At least four people were killed, and one were wounded in recent violence:

The Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency released a video in which militants executed two people they referred to as “election advocators.” The video was released on April 22, and the agency claimed the pair was from Tarmiya.

Gunmen killed one person and wounded another in Baaj.

Also in Tarmiya, a suicide bomber was killed.

Turkish clashes with the Kurdistan Workers Party (P.K.K.) along the border forced villagers to flee their homes.
• Five Foreign Women Condemned to Death in Iraqi Court; Four Killed in Iraq – April 26th, 2018
• Iraqi Forces Kill 40 Militants in and Near Syria; 20 Found in Mass Grave in Mosul – April 22nd, 2018 </s> (Reuters) - Islamic State’s Amaq News Agency released a video on Friday showing what they said was Islamic State militants shooting “two advocators” for next month’s Iraqi parliamentary elections in the town of al-Tarmiyah, in the Salah al-Din governorate north of Baghdad.

Islamic State said earlier this week that it would attack polling stations in Iraq during parliamentary elections next month and that anyone who participated in the vote would be considered an infidel.

In an audio message released on April 22, the militant group’s spokesman accused Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government of being a proxy of Iran and warned that anyone who runs or votes in the May 12 election would be targeted.

Iraqi officials have said polling stations will be well protected.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory in December over Islamic State, which seized a third of Iraq in 2014, but the hardline Sunni militants have reverted to insurgency tactics following the crumbling of their self-declared caliphate. </s> Baghdad (Iraqinews.com) – At least 22 Iraqi people were killed and wounded in a random shooting spree in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in the latest of several terrorist attacks against civilians in this war-torn country.

“The attack occurred late on Tuesday when unidentified gunmen randomly opened fire at civilians in a remote village in Baghdad’s al-Tarmia district, leaving eight dead and 14 others wounded,” a security source told Alghad Press Wednesday.

“The troops immediately rushed to the shooting scene and sealed off all entrances and exits of the district,” the source noted. “A manhunt was launched in search of the attackers, who fled the scene after the shooting.”

Meanwhile, the Iraqi security media council denied in a statement all reports on the spread of terrorist gangs in al-Tarmia, stressing that the district is fully under the control of security forces.

The Iraqi capital has seen almost daily bombings and armed attacks against security members, paramilitary troops and civilians since the Iraqi government launched a wide-scale campaign to retake Islamic State-occupied areas in 2016.

Though most of the daily bombings go without a claim of responsibility, Islamic State is expected to be behind many.

Despite the group’s crushing defeat at its main havens across Iraq last December, Islamic State continues to launch sporadic attacks against troops with security reports warning that the militant group still poses a threat against stability in the country. </s> TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran executed eight men convicted over the 2017 Islamic State attack on parliament and the shrine of the Islamic Republic’s founding ayatollah, the bloodiest terror attack to strike Tehran in decades, authorities said Saturday.

The June 7, 2017 attack has so far been the only assault by the Sunni extremists inside of Shiite Iran, which has been deeply involved in the wars in Iraq and Syria where the militants once held vast territory. IS has since have been beaten back by Iranian-aided Shiite militias in Iraq, as well as by a U.S.-led coalition operating in both countries, though Iran has made other arrests involving the group in the time since.

The judiciary’s official Mizan news agency announced the executions Saturday morning, but did not say when or where they took place. The head of Tehran’s Justice Department, Gholamhossein Esmaili, told Iranian state television that authorities conducted the executions days earlier but chose not to immediately announce them, likely as a security measure.

Executions in Iran are carried out by hangings.

Mizan noted in its report that the executions came after the eight men had been tried and convicted in a trial that included both eyewitness testimony and video footage showing their involvement by providing the attackers support in the days leading up to the assault.

“These eight worked directly … in martyring and wounding a number of innocent compatriots,” Mizan said.

The news agencies on Saturday named those executed as Soleiman Mozafari, Esmail Sufi, Rahman Behrouz, Majed Mortezai, Sirous Azizi, Ayoub Esmaili, Khosro Ramezani and Osman Behrouz. Over a dozen others remain on trial over the attack.

While Iran is one of the world’s top enforcers of the death penalty, such mass executions are rare. In August 2016, human rights activists criticized Iran for carrying out the mass execution of 20 convicted Sunni militants from a group identified as Jihad and Tawhid after a six-year trial. In August 2007, Iran hanged seven men convicted of rape in Mashhad at the same time.

The June 2017 Islamic State attack killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 50. It saw gunmen carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and explosives storm the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress, starting an hours-long siege.

