UN Warns of Possible Massacre in Shiite Town in Northern Iraq

BAGHDAD – The United Nations secretary-general’s special representative for Iraq on Saturday called for “immediate measures” to avoid the possible massacre of civilians in the town of Amerli, under siege by Sunni militants for two months.

In a statement, Nickolay Mladenov expressed alarm over reports of the “inhuman conditions” being endured by the roughly 18,000 inhabitants of that northern Iraqi town, mainly members of the Shiite Turkmen community.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant considers Shiites, who are the majority in Iraq, to be heretics.

“The situation of the people in Amerli is desperate and demands immediate action to prevent the possible massacre of its citizens,” Mladenov said.

Surrounded by towns and villages already captured by ISIL, Amerli, located 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of Baghdad, is cut off from supplies of food and water.

The envoy urged the Iraqi government to “do all it can” to ensure that Amerli’s residents receive “lifesaving” humanitarian aid or are “evacuated in a dignified manner.”

“Iraq’s allies and the international community should work with the authorities to prevent a human rights tragedy,” he said.

Earlier this month, the United States launched airstrikes to halt the advance of ISIL and facilitate the evacuation of and delivery of aid to a group of Yazidis, who practice an ancient religion that the jihadist group also considers heretical.

Thousands of Yazidis were stranded on a mountain after ISIL drove them from their homes in the northern town of Sinjar, but most were able to flee to safety thanks to the U.S. intervention.

Iraq has been wracked by an armed conflict with sectarian overtones since June, when Sunni insurgents led by ISIL launched an offensive in northern Iraq.

The militants captured Mosul, Iraq’s second city, and have proclaimed a caliphate in the parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria under their control, prompting the mobilization of numerous Shiite militias.

Shiite militiamen opened fire in an Iraqi Sunni mosque during Friday prayers in the eastern province of Diyala, killing some 70 worshippers.

The United Nations condemned the attack and expressed concern about the “impact such acts of sectarian violence will have ... on the political process aimed at establishing a unified government capable of confronting the threat” posed by ISIL.

WASHINGTON ( China playing " Top Gun " with United States )

Washington Denounces “Dangerous” Encounter Between U.S., Chinese Warplanes

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government said Friday that a Chinese jet fighter carried out dangerous maneuvers near an American Navy aircraft when both planes were flying in international airspace over the South China Sea.

The encounter took place Tuesday as a Navy P-8 Poseidon was flying a routine patrol mission about 135 miles (217 kilometers) east of China’s Hainan Island, the Defense Department spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, told reporters.

The Chinese plane approached the Poseidon three times and the wingtips of the two aircraft were only 20 feet (6 meters) apart at one point, the admiral said.

“The Chinese jet also passed the nose of the P-8 at 90 degrees with its belly toward the P-8 Poseidon, we believe to make a point of showing its weapons load,” Kirby said.

“We have registered our strong concerns to the Chinese about the unsafe and unprofessional intercept, which posed a risk to the safety and the well-being of the air crew, and was inconsistent with customary international law,” the Pentagon spokesman said.

The intercept represents “a deeply concerning provocation,” Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser, said Friday during a briefing in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where President Barack Obama is spending his vacation.

“What we’ve encouraged is constructive military-to-military ties with China, and this kind of action clearly violates the spirit of that engagement,” Rhodes said.

Possible suspect ( In American journalist James Foley homicide )

British rapper L Jinny is a leading suspect in the barbaric beheading of American journalist James Foley.

British rapper a suspect in ISIS beheading

He recently tweeted a photo of himself holding up a severed head.

