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Islamic State denounces 'Kurdish-Crusader' alliance on Twitter; calls Barack Obama 'Crusader master'

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The Islamic State (IS), formerly known as ISIL/ISIS, has denounced what it calls the Kurdish-Crusader alliance in an English language version of their statement on the recent conflicts with Iraqi security forces and soldiers of the Kurdish peshmerga.

A post on the micro-blogging website Twitter shows a two page statement by the Media Office of the Islamic State, with its trademark black flag at the centre, titled "Statement on the Raids of Confronting the American-Kurdish Alliance".

Also Read: What is ISIL, the jihadist group that threatens to fracture Iraq and the Middle East?

The release describes how soldiers of the Khilafah (the Islamic Caliphate) made the "gangs and militias" of the Kurdish peshmerga "taste defeat after defeat on all fronts". It refers to the Iraqi and Western troops they fought as 'slaves of secularism' and 'agents of the Freemasons'. United States President Barack Obama is called the 'Crusader master', and 'the Black of Washington'.

The Crusades were a series of wars and military campaigns sanctioned and conducted by the Roman Catholic Church from the 11th to the 16th centuries, mainly against the expansion of Islam along the frontiers of Europe. The Islamic State ostensibly sees the ongoing conflict as a repeat or a continuation of the war between Christianity and Islam, and is intent on targeting all religions and religious minorities in Iraq so as to purify it and purge it of all non-Islamist influences.

The statement talks of the heavy losses the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga suffered in battle against the Islamic State, and calls the news coverage of the situation in Iraq "lies and deception" as part of a media being circulated only to boost the morale of the enemy.

Referring to its own fighters as 'Knights of the Khilafah' and 'hungry lions of the Islamic State', the release goes on to describe all the damage the Islamic State inflicted on Iraqi security forces and the manner in which their soldiers were killed.

The release also mentions how the helicopter of Iraq's only Yazidi member of Parliament, Vian Dakhil, was shot down over the Mount Sinjar. The pilot of the helicopter died in the attack, and Dakhil herself was injured. According to reports, she was initially declared dead in a news report.

The Yazidis, an ethnic and religious Iraqi minority, have been fleeing persecution by the Islamic State after being trapped in the Sinjar mountains. The Islamic State has reportedly killed around 500 Yazidis, and up to 70% of the community may have been wiped out, according to The Telegraph. The Yazidis now face a life in exile. 

Also Read: Who are Iraq's Yazidis and why is the Islamic State targeting them?

Ever since the conflict began in early June 2014, the Islamic State made rapid progress across Iraq and even declared an Islamic Caliphate, before coming up against fierce resistance by the Kurdish peshmerga. The IS is focused on seizing land in the Middle East for the Caliphate that it declared across the Muslim world, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

On Tuesday, the Islamic State also sent a video message to the United States, threatening to drown all Americans in blood.

For full coverage of the Iraq crisis, read here.

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