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France urges UN Security Council meeting as Islamic State seizes Christian town

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0,,17748702_303,00Paris has requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting after jihadist insurgents took control of the Iraq’s largest Christian town, forcing thousands to flee. The country has also been hit by a new wave of bombings.

 French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Thursday called for a meeting of the UN Security Council after Islamist militants in northern Iraq seized the country’s largest Christian town and nearby villages.

The new gains by “Islamic State” (IS) militants have reportedly prompted thousands of Christians to flee the northern town of Qaraqosh and surrounding areas, residents and Christian clerics said on Thursday.

“Given the seriousness of the situation – the first victims of which are civilians and religious minorities – France is requesting an urgent meeting of the Security Council so the international community can mobilize to counter the terrorist threat in Iraq and support and protect the population at risk,” Fabius said in a statement.

The takeovers are the latest gains by IS, an al Qaeda splinter group formerly known as ISIS. Over the weekend the Sunni militants dealt a humiliating defeat on Kurdistan’s military – the Peshmerga – across the north.

Bishop Joseph Tomas said Qaraqoush and at least four other predominantly Christian villages were in the hands of IS and that Kurdish units, which had protected the area, had also fled. Other priests confirmed the information.

“It’s a catastrophe, a tragic situation,” Tomas told the AFP news agency, “We call on the UN Security Council to immediately intervene. Tens of thousands of terrified people are being displaced as we speak, it cannot be described.”

Families on the march

According to residents, many are fleeing to autonomous Kurdistan.

“Most families are fleeing the town towards the province of Dahuk in Kurdistan,” a resident said.

Many thousands of Iraq’s Christians have been forced to flee their homes since the IS seized large chunks of the country in a lightning advance in June.

As the IS pressed on with its expansion in the north, a suicide bomber killed 14 people in a Shiite area of Baghdad on Thursday.

Since the militants seized much of the country’s north and west, there has been a renewed campaign of bombings against Baghdad, particularly in Shiite areas. A series of car bombings on Wednesday night killed 51.

As many as nine people were also killed on Thursday in two car bombings in the Kurdish-held Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk.

rc/kms (Reuters, AFP, dpa)

Tragic situation in northern Iraq, children are dying of thirst

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arton102140-431x355Jihadists have seized Qaraqosh, the largest Christian town in Iraq near Mosul (north), and abandoned in the night by Kurdish forces surrounding areas, reported Thursday the fleeing inhabitants and a religious leader.

“I know now that the cities of Qaraqosh, Tal kayf, Bartella and Karamlesh were emptied of their inhabitants and are now under the control of insurgents,” said Bishop Joseph Thomas, Chaldean archbishop of Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah.

The decision by the jihadists of areas of northern Iraq where there were a large part of the country’s Christians Thursday pushed tens of thousands of people to flee, announced an archbishop and witnesses.

“This is a disaster, a tragic situation. We call on the Security Council of the UN to intervene immediately. Tens of thousands of terrified people are forced from their homes when we speak, we can not describe what is happening, “said Bishop Joseph Thomas.

Reuters and AFP

According to UNICEF, several dozen children Yezidi died of thirst in the Kurdish mountains.

Iraq Christians flee as Islamic State takes Qaraqosh

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qaraqoshUp to a quarter of Iraq’s Christians are reported to be fleeing after Islamic militants seized the minority’s biggest town in the country, the BBC reported.

The Islamic State (IS) group captured Qaraqosh in Nineveh province overnight after the withdrawal of Kurdish forces.

Meanwhile, the UN says some of the 50,000 members of the Yazidi religious minority trapped by IS on Mount Sinjar have been rescued.

IS controls parts of Iraq and Syria and says it has created an Islamic state.

Nineveh, located 400km (250 miles) north-west of Baghdad, is home to a large number of religious minorities.

