Iraq
| Peshmerga fighters on the front lines. Photo: Reuters. |
The US has launched airstrikes on ISIS artillery with the
intention of stopping the terrorist group’s advance on Erbil, currently
controlled by Kurdish Peshmerga forces. The Peshmerga, formerly considered to
be more capable than the Iraqi military, has retreated from ISIS multiple times
in the last few weeks. ISIS appears to be attempting to carry out genocide
against Iraq’s Yazidi minority population.
Yazidism is a unique, 4,000-year-old monotheistic religion.
Iraq has about half a million Yazidis. ISIS, which considers them to be “devil-worshippers”,
is holding hundreds of Yazidi women prisoner, and is accused of selling them as
slaves. About 35-50,000 Yazidis who fled ISIS’ advance are trapped in the
Sinjar mountains are being supplied food and water by the US and Turkey.
This past week, ISIS captured the poorly-built Mosul Dam,
Iraq’s largest, which supplies water and electricity to millions of Iraqis. If
ISIS destroys it – or even fails to maintain it – the rush of water will flood
Mosul and parts of Baghdad, killing up to half a million people and leaving
millions more without power.
Ukraine and Russia
Russia has banned Western food imports and is threatening to
block international commercial access to its airspace. This suggests that
Russia will be willing to cut off gas exports to the EU as winter approaches.
Russia and Ukraine are inching towards open war.
International fears that Russia will invade eastern Ukraine are growing. In the
absence of an open Russian invasion, it is almost certain that the Ukrainian military
will succeed in retaking Donetsk and Luhansk, the two main bastions of the
separatist movement. Donetsk appears to have been isolated from the rest of the
separatist-held territory, and Luhansk will probably be surrounded soon. More
than 1,500 people have died in the fighting so far.
There was a false alarm over Aeroflot flight 1127, which was
briefly believed to have disappeared in the air near eastern Ukraine.
Israel and Gaza
Israel has withdrawn its ground troops from Gaza. Another
ceasefire has collapsed, with Israeli airstrikes and Hamas rocket attacks
resuming. Israel says the IDF accomplished its objective of destroying Hamas
tunnels; Israel’s original objective was to stop Hamas’ rocket attacks.
More than 1,900 Gazans, mostly civilian, and fewer than 70
Israelis, almost all soldiers, have been killed since the fighting began a
month ago. One Thai national, working in Israeli, was also killed.
An apparently accidental Israeli strike on Gaza’s main power
plant has caused the humanitarian situation in Gaza to worsen considerably.
Afghanistan and Pakistan
Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan’s two
presidential candidates, have agreed to a power-sharing deal regardless of who
is determined to be the winner of the disputed election. The deal – which goes
along with the ongoing recount – was brokered by US Secretary of State John
Kerry, and will include the creation of a more powerful prime minister, and the
creation of a “chief executive” position to be filled by the loser’s candidate.
The Taliban have taken ground in this year’s summer
offensive. On the other side of the border, Pakistan claims to have killed 500
Taliban for the loss of 27 soldiers in a recent offensive in North Waziristan.
800,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.
Yemen
Al-Qaeda has kidnapped and executed fourteen Yemeni
soldiers. The attack seems to be in retaliation for the combat deaths of 25
suspected fighters in south Yemen over the last week.
The Yemeni government has signed a ceasefire with minority Shia
Houthi fighters in the north of the country. This will hopefully bring an end
to one of Yemen’s three ongoing insurgencies.
Elswhere in the world, fighting is ongoing in Syria,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and
India.
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