</s>Colonel John Dorrian said ISIS diehards are executing deserters trying to flee the battle for Raqqa in northern Syria. And the Coalition's policy of deliberately targeting IS or ISIS leaders is leading to "pessimism" even among rank and file fighters. Col Dorrian, spokesman for the US-led Operation Inherent Resolve, spoke as RAF warplanes and drones kept up raids on IS in and around West Mosul where the battle to retake the terror group's last stronghold in Iraq started on Sunday

Col Dorrian, speaking in Baghdad, said that meanwhile Syria Democratic Forces are advancing to Raqqa from the north and east. They have liberated 300 sq miles of territory and more than 100 villages in the past three weeks. He said: "We're now seeing signs that ISIS fighters, its leaders in Raqqa, are beginning to feel the pressure.

"They've increased population control measures in Raqqa by seeking to remove or destroy televisions, searching houses for mobile phones and satellite dishes in order to maintain control of news and access to information about their losses. "These are not the actions of an enemy who feel they're winning, and that's because they're not. "We're seeing reflections of pessimism among mid-level commanders and this world view is spreading to the rank-and-file fighters.

"We're also commonly seeing reports of ISIS arresting and executing their fighters who try to abandon the fight or are suspected of collaborating with forces trying to liberate areas that ISIS controls. "We're hearing typical reports that ISIS leaders understand their fate in Raqqa and they're moving their own families out of Raqqa and into towns and villages in the countryside, even as they detain civilians who attempt to do the same." Col Dorrian gave his briefing while Iraqi forces backed by Coalition aircraft stepped up their bid to retake West Mosul following the liberation of the east side of the city. British Special Forces are thought to be involved alongside American counterparts, helping direct air strikes and advising the Iraqis.

Col Dorrian said the Coalition is taking "every opportunity that we can to remove ISIS leadership figures from the battlefield". Since the beginning of the year air strikes have eliminated three top IS commanders, including one who coordinated suicide bombers across Iraq and another who oversaw Mosul's anti-aircraft defences. Last week a former Al Qaeda member, Haqqi Ismail Hamid al-Mmri, who terrorised civilians in Mosul as a leader of IS security networks, was killed in a precision airstrike. Col Dorrian said: "This further loosened the grip of ISIS on the population of the city."</s>The Pentagon is expected to deliver a review of its ISIS strategy to the White House early next week that will include new recommendations for how to defeat the group.

On Jan. 28, President Trump issued an executive order that gave Defense Secretary James Mattis 30 days to develop the review.

“We’re on track to deliver it on time,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters Tuesday, adding that any public rollout would only occur after the report was reviewed privately by the president.

The new recommendations from the Pentagon were done in consultation with other departments, the intelligence community, and military commanders on the ground and at the Pentagon, according to Davis.

“This is going to be a comprehensive whole of government plan that’s going to address not only the core ISIS in Iraq and Syria issue, but it’s going to address the other areas where ISIS has sprung up,” Davis said. “And it will include all manner of things, diplomacy, and information, intelligence.”

The current U.S. strategy is to put pressure on ISIS from multiple fronts –- assisting Iraqi forces in the retaking of Mosul while also preparing for an offensive in Raqqa, ISIS’ de facto capital in Syria. The U.S. has also taken military action against ISIS in Libya and Afghanistan.

Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, told reporters Wednesday on a trip to the region that “simultaneous pressure on the Islamic State and continuing to present them with lots of dilemmas” has been successful.

But having a new administration in the White House provides an opportunity to assess what could be done differently. It’s a moment former Vice Adm. Robert Harward, who served as deputy commander of U.S. Central Command from 2011 to 2013, called a “reflection point.”

Harward, who last week turned down an offer from President Trump to serve as his national security adviser, said the new administration can take a “fresh look at the problem.”

“We may have a wider range of options that the U.S. is willing to support or initiate,” he told ABC News today. Harward is an ABC News contributor.

In addition to reviewing specific military options to change conditions on the ground, a broader issue will be building a coalition of willing support, Harward said.

“If you have a broader coalition, stronger, more nations involved willing to commit, it puts a lot of pressure on those nations who are not cooperating or staying outside the fold,” he said, adding, “It’s as much political as anything else.”

Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, emphasized the political aspect of the plan as well.

“This plan is a political-military plan, it is not a military plan,” he said during a rare public appearance at the Brookings Institution Thursday. “Anything we do on the ground has to be in the context of political objectives or it’s not going to be successful.”

According to Dunford, the plan will be framed beyond just dealing with ISIS in Syria and Iraq, addressing a “trans-regional threat” that includes al-Qaeda and other groups.

“I’m in the business of providing the President with options and we’re prepared to do that. We’ve been given a task to go to the President to accelerate, accelerate the defeat of ISIS specifically, but obviously other violent extremist groups as well,” Dunford said. “So we’ll go with him a full of range of options from which he can choose.”