Tens of thousands have been forced to flee since IS, a Sunni Muslim group formerly known as Isis, launched their onslaught in the north in June.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdraw from Mosul Dam without fighting

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by Abdelhak Mamoun

damMosul (IraqiNews.com) According to security sources in the province of Nineveh, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew from the Mosul Dam north of the province of Nineveh before the expiry of the deadline set by gangs of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant to Peshmerga to leave the dam despite claims to the contrary by the Ministry of Water Resources

The source said that “the Peshmerga forces withdraw from Mosul Dam fully with their mechanized forces and equipment close to a deadline, ISIL gave them two hours for the purpose of entering to the dam.”

The source, who asked not to be named, said: “Peshmerga forces also withdrew from the area of Badria (50 km north of Mosul) towards the area of Fayda (60 km north of the city).”

Violent clashes broke out, since the dawn of Sunday, between armed elements of ISIL and Peshmerga forces near Mosul Dam, northwest of the city of Nineveh, in an attempt to control the dam.

Related:

Iraq: Fierce Peshmerga Offensives in Shangal, Zumar Against IS

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57723Image1Peshmerga tanks heading for the frontlines. Photo: kdp.info

SHANGAL – Kurdish Peshmerga forces launched fierce offensives against the Islamic State (IS/ISIS) army in Shangal and Zumar in Nineveh province on Sunday, after the towns fell to the jihadi fighters in overnight fighting. Report RUDAW

Intense battles were reported in Shangal where the Kurdish forces launched a four-pronged attack against the militants, with fears for the town’s majority Yezidi population who are considered infidels by the religious zealots.

Residents inside Shangal told Rudaw that two municipality employees were executed by the militants, who have taken several civilians hostage — among them underage residents – with fears they will also be killed.

Scores of Peshmerga forces were rushed into battle, and more reinforcements were reported on the way, according to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) defense ministry.

The fighting escalated as new advanced weapons arrived at Erbil airport on Sunday, with Peshmerga officials saying they were awaiting orders to change their defensive tactics and go on the offensive against the IS.

In an important development not verified by the KRG, the Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) said its forces have arrived at the site to aid the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmergas in their fight.

Fazil Mirani, a Zumar native and strongman of the Kurdistan Region’s dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was deployed to the area to coordinate the counterattacks on IS militants, who captured the strategic city of Mosul in a surprise attack in June.

Yezidi residents of the area held a meeting on Sunday – the third in two days – to organize a defense of their town, said Said Misto, a prominent local figure among the Yezidi community.

“Most of the youngsters here are ready to go to the frontline and take on ISIS,” Misto said.

Rudaw has learned that the neighboring areas around Shangal became frontlines against the IS, as the local population battled the militants during the night.

Eyewitnesses said that fierce clashes took place between local gunmen and the assaulting militant Islamists who eventually captured the area as the locals fled to the safety of surrounding mountains.

The Yezidis, who are Kurds by ethnicity, have long been a target of car bombs and attacks from militant groups because of their different religious beliefs.

In Istanbul, ISIS Operated Mosques Said to Be Training Azeri Jihadists

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ISTANBUL (Panorama.am)—The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the terrorist organization that has been waging war in Syria and now Iraq, is reportedly known to be operating mosques in Istanbul, where istanbul-mosqueAzerbaijani jihadist recruits, among others, are trained for the war in Syria, according to a report by Azerbaijani news agency Haqqin, citing an announcement by one of the leaders of the clerical community of Istanbul, Hasan Kanaalti.

Kanaalti reported that ISIS has taken control of a number of mosques in the neighborhoods of Fatih, Ataşehir, Esenyurt, and Bağcılar. Young people from Azerbaijan undergo training in these mosques, he says, after which they are sent to war in Syria.

“The authorities do nothing and we are going to ensure the security of our community ourselves. We have called for meetings with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but we haven’t received any response from him for more than 10 days,” said Kanaalti.

