A federal district court judge has ruled that the government’s certification to prevent the disclosure of thousands of photos of detainee abuse and torture in Afghanistan and Iraq—including inhumane treatment at Abu Ghraib prison—is “not sufficient to prevent publication.”

The federal judge ordered the government to appear in court on September 8 and produce the photographs or submit additional evidence to support keeping the photos secret.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) staff attorney Marcellene Hearn reacted, “Americans have a right to know what was done in our names in military detention centers. We have a right to know what resulted from senior officials’ decisions to authorize and tolerate the abuse and torture of prisoners.”

The ACLU has been pursuing the release of records related to detainee treatment and “the death of prisoners in United States custody and abroad after September 11, 2001, since October 2003.

“That people are tortured into confessing to crimes, convicted in shameful trials without adequate legal support and then executed is a sickening indictment of the Kingdom’s state-sanctioned brutality,” Mr Boumedouha said. “It is clear that the authorities are more interested in threatening victims’ families to shut them up rather than putting an end to this grotesque phenomenon.”

A deadly August is just the tip of the iceberg for Saudi Arabia which executed more than 2000 people between 1985 and 2013, figures provided by the human rights group reveal.

According to them, trials in capital cases are often held in secret and defendants are given no or insufficient access to lawyers.

And people in Saudi can be executed for a range of crimes including adultery, armed robbery, apostasy, drug-related offences, rape, witchcraft and sorcery. Most executions are done by beheading and many take place in public. In some cases decapitated bodies are left lying on the ground in public squares as a “deterrent”.

http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/beheadings-at-record-levels-saudi-arabia-executes-dozens-in-deadly-august/story-fnh81ifq-1227037172765

People who convert from Islam to Christianity are known as MBBs - Muslim Background Believers - and some members of the MBB community in Christchurch have gone into hiding, fearing they too will be targeted.

One source said Saudi government agents were planted among the thousands of students who came to New Zealand each year to study, to ensure their behaviour did not bring "shame" on the Kingdom or their families.

In Saudi Arabia it is against the law for Muslims to abandon their faith, and Christians and other religious minorities are subjected to discrimination, harassment, detention and in rare cases torture and death.

There have been numerous documented cases of Saudi nationals being uplifted from foreign countries. In 2012, columnist Hamza Kashgari, who'd been accused of insulting the prophet Mohammad on Twitter, tried to seek asylum in New Zealand but was intercepted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, sent home and jailed without trial.

In May last year, a young Saudi Christian who had arrived in Auckland two months earlier and claimed asylum was snatched off the street by three men just three days before his refugee interview and was flown back to Saudi Arabia, where it is believed he spent time in prison and was tortured. His lawyer, Roger Chambers, said the man had managed to secretly make contact with his friends in Auckland.

special operations forces under the Joint Special Operations Command and U.S. Special Operations Command keep close tabs on the military evolution of ISIS and both its combat and terrorism -- called "asymmetric" -- capabilities, officials told ABC News. A primary reason is in anticipation of possibly fighting them, which a full squadron of special mission unit operators did in the Independence Day raid on an ISIS camp in Raqqah, Syria.

"They're incredible fighters. ISIS teams in many places use special operations TTPs," said the second official, who has considerable combat experience, using the military term for "tactics, techniques and procedures."

In sobering press conference Friday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said ISIS has shown that it is “as sophisticated and well-funded as any group that we have seen.”

“They’re beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded,” he said. “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/isis-incredible-fighting-force-us-special-ops-sources/story?id=25116463

For these men, the Sunnis as a whole are the enemy, regardless of whether they are Isis supporters or not. For them, western strategies of trying to defeat Isis by depriving it of mass Sunni support are nonsense.

"When I withdraw my forces now the Sunnis will come back and they will become an incubator for Isis again," said one fighter. "When I liberate an area from Isis why do I have to give it back to them? Either I erase it or settle Shia in it."

"If it's for me I will start cleansing Baghdad from today," added another fighter. "We have not started sectarian war, we are just trying to secure our areas, but if the sectarian days come back then I am sure it will be won by us."