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Israeli strikes kill family of 5, destroys 2 mosques in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza on Saturday, killing five Palestinians from the same family, two of them children, as the war between Israel and Hamas entered a 47th day.
Eighty-one Palestinians and a four-year-old Israeli boy have been killed and nine Israeli civilians wounded since Tuesday, when truce talks collapsed ending nine days of calm.
Israel has vowed no let-up until it can guarantee the safety of its civilians, while Hamas insists that Israel must end its eight-year blockade of the territory as part of any truce.
The Israeli military said it had carried out more than 20 air strikes over the Gaza Strip on Saturday and that at least three rockets or mortar rounds had hit southern Israel.
Witnesses and Palestinian officials said two mosques were destroyed in the Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza, while a third, in the Shati refugee camp, which had already been damaged, was bombed again.
The deadliest Israeli air strike on Saturday levelled a home in Al-Zawayda in central Gaza, killing a couple, their sons aged three and four, and a 45-year-old aunt, medics said.
Another seven Palestinians were wounded in an Israeli strike that struck a house in Zeitun, east of Gaza City, medics said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Friday that the army would exact harsh retribution for the killing of a four-year-old child by shrapnel that tore through his home in kibbutz Nahal Oz in southern Israel.
Daniel Tragerman was the first Israeli child killed since the current conflict began on July 8.
srael said militants had fired the deadly mortar round from next to a school in the Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City.
Netanyahu said “Hamas will pay a heavy price for this attack,” his spokesman Ofir Gendelman said on his Twitter account.
The army and the Shin Bet security agency would “intensify ops against Hamas,” he added.
At least 2,097 Palestinians have been killed since July 8, 70 percent of them civilians, according to the United Nations.
On the Israeli side, 68 people have died, all but four of them soldiers.
It is the deadliest fighting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 2005 end of the second intifada, or uprising.
On Friday, Hamas executed 18 people it accused of collaborating with Israel a day after three of its top commanders were assassinated in Israeli air strikes.
Hamas gunmen grabbed six of them as worshippers left midday prayers at Gaza’s biggest mosque, witnesses told AFP.
Another witness saw 11 people shot dead in a square near the remains of Gaza police headquarters, bombed by Israeli warplanes.
An 18th person was shot in front of bystanders in a separate incident.
The Western-backed Palestinian president and Hamas’s exiled leader urged the United Nations on Friday to draw up a “timetable” for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories to end, Qatar state media reported.
President Mahmud Abbas and Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal issued the appeal during talks in Doha, hosted by the Qatari emir, a key backer of the Islamist de facto rulers of Gaza.
The two Palestinian leaders have been holding talks since Thursday, but little has filtered out.
Britain, France and Germany have advanced key points of a new UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate and sustainable cease-fire, and the lifting of Israel’s blockade.
Diplomats said the text was aimed at advancing efforts to reach agreement within the 15-member council after a draft resolution from Jordan met with resistance from Israel’s US ally.
Washington has wielded its veto powers at the Security Council repeatedly in the past on behalf of Israel, although the now 46-day war has strained relations between the allies.
The new resolution proposes a mechanism to monitor the cease-fire and supervise the movement of goods into Gaza to allay Israeli security concerns.
It also calls for Abbas’s Western-backed Palestinian Authority to take back control of Gaza, seven years after his loyalists were driven out of the territory by Hamas.

Hamas executes collaborators

GAZA CITY: Gaza gunmen killed 18 alleged spies for Israel on Friday, including seven who were lined up behind a mosque with bags over their heads and shot in front of hundreds of people. The killings came in response to Israel’s deadly airstrike against three top Hamas military commanders.
Hamas media said Friday’s shootings signaled the start of a crackdown, under the rallying cry of “choking the necks of the collaborators.” It was the largest number of suspected informers killed by Hamas in a single day since it seized Gaza in 2007.
The Majd website, which is close to the Hamas security services, said suspects would now be dealt with “in the field” rather than in the courts in order to create deterrence.
Hamas said it would not release the names of those killed because it wanted to protect the reputation of their families. 
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said two of those killed Friday were women. It called for an immediate halt to what it said were “extra-judicial executions.”
The killings came a day after an Israeli airstrike on a house in southern Gaza killed three senior military leaders of Hamas. The three had played a key role in expanding Hamas’ military capabilities, including building a network of attack tunnels into Israel and smuggling weapons.
Earlier in the week, another strike killed the wife and two children of Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of the Hamas military wing. Deif’s fate remains unclear.
Friday’s events began with the shooting of 11 alleged informants at the Gaza City police headquarters in the morning. Of the 11, two were women, the Palestinian rights center said.
Later in the day, seven people were killed outside the city’s downtown Al-Omari mosque as worshippers wrapped up noon prayers. Photos from the incident posted on several Palestinian websites showed several hundred people gathered near the scene.
The photos showed masked, black-clad gunmen leading several men with bags over their heads to a wall.
Witness Ayman Sharif, 42, said a piece of paper was affixed to the wall above the head of each of the seven, with his initials and his alleged crime.
Sharif quoted one of the gunmen as saying the seven “had sold their souls to the enemy for a cheap price” and had caused killing and destruction. The commander of the group then gave the order to the others to open fire with their automatic rifles. He said the bodies were collected by an ambulance and the gunmen left.
Friday’s killing marked the third time since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war six weeks ago that Hamas announced the killing of alleged collaborators. On Thursday, Majd said seven people were arrested on suspicion of working with Israel and that three of them were killed. In pinpointing the whereabouts of the Hamas commanders, Israel likely relied to some extent on local informers. Israel has maintained a network of informers despite its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, at times using blackmail or the lure of exit permits to win cooperation.
Since Israel-Hamas fighting erupted on July 8, at least 2,091 Palestinians have been killed in the coastal territory, according to Gaza health official Ashraf Al-Kidra.
The renewed fighting dashed hopes for a lasting truce. Earlier this week, Hamas rejected an Egyptian truce proposal under which Israel would gradually ease its blockade of Gaza, without giving specific commitments.
Hamas demands a lifting of the border closure imposed by Israel and Egypt after the group’s takeover of the coastal strip in 2007.
Despite the crisis, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal in Qatar to push Hamas negotiators to return to cease-fire talks, and to encourage Qatar to support Egyptian cease-fire efforts, a Palestinian official said.
Abbas flew to Egypt later Friday to meet with Egyptian intelligence officials to discuss cease-fire efforts, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss issues related to the negotiations. Abbas is scheduled to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi during a three-day visit to Egypt.

Phoenix AZ ( 2nd grader dies after choking at lunch time )

Epic Battle On O'Reilly! ( He trash talks tombstone Arizona ) Wth?