Gruesome Honour Rape, Torture, Killing of Muslim Girl in London

Banaz Mahmod, 20, was raped, tortured and garroted in a two hour ordeal at her parents home in London before she was buried in a suitcase in the back garden

The Mirror

She chose a boyfriend outside of her family’s strict regime, and paid with her life by being tortured to death by her father, uncle and cousins and unceremoniously dumped in a suitcase.

Banaz Mahmod was raped, tortured and strangled with a length of plastic cord at her parents’ home in a brutal honour killing after her family felt she had “shamed” them by divorcing her arranged marriage husband and choosing her own partner.

The Kurdish 20-year-old had even heard her family discussing the plot to kill her and her boyfriend at a ‘family war council’ and had delivered a handwritten letter to police revealing the men who were “ready to do the job.”

Months later she was dead, buried several feet beneath the ground below a leaking pipe, her body bundled into a suitcase where it was left to rot.

And it was an innocent kiss outside Morden tube station in south London that was the act that would determine her death – after someone who knew Banaz and her strict Iraqi family spotted her with the man she had fallen in love with.

“What must it have been like for her getting up every morning, going downstairs and not knowing what was going to happen that day?” said crime writer Mark Billingham, who had been so affected by the case it inspired him to write novel Love Like Blood.

“She was living every minute, of every hour of every day in absolute terror.”

Banaz had drawn the ire of her family by leaving the man she had been wedded to through an arranged marriage, and finding her own boyfriend in Iranian Rahmat Sulemani. The pair were reportedly besotted with each other, texting every morning and night.

“They worshipped one another and they tried to keep apart,” added Mark. “They knew the trouble they were going to get in but they couldn’t be without one another so they would meet secretly.”

It was this meeting, outside Morden tube station in 2005, that would start off a chain of events that saw Banaz’s father ply her with brandy before, she believed, he was to attempt to kill her. It also led Banaz to record the fact she was being followed and monitored by her family, and that she had learnt of their plans to murder her on 2nd December 2005.

In a letter to police where she referred to members of her family by numbers, Banaz said she knew she was being followed and wrote: “Numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 said they are ready and willing to do the job of killing me and my boyfriend.”

More than 50 people involved

Four months later Banaz was dead. Five members of her family have been convicted of her murder – sentenced to a total of 100 years in prison. Police said more than 50 people were actually involved in the case – some in the cover up of her body and others who offered to lie for the family members arrested for her murder.

So, apparently, the whole community was in agreement with this honour-killing. Nice! Britain needs more Muslims with such a high, moral, standard of honour.

Rahmat, who had to assume a secret identity and live under police protection , once told in an interview how there was “no life” for him after Banaz’s death at 20. Last year, 10 years after the death of his girlfriend, Rahmat hanged himself.

Mark added: “It is desperately sad. You go back to the two of them meeting outside that tube station, having that kiss, and 10 years later they are both dead.

“I thought an honour killing was a father or uncle strangling a nephew, niece or daughter. I didn’t realise that it could involve quite as many people and be quite as brutal as what happened to Banaz.”

Banaz’s father Mahmod Mahmod was sentenced to a minimum 20 years and his brother Ari, the head of the family, 23 years. Mohamad Hama, 30, was jailed for at least 17 years for the killing in Mitcham, Surrey.

Mohammed Ali fled to Iraq and was later extradited and jailed

Mohammed Ali, 30, and Omar Hussain, 32, were also jailed for life after they were extradited from Iraq after fleeing the UK in 2006.

Omar Hussain

Old Bailey judge Brian Barker told the men when they were sentenced: “This was barbaric. For you, respect was more important than your flesh and blood.”

Mark spoke about the case on Written in Blood, which is due to be broadcast on CBS Reality and follows the case of Banaz, and how her family determined to kill her.

Born on 16th December, 1985, Banaz moved to the UK from Iraq with her family in 1995 when she was 10, along with her parents, four sisters and a brother as well as lots of extended family members. They were a typical Iraqi family, with strong views on the role of women.

Typical Muslim family - the role of women is to be invisible.

She was married to a man through an arranged marriage who was 10 years older than her, illiterate and didn’t speak English. And he used to beat and rape her, repeatedly.Caroline Goode, an officer for the Metropolitan Police who worked on the case, said when one of Banaz’s sisters found her covered in bruises they confronted her husband.

“He said ‘yes, I do beat your daughter but it’s because she’s disrespectful. And yes I do force her to have sex, but only when she says no.’ The family felt that was acceptable and sent Banaz back to try harder to be a better wife to her husband.

“In her words ‘he treated me as if I was shoe’, that he could put on whenever he wanted.”

But Banaz went against the family tradition and after two years left her husband in 2005, striking up a relationship with her friend Rahmat.

Her family warned off Rahmat and the pair did their best to conceal the relationship.

Caroline, who said she is still haunted by the case, added: “A council of war was held at Ari Mahmod’s house where the decision was made that Banaz and Rahmat would both be killed. Ari Mahmod rang Banaz’s mother and her that that was going to happen. In his words ‘they are bringing shame on the family and that b**** and that b****** are going to die.”

Ari Mahmod, uncle of Banaz

Banaz overheard the conversation and handed her letter to the Metropolitan Police in December 2005. She contacted police five times about her family, saying she was sure they were following her. Then, on New Year’s Eve, her father took her to her grandmother’s house where he fed her brandy while wearing blue gloves, constantly telling Banaz not to look at him.

She escaped by smashing a window before collapsing in a cafe and being taken to hospital, covered in blood. She she told police she was convinced her dad would kill her. Her boyfriend also recorded a chilling video of her as she lay in hospital.

At this stage Banaz had no where else to go and her family arranged to meet her in a McDonald’s in Tooting. Her dad apologised and told Rahmat he should not have listened to his brother. They promised nothing would happen to her and convinced her to go home.

I've seen this many times in honour-killing cases where the family swears they will not harm the girl, then as soon as she is in the door they torture and murder her. Lying is no problem for these people. There is no respect for truth and no genuine fear of God.

