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BAGHDAD -- Iraqi authorities in Baghdad and the administration in the semi-autonomous northern Iraqi Kurdish region have been arbitrarily detaining and deporting Syrian refugees to their country, a leading international rights group said Thursday.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said it has documented cases in which Iraqi authorities deported Syrians even though they had legal residency or were registered with the U.N. refugee agency.

The Syrians reported being arrested in raids at their workplace or on the streets, and, in two cases, at residency offices while trying to renew their permits.

According to UNHCR, Iraq hosts at least 260,000 Syrian refugees, with about 90% of them living in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. About 60% live in urban areas, while the rest are in refugee camps.

Human Rights Watch spoke to seven Syrians in Irbil and Baghdad between April 19 and April 26 who were being deported including four at the airport in Irbil waiting to be put on a flight, the statement said.

Sarah Sanbar, Iraq researcher with HRW, said the watchdog was unable to determine the total number of Syrians deported. The group said the deportations have left Syrians in Iraq living in fear.

By forcibly returning asylum seekers to Syria, Iraq is knowingly placing them in harms way, Sanbar said.

An Iraqi government spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Iraqi authorities have also made it increasingly difficult for Syrians to stay legally in the country.

The Iraqi Kurdish regional government in the north has at Baghdad's request suspended visa entry for Syrian citizens as part of broader efforts to regulate foreign labor in Iraq, restricting the Syrians ability to enter the Kurdish region for work or refuge.

Many companies in Iraq employ Syrian workers without legally registering them, making them work long hours for low pay.

New rules in the Iraqi Kurdish region require companies to register Syrian workers and pay social security contributions for them. However, some companies make the employees pay half of the social security fees from their salaries.

A Syrian worker in the Kurdish region told the AP that on-arrival fees for a one-month visa for Syrians used to cost $150. Those visas could be extended for up to a year. She spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing she could be deported.

Now, Syrians must be registered with a social security number showing their employer pays taxes on them, he said, otherwise they cannot renew their visas. In Baghdad, a one-year work visa that comes with a social security number costs $2,000.

Host countries that have sheltered Syrian refugees have increasingly pushed for their return home, where the country's war, now in its 14th year, is mostly frozen along the former front lines. The United Nations and rights groups say Syria remains unsafe for returns.

Human Rights Watch said that in July 2023, returnees from Iraq were reportedly tortured in Syrian military intelligence custody and conscripted into military service.

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A leading human rights group calls on Iraq to halt deportations of Syrian refugees - ABC News

The Hamas leadership is considering relocating from Qatar, where it is currently residing, to Iraq, according to a report in The National in Monday.

The Iraqi government approved the move last month, a senior Iraqi MP disclosed in the report. Iran will allegedly assume responsibility for protecting Hamass leaders, offices, and personnel in Baghdad. However, according to a Ynet report, Hamas dismissed these claims, stating, "There is no truth in the reports suggesting Hamas is planning to leave Qatar and move to Iraq."

This arrangement follows discussions between Hamass political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and representatives from the Iraqi and Iranian governments. These talks were confirmed to The National by a senior Iraqi MP and a leader of a political party closely allied with an Iran-backed armed group.

"There is no consensus among Iraqi political groups on Hamass move to Baghdad," the senior Iraqi MP told The National. "Some, especially the Kurds and some Sunnis, fear it will deepen differences with the United States. But despite the lack of consensus, the governments decision to host Hamas will not be reversed." Baghdad has expressed its willingness to allow Hamas to maintain a high-profile presence in Iraq.

Although a date for the move has not been set, Hamas recently opened a political office in Baghdad, led by senior official Mohammed Al Hafy, with plans for a media office to follow in the coming weeks, the report stated. The Iraqi government has not commented on these developments.

The potential relocation comes amid stalled Gaza ceasefire negotiations mediated by the US, Egypt, and Qatar. Senior US officials have blamed Hamas for the lack of progress, following President Joe Bidens ceasefire proposal aimed at ending the conflict.

Hamass decision to relocate to Iraq follows weeks of pressure from Qatar to accept US ceasefire proposals, which include an exchange of hostages and Palestinian detainees with Israel, the report claims.

Hamas officials have faced threats of expulsion from Qatar and punitive measures, including asset freezes, if they do not show negotiation flexibility. These warnings were conveyed during a meeting in Doha with Qatari and Egyptian mediators, following a visit by CIA Director William Burns, Washingtons chief ceasefire mediator.

