How Iran and Qassem Soleimani shaped the fight against ISIS, according to an aid worker who saw it first-hand
Josh Groeneveld, Business Insider Deutschland
Christa Waegemann worked for humanitarian aid NGOs in Iraq in 2016 and 2017 and witnessed how the fight against the terror group ISIS gripped the country.
While the Iraqi army and US, European, Canadian, and Australian troops fought in the official anti-ISIS coalition, Shia militias like Hasd al-Shaabi, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), took on ISIS too.
As Waegemann tells Business Insider, everyone in Baghdad knew who was behind the rise of these Shia militias: Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps' Quds force.
The Baghdad that Christa Waegemann knew wasn't always violent.
"My favorite moments were driving around the city, feeling its heartbeat," she tells Business Insider. "Traffic jams allowed me to people-watch and observe the street life of the city. Baghdad was crumbling everywhere but still had a charm and sometimes a cosmopolitan air."
See more at: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-iran-soleimani-shaped-isis-fight-according-to-aid-worker-2020-1
Looks like a good article, also, more current news:
ISIS kidnaps 7 civilians at fake checkpoint in Kurdistan’s Garmiyan region
Kosar Nawzad
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Members of an Islamic State sleeper cell abducted several civilians on Thursday at a fake security checkpoint they had set up on a road connecting two towns in the Kurdistan Region’s southern Garmiyan area.
Militants erected the mock outpost near the village of Qaryatakh in the Qara Tapa subdistrict, on the main road leading northward to Kifri.
Read more at: https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/c892a042-13a6-4ec3-ac52-85167309d41b
What in the heck? Americans still trying to join ISIS?? Only arrested a little over a year ago.
2nd Michigan man admits plan to join ISIS after arrest at Grand Rapids airport
...
The Kenya-born men were arrested Jan. 21, 2019, at Gerald R. Ford International Airport where Muse Muse planned to depart to join ISIS in Mogadishu, Somolia, the FBI said.
More at: https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/2020/01/2nd-michigan-man-admits-plan-to-join-isis-after-arrest-at-grand-rapids-airport.html
We will try to get more ISIS stories up.
Let alone, earlier this week, they said they would focus more on Israel:
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/ISISs-al-Qurashis-declaration-of-war-on-Israel-615727One more story:
ISIS Rebuilds After US Drone Assassination
https://www.courthousenews.com/isis-rebuilds-after-us-drone-assassination/
That story has been reported widely but why from Courthouse news here?