Mahmod Mahmod,

the dad of murder victim Banaz Mahmod

But they lied.

On 22nd January 2006 Rahmat was almost abducted by two men who told him they would kill him, and Banaz. The pair went to the police on 23rd January and Banaz was due to return the next day to give a statement.

However, she never turned up. Instead she was raped and tortured by her family. Dead at the age of 20.

On 24th January 2006, Rahmat reported Banaz missing.

Her family insisted she had not gone missing and told police that they were progressive and embraced a westernised life – with their daughters free to come and go as they pleased. They suggested she had simply gone to stay with a friend.

They have no problem lying to the police either! The Met Police, unfortunately, completely failed Banaz and Rahmat and share some responsibility for their deaths. This should be investigated to determine what, if anything, the police did, and what they might have done. For instance, they could have gone to her parents and told them that if anything happens to Banaz, they will be held personally responsible and will go to prison for many years. Did they do that? Apparently not.

Outraged at the lack of love

As police searched woods and tried to question her family, doors were slammed in their faces and the family failed to follow up her disappearance. Police found no photos of her in the family home and according to Caroline Goode, officers were said to be “outraged at the lack of love.”

But it was the charging of her cousin Mohamad Hama, after he came forward to admit that he had been there when Rahmat was threatened that was to be the turning point.

As Hama was held in cells waiting to appear in court, his phone conversations were covertly recorded.

“He was callously describing the murder to a relative and they were congratulating themselves on how manly they were,” said Caroline. “And they described that murder in the most gruesome of terms.

“They had anally raped Banaz, she was vomiting she was so afraid. They had wrapped a cord three times around her neck so tightly that it was biting into her flesh. He described having his feet on her back and pulling and pulling on that cord. Can you imagine the horror of that situation?

“It took more than half an hour for her to die.”

Police were left hunting for her body, using mobile phone records to trace two family members and their frequent journeys to Birmingham. They knew she was buried in a back garden in a house with bricked up walls, but didn’t know where. They used the police helicopter that identified many potential sites, but it was when Hama asked his friend on the phone if anyone had found the body and if he had ‘put the freezer back’ over the body, that Caroline knew the site.

It was excavated and the body was found in a hole, stuffed inside a suitcase. It had been left beneath a leaking pipe, left to rot so badly that no DNA could be taken from her body.

ISIS Tightens Grip on 3,000 Sex Slaves; Women Who Try to Escape are Beaten, Raped or Killed

"A girl for sale is Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old"

By Lori Hinnant, Maya Allezeruzzo, Balint Szlanko, The Associated Press 


Lamiya Aji Bashar, an 18-year-old Yazidi girl who escaped her ISIS enslavers, describes how she was abducted along with her sisters and brothers when the group overran her village in 2014. She says she was passed around from militant to militant, trying to escape many times. (Balint Szlanko/Associated Press)

The advertisement on the Telegram app is as chilling as it is incongruous: A girl for sale is "Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old.... Her price has reached $12,500 and she will be sold soon."

The posting in Arabic appeared on an encrypted conversation along with ads for kittens, weapons and tactical gear. It was shared with The Associated Press by an activist with the minority Yazidi community, whose women and children are being held as sex slaves by the extremists.

While the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is losing territory in its self-styled caliphate, it is tightening its grip on the estimated 3,000 women and girls held as sex slaves.

In a fusion of ancient barbaric practices and modern technology, ISIS sells the women like chattel on smartphone apps and shares databases that contain their photographs and the names of their "owners" to prevent their escape through ISIS checkpoints. The fighters are assassinating smugglers who rescue the captives, just as funds to buy the women out of slavery are drying up.

The thousands of Yazidi women and children were taken prisoner in August 2014, when ISIS fighters overran their villages in northern Iraq with the aim to eliminate the Kurdish-speaking minority because of its ancient faith. Since then, Arab and Kurdish smugglers managed to free an average of 134 people a month. But by May, an ISIS crackdown reduced those numbers to just 39 in the last six weeks, according to figures provided by the Kurdistan regional government.


ISIS militants took this photo of Yazidi girl Nazdar Murat as part of a database the militants have put together of Yazidi girls and women they have enslaved. (Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press)

Mirza Danai, founder of the German-Iraqi aid organization Luftbrucke Irak, said in the last two or three months, escape has become more difficult and dangerous.

"They register every slave, every person under their owner, and therefore if she escapes, every ISIS control or checkpoint, or security force — they know that this girl … has escaped from this owner," he said.

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby told the AP that the U.S. continues "to be appalled by credible reports that ISIS is trafficking in human beings, and sex slavery in particular."

"This depravity not only speaks to the degree to which ISIS cheapens life and repudiates the Islamic faith, it also strengthens our resolve to defeat them," he said.

ISIS doesn't repudiate the Islamic faith, they follow it much more closely than westernized Muslims.

The AP has obtained a batch of 48 head shots of the captives, smuggled out of the ISIS-controlled region by an escapee, which people familiar with them say are similar to those in the extremists' slave database and the smartphone apps.

Lamiya Aji Bashar tried to flee four times before finally escaping in March, racing to government-controlled territory with ISIS fighters in pursuit. A landmine exploded, killing her companions, eight-year-old Almas and Katherine, 20. She never learned their last names.


Lamiya Aji Bashar considers herself lucky to be alive after escaping while enslaved to ISIS. (Balint Szlanko/Associated Press)

The explosion left Lamiya blind in her right eye, her face scarred by melted skin. Saved by the man who smuggled her out, she counts herself among the lucky.

"I managed in the end, thanks to God, I managed to get away from those infidels," the 18-year-told the AP from a bed at her uncle's home in the northern Iraqi town of Baadre. "Even if I had lost both eyes, it would have been worth it, because I have survived them."

The Sunni extremists view the Yazidis as barely human. The Yazidi faith combines elements of Islam, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian religion. Their pre-war population in Iraq was estimated around 500,000. Their number today is unknown.