The US, Egypt, and Qatar have been striving for months to broker a lasting ceasefire in Gaza. The conflict reignited after Hamas's attack on southern Israel on October 7, which killed approximately 1,200 people.

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Is Hamas planning to move to Iraq due to pressure from Qatar? - The Jerusalem Post

Ten years ago, the terrorist group known as ISIS stunned the world when it seized wide swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and declared its own caliphate.

By the time territory from that self-proclaimed caliphate was fully retaken in 2019, ISIS had terrorized civilian populations in Iraq and Syria, carried out a genocidal campaign against the Yazidi religious minority, broadcast the beheadings of journalists and aid workers, and staged deadly terror attacks in Paris, Nice, Brussels, Manchester, Turkey and beyond.

This is one of the first terrorist groups saying, You know what? Were not going to hit and run, and were never going to participate in politics as you know it. We actually want to kill everyone who disagrees with us, counterterrorism expert Ali Soufan told FRONTLINE in 2014s The Rise of ISIS.

In that documentary and 17 others collected below, FRONTLINE has covered how the group that would evolve into ISIS gained strength in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, how it exploited the conflict in Syria, and how the long and costly U.S.-led fight against the group, with a civilian toll of its own, has played out in the Middle East and across the world.

FRONTLINEs documentaries and related reporting have also examined the continuing evolution of the ISIS threat, including how the group has solidified a foothold in Afghanistan. U.S. officials believe ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, an affiliate of the self-declared Islamic State that emerged in Afghanistan, was behind the suburban Moscow concert hall assault in March that killed more than 130 people and was the deadliest terror attack inside Russia in 20 years.

A decade after ISIS seized power, explore our reporting on the group, the fight against it, the civilian toll and the lasting ramifications below.

As ISIS burst onto the world stage and seized cities and towns in Iraq and Syria, filmmakers Michael Kirk, Jim Gilmore and Mike Wiser traced how the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, its aftermath and the decisions of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama contributed tothe groundwork for the terrorist groups evolution and ascent first as Al Qaeda in Iraq, and then as ISIS. The documentary chronicled the U.S.s role in Iraq from the invasion to the bloody emergence of a terror group that, as former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker told FRONTLINE, made [Osama] bin Ladens Al Qaeda look like Boy Scouts.

From filmmakers Martin Smith and Linda Hirsch, this documentary laid out the unheeded warnings, failures and missed opportunities that allowed a decimated Al Qaeda in Iraq to evolve and expand into ISIS. Reporting from Iraq as U.S. airstrikes against ISIS began, Smith offered a revelatory look at how ISIS grew in Iraq, how it gained strength in Syria, and how it developed and funded its brutal strategy.

How was ISISs founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, once a small-time criminal, able to build a brutal terrorist organization that would destabilize the Middle East and inflict violence around the world? This film showed how, in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi developed what would become the foundation for ISISs playbook of fomenting sectarian violence among Muslims, stepping in to take advantage of power vacuums, and broadcasting brutality far and wide on the internet. From filmmakers Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Jim Gilmore, the film also explored how Zarqawis successor, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, followed Zarqawis method to make ISIS an even more powerful threat.

Martin Smith examined the Obama administrations struggle to deal with the deadly war in Syria, then in its fifth year and explored how the accompanying rise of ISIS heightened the stakes. The documentary also examined how the spiraling humanitarian catastrophe under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad allowed ISIS to flourish.

An on-the-ground investigation of the complexities of the U.S.-led fight against ISIS, this documentary from filmmakers Martin Smith and Linda Hirsch delved into the conditions that allowed ISIS to rise, and the role of powerful, Iran-backed Shia militias in Iraq that were accused of abusing civilians while fighting ISIS. Smith traveled to five countries with key roles in the anti-ISIS fight Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Turkey to report on successes, failures and challenges as ISIS lost ground in the region, but lashed out with attacks abroad.

From filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team, this two-hour documentary special explored how the 9/11 attacks ushered in an era of fear, mistrust and division in the U.S. and examined the legacy and aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the rise of ISIS.

This groundbreaking February 2014 FRONTLINE report documented ISISs presence in Syria months before the group became an international talking point. Correspondent Muhammad Ali found that three years into Syrias civil war, rebel forces werent just fighting Assads regime. They were also vying for control against a brutal group that was then little-known: ISIS. Ali, a Syrian native, filmed rebels as they tried to unify against ISIS and embarked on a battle to take back an ISIS-controlled town. The documentary was produced by Jamie Doran and James Jones.

