Iraq Plans To Launch Mosul Offensive Against IS In First Half Of 2016
Iraq plans to launch the operation to dislodge Islamic State from the northern city of Mosul in the first half of 2016, Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi told Reuters on January 21.
France Wants State Of Emergency Until IS Defeated In 'Total, Global War'
France will seek to maintain its state of emergency until the IS group has been defeated in a "total and global war," French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said.
"As long as the threat is there, we must use all available means," Valls said at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
"In Africa, in the Middle East, in Asia, we must eradicate -- eliminate -- [IS]...It is a total and global war that we are facing with terrorism. The war we are conducting must also be total, global and ruthless."
We are now closing the live blog for today. Join us again tomorrow for our continuing coverage of events concerning Islamic State.
IS Seeks To Damage, Not Capture, Libya's Oil Installations: Analysts
This morning, Islamic State militants launched a fresh attack on oil installations near the Libyan oil terminal of Ras Lanuf, clashing with members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard -- a militia tasked with guarding oil infrastructure -- before setting fire to four storage tanks belonging to the Harouge Oil Operations Company.
Following the attack, an IS militant named Abu Abdelrahman al-Liby ("the Libyan") threatened in a video posted on IS's Telegram channel that the group intended to carry out more assaults on oil facilities.
The attack was the latest in a series by IS militants on Libya's oil facilities. Clashes earlier this month near Ras Lanuf and Sidra killed 18 members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard and damaged seven oil storage tanks in fires. So serious were the attacks that Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) issued a "cry for help" on its website, saying it was "helpless" in the face of the onslaught.
Damage Not Capture
But unlike in Syria and Iraq, where IS has focussed on capturing oil facilities in order to use them as a major source of revenue, IS in Libya appears to be seeking to deliberately damage and degrade the country's installations, analysts say.
"While many people say IS wants to capture the oil installations to secure them for their own revenue -- similar to what they are doing in Syria and Iraq -- the group in Libya, for now at least, doesn’t likely have the capabilities to actually produce and export oil," says Oded Berkowitz, an intelligence manager at Middle East consulting firm MAX Security.
Berkowitz noted that in its recent attacks on Libya's oil facilities -- including those on Sidra and Ras Lanuf on January 4-7 and 21 and Zueitina on January 10 -- the IS group "showed more interest in destroying the facilities rather than securing them for operations."
IS's short-term goals in carrying out the attacks is therefore intended to prevent Libya's two rival governments from using the country's oil installations, preventing them from using oil to generate income, Berkowitz believes.
"Through that, [IS can] create more instability which they can use for further expansion of power and territory, filling the vacuum left by the absence of effective governance," Berkowitz told RFE/RL.
Not A New Tactic
Damaging oil infrastructures to harm Libya economically is not a new tactic of IS's Libyan wing.
In February through March 2015, IS attacked oil facilities in Mabruk, Dahra, Ghani and Bahi, rendering them inoperable. According to the International Crisis Group, a person in contact with IS militants near Sirte said that, when asked why they were targeting the oil fields, a local IS leader said it was to stop cash flowing to what they considered an "un-Islamic" state.
"The Islamic State planners in Libya know they can't export the oil from the Crescent via ports and tankers -- but they can stop the cash flow," journalist Daniele Raineri explained in a tweet earlier this month.
By damaging Libya's oil resources, IS militants also believe they are harming Western interests that rely on those resources.
IS's "delegated leader" for Libya, Abdul Mugirah al Qahtani -- thought to have been killed in an air strike in Darna in November -- set out this position in a September interview in IS's English language magazine Dabiq.
"It is important to note also that the Libyan resources are a concern for the [infidel] West due to their reliance upon Libya for a number of years especially with regards to oil and gas. The control of the Islamic State over this region will lead to economic breakdowns especially for Italy and the rest of the European states," Qahtani wrote.
The instability in Libya and threats of violence from the IS group have already taken a toll on Libya's oil outputs. Ras Lanuf has been closed since December 2014.
And IS's attacks this month seem to be achieving their goals of damaging Libya's oil industry even more.
NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla said that the Ras Lanuf terminals will be "shut for a long time" because of damage caused by the January 21 and other recent attacks, which have caused the loss of around one million barrels of oil.
Turkey Objects To Syrian Kurdish Party's Inclusion In Peace Talks
Turkey has objected to the inclusion of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in peace talks on the side of the opposition.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that some parties, including Russia, wanted to ruin the opposition's position by including groups like the PYD.
"As Turkey, we do not recognize any [group] other than the Syria national coalition as the opposition," state-run Anadolu Agency reported Davutoglu as saying.
"If others want to be at the table, then they can be on the side of the regime."
There are persistent claims by the Libyan National Army that France is carrying out air strikes against IS near its stronghold of Sirte.
A British mother accused of taking her son to Syria to join the IS group has told a court she feared she would go to hell if she stayed in the UK.
Tareena Shakil, 26, said she talked online with an IS militant named Fabio Pocas who told her about the dangers of "living in the land of the unbelievers."
Shakil denies joining IS.
Syrian Opposition Shouldn't Set Preconditions For Talks: Russian Deputy FM
The Syrian opposition should not set preconditions for starting negotiations with the Syrian government, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has said.
"[The opposition] will bear the historic responsibility for the failure of the talks, because there should be no preconditions for the start of negotiations," Bogdanov said.
Bogdanov said that all issues, "humanitarian, confidence-building measures, are important -- but this cannot be a precondition for the start of a political process, because deciding these issues during a political process can, in our view, facilitate the situation, when Syrians discuss this together under the auspices of the UN."
Bogdanov's comments came after the opposition's chief negotiator, Mohamad Alloush, said that there would be "zero chance" of peace talks unless Damascus took certain humanitarian steps.
More photos of the fires at the Ras Lanuf oil terminal in Libya, which came under attack from the IS group this morning.