Nadia Mourad, an escapee, has appeared before the U.S. Congress and the European Parliament to appeal for international help.

"ISIS is proud of what it's done to the Yazidis," she said to Parliament. "They are being used as human shields. They are not allowed to escape or flee. Probably they will be assassinated. Where is the world in all this? Where is humanity?"

'They are being used as human shields.

They are not allowed to escape or flee.'

- Escapee Nadia Mourad

ISIS relies on encrypted apps to sell the women and girls, according to an activist documenting the transactions, who asked not to be named for fear of his safety.

The activist showed AP the negotiations for the captives in encrypted conversations as they were occurring in real time.

The postings appear primarily on Telegram, and on Facebook and WhatsApp to a lesser degree, he said.

Both Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Telegram use end-to-end encryption to protect users' privacy. Both have said they consider protecting private conversations and data paramount and that they themselves cannot access users' content.


On a chat on the WhatsApp app, an ISIS militant offers a woman and her children for sale. 'If you know one of the brothers who has a slave for sale, please let me know,' it reads in Arabic. 'She wants her owner to sell her. He wants a price of $3,700 for her. She has two daughters, one 3 years old, the other 7 months.' (Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press)

"Telegram is extremely popular in the Middle East, among other regions," said Telegram spokesman Markus Ra. "This, unfortunately, includes the more marginal elements and the broadest law-abiding masses alike." He added the company is committed to prevent abuse of the service and that it routinely removes public channels used by ISIS.

In addition to the posting for the 12-year-old in a group with hundreds of members, the AP viewed an ad on WhatsApp for a mother with a three-year-old and a seven-month old baby, with a price of $3,700. "She wants her owner to sell her," read the posting, followed by a photo.

"We have zero tolerance for this type of behaviour and disable accounts when provided with evidence of activity that violates our terms. We encourage people to use our reporting tools if they encounter this type of behaviour," said Matt Steinfeld, a spokesman for WhatsApp.

Like the Bible, (Old Testament) some passages of the Qur'an implicitly condone slavery, which was widespread when the holy book emerged. It also allows men to have sex with both their wives and "those they possess with their right hands," taken by interpreters to refer to female slaves.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, most Muslim scholars backed the banning of slavery, citing Qur'anic verses that say freeing them is a blessing. Some hardliners, however, continued to insist that under Shariah, sex slavery must be permitted, though ISIS is the first in the modern era to bring it into organized practice.

In the images obtained by AP, many of the women and girls are dressed in finery, some in heavy makeup. All look directly at the camera, standing in front of overstuffed chairs or brocade curtains in what resembles a shabby hotel ballroom. Some are barely out of elementary school. Not one looks older than 30.

One of them is Nazdar Murat, who was about 16 when she was abducted two years ago — one of more than two dozen young women taken away by the extremists in a single day in August 2014. Her father and uncles were among about 40 people killed when ISIS took over the Sinjar area, the heart of the Yazidi homeland.


Nuri Murat was enslaved by ISIS in August 2014 when militants overran Yazidi villages and towns. The militants killed her husband and abducted her daughter, Nazdar, who was about 16 at the time. Her fate remains unknown. (Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press)

Inside an immaculately kept tent in a displaced persons camp outside the northern Iraqi town of Dahuk, Nazdar's mother said her daughter managed to call once, six months ago.

"We spoke for a few seconds. She said she was in Mosul," said Murat, referring to Iraq's second-largest city. "Every time someone comes back, we ask them what happened to her and no one recognizes her. Some people told me she committed suicide."

'Every time someone comes back, we ask them what

happened to her and no one recognizes her.'

- Mother of abductee Nazdar Marat

The family keeps the file of missing Yazidis on a mobile phone. They show it to those who have escaped the caliphate, to find out if anyone has seen her, and to other families looking for a thread of hope they'll see their own missing relatives again.

The odds of rescue, however, grow slimmer by the day. The smuggling networks that have freed the captives are being targeted by ISIS leaders, who are fighting to keep the Yazidis at nearly any cost, said Andrew Slater of the non-profit group Yazda, which helps document crimes against the community and organizes refuge for those who have fled.

Kurdistan's regional government had been reimbursing impoverished Yazidi families who paid up to $15,000 in fees to smugglers to rescue their relatives, or the ransoms demanded by individual fighters to give up the captives. But the Kurdish regional government no longer has the funds.

Even when ISIS retreats from towns like Ramadi or Fallujah, the missing girls are nowhere to be found.

"Rescues are slowing. They're going to stop. People are running out of money, I have dozens of families who are tens of thousands of dollars in debt," Slater said. "There are still thousands of women and kids in captivity but it's getting harder and harder to get them out."


Clothing worn by a Yazidi girl enslaved by ISIS militants, collected by a Yazidi activist. The militants are tightening their grip on the estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women they hold as sex slaves, creating a database to identify them so they can't sneak away. (Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press)

Lamiya was abducted from the village of Kocho, near the town of Sinjar, in the summer of 2014. Her parents are presumed dead. Somewhere, she said, her nine-year-old sister Mayada remains captive. One photo she managed to send to the family shows the little girl standing in front of an ISIS flag.

Five other sisters all managed to escape and later were relocated to Germany. A younger brother, kept for months in an ISIS training camp in Mosul, also slipped away and is now staying with other relatives in Dahuk, a city in the Iraqi Kurdish region.

Sitting very still and speaking in a monotone, Lamiya recounted her captivity, describing how she was passed from one follower to another, all of whom beat and violated her. She was determined to escape.

She said her first "owner" was an Iraqi ISIS commander who went by the name Abu Mansour in the city of Raqqa, the de-facto ISIS capital deep in Syria. He brutalized her, often keeping her handcuffed.

"I tried to escape from him," she said. 

"And he captured me, too, and he beat me."

Lamiya

She tried to run away twice but was caught, beaten and raped repeatedly. After a month, she said, she was sold to another extremist in Mosul. After she spent two months with him, she was sold again, this time to a bomb maker who Lamiya said forced her to help him make suicide vests and car bombs.

