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The minority groups alliance, which also includes members of the Shiite Turkmen and Shabak community, has agreed to call their territory the Al Rafidein Region, according toDavid Lazar, chairman of theAmerican Mesopotamian Organization. Lazar said in a statement:

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Finally, in 2017, after all of the genocides, ethnic cleansings, persecutions, abuse, and injustice, representatives of the Turkmens, Assyrians, Yezidis and Shabak peoples are declaring a new coalition to brings their peoples together for the defense of their lives and the assertion of their rights as specified in the constitution of the Republic of Iraq.

The coalition has an aggressive legislative strategy in place, one that will engage members of the United States Congress, Ministers of the Iraqi Parliament, and key members of the international community, he added. Their aim is to establish this region as a semi-autonomous area with its own parliament, policies and defensive force, similar in composition and function to the Kurdish regional area in northern Iraq.

The coalition has brought together various groups representing the different minority groups, including the Turkmen Rescue Foundation (TRF), representing the Shiite Turkmen; the Al Rafedin Organization, representing the Assyrian Christians; and the Yazidi Independent Supreme Council, representing the Yazidis.

Dr. Ali Akram Al Bayati, a Shiite Turkmen who serves as TRF chief, told Breitbart News of the coalition:

We support it. The only way for us to keep our nations and people away from continuous attacks of terrorism is by establishing some form of self-administration under the Iraqi constitution and with the support of the international community, as they have supported the creation of northern Iraqs autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).

In November 2016,Al-Monitor reported that some Christians were seeking to create anautonomous territory in the Nineveh Plain region, home to many of the nations Christians and Yazidis. The region would take in refugees fleeing the city of Mosul after its liberation from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

Mosul, considered ISISs last major stronghold in Iraq, is expected to soon fall under the control of U.S.-backed local forces.

Also in November of last year, various Assyrian Christian militias came together to fight as an alliance to recapture their historical homeland in northern Iraq from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

The Nineveh Plains, a region in northern Iraqs Nineveh province, is the historical homeland of the Iraqi Christian community, considered one of the oldest in the world.

Christians, Yazidis, and Shiite Turkmen have been victims of genocide at the hands of ISIS and other jihadist groups, the United States and the United Nations have acknowledged.

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Iraq: Christians, Yazidis Seeking Semi-Autonomous Region - Breitbart News

Stars and Stripes

Pentagon: Islamic State has lost access to Iraq's oil Stars and Stripes The official, who briefed reporters at the Pentagon on the condition of anonymity, said there are roughly 15,000 Islamic State fighters left in Iraq and Syria. About half of them are in or near Mosul or Raqqa, the terrorist group's two remaining urban ... and more »

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Pentagon: Islamic State has lost access to Iraq's oil - Stars and Stripes

New York Times

Trump's New Travel Ban Blocks Migrants From Six Nations, Sparing Iraq New York Times The new order continued to impose a 90-day ban on travelers, but it removed Iraq, a redaction requested by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who feared it would hamper coordination to defeat the Islamic State, according to administration officials. Trump removed Iraq from travel ban in recognition of fight against Isis,The Independent Trump's first victory in deportation feud is IraqWashington Times US says Iraq removed from travel ban partly for fight against Islamic StateReuters CNN -Washington Post -The White House all 2,250 news articles »

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Trump's New Travel Ban Blocks Migrants From Six Nations, Sparing Iraq - New York Times

MOSUL, Iraq Iraqi forces on Tuesday recaptured the main government building in Mosul, the central bank branch and the museum where three years ago the militants filmed themselves destroying priceless statues.

A Rapid Response team stormed the Nineveh governorate complex in an overnight raid that lasted more than an hour, killing dozens of Islamic State fighters, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammadawi said.

The buildings, already in ruins, were not being used by Islamic State, but their capture is a landmark in the push to retake the militants' last major stronghold in Iraq, now restricted to the heavy populated western half of Mosul.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi flew into to Mosul to visit the troops fighting to oust Islamic State from the city in which it declared its sprawling caliphate in 2014.

"Iraqis shall walk tall when the war is over," Abadi told state TV as he arrived.

Islamic State snipers continued to fire at the main government building after it was stormed, restricting the movements of the soldiers, and forces pushing further into western Mosul came under rifle and rocket fire.

"The fighting is strong because most of them are foreigners and they have nowhere to go," said the head of a sniper unit for the Rapid Response, al-Moqdadi al-Saeedi.

Some of Islamic State's foreign fighters are trying to flee Mosul, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Matthew Isler said.

"The game is up," Isler told Reuters at the Qayyara West Airfield, south of the city. "They have lost this fight and what you're seeing is a delaying action."

Iraq's Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), which spearheaded the assaults that won back east Mosul, was on Tuesday moving into the western half of the city, the final and trickiest battleground in the nearly five-month campaign due to the dense civilian population living in its narrow streets.

STREET BY STREET

The CTS forces had fought their way well into the Mansour neighborhood and were trying to advance street by street, sending heavy fire on IS sniper positions, a Reuters correspondent visiting the special forces' front lines reported.

Federal Police units arrived at a house that CTS forces were stationed in but had to move out, one-by-one, to a neighboring building as IS rocket fire hit homes nearby.

One CTS operative on the ground said he thought it would take a few hours to retake Mansour, one of Mosul's biggest neighborhoods which lies southwest of the old city and could serve as a base to advance into the historic center.

U.S. special forces were seen walking between buildings in the same area, some carrying assault rifles with scopes and silencers. Helicopters attacked targets just to the north and thick smoke filled the sky from various explosions.

Dozens of civilians streamed out of the Mamoun district toward the CTS troops as machinegun fire rang out in the background, adding to a wave of people displaced from Mosul that now numbers 211,000, 40,000 of whom fled last week alone, U.N. agencies say.

Some 750,000 people were estimated to live in west Mosul when the offensive began on Feb. 19.

Among the symbolic buildings retaken overnight was one that had served at Islamic State's main court, known for sentences including stonings, throwing people off roofs and chopping off hands, reflecting the group's hardline ideology.

The militants looted the central bank when they took over the city in 2014 and took videos of themselves destroying archaeological artifacts. Traffic in antiquities that abound in the territory under their control, from Palmyra in Syria to Nineveh in Iraq, was one of their main sources of income.

The number of Islamic State fighters in Mosul was estimated at 6,000 at the start of the offensive on Mosul on Oct. 17, by the Iraqi military which estimates that several thousands have been killed since.

Lined up against them is a 100,000-strong force of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi'ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytell; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

WASHINGTON Faced with a growing test of resolve for a new U.S. president who vowed while campaigning to get tough on North Korea, Donald Trump's aides are pressing to complete a strategy review on how to counter Pyongyang's missile and nuclear threats.

SEOUL North Korea's latest weapons test showed it can accurately fire multiple medium-range ballistic missiles, an attack strategy that experts said could test the advanced U.S. THAAD anti-missile system which began to arrive in South Korea on Tuesday.

KABUL Gunmen dressed as doctors attacked a military hospital close to the U.S. embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Wednesday and were engaging security forces inside the building, officials and witnesses said.

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Iraqi forces retake Mosul museum, close in on IS-controlled old town - Reuters

New York Times

Trump Tower, TSA, Iraq: Your Monday Evening Briefing New York Times 1. President Trump revised his travel ban, removing Iraq but leaving six other predominantly Muslim nations on a list of those barred from entering the U.S. He also scrapped a provision that explicitly protected religious minorities. Unregulated ...

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Trump Tower, TSA, Iraq: Your Monday Evening Briefing - New York Times