Meanwhile, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum on Tehran’s southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran’s first supreme leader until his death in 1989.

The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the years-long tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution. The image of a child being passed out of a window at parliament under the watch of armed security forces remains seared in the minds of many.

Iran’s security forces responded with heavy force. Authorities arrested suspected IS militants, including their wives. In August 2017, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said it detained 27 militants linked to the Islamic State group who planned to attack holy Shiite cities within the country.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard responded to the attack by launching six ballistic missiles into eastern Syria targeting IS militants. It marked the first time Iran had fired its missiles in anger since its 1980s war with Iraq.

That raised new concerns in the West about its ballistic missile program amid the unraveling of its nuclear deal with world powers. That deal is now in danger of collapse with America’s withdrawal from the accord. Economic problems, water scarcity and other woes meanwhile have led to protests in Iran.

Iran remains one of the world’s top executioners. It was second only to China in 2017 in the number of known executions carried out, conducting over 500 hangings, according to Amnesty International.

The IS executions come as controversy still swirls in Iran around the country’s mass executions of 1988 near the end of the Iran-Iraq War. Activists at the time said Iran executed as many as 5,000 people after sham trials of Communists, Kurdish separatists, political prisoners and members of an Iranian exile group known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq.

Those executions represent one of the darkest moments of Iran’s post-revolution history and are still not recognized by its government.

Copyright © 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed. </s> BAGHDAD — Iraqi officials say gunmen in two speeding cars opened fire on civilians near a town north of Baghdad, killing at least eight people and wounding 13.

Eyewitnesses told the police they saw the gunmen displaying the black flag of the Islamic State group.

Two police officials said Wednesday that the attack happened late the night before in a busy commercial area near Tarmiyah. The town is located about 50 kilometres, or 30 miles, north of Baghdad.

Iraq is heading into parliamentary elections on May 12 — the first balloting since the government declared IS defeated in Iraq. Despite the defeat, IS militants are still capable of launching deadly assaults.

The police officials and eyewitnesses spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to the media. </s> The elusive chief of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has appeared for the first time in five years in a propaganda video released by the armed group.

ISIL's Al Furqan media network published on Monday what it said was a video message from its leader, in which he said the group would seek revenge for the killing and imprisonment of its fighters.

It was unclear when the footage was filmed but al-Baghdadi referred in the past tense to the months-long fight for Baghouz, ISIL's final bastion in eastern Syria, that ended last month.

"The battle for Baghouz is over," said the ISIL leader with a bushy grey beard and an assault weapon close by, sitting cross-legged on a cushion and addressing three men whose faces had been blurred.

Wearing a black robe with a beige vest, al-Baghdadi gave an 18-minute address.

The SITE Intelligence group said he also discussed the bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people on Easter Sunday in an audio recording after the video ends.

"Your brothers in Sri Lanka have healed the hearts of monotheists [ISIL members] with their suicide bombings, which shook the beds of the crusaders during Easter to avenge your

brothers in Baghouz," he said.

'More to come'

This was his first appearance in a video since delivering a sermon at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014. That speech marked the rise of the group and its self-declared "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria.

In January of the same year, ISIL took the Syrian city of Raqqa as its de-facto capital. By June, the group had also captured Iraq's second city of Mosul, with a population of two million people. It held both cities until 2017.

Grisly public executions were a regular occurrence in ISIL's former areas, including burning people alive and beheadings.

At its peak in January 2015, ISIL controlled an area across Syria and Iraq roughly equivalent to the size of the United Kingdom and had attracted 40,000 fighters to its cause.

With a $25m US bounty on his head, al-Baghdadi is the world's most wanted man. Despite numerous claims about his death in the past few years, his whereabouts remain a mystery.

"Our battle today is a war of attrition to harm the enemy, and they should know that jihad will continue until doomsday," al-Baghdadi said in the video.

The written script at the start of the video dated it to earlier in April. The authenticity and date of the recording could not be independently verified.

Al-Baghdadi has periodically issued audio statements. His last voice recording to supporters was released in August 2018 - eight months after Iraq announced it had defeated ISIL and US-backed forces closed in on the group in Syria.

In the video published on Monday, he insisted ISIL's operations against the West were part of a "long battle" and the group would "take revenge" for its members who had been killed.

"There will be more to come after this battle," said al-Baghdadi, apparently referring to the final fight in Baghouz.

The 'caliphate'

Over the years, several armed groups outside the Middle East, including in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, have pledged allegiance to ISIL, claiming devastating attacks on both civilians and security personnel.