“The president has been very direct. He wants to be as aggressive as possible, and I applaud that,” Harward said of the ISIS strategy review. “I think that, in and of itself, will strengthen the coalition and bring more assets to bear throughout the region and other ways as necessary.”

ABC News looks at some of the specific options the Pentagon could present to the president on how to accelerate the fight against ISIS, according to experts and US officials.

The U.S. has 500 special operations troops operating inside Syria, but one option the Pentagon could present is upping that number to assist Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkish forces. The SDF includes multiple ethnic forces including Kurds and Arabs.

These American troops would not be placed in direct combat, but serve as enablers who could facilitate operations between the SDF and Turkish forces preparing for the offensive to retake Raqqa, US officials said.

While Turkey has not yet agreed to work with the SDF in that fight, the US is discussing what role they could play. American troops could provide a stabilizing security presence for the rival sides. (Talking to reporters last week in Baghdad, Mattis said of having a strong Turkish element in the Raqqa fighting force, “We’re still sorting it out.”)

“I am very concerned about maintaining momentum,” Votel said. “It could be that we take on a larger burden ourselves. That’s an option,” he added.

A proposal for additional American troops, which could number as many as a few thousand according to US officials, would not necessarily be for special operations forces. A conventional brigade could bring its own infantry troops, artillery equipment, and intelligence units.

“We want to bring the right capabilities forward,” Votel said. “Not all of those are necessarily resident in the Special Operations community. If we need additional artillery or things like that, I want to be able to bring those forward to augment our operations.”

While Harward would not comment on the specific troop numbers, he did caution that in certain instances, having U.S. troops on the ground can be “counterproductive” because of major cultural and language challenges as opposed to their Arab and Turkish counterparts.

Another option could be sending additional support to the SDF, such as sending in Apache attack helicopters when needed, U.S. officials said.

While the Obama administration decided to leave the decision of arming the Kurds to the Trump administration, President Obama did approve the use of three Apaches to support Turkish forces fighting for the city of al-Bab, northwest of Aleppo. While approved, the Apaches have not yet been deployed to Syria.

According to U.S. officials, support could also come in the form of regular artillery or HIMARS, a long range artillery rocket system. HIMARS have already been used to good effect against ISIS in Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq, so this system could be beneficial in Syria.

Currently airstrikes go through a rigorous vetting process to ensure there are no civilian casualties from a strike.

While maintaining that standard remains a priority, US officials say an additional way to accelerate the fight against ISIS is changing those rules of engagements – the directives governing how force is applied – so that local commanders can approve lower level strikes, giving them more flexibility and the ability to act more quickly.

“Those rules of engagement can be limiting,” Harward said, adding that any changes would be reviewed in line with a change in strategy.

For instance, if additional US troops are in Syria, it becomes appropriate to lower airstrike approval thresholds there because of the trusted intelligence on the ground, he said.</s>Syrian women liberated from Isis control have been filmed burning their veils as they reclaim their freedom.

Footage released by local media showed a group of jubilant women removing their face veils and stamping on them before setting fire to the fabric with a lighter and smoking cigarettes in celebration.

The women had been liberated from an area around Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with support from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), who are leading an ongoing offensive in the province.

Human Security Centre (HSC) director Julie Lenarz told The Independent the women were only able to remove their veils as the SDF and YPG, unlike other rebel groups in Syria, do not enforce religious dress codes.

“These people were under the control of Isis who forced women to wear religious clothing, men were banned from smoking, children were not supposed to be playing and dancing in the street,” she said.

“These are women who would have worn a headscarf or Muslim clothing but not a full face veil, so they see it as a real liberation.”

Ms Lenarz said it was common to see such footage coming from Arab areas liberated by the SDF.

“The HSC estimates about 70 per cent of opposition groups in Syria also follow an Islamist or Jihadist ideology, such as al-Nusra or Ahrar al-Sham, so they will still enforce the wearing of religious dress like Isis,” she said.

“This footage from the ongoing offensive around Deir Ezzor is the first time SDF has entered that particular area.”

The US-backed advance into the province is part of an operation to encircle and ultimately capture its de facto capital of Raqqa to the north of the country.

It came as Iraqi forces recaptured eastern Mosul from Isis last month, and launched a new offensive on the group in densely-populated western Mosul this week.

However, some are concerned the militant group will race to Deir Ezzor, 340 miles to the west, if it is ousted from Mosul to support insurgent forces there.

According to a military source, the SDF alliance has recaptured some 15 villages from Isis militants in their incursion into the province, with their main aim to cut Isis supply lines from Raqqa to Deir Ezzor.</s>In March 2013, Free Syrian Army fighters, alongside the al-Qaida-linked militia Jabhat al-Nusra, liberated Raqqa, a city in Syria’s east. Statues of Assad were attacked, detainees were set free, a hip-hop concert was held. Activists hotly debated the shape of the democracy to come. They set up a local council; Nusra set up a Sharia court. Then Isis, or Daesh, an Iraqi-led group, split from Nusra. It was contained for a while, until the Free Army in Raqqa was weakened, battered by airstrikes and “busy fighting the regime elsewhere”.

