Iraqi Horn Attacking Capital (Dan 8:5)

Islamic State attacks Iraqi provincial capital

BAGHDAD | Fri Apr 10, 2015 4:16pm EDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State militants attacked the capital of Iraq’s vast Anbar province on multiple fronts on Friday, seizing two areas on the city outskirts in a setback for a government campaign to retake the desert terrain.

The jihadists deployed vehicle and suicide bombs to tear through Iraqi government lines north of the city of Ramadi overnight before attacking on foot, said security officials and a hospital source.

The head of Anbar’s provincial council, Sabah Karhout, called on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to send urgent military reinforcements and supplies to fighters, saying they were running low on ammunition.

Abadi visited Anbar on Tuesday and declared the start of the operation to liberate the Sunni Muslim heartland, seeking to build on a victory over Islamic State last week in the city of Tikrit.

But a police source in Ramadi said early on Friday the insurgents had taken half of the Albu Faraj area, and provincial council member Athal al-Fahdawi later said it had been overrun completely.

Hundreds of families were fleeing Albu Faraj, just north of Ramadi, after Islamic State militants broke into the homes of policemen and soldiers in the area and killed 15 members of their families.

A car bomb blew up the bridge linking Ramadi and Albu Faraj across the Euphrates river, a police source said.

An army officer and the police source blamed some members of the Albu Faraj tribe for letting the militants infiltrate their area. The insurgents also took over the adjacent Albu Aitha area, according to Fahdawi and local tribal leader Sheikh Ghassan al-Ithawi.

Large parts of Anbar had slipped from the government’s grasp even before Islamic State overran the northern city of Mosul last June and surged through Sunni areas of Iraq.

The group controls swathes of Syria and Iraq, last year declaring a caliphate across the territory.

Security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries have since regained some ground in Iraq, although core Sunni territories remain under Islamic State control including Anbar and the northern province of Nineveh.

In Anbar, which shares a long border with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, pockets of territory have remained under government control and Ramadi itself has been contested.

Shi’ite militia have played a leading role in reversing the insurgents’ advances elsewhere, but officials from predominantly Sunni Anbar have expressed reservations about a role for the paramilitary forces on the battlefield.

(Reporting by Saif Hameed; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Crispian Balmer and John Stonestreet)

Pakistani Terrorists Attempted To Steal Nukes Last Month

Clear and present danger

In September, TTP Terrorists Attempted to Steal Pakstan’s Naval Nuclear Missiles

 

DC | Arun Kumar Singh | October 08, 2014, 03.10 am IST

The Indian media has missed out on analysing a recent incident at the Karachi naval dockyard. On the night of September 6, half a dozen serving and retired Pakistan Navy (PN) personnel, led by an officer, entered the Karachi naval dockyard in a boat and attempted to take over the 3,000-tonne Chinese-built frigate, PNS Zulfiqar, when the warship was in the harbour. They killed a petty officer and wounded six PN personnel on board the warship before this brazen attack was foiled. Some of the attackers were killed and interrogation of one of the captured attackers resulted in the subsequent arrest of 17 more conspirators.

Media reports speculated that the attackers wanted to hijack PNS Zulfiqar, take it to sea and use its eight 180-km range anti-ship missiles to attack an American aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. This was also stated later by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman on September 10, while claiming responsibility for the attack. Another media report said that the attackers had entered the dockyard with the aim of attacking a US Navy aircraft carrier, but mistakenly attacked PNS Zulfiqar as it was the first warship they saw.

In my view, both these theories are incorrect, as it is almost impossible for six men to hijack and sail out with a 3,000-tonne warship manned by over 200 men, and no serving or retired Pakistan Navy officer would mistake a 100,000-tonne American aircraft carrier for a 3,000-tonne frigate. In my view, the hijackers were probably after nuclear weapons. In 2012, the PN announced the creation of a “Strategic Naval Command” to be headed by a vice-admiral. Media reports indicated that, in 2011, Pakistan had commenced work on a miniaturised two-kilo tonne plutonium warhead, ba-sed on a Chinese design tested in 1991-92. It was to be deployed by the Pak-istan Army on the new 60-km range battlefield ballistic missile Nasr.