According to the source, just days ago an attack occurred on Istanbul’s Muhammadi Mosque, where members of the Jafari Muslim community were holding a gathering. The attack was probably carried out by members of ISIS, Kanaalti says.

“We were told that we would not be allowed to pray Azan. One of the neighborhoods in which ISIS is based is Fatih. There the Salafis distribute booklets and fuel anti-Shia aggression. They have created an extended network of their missions in Ataşehir [district in Istanbul] where prior to being sent to Syria young jihadists from Azerbaijan are hosted for a couple of days. The government cannot but know about this,” Kanaalti explained.

As reported by Iranian news agency IRNA, the restraints on political and religious activities in Azerbaijan are one of the main reasons why ISIS considers the country a fertile land for the recruitment of jihadists.

Citizens of Azerbaijan are reportedly fighting among various terrorist groupings in Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. According to the data of Azerbaijani information agency Vesti.az, the total number of Azerbaijani terrorists in these countries is 300. Meanwhile, according to information provided by the Azerbaijani media, about 200 Azerbaijani terrorists have died within the last three years in Syria alone.

ISIS threatening to redraw Mideast borders

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ISIS now controls wide swaths of Iraq and Syria. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, seems out to establish an Islamic empire. Are the borders in the Middle East about to be redrawn?

al-baghdadi The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria appears to fear little. In the past, this army of radical Islamists were primarily fighting moderate rebel groups in Syria, but in recent days they have waged their first brutal campaigns against the Syrian army.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, ISIS fighters recently provoked bloody battles in the northern Syrian province of Raqqa, during which at least 85 of dictator Bashar al-Assad’s soldiers were killed. The fate of around 200 further military personnel remains unclear, while 28 Islamists are also thought to have died. It seems clear that ISIS are willing to pay that price to expand their influence.

A tailor-made state

“The group’s goal is to establish their cross-boundary zone, beginning in Syria and Iraq,” said Falko Walde of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Amman, Jordan. And that’s only an intermediary step, he added – ISIS wants to reach other states in the region, including Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and even Cyprus and parts of southern Turkey.

“The group wants to create a state rooted in its conceptions of politics and society,” Walde said.

In recent months, the Islamists have already taken control of significant parts of Syria and Iraq, imposing draconian laws – including arbitrary executions – wherever they rule. In the Iraqi city of Mosul, women face severe penalties if they fail to wear a full veil in public.

The group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced the establishment of a caliphate in Mosul at the end of June. Al-Baghdadi, who was born in Iraq, views himself as a successor to the prophet Mohammad, claims to rule over all Muslims and has taken up the old idea of an Islamic empire.

Islamists like him don’t accept the current borders between Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon on the grounds that Western powers drew them up during and after World War I. They see the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire – long the decisive governing entity in Asia Minor and the Middle East – in the early 20th century as the main reason for the alleged weakness of Muslims today. In other words, Islamists believe a new Islamic empire is the way toward a better future.

Weakened government

Meanwhile, the Syrian army is trying to fend off ISIS. After a week of fighting, they retook a gas field that the Islamists conquered in mid-July. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says ISIS killed around 300 Assad supporters taking the land.

ISIS are just one of many rebel groups trying to undermine Assad’s government, and yet the Syrian president remains in power three years after the civil war broke out.

 In neighboring Iraq, the government is facing a crisis. Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki provoked the country’s Sunni minority with corruption and partisanship.

“There are many secular Iraqis who feel excluded by the prime minister’s approach, which is rooted heavily in religion,” said Volker Perthes, director of Berlin think tank the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), in an interview with the radio station Deutschlandfunk. “And there are many Sunnis, particularly in rural areas and cities other than the capital, who feel marginalized by Maliki’s government.”

Opposing developments

The disunity in Iraqi society has proven beneficial for ISIS, and adding to the unrest is the fact that northern Iraqi Kurds are seeking to establish their own state. They no longer want to be part of Iraq or part of an Islamic empire. Instead, they’re fighting for political, cultural, and economic independence.

