News from hellholes ..... September 20

From AlAkhbar:
The news of Osama Mansour and Chadi al-Mawlawi forming a militant group in Tripoli took the city by storm, and is now at the forefront of media, political, and security concerns. It has been reported that the two fugitives are overseeing an armed group in the region of Bab al-Tabbaneh, ranging between 40 to 50 militants, including Syrian nationals, with probable links to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Nusra Front.


Information revealed that militants affiliated to Mawlawi and Mansour currently control a security zone in the proximity of Abdullah bin Masoud Mosque, and enjoy local support and sympathy, which may cause a setback to the implementation of the security plan in the city and eventually lead to its collapse.
Fears in Tripoli escalated following suggestions that the militant group has links to ISIS, especially since Mawlawi who was arrested and later released by General Security, was accused of having contacts with al-Qaeda figures.

From EuroNews:
Thousands of Iraqis gathered in central Baghdad on Saturday (September 20) to protest against American intervention.

Demonstrators waved Iraqi flags and held up pictures of leading Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who says the country should not cooperate with what he calls US “occupiers”.

From GuardianUK:
Islamic State video threatens to target White House and US troops
Video purports to be trailer for film entitled Flames of War with strapline 'fighting has just begun'

Islamic State militants have threatened to target the White House and kill US troops in a new slickly made video response to Barack Obama's campaign to "degrade and destroy" the organisation.

The video, in the style of a blockbuster movie trailer for what is "coming soon", purports to show a masked man apparently about to shoot kneeling prisoners in the head. Towards the end of the clip there is shaky footage of the White House filmed from a moving vehicle, suggesting the building is being scoped out for attack.

It was released on Tuesday after US defence chiefs suggested that American troops could join Iraqi forces fighting Isis, despite Obama's assurance that US soldiers would not be engaged in fighting on the ground.......

From BBC:
Some 66,000 refugees - mainly Syrian Kurds - have crossed into Turkey in 24 hours, officials say, as Islamic State militants advance in northern Syria.
Turkey opened its border on Friday to Syrians fleeing the Kurdish town of Kobane in fear of an IS attack.
The UN refugee agency said it was boosting relief efforts as hundreds of thousands more could cross the border.
IS controls large areas of Syria and Iraq, and has seized dozens of villages around Kobane, also called Ayn al-Arab.
Turkey - which shares a border with Iraq and Syria - has taken in more than 847,000 refugees since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began three years ago.

But the opening of the border has seen a dramatic increase in the past 24 hours.
"As of today, the number of Syrian Kurds who entered Turkey has exceeded 60,000," Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters on Saturday.
He was speaking from the southern Turkish province of Sanliurfa, where many of the refugees have sought shelter........

From GuardianUK:
Teenage peace activists among dead in Libya 'black Friday'
Militants assassinate rights workers and army officers while mystery jets launch raids on Tripoli
Two popular young peace activists were among ten prominent Libyan civil rights workers and senior army officers assassinated in the eastern city of Benghazi on Friday, a day that has swiftly become known as Black Friday.

The coordinated killings, a vivid demonstration of the power of militants, took place at a time when the country is in chaos: an Islamist-led coalition is holding Tripoli and the UN has reported that 250,000 have fled the fighting.......

From ABCNews:
 A suicide car bomber reportedly killed three people at a checkpoint manned by the Shiite Hezbollah militia in eastern Lebanon Saturday evening, the state-run news agency reported, as the war in Syria spilled over into its eastern neighbor.

However, a Hezbollah-run TV station reported later that the suicide bomber did not kill anyone at the checkpoint. There was no immediate way to reconcile the contradictory reports.
Hours before the suicide bombing, the family of a Lebanese soldier held captive by militants in Syria said their son had been killed, and a video posted on show media networks appeared to show the man being shot to death.

The suicide car bomber detonated his explosives-rigged vehicle at the checkpoint about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from the Syria border near the town of Khreibeh, Lebanon's National News Agency said.
It wasn't immediately clear if the casualties were bystanders or Hezbollah fighters.