Syria: IS selling Christian women as ‘spoils of war’
US airstrikes and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters helped rescue thousands of Yazidis stranded on a mountaintop in northern Iraq. But hundreds of Yazidi girls and women were captured by IS during the prolonged ordeal, and are now being sold to IS fighters in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group aligned with the opposition in Syria. In the last several weeks, IS has sold about 300 Yazidi women and underage girls they abducted in Iraq, according to the group. Assyrian Christian women have also been sold to IS fighters. These young women are considered ‘slaves of the spoils of war with the infidels,’ the monitoring group reported. The terrorists sold the women for about $1,000 each, after a forced conversion to Islam so that they are ‘eligible’ to marry IS fighters. An Iraqi Christian refugee named Rwaa fled the Christian city of Qaraqosh, and reported to the BBC on August 8 that IS is raping and selling Christian women.
Somalia: Al-Shabab claims deadly bombing
At least 12 people were killed and 27 others wounded when a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into an African Union convoy near Afgoy, southwest of the Somali capital Mogadishu, a local governor said. The attack, the latest in a wave of violence, comes exactly one week after a US air strike killed the chief of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group, prompting threats of retaliation from the group. Speaking to Al Jazeera, al-Shabab's military operations, spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack that took place near the town of Afgoye, about 30km northwest from the capital Mogadishu. Governor Abdukadir Mohamed Sidi said a car packed with explosives hit one of the armoured AU trucks. ‘Twelve civilians in a minibus were killed, and 27 others were wounded,’ he told the AFP news agency.
Libya: 250,000 people flee fighting as Islamist group takes over
Fighting between rival groups in Libya's main cities has displaced 100,000 people, and caused another 150,000 to flee the country, a United Nations report said today. Numerous human rights abuses, including indiscriminate killing and abductions, took place between May and August, the report issued by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said. Yesterday Islamist-allied group Fajr Libya, or Libyan Dawn, appointed a new government in Tripoli, rivalling the existing government, which was only elected in June. Libyan Dawn took control of the capital on August 24 following intense fighting between rival groups since July 13. They re-convened an assembly of the National General Congress, the interim government that controlled Libya after the toppling of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The elected parliament has fled to Tobruk in the east to escape the fighting.
Nigeria: Boko Haram 'seize' Michika in Adamawa state
Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram has captured the key north-eastern town of Michika, residents say, gaining more territory in its efforts to create an Islamic state. People fled into bushes as gunfire rang out in the town, they added. Boko Haram has changed tactics in recent months by holding on to territory rather than launching hit-and-run attacks. The government called on Nigerians not to lose hope. The military was committed to defending Nigeria's territorial integrity, it said. Soldiers killed 50 militants during a raid on their hideout in the small north-eastern town of Kawuri at the weekend, the army said. Last month, Boko Haram said it had established an Islamic state in areas it controls in north-eastern Nigeria. Michika is a trading centre in Adamawa state not far from the Cameroon border.
Sierra Leone: Ebola outbreak - British military sent to West Africa
British military engineers and medics are being sent to Sierra Leone to help fight the world's largest-ever outbreak of Ebola. They will set up and run a treatment centre near the capital Freetown. The World Health Organization says that more than 2,000 people have now died in the outbreak in West Africa. Last week the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres called for a global military intervention in the region. It said the global response to the outbreak had been ‘lethally inadequate’ with countries turning their back on West Africa and merely reducing the risk of Ebola arriving on their shores.The UK has announced it will build a centre with 50 beds for people in Sierra Leone and 12 beds for health-care workers who become ill. The proposed site will be surveyed this week with the facility scheduled to be running within eight weeks.
USA: Second American journalist beheaded by IS Terrorists
Steven Sotloff was the grandson of two Holocaust survivors who was fully aware of the risks of reporting from Middle East - and made it his career anyway. Friends say he spoke fluent Arabic and had shown a deep love for the Islamic world before he was captured by IS militants in Syria in 2013. He was shown to be executed by them on Tuesday in a video lasting just under three minutes. The militant then threatens the life of David Haines, a British citizen kidnapped in March 2013. Haines has had years of experience in non-governmental organizations and military environments working with Nonviolent Peaceforce (an NGO in consultative status with the UN). An official said that Haines was ‘very familiar with insecure locations.’ See also: