‘Buried Yazidis alive’
Iraq’s human rights minister says ISIS buried Yazidi alive in attacks on the town of Sinjar that kill at least 500 of the ethnic minority in the north of the country. Mohammed Shia al-Sudani:
We have striking evidence obtained from Yazidis fleeing Sinjar and some who escaped death, and also crime scene images that show indisputably that the gangs of the Islamic State have executed at least 500 Yazidis after seizing Sinjar. Some of the victims, including women and children were buried alive in scattered mass graves in and around Sinjar.
Iraq statement
From outside his vacation house in Chilmark, MA, Obama gives a statement (full text) on the latest developments in Iraq. He states that US forces have:
successfully conducted targeted airstrikes to prevent terrorist forces from advancing on the city of Erbil, and to protect American civilians there.
He also addressed the humanitarian efforts to help citizens that are stranded on Mount Sinjar without food or water and noted that the US has deployed a USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team to assst:
Some people have begun to escape their perch on that mountain, and we’re working with international partners to develop options to bring them to safety.
‘U.S. support for Anbar’
The governor of Sunni-majority Anbar province says he has received a pledge of U.S. support, including air power, to help groups in the province fight ISIS, which has control of large parts of the province and is threatening key assets. Ahmed Khalaf al-Dulaimi:
Our first goal is the air support. Their technology capability will offer a lot of intelligence information and monitoring of the desert and many things which we are in need of. No date was decided but it will be very soon and there will be a presence for the Americans in the western area.
Dulaimi is concerned by the militants’ determination to seize control of Anbar’s Haditha dam.
The situation in Haditha, where the dam is, is controlled by security forces and tribes. But the problem is how long can they endure the pressure?
He says the embassy has committed to a presence in Anbar:
I held several meetings since one month ago with the American Embassy and the commander of the central troops all in this regard, and very soon there will be a joint coordination center and operations in Anbar. They gave a promise.
State Department spokesperson to reporters:
We’re having conversations about what it (any security assistance) might look like in the future, but nothing concrete beyond that.
100,000 migrants entered Italy in 2014
Italy’s interior ministry says 101,480 boat migrants arrived in the country in 2014. Italy has rescued more than 70,000 migrants through its “Mare Nostrum” (Our Sea) mission of Mediterranean patrols which it began in October 2014. The operation patrols the waters between Africa and Sicily. Recent migrants have been refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war and Eritrea’s harsh military service. Italy’s interior minister says the country is “proud to be saving lives” of migrants and without its efforts the Mediterranean would have become a “lake of death”.
Hezbollah will fight ISIS
Nasrallah says Hezbollah is prepared to fight the growing ‘monster’ of ISIS that threatens Lebanon.
Here we live, and – if the battle is imposed on us – here we fight and here we will be martyred.
While ISIS is now facing stronger resistance in Iraq and Syria, moderate regimes across the region are at risk from the group:
Wherever there are followers of the ideology there is ground for (Islamic State), and this exists in Jordan, in Saudi Arabia, in Kuwait and the Gulf state … it appears that the capabilities, numbers and capacities available to (Islamic State) are vast and large. This is what is worrying everyone, and everyone should be worried.
‘Thank you, America’
Kurdish soldiers thank America for its assistance is driving ISIS militants from the Mosul Dam. Kurdish intelligence chief Masrour Barzani, the son of the president of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, describes the dam as a “nuclear weapon,” and he says that retaking the dam prevented a calamity. Many feared ISIS would blow the dam up, sending a tsunami of water throughout the region.
‘We will drown all of you in blood’
ISIS threatens to attack US targets ‘in any place’ as revenge for the American air strikes against them in Iraq. The group posts a video showing a blood-spattered American flag next to a jihadist flag with the message in English:
We will drown all of you in blood.
The message is accompanied by photographs of an American who was beheaded during the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Reacts to James Foley’s murder
Obama tells reporters on Martha’s Vineyard that “the entire world is appalled” by Foley’s murder:
No just God would stand for what they did yesterday or every single day,” he said. “A group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century…They have rampaged across cities and villages killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence. They abduct women and children and subject them to torture and rape and slavery. There has to be a common effort to extract this cancer so that it doesn’t spread.
His full remarks can be seen here
‘More UK Muslims join ISIS than army’
Khalid Mahmood, the MP for Perry Barr in Birmingham, estimates that there are twice as many UK Muslims fighting for ISIS as there are in the army. He says at least 1,500 young British Muslims have been recruited by extremists fighting in Iraq and Syria in the last three years, and recruitment has increased since the start of the conflict:
If you look across the whole of the country, and the various communities involved, 500 going over each year would be a conservative estimate.
Survivor: ISIS massacred villagers
ISIS massacres 80 men from a Yazidi village and kidnaps the women and girls after its sheik refuses to convert to Islam. Survivor Khalof Khodede, a survivor:
Islamic State kidnapped about 400 to 600 people in our village and the majority of those people are women and children. They killed most of the men
The militants initially do not plan on the killings:
First they wanted us all to convert to Islam and we said yes just to save our lives. We were all very afraid. Then our sheikh said ‘I won’t convert to Islam’. And then they gathered us inside the village school,’ he said.