In January 2014, Daesh captured the city. “Snatching it away from the revolutionaries who had sacrificed everything to liberate it,” the jihadists immediately established rule by fear. Some people fled, some submitted and some resisted as best they could. The pseudonymous author of The Raqqa Diaries – translated by Nader Ibrahim – risked his life to break Isis’s communication siege; his group, al-Sharqiya 24, made contact with the BBC correspondent Mike Thomson, and a bare-bones version of this book was read on Radio 4’s Today programme. It is as powerful and fast-paced as a thriller, but this is brutal non-fiction, plainly and urgently told.

Samer describes the people of Raqqa – a conservative but deeply civilised city, with a history stretching back to the Babylonian era – as “humble” and friendly. Under Assad, the author’s father was detained for raising the issue of corruption. The family was forced to exchange its wealth for his freedom. Samer describes how he himself was detained in 2011 and tortured for attending anti-regime protests. He tells of fleeing to liberated territory, then returning when the regime retreats from the city.

The Isis takeover brings with it a surreal blend of Ba’athist totalitarianism and Salafi-jihadist Islamism. The new rulers impose dress codes on both sexes, ban smoking and TVs, and implement compulsory prayers, evening classes and sharia courses, where the people are told “we are heretics and need to be reintroduced to Islam”. Isis stones women, throws gay men off roofs, and brutalises and conscripts children.

For executions, they gather a crowd “as if they are about to stage a play”. “Apostates” – retired regime soldiers, revolutionaries, citizen journalists – are beheaded by sword in the squares and on roundabouts. The heads are hung on lamp posts and mounted on park fences. Samer curses loudly when he discovers his own neighbour’s decapitation, and is arrested and lashed for it. This is his first brush with Isis. Next, his girlfriend is forcibly married to a Daesh fighter.

The air war rages – American strikes on Isis buildings, Russian strikes on marketplaces. Samer’s home is hit, his father killed. Isis, in response, escalates the repression. “Every time they feel threatened, they lash out at us.” Every activist is a potential target. Everybody suffers from rocketing prices. While half-starved residents burn books in order to boil water, handsomely waged jihadis impose a tax system indistinguishable from a protection racket.

Samer resists by writing. Because the internet cafes are staffed by spies, he sends encrypted text through two intermediaries to the outside world. But the net soon tightens around him. His friend Anas is crucified. Then a man called Khalid, who has memorised the entire Qur’an, criticises an Isis sermon and is executed too, as “an enemy of Islam and Allah”.

“Islam is the most precious thing we have,” Samer writes, “a glimpse of light in these very dark times.” Raqqa’s Muslims keenly resent Daesh’s abuse of their religion “to cover up their criminality”. Only a very few become true believers, and these are misfits such as Waleed, a mentally disturbed loner who executes his mother for disloyalty.

Samer eventually escapes, in stages, dodging checkpoints throughout the depopulated north. Those who accompany him have their own terrible stories. He ends up in a camp still inside Syria, short of food and medicine, circled by warplanes, and surrounded by “people like me ... thousands who have fled their homes running from either Daesh or Assad’s regime”.

By way of conclusion, he expresses Syrians’ continued hopes for change, but also the fear, disappointment and growing despair of a people who want only to rule themselves, yet are constantly overruled. What, after all, will replace Isis? The return of the Assad tyranny – which “feeds on darkness and grows ever stronger” – is not a solution. Like many Syrians, Samer believes there is a “special understanding between the regime and Daesh, like that between father and son”. Ibn Khaldun, the 14th-century historian, is quoted at the start: “Tyrants bring invaders.” At the same time, Samer is anxious that liberation by the US-backed and Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces – the army currently approaching Raqqa – would “simply be passing from one terrible occupation to another”.

How do those still inside survive the situation? Not by living in the present. A wise man gives Samer this advice: “Imagine you’re walking on a rope between two mountains. The present is the ground below. Focus only on crossing to the other mountain.”
• The Raqqa Diaries: Escape from Islamic State is published by Hutchinson. To order a copy for £8.49 (RRP £9.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.</s>U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria on Sunday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported yesterday.

Officials reported details of yesterday’s strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Coalition military forces conducted 16 strikes consisting of 29 engagements against ISIS targets in Syria:
• Near Shadaddi, three strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units and destroyed two fighting positions and a vehicle.
• Near Raqqa, eight strikes engaged five ISIS tactical units and destroyed two ISIS headquarters, a vehicle, a command and control node, a vehicle bomb, a vehicle bomb facility, an artillery system, and a tunnel.
• Near Dayr Az Zawr, three strikes destroyed seven oil wellheads.

