday, the group said, and an organization that monitors violence in the civil war said at least 28 of its commanders had died. Ahrar al-Sham is a hardline Islamist group and part of the Islamic Front alliance that has been in armed conflict with the Islamic State group which has seized swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq. A statement posted on Ahrar al-Sham's official Twitter feed said the blast had hit a meeting in Idlib province in northwest Syria and confirmed Hassan Aboud, the group's leader, among at least 12 dead. "We don't know the cause of the explosion yet," Abu Mustafa al-Absi, a member of Ahrar al-Sham's politburo told Al-Jazeera TV in an interview. "We do not rule out the infiltration of elements who were able to plant a bomb," he added. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the monitoring group, said some 50 of the group's leaders had been gathered at a house when the blast went off. Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory, said the blast had occurred inside the meeting. Ahrar al-Sham, which is widely believed to have received funding from Gulf states, aims to implement Islamic sharia law in Syria. It was at one point considered the strongest insurgent group in the Syrian civil war. Syrian state TV flashed an urgent news headline reporting Aboud's death. Syria descended into civil war after an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule in 2011. The United Nations recently put the death toll above 191,000 people. In January another senior Ahrar al-Sham leader, Abu Khaled al-Soury, was killed in a suicide attack. Soury had fought alongside al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and was close to its current chief Ayman al-Zawahri. (Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky) ==== https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MUU-EZw7zM Mon, Sep 08 05:53 AM EDT BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State fighters attacked a riverside town north of Baghdad on Monday with gunboats and a car bomb, killing 17 people and wounding 54, a security source said. The source said the attack on Dhuluiya, around 70 km (45 miles) from the capital, was carried out before dawn and continued for two hours before the militants were pushed back. Among the dead in the attack, the largest of its kind in the area, were civilians and Iraqi forces. Most of the casualties were caused by the car bomb, which struck a market, the source said. Dhuluiya is part of a belt of Sunni Muslim towns north of Baghdad where the hardline Sunni Muslim Islamic State has managed to wrestle some control, often aligning with local militia who distrust the Shi'ite-led government. Islamic State fighters took advantage of the chaos in Iraq to muscle in and become the dominant force among Sunnis. US President Barack Obama ordered air strikes in northern Iraq last month as Kurdish-controlled territory fell to the Islamic State and the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan looked in danger. These have since spread to central Iraq. A tribal source near the Kurdish city of Kirkuk said Iraqi Air Force jets bombed two areas near the town of Hawijah, killing 14 civilians in Islamic State-controlled territory. (Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Dominic Evans) Kirk H. Sowell ‏@UticensisRisk 2m The breakdown of talks b/n Abadi & the Kurds is precisely what I expected given Abadi's record on oil & budget issues. ==================== Underage and trapped: female Iraqi factory workers need help BABIL, Iraq — Shayma Hassan, 16, walks 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) each day to the brick factory in Bahr al-Najaf in the city of Najaf, 161 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad. Her hectic work day starts at 6 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m. Summary⎙ Print A tougher framework is needed to protect Iraqi girls who are working illegally in factories, as many are being exploited, harassed and sexually abused. Author Wassim Bassem Posted September 2, 2014 Translator(s)Cynthia Milan Along with four other women, Shayma moves bricks out of molds and into and out of the oven. For all this hard work, she gets paid $7 per day. “I never went to school because I live in the village and I need to make money. My only hope now is to have my own family, since my mother decided that I should get married,” she told Al-Monitor. Even when she's ill, Shayma has to work in this polluted environment to put food on the table, especially since her mother, who used to work in the same factory, is sick and can only take care of some plants around the house. Shayma’s employer Abu Haidar, who preferred not to give his full name, told Al-Monitor, while Shayma timidly stared at the floor, “The women here work with dignity and I help them with their living expenses." However, Abu Haidar added, “The wage is minimal, but most of the brick factories are no longer as profitable as they were before.” Many girls who work are violating the Iraqi labor law. For instance, the girls who work in the plastic waste recycling factories in the city of al-Mahawil, north of Hillah in the center of Babil province (100 kilometers, or 62 miles, south of Baghdad) are not 16 yet. The labor law prohibits minors from working and stipulates that education is mandatory up to age 16. In these factories, young girls work tirelessly on assorting garbage before putting it into thermal and plastic cutting machines for recycling. Saad al-Heli, the owner of a plastic waste recycling factory, told Al-Monitor, “Girls are more suitable [for this work] than boys, since they are more compliant.