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ISIS Releases 22 Christian Hostages in Syria

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syria-newsflashes_nfblTwenty-two Christians taken hostage by Islamic State (IS) terrorists in February in northeast Syria were released on Tuesday.

The 22 are part of a group of over 220 Assyrian Christians who were taken captive in several villages on the banks of the Khabur River not far from Hasaka. The released Christians came from Tal Shamiram and Tal Jazirah.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, tribal leaders mediated the release of the group. Reports indicate that money was paid for their freedom. The released elderly Christians, 14 of them women, were taken to one of the churches in Hasaka.

“This is certainly good news, but the fact is that Islamic State is committing genocide across Syria, Iraq and beyond,” says Jerry Dykstra, Media Relations Director for Open Doors USA. “The reign of terror is not abating. Thousands have been killed and kidnapped. Hundreds of villages have been destroyed. Christians in the West must stand in the gap for our fellow believers.”

The Assyrian Federation of Sweden, which has followed the case, said Tuesday’s release brings the total number of freed Assyrians to 45.

IS still holds 187 Christians from the Khabur-region captive. Please continue to pray for this large group. Pray that the Lord will strengthen them and that they continue to put their trust in the Lord. Pray for the people who are attempting to free them.

Last week IS abducted over 60 Christians from the central town of Quaryatayn, hours after it was captured by the group. Nearly half of them were later released, but the fate of the rest of the hostages remains unknown.Assyrians numbered about 30,000 among Syria’s 1.8 million Christians before the country’s conflict began. They lived mostly in 35 villages in Hasaka.
Syria is ranked #4 on Open Doors 2015 World Watch List of the 50 worst persecutors of Christians. Approximately 4 million Syrians have left the country. Inside Syria there are 6.5 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). It is estimated that 700,000 Christians have left Syria since the war began over four years ago.

Open Doors continues to work with churches and Christian partners in Syria to provide food, clothing, medical supplies and trauma counseling. Help feed an entire family for a month for just $50. (Re-posted with permission, “ISIS Releases 22 Christian Hostages in Syria”, originally appeared HERE)

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Leader of Islamic State Used American Hostage as Sex Slave

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downloadThe leader of the Islamic State personally kept a 26-year-old American woman as a hostage and raped her repeatedly, according to U.S. officials and her family.

The family of Kayla Mueller said in an interview Friday that the FBI had informed them that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, had sexually abused their daughter, a humanitarian worker.

Mueller’s parents said the FBI first spoke to the family about the sexual assault in late June and provided more details two weeks ago. The bureau pieced together what happened to the American from interviews with other hostages and the captured wife of a senior Islamic State figure . . .

The disclosure that Mueller was raped by Baghdadi adds to the grim evidence that the exploitation and abuse of women has been sanctioned at the highest levels of the Islamic State. The sexual enslavement of even teenage girls is seen as religiously endorsed by the group and regarded as a recruiting tool.

News of Baghdadi’s abuse of Mueller, who was from Prescott, Ariz., was first reported Friday by the Independent, a London newspaper. (Read more from “Leader of Islamic State Used American Hostage as Sex Slave” HERE)

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Outgoing Army Chief Ray Odierno: U.S. In ‘Stalemate’ With ISIS

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Barack Obama, Ray OdiernoBy Morgan Chalfant. Days before his retirement, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno is emphasizing the need for the United States to continue its campaign against the Islamic State in the Middle East, describing the current U.S. position against the terrorist organization as a “stalemate.”

AFP reported that Odierno said Wednesday that though the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIL or ISIS) “has been blunted somewhat” in Iraq by U.S. airstrikes coupled with Kurdish and Iraqi ground forces, the military must make defeating the terrorist group its top priority.

“I think right now we are kind of at a stalemate and continue to make some progress,” explained Odierno, who spent more time in Iraq than any other U.S. Army general. He also stressed the need for the U.S. to continue to rebuild the Iraqi forces.

He echoed comments made by the veteran general nominated to lead the Marine Corps earlier this month. While undergoing questioning from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R., Ariz.), Lt. Gen. Robert Neller likewise characterized the U.S. campaign against IS in Iraq and Syria as a “stalemate.”