Coalition military forces conducted 13 strikes consisting of 63 engagements in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the Iraqi government:
• Near Huwayjah, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a vehicle.
• Near Mosul, six strikes engaged four ISIS tactical units and two ISIS staging areas; damaged 15 supply routes; suppressed nine mortar teams and an artillery team; and destroyed five mortar systems, four vehicles, three supply caches, three artillery systems, two command and control nodes, an ISIS headquarters, a bomb-making facility, a heavy machine gun, a logistics node and a fighting position.
• Near Rawah, two strikes destroyed two vehicle bomb facilities and an ISIS-held building.
• Near Tal Afar, two strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed an ISIS-held building and an excavator.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is a strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIS to use.

Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike.

The strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to eliminate the ISIS terrorist group and the threat it poses to Iraq, Syria, the region and the wider international community. The destruction of targets in Syria and Iraq further limits ISIS’ ability to project terror and conduct operations, officials said.</s>A British ISIS suicide bomber has been revealed as a former Guantanamo prisoner who was handed the equivalent of $1.25million in British taxpayers' money as compensation before fleeing to Syria.

UK national Jamal Udeen al-Harith was photographed moments before blowing himself up in an attack on a military facility near Mosul in Iraq.

The Muslim convert - who changed his name from Ronald Fiddler in 1994 - was sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2002 after he was caught by American forces in Afghanistan.

After intense campaigning by Tony Blair’s government led by then-Home Secretary David Blunkett, the British citizen was freed two years later.

He launched a compensation claim on the grounds British agents knew or were complicit in his mistreatment and was handed £1million ($1.25million) in reparations.

Shortly after detonating the explosive-laden car near an army base this month, ISIS released a statement revealing al-Harith had been fighting for them under the name Abu Zakariya al-Britani.

Al-Harith, however, previously denied being a terrorist and claimed to have been taken prisoner by the Taliban after visiting the Middle East as part of a 'religious holiday'.

At the time of his release from Guantanamo, David Blunkett said: 'No one who is returned… will actually be a threat to the security of the British people.'

But it emerged that, despite security services being fully aware of his previous detention, al-Harith, who worked as a web designer for a time, was able to escape the UK in 2014 to fight with ISIS in Syria, leading to his eventual death.

ISIS claim his suicide attack, during a raging battle for control of the city, caused multiple casualties but this has not been confirmed. They gave his name as Abu Zakariya al-Britani.

After his release from Guantanamo, al-Harith spoke of the treatment he received at the hands of the guards.

Speaking in 2004, he told the Mirror: 'The whole point... was to get to you psychologically.

'The beatings were not nearly as bad as the psychological torture - bruises heal after a week but the other stuff stays with you.

'After a while, we stopped asking for human rights - we wanted animal rights.'

He said said he was interviewed upwards of 40 times by American officials - sometimes to 12 hours at a time - and nine times by British agents.

He was finally released with five others and alongside the three men known as the Tipton Three – Rhuhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul.

Leon Jameson, Harith’s brother, told the Times he had ‘wasted his life’. Shown his picture, he said: ‘It is him, I can tell by his smile. If it is true then I’ve lost a brother, so another family (member) gone.’

His journey was revealed following an escape from ISIS-controlled Syria in 2015 by British mother Shukee Begum and her five children.

Miss Begum was married to al-Harith before he left the family home in Birmingham to fight in Syria, and had flown to the war-torn country to try to persuade the fanatic to return to the UK.

However, her attempts failed, and she endured a ten-month ordeal being passed between hostages and rebel groups as she tried to escape.

In 2015, she told Channel 4: 'I’d love to go back to the UK. The UK is my home. I grew up there. My friends are there. My family are there. That’s where I consider to be home.

'But I’m just not sure at the moment, with the track record of the current government, if the UK is somewhere I can achieve justice. I hope I’m wrong.'

At the time, she said she was biding her time before returning to Britain because she fears she could face terrorism charges.

Ms Begum, a law graduate from Greater Manchester, insists she did not support the extremists, and says she wanted to persuade al-Harith to return to the family home.

She told Channel 4 News: 'I was thinking about the children's futures. Was he part of it? Will he come back? All these things go through your mind.'

She added: 'I was seeing on the news at this point that Isis was going from bad to worse… So I decided that I was going to try and speak some sense into him.

'At the same time I wanted to see him. I wanted the children to see their father. I wanted the baby to meet his father as well.'

After arriving in Syria, Ms Begum ended up living in a crowded safe-house in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, along with dozens of other foreign women looking for their husbands.

Eventually, Ms Begum and her children were reunited with al-Harith, and the family moved to a house near al-Bab in northern Syria.

But her planned to bring him home failed as she could not convince him to leave.

Ms Begum said she only planned to keep the children in Syria for a month, but after a bag containing her phones, travel money and passports was stolen, she found herself trapped.

She asked her husband to help her get out, to no avail. And she appealed to an Islamic court to give her permission to leave, but was told: 'Women and children belong in ISIS territory.'