Using undercover footage, this documentary presented firsthand accounts of women from the Yazidi religious minority who were abducted and enslaved by ISIS and who escaped its brutal reign. Some nights I cant sleep until the early morning hours because of the nightmares, Aeida, a 21-year-old Yazidi woman who was abducted by ISIS with her two young children, said in the documentary. Filmmakers Edward Watts and Evan Williams also followed an underground network that helped the women escape.

Read More: Where Are the Yazidis Today, Almost a Decade After ISISs Genocidal Campaign?

Described at the time by some military commanders as the deadliest urban combat since World War II, the battle to drive ISIS out of Mosul, Iraq, was brutal and grueling. Reporter Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reported from the frontlines of the fight.

Shot during the months-long battle to retake Mosul, this film from Olivier Sarbil, James Jones and Dan Edge followed four young soldiers on an Iraqi special forces squad, trained for intense urban warfare, as they dealt with the fight and the fallout. I have these dreams, then-staff sergeant Jamal al-Zain told FRONTLINE. My family tells me that I shout, ISIS, ISIS! Shoot him. When everyone is sleeping and Im awake, I break down and cry.

Shia militias played a crucial role in Iraqs fight against ISIS. But correspondent Ramita Navai found that some of the Iranian-backed Shia forces battling ISIS had themselves been accused of atrocities, including kidnapping, imprisoning, torturing and killing ordinary Sunni civilians whom the militias saw as ISIS suspects. On my journey through Iraq, Ive seen ISIS losing ground, but its come at a cost, Navai said in the film. Mistrust between Sunnis and Shias seems greater than ever. The challenge for Iraq now will be preventing this from starting yet another war.

From director James Bluemel, this film documented the story of the Iraq War, as told by Iraqis who lived through it. They shared their personal accounts and lasting memories of life under Saddam Hussein, the U.S.-led invasion of their country and the years of chaos that followed from the sectarian violence to the rise and brutal reign of ISIS. Everybody was terrified that ISIS would enter Baghdad at any time. They were close to the borders, only one hour away from us, a young woman named Sally Mars said in the film. They understood how to attack us mentally before they attacked us with weapons. They made us fear them.

Correspondent Najibullah Quraishi revealed on film the degree to which ISIS had gained a foothold in Afghanistan, and how the group was focusing its efforts on training a new generation of jihadists. Theyre completely different than the Taliban, Quraishi said of ISIS in the documentary. They are not after one country or one place or one district. Their aim is to have their groups, to have their networks all over the world.

Following a wave of deadly terror incidents, including ISIS-claimed attacks in Paris and Brussels that killed more than 170 people, FRONTLINE and ProPublica went inside Europes fight against terrorism. Correspondent Sebastian Rotella sat down with officials tasked with carrying out the fight against ISIS and Al Qaeda and examined missteps and systemic breakdowns that allowed known terrorists to launch an attack in the heart of Europe.

These documentaries told the first-person stories of refugees and migrants fleeing war, persecution and hardship including violence wrought by ISIS and the conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Our future has gone, Saed, an Iraqi man who was living in a refugee camp after fleeing ISIS, told FRONTLINE in Exodus: The Journey Continues. Saed, whose brother had worked as a translator for the U.S. Army, said, My only hope now is to leave this land, to be able to get to America.

Nearly 20 years after the U.S. drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, and as then-President Donald Trump said he wanted to end the war, reporter Najibullah Quraishi went on a dangerous journey inside both Taliban- and ISIS-held territory in Afghanistan. With filmmakers Karim Shah, Dan Edge and Monica Garnsey, Quraishi exposed the harsh reality that not only was the Taliban once again wielding power, but ISISs threat was also looming large.

Filmed on the ground in Afghanistan in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal under President Joe Biden, this documentary revealed how the Taliban takeover had transformed daily life in Afghanistan. Najibullah Quraishi also investigated how the Talibans rise to power in Afghanistan was intensifying the threat from Al Qaeda and ISIS both within the country and beyond. A longtime source told Quraishi that ISIS is a very serious danger, not just for Afghanistan but for the whole world.

