Accuses Russia of war crimes
President Hollande accuses Russia of war crimes in Syria, and says he wants to sue the country in International Criminal Court for their role in alleged war crimes over the Syrian city of Aleppo. Hollande also says he may not receive the Russian president who is scheduled to visit Paris, late this month, for a church opening ceremony.
I have asked myself that question: Is it useful? Is it necessary? Could we do something that pushes him as well and stop what they’re doing with the Syrian regime — that is to say the help they are providing to the Syrian regime, which sends bombs to the population of Aleppo? If I receive him, I would tell him that it is unacceptable, that it is bad even for the image of Russia. What I tell them, is that these populations are populations that are today victims of war crimes and those who commit those acts will have to pay for their responsibility in front of the International Criminal Court.
Killed in airstrike
Islamic State says al-Adnani, one of its most prominent and longest-serving leaders, was killed in what appeared to be an airstrike on a vehicle traveling in the Syrian town of al-Bab, depriving the militant group of the man in charge of directing attacks overseas. US officials stopped short of confirming Adnani’s death, as assessments often take days and often lag behind official announcements by militant groups.
Pregnant swedish teenager held
A pregnant 15-year-old Swedish girl is being held by ISIS in Syria after running away from her foster home with her boyfriend to join al-Qaida. Swedish Foreign Ministry:
We have been informed that a Swedish minor is in Syria. We are in contact with family members,
The 15-year-old, whose name is not disclosed, disappeared from her foster home in Boras, near the south-western town of Gothenburg, on 31 May. It said she is six months pregnant. She and her 19-year-old boyfriend married in a Muslim ceremony in Stockholm earlier this year without their parents’ knowledge and reportedly travelled to Syria via Turkey, where they were recruited by an al-Qaida-linked group. The couple were captured by ISIS fighters in the northern city of Aleppo, and have been moved to an ISIS-controlled area. The boyfriend has been forced to fight for the jihadist group. The daughter had called her parents at least three times while being held by Isis after women secretly lent her a cell phone. Mother:
I spoke to her yesterday and found out she has been moved to a group of women. She is not allowed to be with her boyfriend because they aren’t considered married by [ISIS]. She was very sad and very scared. We don’t know how to get her out of the country. Now she’s in an [ISIS]-controlled area so it will be even harder.
The father says that his daughter might be moved to live with a group of women in Manbij, a town north-east of Aleppo, if ISIS militants did not recognise the marriage.
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
Cousin kills air force official in road rage incident
A cousin of Syria’s president shoots dead a senior air force officer in a road rage incident according to a monitoring group. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the incident happened when the cousin followed the officer because he overtook him at a crossroads, then swerved the car around, got out and shot him dead. The cousin has not been arrested.
Kidnaps 230 civilians
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that ISIS abducted 230 civilians, including at least 60 Christians, in Al-Qaryatain hours after the group captured the town. Many of the Christians had fled from Aleppo province, in Syria’s north, to seek refuge in Al-Qaryatain. SOHR says those abducted were wanted by ISIS for ‘collaborating with the regime’ and their names were on a list used by the jihadists as they swept through the town. Families who tried to flee or hide were tracked down and taken by the jihadists. Al-Qaryatain lies at the crossroads between ISIS territory in the eastern countryside of Homs and areas further west in the Qalamun area.
Killed in Syria
Hassan is the fourth person from Portsmouth killed while fighting for ISIS. Chairman of the Portsmouth Jami Mosque, Abdul Jalil:
It has been confirmed with the family that he has died. Right now they are very upset. I am saddened and again shocked for the community about this news.
It is thought he died in Kobane.
Dies in car crash
Shim, a Lebanese-American reporter for Press TV, is killed in a car crash in Turkey a day after stating that Turkish intelligence was spying on her. She had been reporting that ISIS militants had crossed the border in trucks used by NGOs to carry food. Press TV broadcast:
Just a couple of days ago she had been threatened by Turkish intelligence
https://twitter.com/shabbirh/status/524140074792148992
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.
Austrian girl may be dead
Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Alexander Marakovits says authorities have received intelligence that one of the two Austrian teen girls believed to have joined ISIS may have been killed:
We also have this information and have checked it, but cannot say with absolute certainty that it is true. But the parents have been informed their daughter could be dead.
It is not specified whether the girl believed to have died is 16-year-old Samra Kesinovic or 15-year-old Sabina Selimovic, both of whom are believed to have run way from their homes in Vienna in April to join 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.
Unidentified group kidnaps female aid workers
The Italian foreign ministry confirms that two female aid workers have been kidnapped in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. It says contact with Greta Ramelli, 20, and Vanessa Marzullo, 21, is currently ‘impossible.’ Il Foglio newspaper journalist Daniele Raineri of is reported to have been taken hostage along with them but managed to escape, and says that they were abducted on Aug. 1 and taken to the town of El Ismo, west of Aleppo, where they were transported to the home of the head of the local ‘Revolutionary Council’. The kidnappers have yet to be identified but investigators are quoted as saying they believe it is a group that has previously taken Western journalists and activists hostage.
19 Lebanese soldiers dead
The Lebanese military confirms that 19 soldiers have died in its battle against ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliate the Al-Nusra Front for the border town of Arsal. At least 60 militants are also dead. Army statement on the most recent death:
Cpl. Suheil Mohammad Dannawi, born in 1987 in Tripoli, north Lebanon, was killed in the battle waged by the Army against terrorist groups in the area of Arsal.
42 Lebanese civilians dead
A medical official says 42 civilians have died while over 400 are wounded in clashes between the military and fighters from ISIS and Al Qaeda branch the Al-Nusra Front for control of the border town of Arsal. Lebanese Red Cross official Abdullah Zogheib says medics have evacuated 42 wounded people after the rebels retreat, mostly women and children:
Most of them had very serious wounds. They had been shot by bullets, some in the head, and there were amputees from shell fire
American carries out suicide bombing
An American detonates a suicide bomb in Syria on behalf of al-Nusra Front, the Syrian arm of Al Qaeda, driving a truck laden with 16 tons of explosives into a restaurant patronized by government troops in the northwestern city of Idlib. The group tweets a statement confirming the bombing, referring to him by his nom de guerre, ‘the American father of the kitten’:
Abu Hurayra Al-Amriki performed a martrydom operation in Idlib, Jabal Al-Arba’een. May Allah accept him.
The U.S. government identifies him as Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, of Florida.
Flees to Syria
Media report that Sharrouf was able to flee to Syria via Malaysia in January by skirting a travel ban placed on him. He boarded a flight at Sydney airport using his brother’s passport in place of his own, which was confiscated by authorities. New South Wales premier Barry O’Farrell:
I have to say I think that immigration and the federal police and customs have been doing a magnificent job. But I look to see what caused what appears to have been a fairly major breakdown.
Senior militant killed
A senior Iraqi intelligence official says senior ISIS leader Haji Bakr has been assassinated in a killing related to the dispute between ISIS and other opposition groups. Haji Bakr’s real name was Sameer Abid Mohammed Al-Halefawi, and he is reported to have served as an air-defense officer in Saddam Hussein’s army before joining Al Qaeda in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.