However, Obama administration officials–including the president himself–have touted the “progress” the United States has witnessed against IS. (Read more from “Outgoing Army Chief Ray Odierno: U.S. In ‘Stalemate’ With ISIS” HERE)

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Croatian Hostage Reportedly Beheaded in Egypt

By Brian Rohan. A Croatian hostage abducted in Egypt by Islamic State militants has been beheaded, according to a gruesome image circulated Wednesday, a killing that, if confirmed, would be the first of its kind involving a foreign captive in the country.

The killing of the 30-year-old oil and gas sector surveyor would deal a blow to President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s attempts to burnish the country’s reputation a week after he unveiled a new extension of the Suez canal in a much hyped ceremony attended by international dignitaries.

It will also probably rattle companies with expatriate workers in Egypt and cast a cloud over hopes of boosting international investment and tourism following years of unrest in the aftermath of Egypt’s Arab Spring uprising.

The still photo, circulated by Islamic State supporters on social media, appeared to show the body of Tomislav Salopek, a married father of two, wearing a beige jumpsuit like the one he had worn in a previous video. A black flag used by the Islamic State group and a knife were planted in the sand next to his body.

A caption in Arabic said Salopek was killed for his country’s participation in the war against the Islamic State, and said the deadline had passed for Egypt to meet the group’s demands to free jailed Islamist women. (Read more from this story HERE)

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An ISIS Thug Was About to Behead a Boy and His Father When an Unseen Force Turned the Tables

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britishsniper-913x512By Randy DeSoto. A British special forces sniper saved the lives of a young boy and his father who were about to be decapitated by ISIS militants.

They were dragged out of the crowd and made to kneel down as a tall, bearded, knife-wielding jihadist emerged and stood over them. Two ISIS fighters toting AK-47s also stood nearby.

“[The ISIS militant] began addressing the crowd and slapping the father and his son around the head and kicking them on to the floor,” a source told the Daily Star.

The SAS unit quickly ruled out a drone strike, concerned that innocent bystanders would be killed. Their sniper was tasked to put his skills to use.

From over a half-mile away, the sharpshooter, using a .50 calibre sniper rifle fitted with a silencer, killed the executioner just in time. (Read more from “An ISIS Thug Was About to Behead a Boy and His Father When an Unseen Force Turned the Tables” HERE)

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British Sniper Saves Boy, Father From Islamic State Beheading With Half-Mile Shot

By Sharona Schwartz. A British special forces sniper saved the lives of a boy and his father who were about to be beheaded by Islamic State jihadists by firing a shot at the head of the executioner from his position more than half a mile away, a British newspaper reported.

According to the Daily Star, a unit of Britain’s special forces Special Air Service carrying out covert patrols on the Syrian-Turkish border was tipped by an Iraqi spy to the execution site where Shiites accused of being “infidels” were going to be beheaded.

An unnamed military source told the newspaper that “there were several decapitated bodies already lying on the ground” in the village where the field trial and punishment were underway.

An SAS ground unit had moved into position just outside the village where the gruesome punishment was being meted out.

“Through binoculars, the soldiers could see that the crowd were terrified and many were in tears,” the source said. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Trump Just Announced His Plan for ISIS – and It Includes Something Highly Controversial

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shutterstock_196597025-913x512Continuing his trademark style of delivering bold and controversial answers to pesky problems, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently revealed a central component of his plan for battling Islamic extremism in the Middle East.

He described terrorist group ISIS as a well-funded organization reliant on oil for its revenue. It is on this front, he said during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, that he would attack the organization.

“Every place where they have oil,” he said, “I would knock the hell out of them.”

His plan would call for the deployment of ground troops in the region, he acknowledged.

“I would knock out the source of their wealth, which is oil,” he said. “And in order to do that, you would have to put boots on the ground. I would knock the hell out of them, but I’d put a ring around it and I’d take the oil for our country.”