Read More: The Backstory on ISIS-K, the ISIS Affiliate Believed Responsible for Moscow Attack

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Ten Years Ago, ISIS Seized Power and Territory. What's Happened Since? - PBS

WikiLeaks swiftly declined after it slid into an undeclared but unprecedented alliance with Russia a fall hastened by the prosecution and pursuit of founder Julian Assange.

Even so, the anti-secrecy platform transformed how information reaches the public, twice. It launched an era in which documents from whistleblowers and hackers can draw a broad audience without the mainstream media. Then it paved the way for massive geopolitical influence operations that exploit stolen material with agitation over social media.

Born out of populist frustration with the secrecy around military operations and powerful, unaccountable corporations, the early WikiLeaks released millions of military files in 2010, exposing video of U.S. troops killing civilians in Iraq and diplomatic cables revealing candid assessments of unsavory U.S. allies.

By 2016, Assanges goals had shifted. He published emails from top Democrats that had been hacked from Russia ahead of the U.S. election that year, spurring conspiracy theories about Hillary Clintons presidential campaign.

Some staffers and fans of the early WikiLeaks have gone on to work at other sites that follow the idealistic model, adapting to a new era of widespread hacking and serving as a partial stand-in for traditional media.

Stories to keep you informed

The best-known successor is DDoSecrets, for Distributed Denial of Secrets, which has hosted documents spirited away from Myanmar, Iran and U.S. police departments and has prompted reforms in multiple countries.

The site verifies what it publishes, withholds files that would make innocent people vulnerable, and either declines to host documents that it suspects were hacked by a national government or else warns viewers of the likely source.

We started DDoSecrets because at the moment there werent any good leak platforms that were publishing, said founder Emma Best. WikiLeaks was at the end of their publication cycle, and there had been a lot of concerns about source safety and the ethics of WikiLeaks.

Journalists also chose more transparency, posting databases full of secret files. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists registered as a nonprofit in 2017 and has since offered troves including the Panama Papers for searching.

But WikiLeaks second, Russia-aligned act was even more successful than its first. It fueled countless stories about Democratic Party infighting and sneakiness, becoming a critical link between Russian intelligence operatives who would later be indicted and an eagerly participatory U.S. public and media.

It saved then-candidate Donald Trump from a withering news cycle devoted to his taped remarks on sexually assaulting women by publishing thousands of emails from the hacked account of Clinton adviser John Podesta. Pizzagate conspiracy promoters pored over those emails and found imaginary evidence of sex crimes against children, spreading the precursor to the QAnon movement.

That performance opened a new era of subterfuge that shows no signs of abating eight years later, said Thomas Rid, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and author of a history of disinformation, Active Measures.

Influence operations, which were obviously big in the Cold War, were in a hiatus in the 1990s and into the early 2000s. We had this golden period of optimism where the internet seemed unabashedly a good thing, Rid said.

But its obvious that a leak site, where the contributors are anonymous, is a dream come true for influence operators.

As Assange hid from prosecutors in a London embassy, focused on winning back his freedom, influence operators turned to less visible sites and channels on social media.

If you were a malicious operator, an intelligence agency or someone else, and you wanted to pass on something you have, you have to somehow seed it into the public domain, said Rid.

State actors expanded from sites such as WikiLeaks using artificial social media accounts and partisan news outlets to generate attention.

There has been no shortage of political hack and leaks after 2016, but many supposed leak sites are part of state influence operations, said James Shires, co-director of the European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative.

Many military conflicts now include an information component that comprises hacking and influence operations that sometimes combine. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency under the Trump administration secured a presidential finding allowing it to hack foreign entities and leak what it wants.

While Russia has paved the way in such ventures, it has also been subjected to a surprising number of hacks since invading Ukraine in 2022, some of which have been publicized by purported domestic activist groups. Russian and Chinese intelligence contractors have both been subject to major breaches that were alleged to be leaks.

Carving another path for government hacks, ransomware gangs have shifted to demanding money not to post hacked files on the internet.

In some cases, researchers say, that was the plan all along: Gangs are working with intelligence agencies that want the documents out, and they are using ransomware to throw off investigators.

Cyberespionage operations disguised as ransomware activities provide an opportunity for adversarial countries to claim plausible deniability, a team from security companies Recorded Future and SentinelOne wrote in a report released Wednesday. The companies suspect that Chinese espionage groups were behind what appeared to be 2022 ransomware attacks on the office of the Brazilian president and on the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The added distance from intelligence agencies could also help ward off the sort of Espionage Act charges that felled Assange, despite his defense that he acted as a journalist.

