The new leader of the Islamic State has reportedly been identified by multiple intelligence services as Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi, a founding member of the terror state who played a major role in the oppression and near-genocide of the Yazidis.
The estimated 640 young girls from Iraq’s Turkmen minority community who remain under the shackles of sexual slavery at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) face honor killings if they escape and return to their families, a former Iraqi lawmaker representing the ethnic group told Fox News.
Factions of the Iran-backed, largely Shiite militia coalition known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) began fighting each other on Tuesday in Iraqi territory they wrested out of the hands of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), according to a Kurdish news outlet.
Representatives from various ethnoreligious minority groups in Iraq – including Christians, Yazidis, and Turkmen – expressed distress towards Kurds voting “yes” to Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence this week, with some saying the referendum was “illegal” and “forced.”
Turkey, in support of Sunni Turkmen, is expected to oppose Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s decision to allow Iran-allied Shiite militias to participate in the offensive to retake Tal Afar, considered the Islamic State’s (ISIS/ISIL) largest remaining stronghold in northwestern Iraq.
Russia’s state-run Sputnik News ran a story on Monday that quoted Turkish “observers” warning President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he will be forced to choose between Assad and the Kurds when the war against the Islamic State in Syria concludes.
Hostility between Russia and Turkey is still simmering, as demonstrated by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accusing Russia of “trying to make ethnic cleansing in northern Latakia to force out all Turkmen and Sunni population who do not have good relations with the regime.”
The Turkish government has arrested two generals and a retired colonel on terrorism charges for involvement in the ordered inspection of trucks allegedly sent to Syria by Turkey’s intelligence agency to aid anti-Assad Turkmen rebels.
Contents: France demands that Russia target only ISIS in Syria; Putin’s Syria intervention hobbled by weak Russian economy
Russian planes have been bombing ethnic Turkmen in Syria, escalating tensions between Moscow and Ankara.
Contents: Russia and Turkey move closer to the brink of war; Turkish analysis of downing of Russian warplane; Quote without comment
Tuesday was filled with conflicting news about the fate of the Russian pilots shot down by Turkish forces over Syria. At various points during the day, it was said that both had been killed – possibly riddled with bullets by Syrian rebels as they came down in their parachutes – and that both were alive, and in enemy hands.
On Tuesday morning, two Turkish F-16 fighters engaged a Russian Sukhoi-24 warplane and shot it down with an air-to-air missile, somewhere north of the Syrian port city of Latakia.
Turkmen groups in western Syria, close to the border with Turkey, are working to create an independent militia to combat both the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and any advances made by the Kurdish YPG forces, which have been the only group to enjoy success in keeping ISIS from sweeping through Syria’s border towns.