Both developments – the Kurds’ desire to separate from Iraq and ISIS’ brutal fight to establish a caliphate in the region – are raising questions about whether the current borders can be maintained. It seems clear that the already weakened governments in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon will find it difficult to preserve their states’ integrity.

The hunt for Christians is a strategy on the part of the Islamic State (ISIS)

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Professor Bernard Coulie, president of the Institute of Arts and Letters civilizations at UCL, and also specialist Armenia, decrypts Levif.be to the current situation arton101818-480x328of Eastern Christians expelled from Iraq. Interview by Reda Bennani (St.)

What is the strategy for the Christian community of the Islamic State in Iraq?

The Islamic state has grown dangerously for two years to force conquered territories. The hunt for Christians is a real strategy, deliberate on their part.

Christians forced to leave Mosul fled to Kurdistan, are better protected there?

In any case better than in the rest of Iraq is safe. You should know that the Kurdish region enjoys a certain autonomy, since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. It has developed its administration and army, which can be considered more powerful than the Iraqi State . In addition, the Kurds, even devout Muslims, are more tolerant than elsewhere.

How to explain the lack of concrete reaction from the international community?

The international community does not mobilize on the fate of Christians in the East for two reasons: this mosaic of confessions is very complicated to understand even for our leaders. One can not analyze these communities within our gates Western reading. Then Europe is not a major and profitable to go protect the Christians of the East interest. Then, the United States and the Catholic countries of Latin America do not feel concerned. I think it is a big mistake.

Eastern Christians trying to flee their country, became hostile. Where can they go into exile?

Eastern Christians are a mosaic of many faiths such as Orthodox Greeks, Assyrians, Copts, Maronites … They join these churches around the world. With their refugee status (once obtained), this community traditionally diaspora, goes to a host country where it already has a relative who lives there.

What might be the consequences of the departure of Eastern Christians?

In the medium term, given the events, there will be more Christians in the Middle East and Asia Minor. These countries, as a nation-state, will become monocultural. This is a great loss!

http://www.levif.be/info/actualite/international/la-chasse-aux-chretiens-est-une-strategie-de-la-part-de-l-etat-islamique/article-4000700675898.htm

ISIS militants blow up Prophet Jonas’ tomb in Mosul – (video)

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(Reuters) People walk through the rubble of the Prophet Younis Mosque after it was destroyed in a bomb attack by militants of the Islamic State, formerly known as the Prophet-younis-mosqueIslamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the city of Mosul, July 24, 2014.

The shrine of Jonas – revered by Christians and Muslims alike – has been turned “to dust” near Iraq’s Mosul. Footage of the event was posted online, and witnesses said it took ISIS militants just an hour to stuff the mosque with explosives.

“ISIS militants have destroyed the Prophet Younis (Jonah) shrine east of Mosul city after they seized control of the mosque completely,” an anonymous security source told the Iraq-based al-Sumaria News.

The extremist group ISIS changed its name from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) to just the Islamic State (IS), after formally declaring a new caliphate in Syria and Iraq at the end of June.

Muslims know the tomb as the shrine of Younis, whereas Christians refer to it as the tomb of Jonas.

Jonas is renowned for having been swallowed by a fish or a whale in the Bible’s Old Testament, with a similar story being present in the Koran. The site upon which the mosque had been built dated back to the eighth century BC.

“[The] Islamic State completely destroyed the shrine of Nabi Yunus after telling local families to stay away and closing the roads to a distance of 500 meters from the shrine,” an anonymous official from the Sunni Endowment, which manages Sunni religious affairs in Iraq, told AFP.

No End to Christian Suffering as Iraq Staggers in Turmoil

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By RUDAW 21/7/2014 

Amid threats by the Islamic State in Mosul, many Christians have fled to the shelter of the Kurdistan Region. Photo: Rudaw

56068Image1ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – For around 100 Christian refugees forced into making an Assyrian church in Tel Kaif their home, there was no question of staying behind in Mosul after an ultimatum by the city’s new Islamic State (IS) rulers.