“ Fatimah, 16, told Al-Monitor, as she cleaned her face and hair from the plastic ooze coming from the machine, “I get paid $5 for about 6 hours of work.” As all other girls there, Fatimah comes from a poor family and has never been to school. However, she prefers to work in this female-only factory, because she was a victim of sexual assault when she worked in a factory with men. Fatimah refused to give details concerning the incident and she simply commented, “Working with men is risky,” referring to the incident. This is probably why Heli does not hire boys to work with the girls in his factory. “They created many problems and the police had to interfere,” he said. But he seems fine with hiring underage girls, saying, “There is no real supervision and I make sure to treat them like my own daughters.” Ghofran Majed, a local feminist activist, told Al-Monitor in the town of Babil: “Hiring uneducated young girls has serious social repercussions. … Field studies show that many working girls become victims of oppression and sexual harassment, which delays their marriage. Most of these young girls come from poor families that allow them to work because they need the money.” Ferial Mhamdawi, 15, has been working in factories since she was a child. She got married at a very young age, probably two or three years ago (parents in these regions of Iraq marry their daughters off at age 11 or 12), but is now divorced and back at work. “The biggest mistake of my life was not attending school,” she said. She married a man 20 years her senior who accused her of being involved with another man, which led to their divorce. In general, girls often become the victim of rumors that affects their reputation, according to social researcher Sakinah Daoud, who told Al-Monitor, “The future of young working girls remains uncertain until they get married. In case they do not, they risk [getting involved] in prostitution and the sex trade.” Suheila Abbas, a member of the council of Babil, told Al-Monitor: “The solution to this phenomenon is to create a social protection network, which prevents child labor as well as the labor of young girls, in addition to establishing laws that penalize illegal employment.” This first step, Abbas said, “Is to create job opportunities under the auspices of the government, while simultaneously launching civil society initiatives to provide medical care and proper education for all segments of society, especially women and children who are forced to work.” Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/09/iraq-underage-girls-working-illegal-exploitation.html#ixzz3CioK2JyP =========================== Iraq's Shi'ite militia, Kurds use U.S. air strikes to further own agendas Tue, Sep 09 03:33 AM EDT image By Isabel Coles SULEIMAN BEG Iraq (Reuters) - A small group of people pick through putrefying human remains laid out on plastic sheets by the side of a road in northern Iraq, searching for any trace of missing friends and relatives. Some had brought spades to help dig up the mass grave near Suleiman Beg after the town was retaken from Sunni Islamic State militants who held the area until last week. "They (Islamic State) slaughtered him simply because he was Shi'ite," said Jomaa Jabratollah, hauling the remnants of his friend, a truck driver, into a coffin, having identified him from the lighter in his breast pocket. "We must take revenge". Helped by the United States and Iran, Kurdish forces and Shi’ite militia are finally beating back Islamic State militants who overran most Sunni Arab areas in northern and central Iraq nearly three months ago. But the aftermath illustrates the unintended consequences of the U.S. air campaign against Islamic State. Kurdish and Shi'ite fighters have regained ground, but Sunni Muslims who fled the violence are being prevented from returning home and some have had their houses pillaged and torched. Rather than help keep the nation together, the air strikes risk being used by different factions for their own advantage in Iraq's sectarian and ethnic conflicts. The fallout also risks worsening grievances that helped Islamic State find support amongst Iraq's Sunnis, and allows the militant group to portray the U.S. strikes as targeting their minority sect. That may make it more difficult to bring Sunnis on side and convince them to fight the militants. "NO WAY BACK" The unlikely coalition of Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Shi'ite militias and the U.S. air force won a major victory when it broke a siege of the Shi’ite Turkman town of Amerli last week and drove Islamic State from 25 nearby Sunni towns and villages. But the aftermath is far from what the Americans envisioned. Smoke now rises from those Sunni villages, where