Iraqi PM says Islamic State plans subway attacks on NYC, Paris
NEW YORK – Iraq has received “credible” intelligence that Islamic State militants plan to attack subway systems in Paris and the United States, Iraq’s prime minister said on Thursday, but senior U.S. and French officials said they had no evidence to back up the claim.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he had received the information Thursday morning from militants captured in Iraq and concluded it was credible after asking for further details. The attacks, he said, were plotted from inside Iraq by “networks” of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
“They plan to have attacks in the metros of Paris and the U.S.,” Abadi told a small group of U.S. reporters while in New York for the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. “I asked for more credible information. I asked for names. I asked for details, for cities, you know, dates. And from the details I have received, yes, it looks credible.”
FBI: Identity known of Islamic State militant in beheadings
NEW YORK/BEIRUT — The masked Islamic State militant in the videos depicting the beheading of two Americans has been identified, FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday, but he did not give the person’s name or nationality.
Comey, speaking to a small group of reporters, declined to give further details about the suspect. He said roughly one dozen Americans were known to be fighting with militants in Syria, and that many who fought there had already returned to the United States.
Iraqi forces restoring control of besieged area
BAGHDAD – Iraqi forces are “restoring control” to one area in the western Anbar province, while fighting is ongoing in another area where Islamic State insurgents had surrounded two army camps over the past week, Anbar’s police chief said on Thursday.
“Currently, the Iraqi forces regiments are restoring control to the Sijir area,” Anbar police chief Ahmed Saddag told Reuters.
“In Albu Etha, there is no control until now. The enemy Daesh (Islamic State) is in control of Albu Etha from the northern side,” he said.
France strikes Islamic State in Iraq after U.S.-led raids in Syria
PARIS/BEIRUT — French fighter jets struck Islamic State targets in Iraq on Thursday and the United States hit them in Syria, as a U.S.-led coalition to fight the militants gained momentum with an announcement that Britain would join.
The French strikes were a prompt answer to the beheading of a French tourist in Algeria by militants, who said the killing was punishment for Paris’s decision last week to become the first European country to join the U.S.-led bombing campaign.
France had said earlier on Thursday it would boost security on transport and in public places after the killing of French tourist Herve Gourdel by Islamic State sympathizers in Algeria.
Britain, the closest U.S. ally in the past decade’s wars, finally announced on Thursday that it too would join air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq.
Islamic scholars around the world denounce Islamic State
More than 120 Islamic scholars from around the world, including many of the most senior figures in Sunni Islam, issued an open letter denouncing Islamic State. Challenging the group with theological arguments, they described its interpretation of the faith as “a great wrong and an offense to Islam, to Muslims and to the entire world.”
“You have misinterpreted Islam into a religion of harshness, brutality, torture and murder,” said the letter, signed by figures from across the Muslim world from Indonesia to Morocco.
A third night of air raids by the United States and Arab allies targeted Islamic State-controlled oil refineries in three remote locations in eastern Syria to try to cut off a major source of revenue for the al Qaeda offshoot.
Kurds fighting Islamic State on the ground in Syria
One danger the U.S.-led campaign has in Syria is the lack of strong allies on the ground. Washington remains hostile to the Assad government. It wants other Syrian opponents of Assad to step into the breach as Islamic State is pushed back, but such “moderate opposition” groups have had limited success.
One group that has fought hard against Islamic State on the ground in Syria are the Kurds, who control an area in the north but complain that they have been given no support from the West.
On Thursday, two Kurdish officials said Kurdish forces had pushed back the advance by Islamic State fighters towards the border town of Kobani in overnight clashes. Fighting near the town in recent days had prompted the fastest exodus of refugees of the entire three-year-old Syrian civil war.