"I tried to escape from him," she said. "And he captured me, too, and he beat me."

When the bomb maker grew bored with her, she was handed over to an ISIS doctor in Hawija, a small ISIS-controlled Iraqi town. She said the doctor, who was the ISIS head of the town hospital, also abused her.

From there, after more than a year, she managed to contact her relatives in secret.

Her uncle said the family paid local smugglers $800 to arrange Lamiya's escape. She will be reunited with her siblings in Germany, but despite everything, her heart remains in Iraq.

"We had a nice house with a big farm … I was going to school," she said. "It was beautiful."

ISIS Publicly Burns Alive 19 Kurdish Women for Rejecting Sex Slavery – Report

© AFP

Fighters of the terrorist group Islamic State have publicly executed 19 Kurdish women, local activists in Mosul reported. They were burned alive in iron cages in one of the city squares, sources told Kurdish ARA News agency.

The women, who belonged to the Kurdish Yezidi minority, were executed on Thursday, according to witnesses in Mosul, the Iraqi stronghold of IS (formerly known as ISIS).

“They were punished for refusing to have sex with IS militants,” local media activist Abdullah al-Malla told ARA News.

Hundreds of local residents witnessed the brutal execution, but could not do anything about it, he added.

IS, an Iraq, Syria and Libya-based terrorist group, adheres to what it believes to be a pure version of Islam. They justify their numerous crimes, including cruel forms of capital punishment, by the tenets of the religion.

Sunni Muslims living in territories under their control are forced to live by IS rules or be expelled or killed. Ethnic and religious minorities are being harshly persecuted. The Yezidis, an ethnic group that has its own synthetic religion and are considered devil-worshipers by extremist Muslims, are among those suffering under IS.

Thousands of Kurdish women captured by IS fighters were forced to become sex slaves to the militants. Those who managed to escape or were freed said that the women are raped, traded around, often denied food or rest and otherwise mistreated. IS leadership produced manuals for their men on what they should and should not be doing to their captives.

Christian women are also harshly treated by IS. They have responded by creating brigades of women to fight IS.

Iraqi Kurds say Swedish Teenage Girl Rescued from ISIS

© Rodi Said / Reuters

A 16-year-old girl from Sweden was rescued from Islamic State by Kurdish special forces in northern Iraq, the Kurdish Autonomous Region’s Security Council has said.

The teenager travelled from Sweden to Syria in 2015 and then crossed the border into Iraq, according to the statement.

The girl from the Swedish town of Boras made the trip after being “misled by a member” of Islamic State (IS, Daesh, formerly ISIS/ISIL), it added.

According to the council, she was rescued by troops from the Kurdish counter-terrorism department not far from the city of Mosul on February 17.

“The Kurdistan Region Security Council was called upon by Swedish authorities and members of her family to assist in locating and rescuing her from ISIL,” the statement stressed.

The teenager is currently still in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, but will be shortly handed over to Swedish authorities so that she can return home, the council concluded.

Many teenage girls from Europe, some of them non-Muslim, have fallen for Islamic State’s propaganda campaign and fled to Syria and Iraq in order to become so-called “jihadi brides.”

Samra Kesinovic

Last year, UK police reported that 43 females had gone missing who are suspected to have traveled to Syria to join Islamist militants.

In January, relatives said they had lost contact with three London girls who disappeared after boarding a plane to Turkey last February. They have reportedly been seen in Raqqa, the jihadists’ stronghold city in Syria.

Another teenager from Austria, 17-year-old Samra Kesinovic, who had been used as “poster girl” in IS’ promotional materials, was reportedly beaten to death as the she tried to flee back home the jihadists.

Yazidi Ex-slave Girls Subjected to Traumatic ‘Virginity Tests’ to Prove ISIS Abuse

Good grief! As if they haven't suffered enough

© Ari Jala / Reuters

Having escaped abuse at the hands of Islamic State militants, Yazidi girls and women have been forced to undergo painful “virginity tests” to prove to Iraqi courts that they had been raped, Human Rights Watch has discovered.

A report looking into the post-ISIS fate of Yazidi women in Iraq was posted on the human rights organization’s website by Rothna Begum, a WRD researcher, on Wednesday.

One of them, a girl named Luna, says she was kidnapped by Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants, sold four times, and raped by all of her “owners.”

“Survivors my colleague and I interviewed, described organized rape, sexual slavery, and forced marriage by ISIS,” the report reads.

The victims described in the report were in need of psychological help, health care, and other services. While officials in Iraqi Kurdistan took their plight seriously, they still forced the girls and women to undergo “virginity tests” to confirm that they had been abused.

“These tests were seen as evidence of rape by Iraqi courts,” Begum wrote.

Virginity exams, which are conducted out of cultural or religious beliefs, are commonly used in many parts of the world, including India, Turkey, Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Indonesia, and South Africa.

However, such tests have been long been under fire by the World Health Organization, which has pointed out that they can cause pain and psychological harm. 

“There is no place for virginity testing; it has no scientific validity,” stresses the WHO.

Testing to end

The good news is that the HRW has now received assurances by Kurdish officials that the practice will now end. A chief judge at the Dohuk Appeal Court, which is located in the capital of Kurdistan’s Dohuk Governorate, told the NGO that the committee tasked with collecting evidence has stopped using the tests and adopted a new reporting method in line with UN recommendations.

“The health directorate in Dohuk adopted a new medical examination report on sexual violence based on UN recommendations, consistent with human rights and best practice,” Begum writes.

Turkish Poet on Turkey's Genocides of Christians

From Pamela Geller
Under  the ever-increasing Islamic government of Erdogan, the brutal and oppressive sharia is enforced. One of my readers sent me this just today, “I’m 23 years old from Iraq and I left Islam for years now. I was afraid to speak up but only a year ago I knew both my brother and sister were like me and we decided to tell our dad who after long conversations began to convert himself. Dad was afraid that people would know so we left to go to Turkey. We very are afraid that anyone here knows since they are Muslims as well. We are afraid to apply to to the United Nations refugees program because it takes a long time.  We are in a small town where many extremist Muslims live and interviewers are most likely Muslims. I don’t know if you can help but we are desperate as all doors were closed.”