She reached safety when she was rescued by Al Qaeda-linked group Al Nusra. Her last known location was in Syria, on the Turkish border.

Al-Harith's back story has resurfaced after pictures online shows him grinning next to what appears to be wires connected to a red-buttoned detonator.

Born Ronald Fiddler, he turned to Islam in the 1990s and changed his name to Jamal Udeen al-Harith.

He visited Australia for several months in 2000 after striking up a relationship online with Samantha Cook, the daughter of senator Peter Cook.

He stayed with Samantha in Perth up until mid-2000, before returning to Manchester.

In October 2001, he travelled to Quetta in Pakistan, on what he claimed was a religious holiday. A few days later the US invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan began.

He claimed the Taliban locked him up and accused him of being a British spy. A few months later he was found in a Taliban jail by US special forces and transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

US authorities considered that he was ‘probably involved in a former terrorist attack against the US’.

He was assessed as being an Al Qaeda fighter and considered a ‘high threat to the US’.

When al-Harith was released in 2004, he was repatriated to England and released without charge.

‘This is a scandalous situation,’ said Tory MP Tim Loughton. ‘So much for Tony Blair’s assurances that this extremist did not pose a security threat.

‘He clearly was a risk to Britain and our security all along. It adds insult to injury that he was given £1million in compensation because of Blair’s flawed judgement that he was an innocent.’

Liberal Democrat MP John Pugh said: ‘This raises serious questions about the reassurances Labour gave us that this man posed no danger.

‘It is a kick in the teeth that he was given a fortune in taxpayers’ money after claiming he was innocent only to flee to Islamic State and pose a risk to the UK.

‘The Home Office needs to explain how he was able to leave the country so easily despite his background mixing with those at the very top of Islamic terrorism.’

ISIS said al-Harith as one of two militants involved in the attack on a Shiite army outpost.

The attack came as Iraqi forces advanced on ISIS positions in the west of the city.

Footage said to have been captured on Monday shows a reinforced vehicle setting off along a dusty road. The video then cuts to a plume of smoke in the distance.

A statement released by the terror group today said: 'The martyrdom-seeking brother Abu Zakariya al-Britani - may Allah accept him - detonated his explosives-laden vehicle on a headquarters of the Rafidhi army and its militias in Tal Kisum village, southwest of Mosul.'

Kyle Orton, a specialist in Islamist groups at the Henry Jackson Society security think-tank, said: ‘Fiddler is part of a considerable cadre of people released from Guantanamo Bay who have returned straight to the ranks. This keeps happening so the drive to shut the camp has always been a very, very serious threat.

‘Allowing people to be put back in the field is a concrete security threat. The drive to release has been disastrous in terms of the consequences for Western security.’

Afzal Ashraf, a former counter-terrorism adviser to the United States in Iraq, told the BBC that the incident showed ‘some of the people in Guantanamo Bay were up to no good’.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'The UK has advised for some time against all travel to Syria, and against all travel to large parts of Iraq.

'As all UK consular services are suspended in Syria and greatly limited in Iraq, it is extremely difficult to confirm the whereabouts and status of British nationals in these areas.'

Terror suspects we gave £1million each to keep them quiet

As many as 16 British citizens and residents received millions of pounds in compensation after being held in Guantanamo Bay.

A deal believed to be worth almost £20million was agreed by the Government after the terror suspects threatened legal action.

The detainees, many of whom claimed they were victims of kidnap and torture, warned they would sue Britain for its involvement in their abuse. Many alleged that UK spies were complicit in barbaric mistreatment at the US military base in Cuba following 9/11.

Ministers settled the case on the grounds that they could not defend themselves against the damaging allegations without harming British security by revealing sensitive intelligence information.

Then Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, who revealed details of the settlement in the Commons in November 2010, said the deal was confidential but necessary.

A legal battle would have laid bare the depth to which Tony Blair’s Labour Government was complicit in rendition and torture – but the Tory-led coalition made clear that it wanted to avoid a court case which would have cost up to £50million.

The payouts sparked anger among MPs, who called them money for old rope and said the settlements would give comfort to our enemies.

Up to £1million was handed to each of the former Guantanamo Bay captives, including Binyam Mohamed, who alleged that British agents fed questions to his interrogators.

Mohamed was arrested in Afghanistan in 2002 and sent to a CIA prison in Kabul, then transferred to Morocco, where he claimed he was cut and repeatedly beaten. In 2004 he was sent to Guantanamo, where he was held until his return to the UK in 2009.

Another terror suspect to receive compensation was Martin Mubenga, a joint citizen of both the United Kingdom and Zambia. He was held in Africa, and claimed to have been interrogated by a British man who said he was an MI6 official. They allegedly told him that his UK passport, which he had reported stolen, was found in an Al Qaeda cave in Afghanistan. He was sent to Guantanamo Bay and held for 33 months.

Another recipient was Moazzam Begg, who ran a Muslim bookshop in Birmingham before moving to Afghanistan.

