Mediaboss Marketing

A man watches US airstrikes aimed at Isis forces from a hill in Sanliurfa province, Turkey, on the Syrian border, 24 October 2014. Photograph: Jodi Hilton/NurPhoto/Corbis

The US and allies staged 23 air strikes on Islamic State (Isis) targets in Syria and Iraq on Thursday, the Combined Joint Task Force said on Friday.

The strikes followed a confirmed total of 29 strikes in Syria and Iraq on Wednesday, New Years Eve.

The task force said a dozen strikes near the Syrian cities of Kobani, Raqqa and Hasakah destroyed Isis vehicles, buildings and fighting positions and also hit a large Isis unit.

Activist groups, meanwhile, reported strikes on and around Raqqa, the de facto Isis capital. An anti-Isis activist group called Raqqa is Silently Being Slaughtered reported at least 13 coalition strikes and said the Furoussiyeh area and the Division 17 military base were among the targets hit.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees activist collective also confirmed the air raids.

In Iraq, the Combined Joint Task Force said 11 strikes targeted Isis units, buildings, vehicles, equipment, a shipping container and a weapons cache near the cities of Taji, Asad, Fallujah, Baiji, Qaim and Mosul.

Isis fighters have taken control of parts of Syria and Iraq in a bloody campaign to establish an Islamic caliphate.

Strikes against Isis in Iraq began on 8 August and in Syria on 23 September. On 24 December, Isis captured a Jordanian pilot whose F-16 came down during a coalition mission.

Read more:
US launches 23 air strikes against Isis in Syria and Iraq ...

When millions of Shiite Muslim pilgrims descended last month on the shrine with twin gold domes in this holy city, many Iraqis expected sectarian fighting to erupt.

Instead, the largely peaceful gathering of more than 17 million Shiites provided a place of refuge from violence, with some pilgrims speaking hopefully of an end to this nation's sectarian clashes.

The road from Baghdad to Karbala, 50 miles to the south, was busy late last week, with army checkpoints crowded and the roadsides littered with stands catering to pilgrims. Many had traveled across the country some on foot the week before to mark Arbaeen, the end of the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, the 7th century Shiite martyr slain and buried at Karbala.

The bearded image of the imam, a key figure in the historic split between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, is everywhere in Baghdad these days: on signs, flags, billboards and banners posted in residential neighborhoods, outside businesses, police stations, even the morgue.

Those flags also flew last week from roadside stands along the highway south. Nearby buildings pocked with bullet holes were a reminder that a few years ago this area was known as the "Triangle of Death," the scene of fierce battles between the U.S. military and insurgents.

In the Euphrates Valley farming town of Jurf Nasr, 40 miles south of Baghdad, more images of Imam Hussein appeared, as well as billboards honoring hometown heroes killed battling the Islamic State insurgent group. Baghdad has remained relatively peaceful in recent weeks, but here in the belt of towns surrounding the capital, Iraqi forces and Shiite militias are still fighting the Sunni extremists who seized large sections of Iraq during the summer.

Jurf Nasr was once a Sunni town known as Jurf Sakhr, or "rocky bank," a haven for militants. But for the Ashura holiday during the fall, with Islamic State threatening to slaughter Shiite pilgrims as they passed through town toward Karbala, Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias launched a two-day assault that chased Sunni families away and left the town a battered and burned outpost. The government renamed the town Jurf Nasr, "the bank of victory."

On the far side of the Baghdad Belt, Karbala is thriving. There's a new mall, high-rise hotels and signs advertising expensive developments. The shrine is expanding, as is the one in the nearby Shiite holy city of Najaf.

Scores of pilgrims and residents filled the courtyard between the gold domes last week, the women wearing the required head scarves and ankle length gowns, or abayas. Many families slipped off their shoes to sit together on massive rugs, picnicking on falafel and sticky coconut sweets from nearby stands as their children played.

Nahedh Shaheed, 38, said he and his Shiite family were forced to flee to Karbala nine years ago from Baghdad's mixed sect neighborhood of Dora after his brother was shot and killed. They still own a house in the capital, but the area is now mostly Sunni and he is afraid to return.

Link:
Iraq's holy city of Karbala becomes a haven from sectarian fighting

Bryan Mullennix/Getty Images A stack of colorful oil barrels in Portland, Oregon.

Oil supplies in Iraq and Russia surged to the highest level in decades, signaling no respite in early 2015 from the glut that has pushed crude prices to their lowest in five years.

Russian oil production rose 0.3 percent in December to a post-Soviet record of 10.667 million barrels a day, according to preliminary data e-mailed today by CDU-TEK, part of the Energy Ministry. Iraq exported 2.94 million barrels a day in December, the most since the 1980s, said Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad. The countries provided 15 percent of the worlds oil in November, according to the International Energy Agency.