The brutal persecution of religious minorities and apostates is made possible by the silence and the sanction of the West.

Serkan Engin

Serkan Engin is a Turkish poet and author.  His poems and articles on poetry theory appear in more than fifty literary journals in Turkey, and around the world.

His political articles on Islam and also Armenian, Assyrian, Greek genocides have been published in many countries in many languages like Sweden, USA, Greece, India, France, Argentina, Armenia, Indonesia, etc.


Islam and Christian Genocides in Turkey
by Serkan Engin

As some have said in the West, in fact, the Armenian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Nestorian and Pontian Greek genocides were “Christian genocides”. On the other side were Muslim Turks and Kurds. The basis in society and justification in conscience of these genocides were Islamic rules. Islam gives permission to all Muslims to kill and rape every non-Muslim, and also to grab all their money and properties. The de facto killers in these genocides were the predatory bands of the “Secret Organization” (In Turkish: Teşkilatı Mahsusa). The Turks and Kurds who killed their own non-Muslim neighbours, enslaved their women and little girls as sex slaves, and grabbed all their properties, had not had any awareness of “nationalism,” as did their commanders, the leaders of the Union and Progress Organization. So the Turks and Kurds who took part in the Armenian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Nestorian and Pontian Greek genocides massacred innocent humans with pleasure, had not done all this for the benefit of “Turkish nationalism”. They were simple farmers, describing themselves as “Muslim”, but not as “Turkish” or “Kurdish”.

The massacre order of the Union and Progress Organization leaders was a gift for the Turks who lived on as predators for two thousand years, and only can turned to agriculture and the breeding of livestock in Anatolia. They considered it a gift because they got the chance to pillage their “rich” non-Muslim neighbours by the order of their government, and also they could take revenge upon non-Muslims who had, in their eyes, a great deal of money.

Kurds, who were living in the same region for thousands of years and didn’t have ability, aptitude and historical experience except in the jobs of agriculture and the breeding of livestock, like their Turkish coreligionists, became happy too, because they would, along with the Turks, pillage the money and properties of the non-Muslims.

Muslim Turks and Kurds pulled their non-Muslim neighbours to pieces with the appetite and wildness of hyenas without any mercy; moreover, they gloated over all of this. They grabbed all the houses and stores of the non-Muslims, and they enslaved the women of non-Muslims as sex slaves and also domestic slaves in their “harems” as their “booty,” as it is ordered in the rules of Islam. And they sold some of these women and girls at the slave bazaars for a bit of money.

The perpetrators of this terrible period didn’t feel any self-reproach; on the contrary, they were very happy, because they became more worthy of Allah, the god of Islam. They became better Muslims with these disgusting massacres. So they came closer to the heaven of Islam, with its many houris (group sex) and open buffet bar (rivers of kevser wines).

They were in peace because they were obeying the laws of their own god, Allah, and the government.

They raped tiny girls and women, slaughtered innocent humans, burned children alive, and massacred millions of non-Muslims by the order of the “peace” religion Islam.

Because their Allah was very merciless to the ones who disbelieved.

Muslims Shoot 19-year-old Singer in the Head for Singing

In the category of 

"Islam destroys everything beautiful"

comes this confirmation

Agence France-Presse
A Turkish woman who has been competing in a national televised song contest is in a critical condition in hospital after being shot in the head, according to reports.

Mutlu Kaya, 19, from the conservative region of Diyarbakir in the Kurdish-majority south-east of the country, had reportedly received death threats after appearing on the show.

Kaya was attacked at her home in Ergani district in the early hours of Monday, Dogan news agency reported. The assailant reportedly fired a bullet into the house through a back window to the garden.

The victim had been appearing on Sesi Çok Güzel, a show similar to Britain’s Got Talent. Her mentor is Sibel Can, one of Turkey’s best-known folk-pop singers.

The Posta newspaper reported on Sunday that Kaya had been threatened by relatives after travelling to Istanbul to take part in the contest.

NBC is reporting the theory that she might have been shot by a lover jealous of her success - an entirely plausible idea in a very misogynistic society.

Islamic State Militants Release 200+ Yazidis in Iraq

BBC Middle East

Kurdish Peshmerga forces help people from Iraq's Yazidi minority on 8 April, 2015

Islamic State militants have released more than 200 members of the Yazidi religious community being held in northern Iraq, Kurdish security officials have said.

Most of the 216 prisoners were in poor health and bore signs of abuse, General Hiwa Abdullah told the Associated Press.

About 40 children were among those freed, while the rest were elderly.

IS attacked the Yazidis in Iraq last year, killing and abducting thousands.

Some of the captives told Reuters they had been held in the IS stronghold of Tel Afar most of the time, but in the days leading up to their release, they were moved from one town to another.

A Reuters reporter at the scene said many of the prisoners were too exhausted and disoriented to speak.

Meanwhile, Iraqi troops have said they are gaining ground in a fresh offensive against IS in the western province of Anbar.

There were emotional scenes as the Yazidis were released to
Kurdish Peshmerga forces hug each other on the outskirts of Kirkuk

Military sources said the insurgents were trading mortar fire with government forces in the Sijariya area, east of the region's capital Ramadi, where IS has been dominant.

An air strike by a US-led coalition is reported to have hit militants who were trying to flee by boat on a river.

BBC correspondents say the new offensive is an attempt by the government to build on its recent victory over IS in the battle for the city of Tikrit.

Troops were on hand to help members of the group following their release

No reason has been given for the release of the Yazidi prisoners, who were originally abducted by IS from the area around Sinjar last August.

They were handed over to Peshmerga forces in the northern province of Nineveh on Monday, Kurdish commander General Westa Rasul told AFP. The group did not reach Kurdish-controlled territory until Wednesday, he said.