He was captured in Pakistan in 2002 by the CIA, who said he was an Al Qaeda recruiter.

He is now a leading member of the discredited Cage human rights group, described knife-wielding executioner Mohammed Emwazi – dubbed ‘Jihadi John’ – as a ‘beautiful young man’ after he was killed in an airstrike. Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantanamo, also received £1million. The father of four was freed in October 2015, but his release was delayed for at least eight years amid claims the US was concerned about Britain’s ability to monitor terror suspects.

Mr Aamer, who was held without trial or charge for almost 14 years, was seized in Afghanistan in 2001. He denied accusations that he was a key aide of Osama Bin Laden.

He was released after a campaign by the Mail, which argued that although he had questions to answer about his presence in Afghanistan, it was an affront to justice to detain him without charge or trial.

In 2010, then Prime Minister David Cameron ordered Sir Peter Gibson to head the Detainee Inquiry to look into the claims that our intelligence services were complicit in torture. However, it was suspended after two years while police investigated claims that MI6 was involved in the extraordinary rendition of two Libyan dissidents, Abdul Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi. In 2013 Sir Peter’s inquiry closed its investigation on the basis that it could not continue while Scotland Yard pursued its own inquiries. The probe was scrapped after prosecutors controversially ruled that no one would stand trial over claims that spies helped to put Mr Belhaj and Mr al-Saadi in the clutches of Colonel Gaddafi in 2004.

However, an interim report by Sir Peter, a High Court judge, found that MI6 agents had not properly raised concerns about sleep deprivation and waterboarding for fear of offending US allies.

Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee was handed the case as part of its wider inquiry into rendition.

For the first time, it was officially confirmed that politicians knew the UK was involved in the CIA’s unlawful programme of torture flights. Mr Cameron was accused of a whitewash after rejecting calls to re-open the Detainee Inquiry.

He re-iterated that the work would be done by Parliament’s secretive ISC – even though it is subject to a Government veto on the evidence it sees and what it can publish.

In 2010, Mr Cameron had told Parliament an ISC inquiry could not command ‘public confidence’. But last June he maintained that giving it the brief was the ‘right approach.’

THE BRITISH MEN WHO HAVE BEEN KILLED FIGHTING FOR ISIS Jihadi John brandishes a knife in an ISIS video from 2014 Emwazi had been reported killed in a November 2015 air strike, with US forces saying they were 'reasonably certain' he was dead. IS later released what appeared to be an obituary to the fighter, who it called Abu Muharib al-Muhajir. It featured a smiling picture of the militant, who appeared unmasked looking towards the ground. Emwazi shocked the world when he appeared in a video in August 2014 in which he condemned the West and appeared to behead US journalist James Foley. He emerged again in a number of other videos released by IS, including those in which American reporter Steven Sotloff and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning were murdered. Kuwait-born Emwazi attended Quintin Kynaston Community Academy in north London and was described by his former head teacher as a 'hard-working aspirational young man'. He went on to gain a degree in information systems with business management from the University of Westminster. Reyaad Khan, from Cardiff, is thought to have travelled to fight in Syria late in 2013 Khan was 20 when he appeared in an Isis propaganda video titled, There Is No Life Without Jihad, in June last year together with two other Britons urging Westerners to join the war. The youngster, from Cardiff, is thought to have travelled to fight in Syria late in 2013. His Facebook page revealed that he was a Chelsea FC fan who enjoyed playing computer games FIFA 12 and Call Of Duty. After appearing in the video with a Kalashnikov assault rifle against his shoulder his mother said she believed he had been 'brainwashed' into joining IS. In a direct appeal to her son, the woman, who asked to remain unnamed, sobbed as she said: 'Reyaad, please come back home. I'm dying for you. You're my only son.' Before leaving for Syria, Khan attended Cardiff's Al-Manar Centre (ACT) together with Nasser Muthana, who was also filmed for the IS recruitment video. The mosque denied the pair had been taught extremist views there and blamed the internet as an 'alarming source for radicalisation'. Mr Cameron said Khan had been killed on August 21 2015 when he was targeted by an RAF remotely piloted aircraft while travelling in a vehicle in Raqqah, Syria. Rahul Amin was born in Bangladesh and grew up in Aberdeen before reportedly moving with his family to Leicester Amin, 26, featured alongside Khan and Muthana in the 13-minute IS recruitment video under the name Brother Abu Bara al Hindi. Wearing sunglasses and a white headscarf, he could be heard saying: 'Are you willing to sacrifice the fat job you've got, the big car, the family you have? 'Are you willing to sacrifice this, for the sake of Allah? If you do Allah will give you back 700 times more.' Also known as Abdul Raqib Amin, he was born in Bangladesh and grew up in Aberdeen before reportedly moving with his family to Leicester. In July 2014 he boasted on ITV's Good Morning Britain that he had been 'involved in a few combats' in Syria. Explaining the moment he left Britain, he said: 'I left the house with the intention of not to go back. I'm going to stay and fight until the (caliphate) is established, or I die.' A leading member of Aberdeen's Muslim community, who did not want to be identified, said he was not someone who 'stood out in any particular way'. He was killed in the same airstrike as Khan. Hacker Junaid Hussain was described as a key ISIS operative before he was killed by a US drone strike on August 24 Computer hacker Hussain was described as a key ISIS operative before he was killed by a US drone strike on August 24. The 21-year-old, from Birmingham, was said to have been number three on the Pentagon's 'kill list' of IS targets. It is believed that he fled Britain to travel to Syria in 2013, and in June last year he was linked to a plot to attack an Armed Forces Day parade in south London. The plan to explode a pressure cooker bomb - killing soldiers and bystanders on the route - was reportedly foiled after Hussain unwittingly recruited an undercover investigator from The Sun to carry it out. In June 2012, aged 18, Hussain was jailed for six months after he admitted making prank calls to a counter-terror hotline and publishing former prime minister Tony Blair's address book. He was a member of TeaMpOisoN (TeamPoison), a group which claimed responsibility for more than 1,400 offences where personal and private information has been illegally extracted from victims in the UK and around the world. Hussain was reportedly married to a Muslim convert named as Sally Jones, a mother of two from Kent who once was a member of an all-girl punk rock group.</s>SOUTHWEST ASIA, Feb. 23, 2017 — U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of yesterday’s strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Coalition military forces conducted 24 strikes consisting of 32 engagements against ISIS targets in Syria:

