US-led forces pound Islamic State stronghold in Syria
Source: The Times of Israel
Large series of airstrikes target Jihadist ‘capital’ of Raqqa, destroying infrastructure and transit routes, spokesman says BY AFP July 5, 2015.
US-led coalition forces said they carried out a series of 16 airstrikes Saturday on the Islamic State in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, in one of the biggest assaults on the extremists.
“The significant airstrikes tonight were executed to deny Daesh the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq,” spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gilleran said in a coalition statement, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
“This was one of the largest deliberate engagements we have conducted to date in Syria and it will have debilitating effects on Daesh’s ability to move from Raqqa.”
Coalition forces “successfully engaged multiple targets” throughout Raqqa — the extremists’ de facto capital — the statement said, destroying IS structures and transit routes.
Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-led-forces-pound-islamic-state-stronghold-in-syria/
Happy Independence Day, ISIS.
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Iraq conflict - IS 'trafficking Yazidi women for sex'
By Yolande Knell - 24 September 2014
More than 3,000 Yazidi women and children have been captured by Islamic State militants and are being trafficked for sex, the BBC has learned.
Those who have escaped have spoken of being raped, tortured and starved.
Tens of thousands of members of Iraq's Yazidi minority fled from Islamic State (IS) in August and are now homeless.
Human rights activists say more than 5,000 men, women and children are still missing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29339696
Syrian women pull off their burkas to show they are free from ISIS
Marie Le Conte - 6 Jun 2015
My Note: See the anguish and relief on her face after escaping the hated ISIS. I can almost hear her scream.
A woman takes off her burqa as she enters Rojava (pic: Jack Shahine /Shervan Derwish)
This picture, taken by the border between Syria and Turkey, shows the amazing moment women take off their black burqas to celebrate being out of ISIS-held territory.
The snaps were captured by cameraman Shervan Derwish, as the car drove into the autonomous region of Rojava, which is held by the Kurdish YPG.
Under the Islamic State so-called caliphate, women have to wear the black shapeless burqas, whether they want it or not.
http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/06/syrian-women-pull-off-their-burkas-to-show-they-are-free-from-isis-5233062/
'Treated like cattle': Yazidi women sold, raped, enslaved by ISIS
Erbil, Iraq (CNN) -- Jana was a 19-year-old in her final year of high school, with dreams of becoming a doctor. Then, ISIS came to her village last August, and her world collapsed.
She described to me in chilling detail, how the jihadis first demanded that members of her Yazidi religious minority convert to Islam. Then they stripped villagers of their jewelry, money and cellphones. They separated the men from the women.
A United Nations report explained what happened next. ISIS "gathered all the males older than 10 years of age at the local school, took them outside the village by pick-up trucks, and shot them." Among those believed dead were Jana's father and eldest brother.
A different fate lay in store for the women...
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/30/world/meast/isis-female-slaves/index.html
ISIS: Enslaving, having sex with 'unbelieving' women, girls is OK
By Greg Botelho, CNN
Can you take non-Muslim women and children captive? Yes, says ISIS.
Can you have sex with them, even prepubescent girls? Yes, according to the Islamist extremist group.
Can you sell them or give them as gifts to others? The answer is yes, once again.
People in Mosul -- the Iraqi city now under control of the group calling itself the Islamic State -- got these and other messages loud and clear after sunset prayers Friday, when armed men handed out a color-printed pamphlet "Questions and Answers on Taking Captives and Slaves," three residents told CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/12/world/meast/isis-justification-female-slaves/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Independence for the conquered people cannot come soon enough.
"Women's rights are human rights, and human rights are women's rights."
~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, 1995, Beijing
