Middle East News 20 Jan. 2016

Sitrep Yemen, Blackwater mercenaries take a big hit with several mercenaries dead; watch the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq6rcD-BfTY

The modern world calls it 'Mosul', but ISIS, the Islamic State, calls it 'Nineveh'. In this video clip from 'The Jim bakker Show', Rick Wiles explores the resurrection of Nineveh and its significance in the last days in the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoLGBRsOoMI

Private military companies in Iraq, focus: Falcon Security, watch the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08cyx4QGgls

The first ISIS unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were seen this week flying over the battlefields of the western Iraqi province of Anbar. Two were shot down by Iraqi Sunni militias, who had been trained and were supported by American military instructors at the big Iraqi Ayn al-Asad airbase in the province. The downed craft when tested at the base facilities showed they were fitted with cameras for spying on the militias and capable of transmitting surveillance images to the jihadists’ rear commands.

Their first appearance over Fallujah and Haditha, both of which are in ISIS hands, were a shock to the ground forces. US intelligence had discovered that ISIS had begun manufacturing UAVs at a military industrial plant located outside their Iraqi capital of Mosul. Production was not considered advanced enough for putting the drones in the air so soon.

This substantial upgrade of ISIS resources at extremely short notice is assumed to have been enabled by the skills of the former Iraqi army officers who are part of the terrorist group’s command structure, and fighters from Russia and western Europe who have joined the Islamists and are contributing their experience in making unmanned aerial vehicles operational.
Initial tests of the downed vehicles showed them capable of covering the 69 kilometer distance from Falujjah to Baghdad.
ISIS is now busy working on the design of a drone model capable of carrying arms. This was first revealed at a closed meeting of senior officers at Central Command Headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. The conference was called for a briefing on the state of the war against ISIS and a discussion of new tactics for combating the terrorists.

They were informed that the jihadi terrorists were in the final stages of preparations for testing drones armed with missiles or bombs, having hired the services of experts in a number of Muslim countries to work on their development at top speed for exceptionally high pay.

The financial arm of ISIS announced Tuesday that the salaries of the terrorist organization's members would be cut in half due to "exceptional circumstances." The pay cut is believed to be the result of the limitation of its illegal trade in oil smuggled from Syria and Iraq, as well as the destruction of millions of dollars in the bombing of the organization's "central bank" in the Iraqi city of Mosul last week. ISIS has issued a religious ruling, a "fatwa," permitting members to impose and collect taxes from local citizens to compensate for the salary reduction.

Julio Pino, above, a history professor at Kent State University in Cleveland, Ohio, was arrested on Tuesday by an FBI task force on suspicion of contacting ISIS and attempting to recruit students on behalf of the terrorist organization.

Following the decision by recently-elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to withdraw the six warplanes that his country has contributed to the US-led coalition's war on ISIS, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced on Tuesday that Canada will not participate in Wednesday's meeting of coalition defense ministers in Paris, and that only countries with a "significant role" in the war will participate. Denying that his country is being sidelined, Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said "Meetings happen all the time." The defense ministers of the Netherlands, France, Australia, Italy and Britain have already arrived in the French capital.   

In a speech on Wednesday focusing on his country's upcoming elections, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei praised the Revolutionary Guard Corps' recent capture of two US navy boats and ten US sailors in the Persian Gulf. He claimed Iranian politicians should act the same way by identifying whenever "the enemy" crosses a red line and stop him immediately.