Canada takes refugees
Prime Minister Harper pledges Canada will take an additional 10,000 refugees from Iraq and Syria over the next four years if the Conservative government is re-elected in October. Canada has already settled roughly 20,000 Iraqi refugees and 2,500 Syrians. The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada website shows it finalized 19,900 refugee claims from all countries in 2014. Harper:
We must stop ISIS
Manning: Focus on containment
Manning writes a commentary in The Guardian stating that military strikes play to ISIS’s strengths, and recommending four areas that a containment strategy could focus on. She suggests countering ISIS’s online presence to curb recruitment. The coalition should then set clear, temporary borders in the region to discourage ISIS taking territory where humanitarian issues could result. It should place a moratorium on ransom payments for hostages and cut off other sources of ISIS funding such as oil trade and artefact theft. Finally, it should allow ISIS to succeed in setting up a failed ‘state’ – in a contained area and over a long enough period of time to prove itself unpopular and unable to govern.
Eventually, if they are properly contained, I believe that Isis will not be able to sustain itself on rapid growth alone, and will begin to fracture internally. The organization will begin to disintegrate into several smaller, uncoordinated entities – ultimately failing in their objective of creating a strong state.
Executes eight Sunnis
ISIS executes eight people in a Sunni village over the course of two days. An eyewitness says that on Friday night a pair of masked ISIS gunmen openly murdered a police officer in al-Jumasah village, 75 miles north of Tikrit, after accusing him of spying for the Kurdish and Iraqi military forces. They gather residents in the village square to watch the execution:
Islamic State members said that this is the fate of anyone who opposes them. They presented as evidence CDs and copies of the man’s correspondences with the security forces.
A small group of villagers opens fire on the house of an ISIS officer after the policeman’s killing. On Saturday morning, 10 Islamic State cars drive around al-Jumasah with two masked informants who help identify 10 people suspected of attacking the ISIS member’s house. On Saturday evening, three are released and seven others – all but one relatives of the slain policeman – are executed.
Kills 17 Sunnis
ISIS kills at least 17 Sunni tribesmen in an apparent revenge attack. The group deploys an explosives-laden Humvee – apparently captured from the Iraqi military – at an entrance to the town of Dhuluiya, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. Some of the district’s most prominent Sunni tribes, including the Al-Jabour, have been openly fighting the Sunni extremists of ISIS for the last two months.
Kidnaps 50 men
ISIS militants kidnap 50 men from a district on the edge of the Sunni town of Hawija in the northern region of Kirkuk, a day after the fighters left the district in anticipation of an attack by the Iraqi military. Militants load the men onto vehicles and drive off. Town residents say they are unsure why the abductions have occurred as the town has not actively resisted ISIS.
Steven Sotloff beheaded
A video appears to show the killing by ISIS of U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff. The man identified as Sotloff addresses the camera:
I’m sure you know exactly who I am by now and why I am appearing. Obama, your foreign policy of intervention in Iraq was supposed to be for preservation of American lives and interests, so why is it that I am paying the price of your interference with my life?
A militant warns the U.S.:
Just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.
The militant then appears to kill Sotloff by beheading him.
Sotloff was last seen alive at the end of a similar video which showed the execution by beheading of American journalist James Foley. He told Obama that his life was in the President’s hands. The most recent video ends with an apparent threat against the life of a man identified as David Cawthorne Haines, a British citizen.
Second American ISIS fighter may be dead
U.S. authorities are investigating a claim by a coalition of Syrian opposition groups that they have killed an American national during fighting with kharijites, or extremists. The statement is an apparent reference to fighting several days earlier between ISIS and the coalition, which is made up of fighters from the Free Syrian Army, Syrian Al Qaeda branch al-Nusra Front, as well as smaller militant factions. If true, the unnamed militant would be the second American ISIS fighter confirmed killed in battle, after the U.S. government said that Florida native Douglas MacArthur McCain also died in the fighting over the weekend.
American ISIS fighter killed
American national Douglas McArthur McCain is killed fighting for ISIS against the al-Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, in the suburbs of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. He is believed to be the first U.S. citizen killed while fighting for the group, also known as Islamic State.
15 Australian militants dead
Australia’s intelligence chief says at least 15 Australian fighters have been killed in Iraq and Syria, including two suicide bombers:
The draw of foreign fighters to Syria and Iraq is significant and includes more Australians than any other previous extremist conflicts put together
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) believes the number of citizens posing a potential security threat has increased substantially:
ASIO believes there are about 60 or so Australians fighting with the two principal extremist Al-Qaeda derivatives, Jahabat-al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Syria or Iraq.
Kurdish boys kidnapped
Over 140 Kurdish junior high school boys, on their way home from taking final exams, are kidnapped by armed fighters. The boys are forcibly removed from buses driving children back to their homes in Ayn al-Arab, and are transported by truck to the ISIS controlled city Manbij in northern Syria. The boys are being taught about jihad and Sharia doctrines, are forced to watch videos depicting torture and execution, and are receiving military training. Human Rights Watch states in a report on the abduction:
Former recruits described how leaders gave children particularly difficult or dangerous tasks and encouraged them to volunteer for suicide attacks.