The United Nations in 2016 said at least 34 groups from around the world had pledged allegiance to the group.

Judit Neurink, journalist and author of The War of ISIS: On the Road to the Caliphate, said the video would send an important message to ISIL's fighters that al-Baghdadi was "still there" at the head of the group.

"ISIS want to show Sri Lanka was how 'we are going to be, we are going to be everywhere, no longer in Iraq and Syria, but all these different places where you have to watch out for us, all our people are going to attack in different places, the global jihad is a fact'," Neurink added.

Nader Hashemi from the University of Denver said al-Baghdadi is trying to capitalize on the Sri Lanka massacre to draw attention to ISIL's continued threat despite its defeat in the Middle East.

"This is also a huge embarrassment for Donald Trump's administration. Just a few weeks ago, Trump was claiming, 'mission accomplished' and 'the war is over'. This video clearly sends a message to the Americans - and Trump in particular - that the head of the organisation is very much alive," Hashemi told Al Jazeera. </s> Nassiriya, Iraq: Iraq executed by hanging seven of its citizens convicted of “terrorism”, the head of the health ministry in the southern province of Dhi Qar said on Monday.

Doctor Abdul Hassan Al Jabri said the bodies of the seven men were handed over on Monday to the morgue of the state hospital of Nassiriya, the provincial capital.

They had been tried and convicted on charges of “terrorism”, he said.

In December last year Iraq declared “victory” over Daesh after a three-year war against the terrorists who once controlled nearly one third of the country.

In June, Iraq executed 13 extremists after Daesh claimed responsibility for the murder of eight civilians.

Iraq has repeatedly faced criticism from international human rights groups over the high number of death sentences handed down by its anti-terrorist courts.

In 2017, at least 111 convicts were hanged in Iraq and this year 44 people have been executed. </s> BEIRUT – The leader of the Islamic State group has appeared for the first time in 5 years in a video released by the extremist group’s propaganda arm.

The video released by Al-Furqan on Monday shows Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appearing with a bushy grey and red beard, wearing a black robe with a beige vest and seated on the floor with what appears to be a machine-gun propped up next to him.

READ MORE: Despite losing all territory, Islamic State’s leader is still at large

It is his first video appearance since he delivered a sermon at the al-Nuri mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014.

The SITE Intelligence group said al-Baghdadi acknowledged in the video the end of the battle in Baghouz, the group’s last stronghold in Syria, and discussed the bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people. </s> CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State’s media network on Monday published a video message purporting to come from its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in what would be his first appearance since declaring the jihadists’ now-defunct “caliphate” five years ago.

In the 18-minute video from the Al Furqan network, a bearded man with Baghdadi’s appearance says the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka were Islamic State’s response to losses in its last territorial stronghold of Baghouz in Syria.

The group is engaged in a “battle of attrition” and will seek revenge for jailed and killed militants, he says, calling for militants operating in west Africa to multiply attacks against “Crusader France and its allies”.

The authenticity and date of the recording could not be independently verified.

The video would be the first from Baghdadi since he was filmed in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014. More recent speeches have been released as audio recordings.

Written script at the start of the video dates it to earlier in April, and he can be seen sitting cross-legged on the floor giving an address to several aides with their faces covered.

The speaker looks like a slightly older version of Baghdadi than when he was pictured in 2014, addressing followers from a pulpit to declare a caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria.

In the footage released on Monday, he is dressed in black robes and a beige waistcoat, with a long graying beard dyed red at the bottom.

Baghdadi’s whereabouts have been unknown since Islamic State’s territorial control began disintegrating with the fall of Mosul and Raqqa, its strongholds in Iraq and Syria respectively, in 2017.

There had been conflicting reports over whether Baghdadi, an Iraqi, is still alive. But security sources have recently said he is thought to be hiding out in remote areas of Syria or Iraq.

The CIA had no immediate comment on the video.

U.S. air strikes killed most of Baghdadi’s top lieutenants, including “war minister” Abu Omar al-Shishani, “governor of the Iraqi region” Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, group spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani and “governor for Syria” Abu Ali al-Anbari.

Though it lost its last significant territory, the Syrian village of Baghouz, last month, the group has sleeper cells around the world and some fighters operate from the shadows in Syria’s desert and Iraq’s cities.

It claimed responsibility for the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka that killed more than 250 people.
Islamic State releases a video showing the shooting executions of two men, said to be election "advocators" from al-Tarmiyah, Iraq.