some houses have been torched by Shi'ite militia. Others are abandoned, the walls daubed with sectarian slogans. “There is no way back for them: we will raze their homes to the ground,” said Abu Abdullah, a commander of the Shi’ite Kataib Hizbollah militia in Amerli. The area is now held by Kurdish peshmerga and Shi’ite militia, who have become the most powerful forces on the ground, rather than the Iraqi army, whose northern divisions collapsed this summer when Islamic State attacked. By the time IS was expelled from around Amerli, many Sunni civilians had fled, fearing for their lives. They have few places to go and are too frightened to return. "If a regular army were holding the area we could return, but as long as the militias are there we cannot,” said a 30-year-old displaced Sunni resident of one village near Amerli, who asked to remain unnamed. "They would slaughter us on the spot." He admitted some villagers had supported IS, but said it was only one or two for every 70 to 80 households, and that the rest were innocent civilians who were too scared to stand against the militants or had nowhere else to go. Sunni Turkman al-Muradli and his family left Suleiman Beg the day after it fell to Islamic State in June and moved to a Kurdish-controlled town nearby. A month later, their 21-year-old son was abducted. The next time they saw him was in a video on the internet captioned "arrest of an Islamic State member", which appears to show their son being beheaded by Shi'ite militia fighters. His weeping mother insisted he was an innocent student and said her son's killers had phoned her demanding $2,000 to return the corpse without a head, which the caller claimed to have taken to Baghdad as a trophy. "We cannot return. Even if the Shi'ite army and militia withdraw, Islamic State will come back and the same will happen all over again," said the mother. The mayor of Tuz Khurmato confirmed the account and said at least four other Sunnis had been abducted in the area in recent weeks, presumably by Shi'ite militia. At least one other video has circulated online of Shi'ite militiamen brandishing the heads of alleged Islamic State fighters. Pictures online, also allegedly from Amerli, show two militia fighters posing with a pair of charred corpses. A 42-year-old Shi'ite volunteer said it would eventually be safe for Sunnis to return and that no more than ten houses of known Islamic State members had been deliberately destroyed. "The Sunnis will come back to their villages but not now: after a few months," he said. "Since there is no confidence between Sunni and Shi’ite any more, they need guarantees from a third party, maybe the Kurds, then we can live peacefully together again, as we were." ETHNIC TENSIONS Sunni Arabs are also feeling a backlash in villages where they used to live alongside Kurds, who accuse them of collaborating with Islamic State. Kurds, who are also mostly Sunni but identify first and foremost with their ethnicity, have taken back at least 127 villages since the start of the U.S. air campaign, some of which were home to Arabs too. In one such village, returning Kurds have sprayed over the word "apostate" on the walls of houses and written "Kurdish home" instead. Arab households remain empty. Kurds in the Makhmour area, from which IS was pushed out in August, say they no longer trust Arabs enough to live with them. "All my neighbors were Arabs. Now most of them are with Islamic State," said Abdul Rahman Ahmed Abdullah, a member of the Kurdish security services from the village of Baqirta, south of Arbil. "We cannot be mixed together. The only solution is for them to leave." SOLIDARITY SHORT-LIVED During the operation to reach Amerli, Kurds gave passage to Shi'ite militia through territory they control and allowed them to use their bases, where they fired artillery at IS positions side by side in an unusual show of solidarity. "Amerli united Iraqis," said Taleb Jaafar Mohammed, a Shi'ite Turkman teacher, holding a pistol in one hand and a string of prayer beads in the other. But even during the operation, there were cracks in the coalition: Shi'ite militia and Kurdish forces fought under their own banners and the least visible flag was that of Iraq. Now that the common enemy has been pushed back, the alliance is unraveling. Kataib Hizbollah, which controls access to Amerli, is denying Kurds entry to the town and one peshmerga commander described the militia as the "Shi'ite IS". The tensions reflect a struggle for territory which the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad claims, but the Kurds want as part of their autonomous region in the north of the country. "This land is ours: they are an occupying force," said Sirwan, a Kurdish fighter, when asked about the Shi'ite militia presence. "There will be bigger problems than Islamic State in this area." (Editing by Giles Elgood) =========== Islamic State shows captive British journalist in new video Thu, Sep 18 18:55 PM EDT By Alexander Dziadosz BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State militants fighting in Iraq and Syria released a video on Thursday that they said shows British journalist John Cantlie in captivity saying he will soon reveal "facts" about the group to counter its portrayal in Western media. The Islamic State, which controls territory in Syria and Iraq, has already beheaded two American journalists and one British aid worker in recent weeks in what it said was reprisal for U.S. air strikes against it in Iraq. But in the new roughly three-minute video posted on social media sites, the man identified as Cantlie appears in good health and promises to "convey some facts" in a series of "programs," suggesting there would be further installments. "Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, 'He's only doing this because he's a prisoner. He's got a gun at his head and he's being forced to do this.' Right?" the man in the video, wearing an orange shirt and closely-cropped hair, says. