Mosul

More than 5 million children are in urgent need of aid in Iraq, the United Nations said on Thursday, describing the war on Islamic State as "one of the most brutal" in modern history.

"Across Iraq, children continue to witness sheer horror and unimaginable violence," the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement.

In Turkey, mosques have a dual spiritual and economic purpose. This surprised me when I first moved to the country more than a decade ago. I expected God and money to be kept separate, at least outwardly, more in keeping with the discreet, cash-in-envelopes Christian churches of my youth.

Iraqi forces began storming the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)-held Old City of Mosul on June 18, an assault they hope will be the last in the eight-month campaign to seize the militants' stronghold.

The historic district is the last still under control of the  militants in the city which used to be their capital in Iraq. 

Moscow said on June 16 that its forces may have killed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an air strike near the Syrian city of Raqqa last month.

The Russian army on June 16 said it hit Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leaders in an airstrike in Syria last month and was seeking to verify whether ISIL chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had been killed.

Writing in an encrypted chat room, Islamic State sympathizers and militants celebrated the three-year anniversary of the terrorist organization’s capture of Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city.

Despite losing most of Mosul to the U.S.-backed international coalition, the IS supporters vowed that they would return and take control over the entire city once more.

Syrian state television has claimed the world’s most wanted terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed in an airstrike, according to several reports.
However, it is not the first time the leader of ISIS has been reported dead – the latest claims have been met with skepticism by many experts and could well turn out to be untrue.

We are all confused by the successive crises in the Middle East. With not even 24 hours having passed since the Qatar-Gulf crisis, ISIL's double terrorist attacks in Iran fell like a bombshell. As Iran's Revolutionary Guard blamed Saudi Arabia for the deadly attacks, these two crises became intertwined. The question now is just how they are inter-connected and where they will lead. 

Now that the U.S. has finally pushed the button for the long-planned Raqqa operation in Syria to dismantle the so-called caliphate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the genie is out of the bottle.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has rejected Donald Trump's condolences for deadly attacks in Tehran, calling the U.S. president's words repugnant.

Trump had said he prayed for the victims of attacks on June 7 that were claimed by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but added that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."