Reaction to his proposal was mixed, with some citing a previous campaign promise for which Trump received pointed criticism. (Read more from “Trump Just Announced His Plan for ISIS – and It Includes Something Highly Controversial” HERE)

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ISIS Invades Afghanistan, Captures Men and Blows Them up to Pieces, in Order to Do This [+video]

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isis-exp-copyBy Walid Shoebat. To ISIS, the way to win is to establish themselves in Afghanistan since in Muslim Prophecy, the battle for Jerusalem stems from Khorasan (Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan …) with Muslims carrying the black flags. This is the spark to all Muslims that they must join the Jihad for Jerusalem.

Yesterday, ISIS did that and has released a new video showing how they exported their terror agenda all the way to Afghanistan as an initiation by ISIS to declare that Afghanistan (Islamic Khorasan) is now in the fold of ISIS. In this video, ten prisoners accused of collaborating with Pakistan’s ISI against ISIS, kneel over explosives, then detonated shattering them into pieces where ISIS tracks the flying fleshly debris on film . . .

[WARNING: extremely graphic content:]

The issue of ISIS showing this footage in Afghanistan is serious to prove that they have control in Taliban infested Afghanistan.

The issue of Afghanistan is the struggle between two Caliphs competing for recognition: Mullah Omar (Mullā Muḥammad ‘Umar Mujáhid is the supreme commander and the spiritual leader of the Taliban) and Caliph Baghdadi of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. (Read more from “ISIS Invades Afghanistan, Takes a Multitude of Men and Blows Them up to Pieces, in Order to Do This” HERE)

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Sickening Video Reveals Isis’s New Method of Execution: Ten Prisoners Made to Kneel Above Bombs That Have Been Buried in the Ground

By Tom Wyke. They have burnt men alive and drowned prisoners in metal cages but now ISIS have released a new video showing off their new horrific method of committing murder.

Filmed in an unknown location in Afghanistan, ISIS militants are shown burying several explosive charges beneath the ground before covering them with earth.

The ten prisoners are blindfolded and led up to where the bombs have been buried before they are forced to their knees. The bloodthirsty jihadis detonate the charges, killing all the prisoners.

All the victims are described as ‘apostates’, according to the ISIS video, which appeared on jihadi social media accounts last night.

It is believed the victims are from the Shinwari tribe and were accused of aiding the Taliban in the Afghan province of Nangarhar, where ISIS was recently expelled. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Inspired by Oscar Schindler, Jewish Businessman Leads Effort to Rescue Christian, Yazidi Girls From ISIS

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children-300x200A Jewish businessman is leading an effort to rescue Christian and Yazidi girls kidnapped by ISIS militants and sold as sex slaves in northern Iraq, U.K. based Catholic magazine The Tablet reported on Friday.

Steve Maman, 42, founded the Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq (CYCI) a year ago after ISIS jihadists took over the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Sinjar, forcing more than 100,000 civilians to flee. The Canada-based charity works closely with a team of negotiators, based inside ISIS-occupied areas, to reunite the kidnapped girls with their families. The group claims to have rescued more than 120 women so far . . .

“We liberate children from their captors through the use of on-the-ground brokers,” said Maman. His organization’s website says, “The price of a child’s life to remove them from the hands of ISIS is between $1000-$3000” . . .

CYCI also collaborates with Anglican Canon Andrew White’s Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, which provides shelter to those who have fled ISIS.

ISIS kidnapped 7,000 Yazidi women and girls into slavery last August, according to Tablet. An unknown number of Christian women and girls were also captured, and CYCI estimates that around 2,700 are still being held by the terror group. According to the charity’s website, the women and children, some as young as 8 years old, are held in horrible conditions and are often forced to sleep in cages. They are then “sold like cattle in markets” as sex slaves to ISIS fighters and militants. (Read more from “Inspired by Oscar Schindler, Jewish Businessman Leads Effort to Rescue Christian, Yazidi Girls From ISIS” HERE)

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ISIS Executes 19 Girls for Refusing to Have Sex With Fighters

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2B214EDC00000578-3186229-image-m-20_1438811604610ISIS fanatics have executed 19 women for refusing to have sex with its fighters, a Kurdish official has said.

He claimed the women were being held hostage in Islamic State’s stronghold of Mosul, Iraq, which the terror group seized in June last year.