-- Near Abu Kamal, three strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed four oil refinement stills and a vehicle.

-- Near Bab, four strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units and destroyed a vehicle-borne bomb.

-- Near Shadaddi, three strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed four fighting positions and an ISIS headquarters.

-- Near Raqqa, seven strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units and an ISIS staging area and destroyed three pump jacks, a command-and-control node, a fighting position and a tactical vehicle.

-- Near Tanf, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed two tactical vehicles.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, three strikes destroyed seven oil separation tanks, and oil wellhead, an oil tanker truck and an oil inlet manifold.

-- Near Palmyra, two strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed four tactical vehicles.

-- Near Tamakh, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a tactical vehicle.

Coalition military forces conducted 14 strikes consisting of 62 engagements against ISIS targets in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:

-- Near Beiji, three strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units; destroyed a tactical vehicle and a heavy machine gun; and suppressed a mortar team.

-- Near Mosul, five strikes engaged four ISIS tactical units; destroyed three mortar systems, two ISIS-held buildings, two vehicle-bomb factories, a supply cache, a fighting position, a front-end loader, an excavator, a dump truck, a generator trailer, a weapons cache and a vehicle; damaged 15 supply routes and three tunnels; and suppressed 17 mortar teams and an artillery team.

-- Near Rawah, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed three ISIS-held building and a vehicle.

-- Near Tal Afar, four strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and an ISIS staging area and destroyed two weapons caches, a vehicle-borne bomb, a front-end loader, an improvised-bomb factory and an ISIS-held building.

These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The destruction of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria also further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct external operations throughout the region and the rest of the world, task force officials said.

The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted.

Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect. For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said.

The task force does not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.</s>Few would argue that the so-called Islamic State is wreaking havoc on the Middle East, abducting and killing thousands of people. ISIS regularly creeps into world news reports, constantly reminding us of the horror of which our fellow humans are capable.

For me, ISIS’ grisly murder of journalist James Foley back in 2014 made the terror group almost personal. This was someone I could identify with – a journalist committed to understanding the truth about raw realities and trying to convey that to others. Foley is one of many American journalists and Western aid workers slaughtered by ISIS since 2014.

However, zeroing in on the one group of ISIS victims I personally identify with would demonstrate a narrow, egocentric view of the magnitude of chaos and murder occurring overseas. In 2014, the United Nations released a report that showed ISIS has not only killed Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities – it has methodically slaughtered Muslims who refused to assist ISIS or swear allegiance. Those numbers are only growing. As reported by the non-profit research and media organization, the Centre for Research on Globalization, Muslims suffered between 82 and 97 percent of terrorism-related fatalities in the five years before in 2016. According to a 2009 report by the Counter Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Al-Qaeda kills over seven times more Muslims than non-Muslims.

As Westerners, we have a tendency to focus on those of “us” who have been killed. The rhetoric surrounding ISIS focuses in its declaration of a jihad, or “holy war,” against Christians and Jewish people. This plays right into ISIS propaganda. It also minimizes the deaths of thousands of Muslims who constitute the majority of ISIS’ victims, and demonstrates a disconcerting insensitivity towards the loss of human life for the sake of preserving a sense of belonging to one special group.