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he had heard reports of a video on social media and said authorities would look closely at any material released online. "These videos can be very distressing for the families of the individuals involved," he told reporters during a visit to Copenhagen. U.S. President Barack Obama has been trying to build an international coalition to destroy Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim extremist group which has exploited the chaos of Syria and Iraq to seize swathes of territory in both countries. The United States has already carried out scores of air strikes against the group in Iraq and Obama said in a policy speech he would not hesitate to strike it in Syria as well. In the new video, titled "Lend Me Your Ears, Messages from the British Detainee John Cantlie," the man identified as Cantlie says he was captured by the Islamic State after arriving in Syria in November 2012. He says he worked for newspapers and magazines in Britain including the Sunday Times, the Sun and the Sunday Telegraph.

"Well, it's true. I am a prisoner. That I cannot deny. But seeing as I've been abandoned by my government and my fate now lies in the hands of the Islamic State, I have nothing to lose." "After two disastrous and hugely unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, why is it that our governments appear so keen to get involved in yet another unwinnable conflict?" the man says in the video. "I'm going to show you the truth behind the systems and motivation of the Islamic State, and how the Western media, the very organization I used to work for, can twist and manipulate that truth for the public back home." Cantlie said other Western governments have negotiated for the release of their hostages but that the British and U.S. governments chose to do things differently. "I'll show you the truth behind what happened when many European citizens were imprisoned and later released by the Islamic State, and how the British and American governments thought they could do it differently to every other European country," the man in the video says. "They negotiated with the Islamic State and got their people home while the British and Americans were left behind," he says. "Maybe I will live and maybe I will die," the man identified as Cantlie says. "But I want to take this opportunity to convey some facts that you can verify. Facts that, if you contemplate, might help preserving lives.

PREVIOUS CAPTURE The United States resumed air strikes in Iraq in August for the first time since the withdrawal of the final U.S. troops from the country in 2011. The raids followed major gains by Islamic State fighters who have seized a third of both Iraq and Syria, declared war on the West and seek to establish a caliphate in the heart of the Middle East. The U.S. House of Representatives approved on Wednesday Obama's plan to train and arm moderate Syrian rebels in a message of support for his military campaign to "degrade and destroy" Islamic State Britain has delivered humanitarian aid, carried out surveillance, given weapons to Kurds and promised training in Iraq. On military action, Britain supports U.S. air strikes and British Prime Minister David Cameron has repeatedly said Britain has ruled nothing out except combat troops on the ground. Cantlie had previously been taken hostage in July, 2012 along with Dutch photographer Jeroen Oerlemans while working near the Syrian border with Turkey. They were released the same month after a group of "Free Syrian Army" fighters freed them. Cantlie told media after his release they were threatened with death unless they converted to Islam, and both were shot and slightly wounded when they attempted to escape. He was shot in the arm, Oerlemans in the leg. At the time, Cantlie wrote in the Sunday Times that the group of about 30 militants had been made up of different nationalities, many British and none Syrian, and that the British jihadists had treated him the most cruelly in captivity. On Saturday, Islamic State released a video showing the beheading of British aid worker David Haines. A black-clad man in the video said another hostage, identified as Alan Henning, would be killed if Cameron continued to support the fight against Islamic State. Thursday's video made no mention of Henning. (Additional reporting by Michael Holden,; editing by Samia Nakhoul and Dominic Evans) ====================