“They stormed into our home in the middle of the night and ordered us to leave with only our clothes,” said one homeless Christian at the Mashriq Assyrian Church in Tel Kaif, where many from the faith have fled since the fall of Mosul last month.

“They said, ‘if you convert to Islam you can stay in your home, otherwise get out of here,’” recounted an elderly Christian man, one of the 105 people being cared for by church priests who said they are expecting more refugees to arrive.

“They took everything: the television, computer, money, gold. I had a chicken I wanted to take for food, but even that they did not let me take,” the elder told Rudaw in a weak, trembling voice.

All of the Christians — who include Chaldeans and Assyrians or Kurds and Arabs – told similar tales of first being ordered to either convert to Islam or pay a special tax, and then being warned to convert or die.

“No one was allowed to bring money or gold,” said a refugee. “They took it all.”

On Saturday, there were reports of the IS torching centuries-old Churches. There were unconfirmed reports the extremists had been marking Christian homes in Mosul with red paint, adding greater terror among the Christians and swelling their fleeing numbers.

Thousands of Christian families have fled to the Kurdistan Region, adding to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian refugees who have found sanctuary in the autonomous enclave, the only portion of Iraq where peace still prevails.

According to information obtained from sources by Rudaw, only 200 of Mosul’s 5,000 Christians still remain in the city.

“There is a systematic campaign to expel an entire people of this country from their ancestral land,” raged Salim Toma, a Christian and former MP in the Kurdistan Region

He said that providing food and water alone cannot resolve the problem, and that a diplomatic and political solution was urgently needed.

“First the massacre of the Christians must be stopped, and then like other people we should have a place to live,” said Toma, complaining that Iraq’s dithering government and the international community were not taking the issue seriously.

“Unfortunately, there has not been a serious position (toward the Christians). Only the Kurdistan Regional Government has opened the door and embraced them,” Toma said, explaining that the KRG had provided food, water and electricity for Mosul to alleviate suffering.

Amid political indecision in Baghdad, Toma complained there was no government in Iraq, and that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had not bothered to seriously address what was happening to the Christians.

By contrast, he said, Kurdish officials had tried to help in every way, and had tried to raise international concern. “Checkpoints are open for them; schools have become shelters for the Christians; many local NGOs are assisting, too,” Toma said.

Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has appealed to his people and the world to help. “After the terrorists armed groups seized control of Mosul, the Christians in the city face mass murder,” Barzani said in a statement.

There have been reports of looting and theft: IS militants raided a church in eastern Mosul and looted what was inside; they stormed several poultry farms owned by Christians, kidnapping seven people.

The former MP said that Christian communities are contacting the UN, the United States and international NGOs for assistance, because refugee numbers exceed the KRG’s capacity to deal with them.

Omid Sabah, spokesperson of the Kurdish presidency, said that “acts have caused a number of deaths among Christians,” and that many had fled to the Kurdistan Region for shelter.

Meanwhile, the KRG’s religious affairs minister, Kamal Muslim, visited refugees in Tel Kaif: “KRG is prepared to do whatever it can, and the Kurdistan Region is a shelter for affected people from anywhere,” he told the homeless Christians.

Christians in Iraq have been leaving their ancestral lands since the upheaval unleashed by the 2003 US-led invasion. They have been especially targeted by the sectarian violence that has buffeted Iraq since then.

According to unofficial figures nearly two million Christians lived in Iraq before the invasion. Now, the number has dwindled to an estimated 600,000.

Over the past decade, 61 attacks have been launched against Churches across Iraq’s Arab-populated lands, and thousands of Christians have been killed or vanished.

Toma said that the majority of Christian refugees would choose to live in Kurdistan and the Nineveh plains that have been their ancestral home, should Kurdistan declare independence.