MESOP: THE CALIPH TO THE FRONT ? – Baghdadi led IS Friday attack: Peshmerga

11 Jan 2015 – Kurdpress – The latest Islamic State’s attack against Peshmerga on Friday in northern Iraqi towns of Makhmour and Gwer in Nineveh province was led by the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a Peshmerga commander claimed.

Sirwan Barzani, who leads Kurdish fighters in the Gwer-Makhmour region, said the IS’s latest bloody attack against Kurdish fighters killed 30 fighters and injured 42 others. He said that around 500 the IS militants had crossed the Tigris River on boats and rafts and attacked the 30-kilometer front.Meanwhile, Governor of Iraq’s Saladin district, Ahmed al-Jubouri, opposed the Iraqi tribes’ demands for arms, citing security concerns, Anadolu reported. “Iraqi patriots who want to clear the region from IS militants should join the security forces, instead of demanding armed tribes,” he said. Jubouri claimed that some of the weapons that were given to Iraqi tribes by the former Iraqi government, were later spotted for sale in Baghdad’s bazaars and he said that this meant a breakdown of national security. Iraq has been gripped by a security vacuum since June, when the IS stormed the northern province of Mosul and declared what it called a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. is leading an international coalition that has carried out numerous airstrikes against IS in Iraq and Syria since the militant group took over Mosul, in northern Iraq, in June.