They were then taken away by ambulances and buses to receive treatment and care.

It is the second time a group of prisoners has been released by IS in recent months. In January hundreds of Yazidis were freed, including several sick children, but many villages remain under IS control.

Many were suffering from poor health and had been neglected

This, like the January release should never be mistaken for an act of kindness. This was a self-serving act! The sick and the elderly had become a burden and likely considered by IS as not being worth burying. Also, in this time where IS is retreating, people who are not very mobile only slow you down.

Nevertheless, thank God for their return to their families and friends.

Child Sex Abuse in Sheffield Worse Than Rotherham, So Were Police

South Yorkshire Police has covered up abuse on a “massive” scale in the former industrial city turned multicultural melting-pot, a retired, veteran, police officer has claimed, remarking in an interview the abuse was “bigger than Rotherham”.

The revelation by the former officer, who served for thirty years, could be yet another in a long line of emerging child sex scandals in predominantly northern English cities with sizable Pakistani populations. It is not the first such revelation for South Yorkshire Police, who also failed to detect and prosecute criminal abuse in the city of Rotherham, where 1,400 known girls were trafficked and raped by a network of criminals using take-away shops and minicab firms to enable their activities.

A Sheffield city council employee tasked with tracking child sex abuse has claimed almost 700 children were referred to the police in just two years, but not a single prosecution was made on the back of the information passed to the police.

Retired constable Tony Brooks has come forward with the allegations, and has said South Yorkshire Police have long known that girls as young as twelve – putting them into the most serious category of sex abuse – were being raped, but chose not to act on the information they had, effectively creating a cover-up. Claiming 200 girls were reported to have been abused in just a three year period in the city, he told the BBC “The size of the exploitation was massive in Sheffield."

Sheffield city, UK

A copy of a document from South Yorkshire Police's intelligence database details more than 200 girls in Sheffield who were suspected of being sexually exploited.

It also lists more than 320 men accused of carrying out abuse, mainly between 2007 and 2010.

The abuse includes:
Rapes
Dozens of allegations of sex with a child
Trafficking
Physical assaults, including beatings
Child abduction
Threats, including threats to kill parents and threats to scald girls by holding kettles of boiling water over them
Most of the girls are aged 13 to 15 but some are as young as 12.

The nationalities of the alleged abusers include a mixture of Iraqi Kurds, white British, black British, and Pakistani Heritage, among others.

The document lists three members of the same family linked to the alleged abuse of almost three-dozen girls.

In most cases there is no evidence police took any action.

'Most vulnerable' people
Some of the abuse claims detailed in the document were investigated and prosecutions did follow.

In 2007, one investigation known as Operation Glover led to the conviction of a group of Iraqi-Kurdish men - two of whom received 10-year prison sentences while two others received substantial custodial sentences.

Following that investigation at least two detectives urged senior officers to continue enquiries.

Other girls had been identified, allegations had been made, and new potential perpetrators had been pinpointed.

A 2007 report sent to several senior officers described an "emerging criminal issue" in Sheffield, saying the level of criminality was "serious", and the victims were "among the most vulnerable in society".

It also said South Yorkshire Police did "not have any effective process or policy to combat the situation".

Among the senior officers who were sent the 2007 report were Jon House and Paul Broadbent - according to Tony Brookes, who had worked as a detective on the investigation.

Both have now left the police but are the subject of Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigations over previous allegations they failed to act on child sexual exploitation claims.

Despite the substantial problems identified, the team was disbanded.

Utter disbelief
Police analyst Gary Birchall, who also spoke to the BBC, expressed his disbelief after he learnt of the extent of the cover-up. He was asked as part of his work to look into a special operation run by the South Yorkshire Police, and paid for by Sheffield city council which was tasked with looking into child sex abuse. He found that despite it having been specifically requested and funded to the tune of £50,000, the operation had been shelved almost immediately with officers reassigned to other work.

“We offered to form a unit to continue the work – we offered to advertise our work so girls would come forward. We were told, ‘it’s not going to happen, return to your districts.”

“He said to me, ‘go and spend an hour or two with each girl and find out what’s happened to them and tell them there’s not enough evidence to go on”. The officer refused to follow the order.

He requested a “full investigation” into the failure, but his call went unheeded. Speaking on the matter, he said: “I got a call telling me the operation’s been shelved. I said it can’t be shelved, there’s evidence here that children are being trafficked, being sexually abused. There isn’t a superlative that describes how I felt then or how I feel now. Utter, utter, disbelief.”

Islamic State: Numbers Grow and Fears Grow for Abducted Syrian Christians

Photo posted by al-Baraka division of Islamic State purportedly shows militants
battling Kurdish and Christian militia near Tal Hamr, Hassakeh province, Syria

There are fears that many more members of an Assyrian Christian community in north-eastern Syria were abducted by Islamic State militants than at first thought.

Initial reports had put the number of missing at 90, but one activist said as many as 285 people had been seized on Monday in Hassakeh province.

Efforts to try to negotiate their release are reported to be under way.

Some 1,000 local Assyrian families are believed to have fled their homes in the wake of the abductions.

Kurdish and Christian militia are battling IS in the area, amid reports of churches and homes having been set ablaze.

Thousands of Christians in Syria have been forced from their homes by the threat from IS militants.

In areas under their control, Christians have been ordered to convert to Islam, pay jizya (a religious levy), or face death. IS militants in Libya also recently beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians.

Kurdish offensive
The Assyrians were seized by the militants as they swept into 12 villages along the southern bank of the Khabur river near the town of Tal Tamr before dawn on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, said at least 90 people had been abducted, most of them women, children and the elderly.

However, the Syriac National Council of Syria put the figure as high as 150, while Afram Yakoub of the Assyrian Federation of Sweden said sources on the ground had told him that up to 285 people were missing, including 156 from the village of Tal Shamran and 90 from Tal al-Jazira.