Meanwhile a UN envoy investigating Islamic State’s vile sex trade has said ‘girls get peddled like barrels of petrol’ and one can be bought by six different men.

She also verified a disturbing ISIS document which suggested the extremists sell the Yazidi and Christian women and children they have abducted, with girls aged just one to nine-years-old fetching the most money.

ISIS stormed the Sinjar district in northern Iraq last year and captured hundreds of women belonging to the Yazidi community, who the Islamists view as heretics. (Read more from “ISIS Executes 19 Girls for Refusing to Have Sex With Fighters” HERE)

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US Allows Ally Turkey to Bomb Only Group Effectively Fighting ISIS

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Syria1_0Late in July, the Anti-Media reported that Turkey joined the U.S. led coalition conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL). Since then, it has become clear that Turkey’s strategy is part of a larger agreement with the U.S. to conduct a war against “extremism” in the region.

The deal between the U.S. and Turkey has the following contours: Turkey will allow the U.S. to use its military base at Incirlik to conduct airstrikes against the Islamic State. In exchange, the U.S. will allow Turkey to create a buffer zone on Syrian soil free of Islamic State and Kurdish fighters. The stated aim of the “safe zone” is to create a refuge for internally displaced Syrian civilians inside Syria. According to the New York Times,

“The plan would create what officials from both countries are calling an Islamic State-free zone controlled by relatively moderate Syrian insurgents, which the Turks say could also be a ‘safe zone’ for displaced Syrians.”

For Turkey, however, the real aim is to prevent the YPG Kurdish fighters from linking up their three zones of control (Efrin, Kobani, and Cizir pictured below; Tal Abyad is already under YPG control) in northern Syria with each other. These Kurdish fighters also happen to be the sole force that has shown the ability to effectively defeat ISIS in battle. However, the real aim of Turkey was voiced by the leader of the Kurdish opposition party—HDP— in the Turkish parliament, Selahattin Demirtas:

“‘Turkey doesn’t intend to target IS with this safe zone. The Turkish government was seriously disturbed by Kurds trying to create an autonomous state in Syria,’ he said, adding that ‘the safe zone is intended to stop the Kurds, not IS.'”

(Read more from “US Allows Ally Turkey to Bomb Only Group Effectively Fighting ISIS” HERE)

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Turkey Using Its Unpopular Bombing Raids on ISIS as Cover to Kill Iraqi Kurds

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It appears as if Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is using ISIS as a pretext to attack the PKK. Ankara just announced that its air base at Incirlik will soon be open to coalition forces, presumably to fight ISIS, but the moment Turkey started bombing, it targeted Kurdish positions. Those attacks not only open a new era of death and destruction, but also bring an end to all possibilities of resolving Turkey’s Kurdish issue non-violently.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that, “[A] second wave operation against Daesh [ISIS] in Syria was started. Just after that, a very comprehensive operation was carried out against the camps of the terrorist organization PKK in northern Iraq. I am glad that the targets were hit with great success. We have given instructions to start a third wave operation in Syria and a second wave operation in Iraq.”

The “great success” of the Turkish military has brought much damage and injury to even Kurdish civilians — including children. The Kurdish newspaper Rudaw reported that two Kurdish villagers in Duhok’s Berwari region were carried to hospital in the aftermath of a Turkish artillery bombardment in the Amediye region. One of the victims was 12 years old. The second victim lost a leg in an airstrike. Four members of the PKK were killed and several others were injured.

Shortly after military operations against the PKK started, access to the websites of pro-Kurdish newspapers and news agencies was denied “by decree of court.” These websites — including Fırat News Agency (ANF), Dicle News Agency (DIHA), Hawar News Agency (ANHA), Ozgur Gundem newspaper, Yuksekova News, Rudaw and BasNews — are still blocked in Turkey.

ISIS, meanwhile, has not so far made any statement regarding Turkey’s so-called bombings of ISIS in any of its media outlets. (Read more from “Turkey Using Its Unpopular Bombing Raids on ISIS as Cover to Kill Iraqi Kurds” HERE)

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