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Stay up-to-date with the latest developments in the ongoing IS battle in Iraq and Syria.
12 Jun 2014 - 6:02 AM  UPDATED 6 Dec 2014 - 7:47 PM

 

 

 

Monday 16 Nov 2015
16 Nov 2015 - 7:29am

Explainer: What is ISIS and where did it come from?

Formed in 2013, ISIS is a jihadi Salafist militant group. It is virulently anti-democracy and sectarian – and also a seasoned militant operation with a transnational membership, to which, despite heavy losses, it is constantly recruiting. With key...
By Peter Shirlow, Queen's University BelfastISIS has shown the capacity to assimilate other extremist Sunni organisations, such as Salafiah al-Mujahidiah. The violence it perpetrates is in many ways broader than that wrought by other groups; it...
Saturday 6 Dec 2014
7:47 PM
Life for civilians in the ruins of Kobani

As the battle for the Syrian city of Kobani rages, life, for civilians among the ruins, goes on.

Kurdish women posing while holding pictures of their sons who died during the battle against IS insurgents in the Kurdish Syrian town of Kobani. (Getty)

 
Tuesday 2 Dec 2014
9:51 PM
World Food Programme's forced to suspend aid to more than 1.7- million refugees
8:06 PM
Lebanese forces detain wife, son of Islamic State chief Baghdadi

Lebanese forces have detained a wife and son of Islamic State group chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi near the Syrian border, security and military sources said on Tuesday.
   
"Military intelligence detained one of his wives, who was travelling with their son, near (Lebanese border town) Arsal 10 days ago," a security source told AFP.
   
A military source confirmed the arrest and said the woman was a Syrian national, and her son was around eight years old.
   
Lebanese daily As-Safir, which first reported the arrest, said it was carried out "in coordination with foreign intelligence agencies".
   
The security source said the wife and child were taken to the defence ministry headquarters in Yarze "where investigations were continuing."
   
The security source said the arrest had been kept secret while security arrangements were made.
   
Baghdadi was proclaimed "caliph" of IS's self-declared Islamic "caliphate" spanning territory in Syria and Iraq in June.
   
He was put on the US "terrorism" watchlist in October 2011, and there is a $10 million (eight million euro) bounty for his capture.
Sunday 30 Nov 2014
30 Nov 2014 - 9:56am

Kobane clashes intensify with IS suicide attacks

Islamic State group jihadists have launched a double attack on a Kurdish-controlled post on the Syrian-Turkish border for the first time, prompting fierce clashes in the adjacent town of Kobane.
Kurdish officials and a Britain-based monitor said the two IS suicide attacks targeting the border post were launched from Turkish soil, claims that Turkish officials dismissed as "lies".The attacks sparked fierce clashes between IS and Kurdish...
Monday 17 Nov 2014
7:15 AM
Obama confirms murder of US aid worker

US President Barack Obama has confirmed the death of US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, calling his beheading at the hands of the Islamic State group "pure evil".

"Abdul-Rahman was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity."

Read more here.
Sunday 16 Nov 2014
16 Nov 2014 - 9:27pm

IS claims beheading of US aid worker, 18 Syrians

The Islamic State jihadist group on Sunday claimed to have executed Peter Kassig, a US aid worker kidnapped in Syria, as a warning to the United States.
The same video showed the gruesome simultaneous beheadings of at least 18 men described as Syrian military personnel, the latest in a series of mass executions and other atrocities carried out by IS.Obama rules out alliance with Syria's Assad...
Wednesday 5 Nov 2014
8:42 PM
Internet firms 'help aid terror networks'

The head of Britain's intelligence agency says social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are the "command-and-control networks of choice" for militant groups like Islamic State.

GCHQ director Robert Hannigan alleges the mostly US firms that run social media platforms are in denial over the part they play in facilitating terrorism.

He wants them to co-operate more enthusiastically with intelligence services to enable better monitoring of online traffic.

He has urged tech firms to ditch the notion they are neutral conduits of data that are above politics.

He says their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation but also help crime and terrorism to be committed.
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