This new, low-yield tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) was also meant to be deployed on the 700-km range land attack cruise missile (LACM) Babur, and the 350-km range air launched cruise missile (ALCM) R’aad. On December 19 and 21, 2012, the PNS Zulfiqar successfully test-fired LACMs at sea. While it was not known whether the missile fired was the Babur or a version of the 120 to 180-km range Chinese C-802 anti-ship missile modified to become an LACM carrying a two-kilotonne miniaturised nuclear warhead, the fact is that the test firings were witnessed by then Pakistan Navy chief, Admiral Mohammad Asif Sandila, and the media reported that the PN had now got a sea-based nuclear deterrent which could threaten Indian coastal cities.

The PN will soon begin to induct six Chinese-built Qing-class conventional submarines capable of firing nuclear tipped LACMs on Indian coastal cities. The jihadis in Pakistan have apparently set their eyes on “grabbing” some nuclear weapons. On August 16, 2012, six terrorists in Pakistan Air Force (PAF) uniforms infiltrated and attacked the high security Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at Kamra (45 miles northwest of Islamabad), which houses not only the plant to build new JF-17 fighter jets but also some of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. This was the third terrorist attack on this facility (the earlier attacks were in December 2007 and August 2009).

On the night of May 23, 2011, terrorists belonging to the TTP infiltrated and attacked the PN air station (PNS Mehran) in Karachi. The 15 attackers killed 18 military personnel and injured another 16, and destroyed two of the seven America-supplied P-3C Orion long range maritime patrol (LRMP) aircraft. These can fly for 15 hours and destroy enemy ships and oil rigs with the America supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles which have a range of 130 km. Sooner or later, the terrorists will discover that rather than attack Pakistani military facilities to acquire nuclear weapons, it is simpler to have enough radicalised elements in Pakistan’s military who can be trained and then transferred to units storing and operating nuclear weapons. These “sleeper cells” can be activated for strikes at the opportune moment.

Pakistan Army needs to take the possibility and threat of jihadi sleeper cell in its military seriously. It needs to place the nuclear button firmly under the control of the Prime Minister. Its homegrown terrorists won’t hesitate to use a stolen nuclear weapon or a conventional weapon.

ISIS Seeking Iranian Nukes (Daniel 8:4)

ISIS keen to seize Iran nuke plans

Oct 06, 2014 – London

The Islamic State terror group, formerly known as ISIS, plans to seize Iran’s nuclear secrets, unleash a vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing and Nazi-style eugenics to consolidate and expand its self-declared caliphate, according to a seized policy manifesto of the dreaded outfit.

The group urged its members to plan for war with Iran and has ambitions to seize Tehran’s nuclear secrets in a manifesto believed to have been written by Abdullah Ahmed al-Meshedani, a member of the group’s highly-secretive six-man war cabinet.

The document, typed on perforated sheets, was seized by Iraqi special forces during a raid in March on the home of one of the commanders of ISIS, the Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

In the document, which has been examined by Western security officials who believe it to be authentic — Meshedani wrote that ISIS aims to get hold of nuclear weapons with the help of Russia, to whom it would offer access to gas fields it controls in Iraq’s Anbar province.

Also, the documents said, Kremlin will have to give up “Iran and its nuclear programme and hands over its secrets.” Russia would also have to abandon support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and back the Gulf states against Iran.

Believed to be a policy manifesto prepared for senior members of ISIS, the document offers a unique insight into the ambitions of the Islamist commanders who have shocked the world with their fanaticism and brutality, the paper said.

The ISIS militants have captured a swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has declared himself as “caliph” of the “Islamic State.”

The document contains 70 different plans like launching a vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing, Nazi-style eugenics and intelligence gathering operations to consolidate and expand the group’s self-declared Islamic caliphate, it said.

Meshedani, whose duties include managing suicide bombers, also calls for stripping Shia Iran of “all its power” and destroying the Shia ascendancy in Iraq.

He also incites followers to kill Iraqi military chiefs, Shia officials and Iranian-backed militias fighting for the Iraqi government, the paper said, citing the document.

A security source familiar with the document told the paper: “Nothing shocks western governments these days in relation to ISIS and its fanatical aspirations.”