Photo Credit: U.S. Central Command
By Patrick Goodenough.
As the U.N. scrambles to help tens of thousands of religious minority Iraqis displaced by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS/ISIL), experts are warning that jihadists may have forced 1,500 Christians and Yazidis into sexual slavery.
“Atrocious accounts on the abduction and detention of Yazidi, Christian, as well as Turkomen and Shabak women, girls and boys, and reports of savage rapes, are reaching us in an alarming manner,” two U.N. experts said in a statement released in Baghdad.
“We condemn, in the strongest terms, the explicit targeting of women and children and the barbaric acts [ISIS] has perpetrated on minorities in areas under its control,” said U.N. special representative for Iraq Nickolay Mladenov and special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Bangura.
“We remind all armed groups that acts of sexual violence are grave human rights violations that can be considered as war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Mladenov urged regional governments and the international community to help secure the release of the women and girls captured by the jihadists.
Read more from this story HERE.
___________________________________________________________________
Coptic Bishop: Without Action, It’s Only a Matter of Time Before Islamic Fundamentalism “Infects the Entire World”
By Leah Barkoukis.
ISIS’ barbarism in Syria and Iraq has gotten so bad that even the Vatican has signaled that military action may be necessary. And Down Under, Bishop Anba Suriel, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the diocese of Melbourne, denounced the terrorist group in no uncertain terms and urged Australia, and the world, to act before “such fundamentalisms infects the entire world.”
“The world watches in silence as the last Christians are expelled from Mosul, Iraq in one of the most merciless and barbaric acts of genocide we have seen in the 21st Century,” Suriel, who was born in Egypt, said in a statement last week.
“Mosul, the cradle of Christianity in Iraq since the first centuries, is now purged of its entire Christian population,” he continued. “The ruthless and purposeful savagery of the attacks by the fundamentalist Muslim terrorist organization The Islamic State (IS) formerly known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is truly inconceivable.”
Read more from this story HERE.
___________________________________________________________________
Photo Credit: Reuters
By DAMIEN GAYLE and SOPHIE JANE EVANS FOR MAILONLINE and MAIL ON SUNDAY REPORTER.
Islamic State militants today ‘massacred’ more than 300 Yazidi men – just one day after allegedly killing 82 others who refused to convert to Islam.
The insurgents stormed into the small village of Kocho in northern Iraq, where they spent five days trying to persuade villagers to take up their religion, local officials said.
When they refused, 82 male members of the ancient sect were reportedly rounded up and shot dead yesterday, while more than 100 women and girls were kidnapped.
And today, a further 312 Yazidis were allegedly murdered and their families abducted.
Read more from this story HERE.
___________________________________________________________________
Rogers: Competing Terror Groups Multiply Danger to U.S.
By Patrick Goodenough.
The terrorist threat facing the United States is greater now than it was before 9/11 and the failure to address the jihadist problem as “an ecosystem” is helping it to spread and become more dangerous, House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers warned Sunday.
“The difference here is that, before 9/11, there were single-level threat streams coming into the United States – some pretty serious,” the Michigan Republican said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “Obviously, they got in and conducted the attacks on 9/11.”
“Now you have multiple organizations, all al-Qaeda-minded, trying to accomplish the same thing,” he said, citing the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda affiliated such as the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Read more from this story HERE.
Incredible footage has emerged showing a 26ft (8m) deep crack in the in the farmland of northwest Mexico, which stretches for over a kilometer. The crevice which appeared last week, has disconnected Highway 26 between Hermosillo and the coast, Sky News reported. Drivers, including farm workers, have been forced to navigate around the colossal trench. The video showcasing the crack that in some parts is 16ft (5m) wide, was shot using a camera attached to a drone device. It shows vehicles stopped beside the crack, while a green tractor drives away from the scene. People below the drone appear to be discussing the situation. Geological investigators are now assessing what caused the crack, according to El Imparcial newspaper. The civil protection unit believes the fissure may have been caused by an earthquake which hit last Sunday. But another investigation by geologists at the University of Sonora found that farmers in the area had built up a levee stream to contain rainwater which had begun to leak. Experts believe that this may have caused an underground stream to develop, which soften the earth above it until it collapsed. -Independent
