Terrorism in Iraq

At least 50 people died in a suicide attacks in a southern Iraqi city on Sept. 14, with more than 80 wounded, a health official and police sources said.

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks.

On Aug. 29, the Treasury Department announced that a senior Islamic State official, Salim Mustafa Muhammad al-Mansur, had been added to the US government’s list of specially designated global terrorists.

Iraqi military forces fighting the terrorist group Islamic state have liberated the center of the northern city of Tal Afar and its citadel that was built during the Ottoman Empire, FOCUS News Agency reported.

"Parts of the Counter-Terrorist Forces have fed the Citadel and Basatin districts and erected the Iraqi flag on the fortress," the military said.

Iraqi forces are carrying out air strikes on Tal Afar, a town held by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) west of Mosul, in preparation for a ground assault, an Iraqi military spokesman said on Aug. 15.

Iraq has begun an aerial bombardment of Tal Afar, a town under Islamic State control west of Mosul, Baghdad-based al-Sumariya TV said on Tuesday, citing an Iraqi Defence Ministry spokesman.
The ground attack to try to take the city should start when the air campaign is over, the spokesman, Mohammed al-Khodari, said, according to the TV channel.

Interpol has compiled a list of 173 suicide bombers from the Islamic State that are preparing to make attacks in Europe, the Guardian said in a statement.

According to media reports, the list was distributed on May 27 and includes series of people who are believed to have "been trained to create and smuggle bombs for serious injuries and deaths."

Mosul, the second largest Iraqi city, has recently been liberated from the Islamic State (IS) control. When the terror outfit captured the city three years ago, top IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said: "Come to me, I will give you a new Caliphate." Although Russia announced in June that al-Baghdadi was killed in an air-strike, a Kurd leader recently claimed that he is still alive.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is still alive and hiding in Syria, despite Russian reports of his death, Iraqi and Kurdish counter-terrorism officials have said, quoted by The Telegraph.co.uk.

Iraqi counterterrorism units reported on July 15 that they had detained 20 female Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, including three Turkish citizens, captured in a secret tunnel discovered under the Old City neighborhood of Quleiat in Mosul.

The Islamic State stands on the brink of a twin defeat. Mosul, the largest city under its control, has almost entirely fallen from its grasp, and Kurdish-led forces are advancing into its de facto capital of Raqqa.