Oil slumped 48 percent in London in 2014, the steepest decline since the 2008 financial crisis, as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries refused to pare output in response to the highest U.S. oil production in three decades. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, who met with some OPEC members in November, said the nation will maintain output this year and expects prices to stabilize.

With the latest news from Russia and Iraq, the focus on rising supply remains a key negative driver for oil, Ole Sloth Hansen, an analyst at Saxo Bank A/S in Copenhagen, said by e- mail. Brent crude futures, at about $57 a barrel today, may slip below $50 this year, he said.

Russian output is increasing even after the U.S. and the European Union imposed sanctions last year in response to the countrys annexation of Crimea and what they say was support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. Measures included targeting the energy sector by banning exports to Russia of some equipment and technology. The countrys government gets about half of its revenue from oil and gas taxes.

Iraq Deal

Iraq, OPECs second-biggest producer, reached a deal with its semi-autonomous Kurdish region last month over the Kurds oil exports through Turkey, after years of disagreement on the territorys right to independently develop its energy resources.

The agreement looks to have had a positive effect on exports to the north, analysts at consultants JBC Energy GmbH in Vienna said in a report today.

The agreement allows the shipment of as much as 550,000 barrels a day of oil from northern Iraq to the port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean, along a pipeline to the Turkish border operated by the Kurdistan Regional Government. This includes 300,000 barrels a day from the Kirkuk oilfields in northern Iraq, under the control of Kurdish forces since they moved to repel an offensive by militants from the Islamic State in June.

See the original post here:
Russia, Iraq push oil supply as 2015 begins with glut

At left, a Peshmerga fighter examines the damage from ISIS artillery hitting close to their frontline position near Mosul Dam. At right, another proudly displays Kurdish flag. (FoxNews.com)

MOSUL, Iraq Under a gloomy late November sky that dumped cold rain on their frontline fighting position overlooking Mosul Dam, some 16 Peshmerga fighters mustered around a small hut the only visible means of protection from enemy fire while others hovered around a small campfire for warmth.

Just hours earlier, the road leading into the Kurdish army's base was hit by artillery from Islamic State or Daesh as it is known in the Middle East, forcing some closures. But the fighters were calm and collected sharing jokes and cigarettes ahead of another long and cold night protecting their cherished land in the northern part of this embattled land.

Now we know their key points and from where they try to attack us. Its weather like now the fog over them that allows them not to be seen by the planes, one high-ranking Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) official, who left an office job to fight on the frontlines with the Peshmerga, told FoxNews.com in reference to the war against the jihadist army. When it is raining, it is a good time for them to start attacking. At the beginning, the villages in Iraq were communicating and helping them attack, they shot at us front and back. But the villagers soon realized that these people were not good. They were not human.

The Peshmerga fighters don a mishmash of camouflage clothes, and wield whatever guns they can get their hands on. Their formal training is limited, and their best attributes are instinct and will.

We have principles. We were brought up on those principles and an innate drive to serve. We treat Kurdistan like our second mother, explains the official, who is a high-value target and thus asked to remain unnamed. If you do something day after day you learn and we learn how to fight very fast.

The Peshmerga whose name literally translates to those who face death began as something of a mountain militia in the 1920s when the push for Kurdish independence began. In recent decades, they faced unrelenting persecution from the Ba'ath loyalists of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. One Peshmerga fighter told FoxNews.com they dont suffer from psychological issues pertaining to combat because they have grown up around fighting and have developed an early understanding that it is just what we have to do. While the issue of possible PTSD garners little if any mainstream attention, one daughter of a retired Peshmerger fighter said at least in her experience growing up, she witnessed the mental anguishes of battle.

The Peshmerga soldiers range from around 18 to over 70 years old, with many coming out of retirement in the quest to defeat the ISIS threat. During days of intense conflict, the Peshmerga are lucky to return to their base for two or three hours of sleep and a quick bite to eat, before returning to their fighting locus. As it stands, a majority of fighters are not soldiers but what they call security advisors. They dont take a salary and have volunteered simply out of devotion.

- Kurdish military official

There is a Special Forces that has been arranged for these people that have come in, they dont register their names and dont sign contracts. They just want to serve Kurdistan, the official said.

Read this article:
Iraq's Peshmerga desperate for US arms in fight against ISIS - ISIS fighter accidentally reveals his location in tweets

Iraq War 2014 - Iraqi soldier tests IS sniper
https://www.facebook.com/operatorsofvalhalla Iraqi sniper uses his helmet to lure out and test an IS sniper, who has them pinned down in a compound.

By: Operators of Valhalla

Read the original here:
Iraq War 2014 - Iraqi soldier tests IS sniper - Video