"These were peaceful villages that had nothing to do with the battles," Nasir Haj Mahmoud, a Kurdish official in the YPG militia in north-eastern Syria, told the Reuters news agency.

There are conflicting reports as to where the families have been taken.

Kino Gabriel, a spokesman for the Syriac Military Council - a Christian militia fighting alongside the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) - told the BBC that it believed the captives had been taken to Abdul Aziz mountain.

Osama Edward of the Sweden-based Assyrian Human Rights Network told the AFP news agency that the captives had been taken to the IS stronghold of Shaddadi, as did Syria's state news agency, Sana.

Another report said they were in Raqqa, 145km (90 miles) to the west, the de facto capital of the "caliphate" declared by IS last June.

The BBC's Jonny Dymond in Beirut says the motive for the seizure of so many Assyrians is not yet clear. Our correspondent says it may be that the captives are to be used as part of a swap with the Kurdish forces.

Hundreds of Assyrians who were living in villages on the north bank of the Khabur river and elsewhere are reported to have fled following the attack to the largely Kurdish-controlled provincial capital of Hassakeh, to the south-east, and Qamishli, another city to the north-east.

Photograph posted by Syrian Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG)
 shows militiamen near Tal Tamr (24 February 2015)
Kurdish and Christian fighters are battling IS militants in the area
where the Assyrians were abducted

Photo posted by al-Baraka division of Islamic State purportedly showing militants
 taking a break during battle with Kurdish and Christian militia near Tal Hamr,
Hassakeh province, Syria (25 February 2015). IS has forced Christians living
in its territory to either convert to Islam, pay a religious levy or face death

Mr Edward said two historic churches had been burned down in captured villages - one in Tal Hurmiz and the other in Qaber Shamiya. The Syrian Observatory also reported that a church in Tal Shamran had also been damaged.

Mr Gabriel said IS had moved a big force into the area and were trying to take control of Tal Tamr.

The Syriac Military Council had about 400 fighters in the area and at least four had been killed in clashes with the jihadists, he added. The YPG has deployed between 1,000 and 1,500 fighters.

The YPG is also continuing a major offensive launched on Sunday against IS some 100km (60 miles) to the east, near the border with Iraq - an area of vital importance to the jihadists.

Please pray for these Christians, in particular the women and girls. We do not know that they will be used as bargaining chips, or if they are, what will happen if the negotiations fail. It is also quite possible the prisoners will be used as human shields against air strikes. The women and girls could also be in danger of being used as sex slaves, or sold to fighters for wives. All prisoners are in danger of forced conversion or possible beheading. Please pray.

Islamic State 'Abducts Dozens of Christians in Syria'

Islamic State (IS) has abducted dozens of Assyrian Christians from villages in north-eastern Syria, activists say.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 90 men, women and children were seized in a series of dawn raids near the town of Tal Tamr.

Some Assyrians managed to escape and made their way east to the largely Kurdish-controlled city of Hassakeh.

It comes as Syrian Kurdish fighters backed by US-led air strikes continue to advance into IS-held territory.

Hassakeh province is strategically important in the fight against IS because it borders both Turkey and areas controlled by the group in Iraq.

Activists reported that IS fighters swept through a string of villages along the south bank of the Khabur river before dawn on Monday.

Residents of villages on the north bank fled, with about 3,000 believed to have headed for Hassakeh and Qamishli, another city to the north-east.

Syrian Kurdish YPG militia fighter sits on an armoured vehicle in Hassakeh, Syria
There has been heavy fighting between Kurdish fighters and Islamic State militants
 in Hassakeh province

The militants have reportedly taken the male captives to nearby Abdul Aziz mountain, while the women are being held in the village of Tal Shamran, where activists say most of those captured came from.

Supporters of Islamic State at a rally in Mosul (16 June 2014)
IS has forced Christians living in its territory to either convert to Islam,
pay a religious levy, or face death

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that monitors the four-year conflict in Syria, said at least 90 Assyrians had been taken captive.

Meanwhile Nuri Kino, the head of the group A Demand For Action, which focuses on religious minorities in the Middle East, said between 70 and 100 had been abducted.

Islamic State's online radio station, al-Bayan, reported on Tuesday that its members had seized "tens of Crusaders".

Osama Edward of the Sweden-based Assyrian Human Rights Network, who has relatives in the area, told the BBC that his wife's elderly aunt and her cousin were among the hostages.

"My wife tried to call her cousin's house and there was somebody who picked up the phone and said: 'This is not Akram's house. This is the Islamic State's house'."

Assyrian Christians from Iraq, Lebanon and Syria attend a Christmas Mass
in Beirut (25 December 2014). Hundreds of thousands of Christians,
many of them Assyrians, have fled Syria to escape the violence

The Syrian Observatory also said Tal Tamr had seen heavy clashes between IS and the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia.

On Sunday, YPG fighters launched an offensive about 90km (55 miles) to the east, near the Iraqi border.

Backed by US-led coalition aircraft and Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga, they quickly seized about 20 IS-held villages and forced the militants back to within 5km (3 miles) of the town of Tal Hamis, according to the Syrian Observatory. Another 10 villages reportedly fell to the YPG on Tuesday.

Ancient community
Christians are believed to have constituted about 10% of Syria's 22 million people before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began almost four years ago.

Assyrians, of whom there were about 40,000 in Syria, are Nestorian Christians and speak Syriac, a form of Aramaic, the language of Christ.

The largest concentration of Assyrians in Syria is in Hassakeh province, but there are also smaller communities in Aleppo, Homs and Damascus.

Many Assyrians are believed to have fled Syria not only to escape the conflict but also violent attacks by extremist groups like IS, which has forced Christians living in the territory it controls to either convert to Islam, pay a religious levy (jizya) or face death.

The BBC's Jonny Dymond in Beirut says the motive for the seizure of so many Assyrians not yet clear.

A few weeks ago, Assyrians in the area were instructed by IS to remove crosses from churches and pay jizya; and Assyrian militia have taken part in the Kurdish offensive against IS in the area.

