‘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.
‘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.
Executes 670 Shiite prisoners
The UN says ISIS has executed as many as 670 Shiite inmates of Mosul’s Badush prison. The group abducts between 1,000 and 1,500 prisoners from the jail and drove them to an uninhabited area before separating Sunnis from the group. It forces the remaining Shiite prisoners to kneel and verbally abuses them before executing them. High commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay:
Such cold-blooded, systematic and intentional killings of civilians, after singling them out for their religious affiliation, may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity
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.
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.
Bombings kill 35
A wave of bombings kills at least 35 across Iraq in apparent revenge attacks for the massacre of Sunni worshipers at a mosque in Diyala a day earlier. In Baghdad, a bomber rams a vehicle into an intelligence headquarters, killing at least eight people while near Tikrit, a suicide bomber driving a military Humvee packed with explosives attacks a gathering of soldiers and Shiite militias, killing nine. Another three bombings that appeared to target Kurdish forces kill 18 people in Kirkuk city, 155 miles north of Baghdad. A bomb is also reported in the Kurdish Autonomous city of Arbil, and local television shows firefighters dousing the burnt remains of a car.
Massacres 40 Shiite Turkmen
ISIS has massacred as at least 40 Shiite Turkmen during expulsions from four villages in the northern province of Salahduin, officials and members of the ethnic group say. The Washington Post witnesses a mass burial of two women and 13 men from Bashir, located 30 miles north of the other three villages. Kirkuk deputy police chief Gen. Turhan Abdel-Rahman confirms at least 25 other deaths in Chardaghli, Brawchi and Karanaz, which are located 50 miles south of Kirkuk and says there are more deaths uncounted:
There are other bodies still inside Bashir.
Diyala mosque attack kills 73
An attack by suspected Shia militia kills dozens of Sunni worshipers at a mosque in Diyala province. A suicide bomber apparently blows himself up at the Bani Wais village mosque south of the city of Baquba, about 75 miles from Baghdad, and militants also machinegun worshipers in an attack thought to be a retaliation for a bombing of the militia group’s recruiting drive. Death toll estimates rise to at least 73 including at least one child. Al-Abadi:
I strongly condemn the killing of civilians and worshipers in Diyala province and I call on the citizens to reject these attempts by the enemies of Iraq to exploit the incident in order to stir up strife between the sons of the same homeland.
1.45 million Iraqis displaced
The UNHCR reports that the number of Iraqis displaced by the conflict this year has risen to 1.45 million, a fifth higher than its planning estimate:
As a result of the displacement triggered primarily by the advancement of armed groups in both northwest and east of Mosul city in and around the districts of Jalawla (Diyala) and Sinjar (Ninewa), since 3 August, the United Nations has increased its planning number of people displaced in Iraq to 1.45 million. This is an increase of 250,000 from the previous planning figure of 1.2 million.
The number excludes Iraqis displaced before this year and a Syrian refugee population of 225,000 located in the north of the country.
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.
Supplies arrive for displaced citiczens
A Boeing 747 carrying 100 tons of aid to help those forced to flee their homes due to ISIS attacks has landed in Irbil. Other deliveries by land and sea are expected over the next 10 days carrying supplies from Turkey, Jordan and Iran. The UNHCR plans to bring 2,410 pounds of aid into the region between now and the start of September. UN High Commissioner Antonio Guterres:
This is a massive logistics operation to bring relief supplies by air, land and sea to help the hundreds of thousands of desperate people who have fled suddenly with nothing but their lives, and are now struggling to survive in harsh conditions. It’s the largest single aid push we have mounted in more than a decade.
‘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.
‘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.
UN blacklist
The United Nations Security Council places six members of ISIS and the al-Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, on a blacklist in a move intended to weaken the groups. The council unanimously votes to adopt the resolution. (Full details here.) Mark Lyall Grant, UK ambassador to the UN:
We have watched in horror their brutal actions. They are deliberately targeting civilians.
80 Yazidis killed, women kidnapped
ISIS, now being called the Islamic State, massacres 80 people who are part of the Yazidi minority in a village in the northern part of the country. A senior-level Kurdish official tells Reuters:
They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this afternoon. We believe it’s because of their creed: convert or be killed.
It is also being reported that the women of the village have been kidnapped.
‘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.
Maliki steps down
0 CommentsMaliki says he agrees to relinquish power and end his legal challenge to the nomination of his replacement, Haider al-Abadi, a member of Mr. Maliki’s Shiite Islamist Dawa Party, who was chosen this week by Iraq’s president.
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.
Suspected ISIS militant detained
A Brooklyn judge orders 44-year-old Donald Ray Morgan to be held without bail as the court hears whether he is an ISIS member or has provided material support to the organization. Part of the evidence comprises tweets that he published under the alias Abu Omar al Amreeki during an eight-month stay in Lebanon, swearing allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and referring to himself as a ‘jihadi.’ Arrested at Kennedy Airport on his return to the U.S. and indicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm, he is also accused of brokering deals for military-grade weapons and ammunition in his home state of North Carolina. Assistant Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Nadia Moore:
It’s possible that he traffics in guns to people in this organization (ISIS)
Judge:
[His tweets] clearly implied to me that he is trying to go to Syria or Iraq as the next step and trying to be actively engaged.
Kidnaps 300 Yazidi women
Iraq’s Human Rights minister says ISIS has kidnapped as many as 300 Yazidi women and is holding them as slaves. Mohammed Shia al-Sudani:
We spoke to some of the Yazidis who fled from Sinjar. We have dozens of accounts and witness testimonies describing painful scenes of how Islamic State fighters arrived and took girls from their families by force to use them as slaves. The terrorist Islamic State has also taken at least 300 Yazidi women as slaves and locked some of them inside a police station in Sinjar and transferred others to the town of Tal Afar. We are afraid they will take them outside the country.