The evolutions in hacking and leaking make it unlikely that they will become a less significant factor in global and domestic politics for the foreseeable future, according to Best, who argues that the best fix would be more openness.

People as individuals and as a society arent doing the things necessary to reduce the number of leaks, on the security front and on the transparency front, Best said. Because that has always been a major driver for leaks that arent financially driven.

Link:
How Wikileaks changed the internet, from Clintons emails to the Iraq war - The Washington Post

Israeli troops from the 55th Reserve Paratrooper Brigade conduct an exercise in northern Israel. (IDF photo)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi attended army exercises in northern Israel on June 25 and 26. The drills are part of eight months of training that various IDF units deployed to the north have cycled through in preparation for a possible war with Hezbollah.

The exercises took place as Israeli President Isaac Herzog spent two days visiting communities in northern Israel. Herzog visited the city of Safed as well as communities near the Lebanese border, such as the Christian town of Jish and Kibbutz Hanita.

Netanyahu arrived in northern Israel on June 25 to visit members of the IDFs 55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade, which participated in an exercise. The exercise is one of a series of exercises carried out by IDF brigades to boost fitness and evaluate plans for an attack in Lebanon, the Prime Ministers Office said. Netanyahu met with the head of IDF Northern Command, Major General Ori Gordin, along with brigade and battalion commanders. Netanyahus new military secretary, Major General Roman Gofman, accompanied him.

Netanyahu commented that the drill he viewed was very impressive in terms of capabilities, mobilization, and implementation. The 55th Brigade fought in Gaza in December during early operations against Hamas. The unit participated in the key battle for Khan Younis in southern Gaza before being redeployed in late January.

Halevi visited the brigade exercise on June 26, a day after the prime minister, and also met with Gordin and the head of the 55th Brigade, Colonel Oded Ziman. During the multi-branch exercise, the brigade combat team trained for extreme scenarios, combat in complex and mountainous terrain, activating fire, and urban warfare as part of increasing readiness in the northern arena, the IDF said.

Images from the drill distributed by the IDF showed soldiers hiking in rough terrain, including hill country dotted with olive trees and small streams, and toward a village in northern Israel. These villages and the terrain are similar to those found in southern Lebanon.

The recent training is one of many programs the IDF has conducted with various units deployed in the north. The troops are a mix of reservists, such as the 146th Division, and regular soldiers, such as the infantry and armored brigades of the 36th Division. The trainings goal is not only to practice for scenarios that may be faced in fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon but also to address the need to work closely with the air force, navy, and other units that might deploy if Israel faces more cross-border attacks from rockets, missiles, and drones.

Israel currently faces threats on multiple fronts. An Iranian-backed militia in Iraq targeted the southern Israeli port city of Eilat with a drone on the evening of June 25. The drone arrived near the city at two in the morning on June 26 and was confronted by Israels air defenses. The IDF said the UAV came from the direction of the Red Sea and fell off the coast of Eilat. The UAV was monitored by IDF soldiers throughout the incident and it did not cross into Israeli territory. During the incident, an interceptor was launched toward the UAV.

It was unclear if the UAV had been intercepted or fallen into the water of its own accord. Even though the drone was launched from Iraq, it would have had to take a circuitous route to approach Israel from the Red Sea and likely cross over Jordan or Saudi Arabia to achieve this flight path. On June 25, Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen also claimed to have targeted multiple ships at sea, part of their eight-month campaign against shipping heading for the Red Sea. In addition, Hezbollah claimed several attacks against Israel on June 26, including firing anti-tank missiles at the northern town of Metulla.

In Washington, Israels Defense Minister Yoav Gallant continued his high-level meetings seeking to shore up support and coordinate with the United States. He met with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on June 26. We have made significant progress in addressing force build-up and munition supply for the State of Israel, Gallant said. The meetings have focused on the war against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollahs threats, and the wider Iranian threat to Israel and the region.

Reporting from Israel, Seth J. Frantzman is an adjunct fellow at FDD and a contributor to FDDs Long War Journal. He is the acting news editor and senior Middle East correspondent and analyst atThe Jerusalem Post.

Tags: Iran, Israel, Israel Defense Forces, Israel Hezbollah

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IDF trains for war in the north as Iranian proxies threaten attacks from Iraq and Yemen | FDD's Long War Journal - Long War Journal