Our correspondent says it may be that the Assyrian prisoners are to be used as part of a swap with the Kurdish forces.

Christians, please be in prayer for those who were taken. The lives of the men are in great danger, and abuse of the women and girls is a distinct possibility, if not likely. Please be on your knees for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Sheer Desperation and Remarkable Courage of Captured Yazidi Girls

ISIS slave girl

Info from Global National News, Canada

It's estimated that there are 7,000 Yazidi women and girls held as prisoners by IS, waiting to be sold to IS fighters as slave/wives. But it appears that while they wait they are subject to frequent rapes. So much so that Kurdish fighters get texts from the prisoners asking them to bomb the prisons and end their suffering. Islam!

Ansha is a nineteen year old girl with a 20 month old baby. She was forced to watch as IS pushed her husband and his father to the ground and shot them. Then, she was forced to marry one of the shooters.

Ansha was forced to convert to Islam or her son would have been killed. After 3 weeks Ansha and her son escaped through a bathroom window and somehow made it back to the Kurdish side.

Another girl, just 15 years old shot her first husband but was captured trying to escape. She was sold to a Saudi fighter for $1000 and forced to marry again. One day, she found a stash of narcotics and spiked the tea of her husband and other fighters. After they all passed out, she escaped again, this time making it back to freedom.

Christian girl abused by ISIS

 Isn't Islam wonderful?

Up to 700 People Trapped in Kobane which is Falling while Erdogan Watches

UN special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura updated reporters in Geneva
 on the latest from Kobane on Friday

The UN special envoy to Syria has warned that up to 700 people, mainly elderly, are still trapped in the Syrian border town of Kobane.

Staffan de Mistura also urged Turkey to allow in volunteers to Syria to defend the town from Islamic State militants.

There are reports that IS has taken control of the Kurdish headquarters in the town, but this has been denied by a Syrian Kurdish official there.

Kobane has been a major battleground for IS and the Kurds for three weeks.

The fighting has forced hundreds of thousands of Syrians, mainly Kurds, to flee into neighbouring Turkey, which has so far ruled out any ground operation on its own against IS.

Smoke rises after strikes from the US-led coalition
Kurdish sources said four coalition air strikes hit the town in just 30 minutes

Kurdish forces, who are being helped by US-led coalition strikes against IS, say they urgently need more weapons and ammunition to push back the militants' advance in the town.

The US Central Command (Centcom) said that US fighter jets alongside UAE and Saudi Arabian military aircraft carried out fresh airstrikes on Thursday and Friday around the southeast of Kobane and in Deir al-Zour, in eastern Syria, destroying several IS vehicles and training facilities.

Kurdish sources inside Kobane told the BBC that four air strikes hit the western side of the town in one half-hour period.

'No Srebrenica'
Except for one narrow entry and exit point, Mr de Mistura said Kobane was "literally surrounded" by IS, with hundreds of mainly elderly civilians still inside the city centre and another 10-13,000 gathered nearby, AFP reports.

Wish I could explain what 'gathered nearby' means, but I can't. We don't know if those 10-13,000 people are at risk or not.

He said the civilians would "most likely be massacred'' if the town fell to IS, warning that the UN did not want to see another Srebrenica - where thousands of Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995 during the Bosnian conflict.

Kurdish people stand on a hill at the Turkish-Syrian border
in the south-eastern village of Mursitpinar,

More than 200,000 residents of Kobane have fled across the border in recent weeks.

"We would like to appeal to the Turkish authorities in order to allow the flow of volunteers at least, and their equipment to be able to enter the city to contribute to a self-defence operation," Mr de Mistura said, addressing reporters in Geneva on Friday.

Syrian and Turkish Kurds pray during Friday prayers at the Turkish-Syrian border

He also urged Turkey to support the US-led coalition in carrying out air strikes on IS targets around Kobane "through whatever means from their own territory".

But the vice chairman of Turkey's governing AK party, Yasin Aktay, told the BBC on Friday that all of Kobane's civilians had left the town and were already in Turkey.

"There is no tragedy in Kobane as cried out by the terrorist PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party]", he said. "There is a war between two terrorist groups."

Turkey is reluctant to get involved militarily, partly because it is concerned about arming the Kurdish forces who are fighting the IS militants. Turkey fought a long civil war with its Kurdish minority.

It's quite a dilemma whether or not to arm Turkish Kurds and send them in to Kobane. If they survived, they might someday turn the guns on Turkey, but that's very unlikely any time soon as the Kurds have their hands full with IS. "A war between two terrorist groups" sums it up. Erdogan is hoping they will both kill each other off. 

If he's wrong about all the civilians being evacuated, as the Special Envoy indicates, then he will have the blood of 700, mostly elderly, people on his hands, and consequently should be a candidate for crimes against humanity.

Tactically, I think he is making a huge mistake. He has the chance to be a hero and rescue the Kurds which might go a long way to improving relations with them. Instead, he is just infuriating Turkish Kurds even more. 

Targets hit by US-led air strikes in Iraq and Syria 

A Syrian Kurdish source inside Kobane has denied reports that IS has taken almost complete control of the town's "security quarter" - where the Kurdish civilian headquarters are based.

The source told the BBC that Kurdish fighters remained in control of two administrative buildings in the east of the town, saying that "heavy fighting has reached the 'security quarter' but it has not fallen yet".

Earlier, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the jihadists had seized the main headquarters of the Kurdish military and civilian authorities.

"IS now controls 40% of the town," the monitoring group's director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP news agency.

Turkey has been granted parliamentary approval for possible military action, allowing it to launch an offensive into Syria and Iraq against militants who threaten Turkey.

But while Turkish tanks are stationed along the border, there has so far been no move by Turkish forces into Syria.

Pro-Kurdish protesters have ramped up the pressure on the Turkish authorities to do more to save Kobane in recent days. Interior Minister Efkan Ala says more than 30 people have been killed in clashes with police in several Turkish cities this week.