After seizing gold and jewelry, the militants take the men are taken to the first floor of the school and the women to the second. They are loaded onto minibuses in groups of 10 to 20 and told they are being taken to the ancestral Yazidi homeland of Sinjar, but the militants stop the vehicles and open fire. Khodede is among few survivors:
They started shooting at us randomly. They had heavy guns like machine guns. I was hit in my leg and on my pelvis.
‘May have crossed Mexico border’
Texas Gov. Perry (R) says ISIS may have taken advantage of chaos at the border with Mexico to send operatives across into the U.S. In a speech at the Heritage Foundation:
There’s the obvious great concern that because of the condition of the border from the standpoint of it not being secure and us not knowing who is penetrating across, that individuals from ISIS or other terrorist states could be [crossing the border]— and I think there is a very real possibility that they may have already used that.
He says there is no clear evidence that ISIS has crossed the border but that amid growing criminal activity at the demarcation line, disregarding the possibility is risky:
We have no clear evidence of that but your common sense tells you when we’ve seen the number of criminal activities that have occurred — and I’m talking about the assaults, the rapes, the murders — by individuals who have come into this country illegally over the last five years, the idea that they would not be looking at [the border] … is not a good place to be.
Not invited to wedding
Voight does not attend the nuptials between daughter Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, set in Paris. When asked about the nuptials Voight stated:
I’m very happy that I can now legitimately call him my son-in-law, this wonderful fellow who I love, and that they’re very happy.
‘Close’ to identifying Foley’s killer
British Ambassador to the U.S. Sir Peter Westmacott tells CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley that authorities are ‘close’ to identifying the ISIS militant who killed Global Post journalist James Foley in a videotaped beheading:
[…] We’re putting out a great deal of resource into identifying this person. I think we’re not far away from that. We’re putting a lot into it. And there are some very sophisticated technologies, voice identification and so on, which people can use to check who these people are. But, of course, the problem goes beyond one horrendous criminal, if you like […] I do know from my colleagues at home that we are close.
UK not considering airstrikes
British Ambassador to the U.S. Sir Peter Westmacott tells CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley his government is not currently considering adding to U.S. air power in Syria. On cooperation with the U.S.:
…we are in this together, and we need a joint operation to really push back against this barbaric behavior. We mean what we say on that.
However when questioned by Crowley on whether this could include British airstrikes:
It is not now contemplated.
Iraqi PM: ‘International effort needed’
Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi calls for an international war against ISIS during a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. A statement from Abadi’s office after the talks:
Abadi pointed to the presence of many dangers posed in the region as a result of the existence of the terrorist gang Islamic State which requires regional and international efforts to exterminate this terrorist organization.
Iran minister pledges solidarity with Iraq
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says his country appreciates efforts by Iraq to reach out to Sunnis and ethnic Kurds to improve regional security. His comments come after a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi, who calls for an international effort against the ISIS insurgency. At a news conference:
We feel very comfortable about the democratic process in Iraq which has reached to a logical result through selecting prime minister-designate Haider al-Abadi to form an inclusive government that comprises all Iraqi sects. The Islamic Republic of Iran will keep standing by your side. Iran backs the unity of Iraq and the stabilizing of security and considers that as a priority in its foreign policy.
‘Fears of imminent massacre’
There are fears a massacre is imminent of around 13,000 Shiite Turkmen in the northern town of Amerli held under siege by ISIS since June 15, the UN says. The population includes 10,000 women and children who are living in horrendous conditions with severe food and water shortages and no medical services. UN Human Rights High Commissioner Navi Pillay:
The Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and the international community must take all necessary measures and spare no effort to protect members of ethnic and religious communities, who are particularly vulnerable, and to secure their return to their places of origin in safety and dignity.
‘Massacred 700 Turkmen’
The UN says ISIS has massacred about 700 Shiite Turkmen. The victims include ‘women, children and old people,’ UNICEF Iraq chief Marzio Babille says. The killings are reported to have been carried out in the northern Iraqi village of Beshir between July 11 and 12.
‘Interventionism created ISIS’
Paul criticizes Clinton’s foreign policy in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, saying that interventionism led to the rise of ISIS:
To interventionists like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, we would caution that arming the Islamic rebels in Syria created a haven for the Islamic State. We are lucky Mrs. Clinton didn’t get her way and the Obama administration did not bring about regime change in Syria. That new regime might well be ISIS.
He adds:
[…] Those who say we should have done more to arm the Syrian rebel groups have it backward. This is not to say the U.S. should ally with Assad. But we should recognize how regime change in Syria could have helped and emboldened the Islamic State, and recognize that those now calling for war against ISIS are still calling for arms to factions allied with ISIS in the Syrian civil war.
Foreign women perform ‘sexual jihad’
Malaysian, Australian and British women are traveling to the Middle East to perform jihad al-nikah to boost the morale of ISIS fighters. Unnamed Malaysian intelligence official:
These women are believed to have offered themselves in sexual comfort roles to ISIS fighters who are attempting to establish Islamic rule in the Middle East. This concept may seem controversial but it has arisen as certain Muslim women here are showing sympathy for the ISIS struggle.
The official says a Malaysian woman in her 30s went to Turkey in December and met up with middlemen to complete the journey to Syria via land routes, while a Malaysian woman in her 40s linked up with the militants in April. Intelligence exchanged with other countries revealed that Sunni Muslim women from Australia and the United Kingdom have also joined up with ISIS.