ISIS kills Christians, Jews, Muslims, Americans, journalists, Westerners, and more. Ultimately, ISIS kills people. Fixating on the differences between these groups diminishes the humanity that they and all of us share.</s>A U.S. Commander Works With Iraqi Forces To Fight 'Brutal Enemy' ISIS

The war against ISIS is entering a tough new phase, as Iraqi fighters with growing U.S. assistance push into western Mosul, warns the senior American commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend.

"ISIS is a brutal, brutal enemy," said Townsend, speaking in Erbil as Iraq's security forces were about to attack Mosul's airport with help from the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition.

He said west Mosul will be more complex and challenging than the eastern side of the city, which was retaken from the extremists in four months. ISIS has its command center on the west side, along with stores of rockets and car bombs — and an urban geographical advantage.

"The old town of Mosul has the most ancient construction, and the narrowest winding streets," said Townsend. Iraqi forces will be unable to move combat vehicles in the warren, and the coalition will find it difficult to conduct airstrikes without hitting civilians.

As the deadline nears for a new plan on ISIS that President Trump asked his advisors to prepare, Townsend painted a somber picture of the battle against the extremists in Iraq and in neighboring Syria, where the coalition also operates.

He said ISIS still holds a little more than half the territory it has taken in Iraq since grabbing control of large parts of the country in 2014. And although he said U.S.-backed troops are moving closer to the ISIS-held city of Raqqa in Syria, he conceded it is not clear who will actually move to take the city.

As fighting in Mosul gears up again, Townsend visited U.S. troops near the front lines, some of about 450 of soldiers from the coalition. In a significant shift in tactics, the international forces are now more deeply embedded with their Iraqi counterparts around Mosul, part of an effort to reduce casualties and speed the campaign.

Leaping out of a Black Hawk helicopter, Townsend ran to meet officials at a federal police base at Hammam Alil, a village south of Mosul once known for its swimming hole. Now it has become a staging post for troops moving on ISIS.

Waiting to meet him was Iraq's new interior minister, Qasim al-Araji, who received the general with some pomp and a cluster of Iraqi television cameras.

"We thank you for your support to the federal police during this operation," said Araji.

"It does my heart good to see them moving so quickly," responded the American general.

Outside, U.S. troops stationed at the base mingled with Iraqi police, while rockets fired by ISIS thudded intermittently nearby.

American forces in Iraq do not fight on front lines, but they were wearing body armor and helmets. As coalition advisors have deployed closer to the battle, they have found themselves in harm's way, said the coalition's spokesman, Col. John Dorrian.

American troops "have come under fire at different times, they have returned fire at different times, in and around Mosul," Dorrian told reporters Wednesday.

At Townsend's next stop, a much smaller outpost also south of Mosul, American soldiers described how they try to help Iraqis defend themselves against ISIS's deadliest battlefield weapon: mobile car and truck bombs, which are often carefully hidden and which have been used in their hundreds.

Staff Sgt. Sung Kim said usually an Iraqi liaison officer will pass on information that his men can see the car bomb moving toward them.

"And we'll say, okay, so what direction? And they'll give it to us, and we'll immediately get the aircraft in the area," Kim said. The surveillance aircraft send images to a control center at this small base. "And we will search for it, and search for it, and search for it until we find it."

Then, they can call in an airstrike to target the bomb – known in military jargon as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device or VBIED. Out here, in wild, open countryside, it is clear Iraqis and Americans are working closely.

"The Iraqis – they're hardened men," said Kim. "They've been through the same crap over and over and over again – and the more VBIEDs we can hit before they hit the Iraqis, the better."

Americans and coalition partners are working with a range of Iraqi forces: local and national police, tribal fighters, the army, special forces. One body they do not yet assist directly is the one known as the Popular Mobilization.

These fighters, which include hard-line Shiite Muslim forces designated as terrorists by the U.S., are now officially part of Iraqi's security forces. Many of them are deployed west of Mosul — and, said Townsend, they, too, are part of the fight against ISIS.

They "absolutely are contributing positively to the fight," he said, noting that the fighters were following the orders of the prime minister and battlefield commanders.

"They're doing what they've been instructed to do and they are doing it fairly well," he said. "And it's because of them that Mosul is cut off from the rest of Iraq and Syria."

Townsend declined to discuss the new administration's strategy to defeat ISIS, and the effect of the – now blocked – executive order banning Iraqis and Syrians from traveling to the U.S. But he did pay tribute to American allies in those two countries, speaking of the sacrifices made by Iraqi security forces in east Mosul as they strove to avoid civilian casualties, and of the fact that the fight against ISIS is crucial to keeping the U.S. and the world safe.

"That's what I think I would like the people of the West to know," the general said in the closing moments of an interview conducted in the back of a muddy pickup truck. "How important this fight is here, and that our Iraqi and Syrian partners are sacrificing not only for their own countries, but for the region and the rest of the world as well."
U.S.-backed SDF forces on two fronts meet up northeast of Raqqa, encircling a pocket of villages still held by ISIS.