Gunmen from the so-called Islamic State extremist group attacked a village northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 11 civilians and wounding six others, Iraqi security officials said.

The officials said the attack occurred in the predominantly Shiite village of al-Rashad northeast of Baqouba in Diyala province.

The circumstances of the attack were not immediately clear, but two officials said Islamic State group militants had kidnapped two villagers earlier and then raided the village when their demands for ransom were not met.

Machine guns were used in the attack, they added, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

They said all the dead and wounded were civilians.

Attacks targeting civilians have become rare in Iraq since the Islamic State group was largely defeated in the country in 2017, although it remains active through sleeper cells in many areas.

Militants from the Sunni Muslim extremist group still conduct operations, often targeting security forces, power stations and other infrastructure.

A roadside bomb attack targeted a Baghdad suburb in July, killing at least 30 people and wounding dozens of others at a crowded market.

In January, twin suicide bombings ripped through a busy market in the Iraqi capital, killing at least 32 people and wounding dozens.

Iraqi officials blamed IS for those attacks.

Read more: Islamic State attacks Iraqi police near Najaf, kills seven

It is with sadness that we read about the statement made by the Network of Sikh Organisations (NSO) about the support and solidarity that was being shown with Sikhs who are attacked because of their identity as Sikhs and because of racism. It is also clear that some Sikhs are attacked on the perception that they are Muslims, which does not detract from the fact that this creates fear within Sikh communities and impacts on families.

The reference made in the statement is to a project that took place 10 years ago – the Cohesive Communities project. The subsequent report is listed here and with clear references to explore issues of division between Sikh and Muslim communities and therefore deeply conflicting social narratives. These issues are even listed in the project overview and the Cohesive Communities report did not list some of the troubling discussions that took place which were confidential. The discussions caused facilitators to feel saddened that two communities with so much in common, were at polar opposites of the social divide.

We are also saddened to see that tweets that were made in 2012 and subsequently deleted are being used to create an atmosphere of mistrust at a time when communities need to work together and when the NSO statement itself suggests that a minority of participants were unhappy. Such difficult discussions around grooming, forced conversions, historical attacks against Sikhs by Muslim Indian rulers, amongst the many topics discussed at the Corrymeela Centre, are never easy and will bring out a range of emotions.

Given the Cohesive Communities report and what we heard, Faith Matters commissioned a further report to try and untangle and unpack the difficult narratives that were causing division. Hardly the act of an organisation that did not care or chose to reflect one communities’ perspectives. The Adab research report can be found here and details the narratives, history and perspectives coming from Sikh and Muslim communities.

However, we are glad to hear that the NSO (Network of Sikh Organisations) and partners in the Hindu community have a commitment to work with True Vision, which Tell MAMA has. Tell MAMA, which was founded by Faith Matters, has shown that its values are fundamentally based on inclusion and in supporting all communities who suffer hatred, prejudice and racism. Tell MAMA has also, on many occasions – stood against hatred against LGBT, Jewish, Shia and Ahmaddiya communities from a small number within Muslim communities showing that it will fearlessly stand for the rights of all communities and does not pick and choose on issues of human rights. Therefore, it is even more depressing to see that division is being called for at a time when Muslims, Sikhs, Jews and many other communities, should be working together. This on the basis of 4 individuals and on tweets made a decade ago on a project that explored some of the most difficult topics that were causing divisions between Sikhs and Muslims.

We within Faith Matters will continue to stand for the human rights of all communities to be protected. This means that when Sikh communities are attacked, their defence is our defence. When Sikh women or Gurdwaras are attacked, their honour and their integrity is our honour and integrity; and when young white girls in Rotherham are abused, their honour and their well-being is the responsibility of all communities, including ours. These are the core values of Faith Matters and what we stand on.

Finally, we have spoken to the Tell MAMA team and the round table was set up in solidarity with Sikh communities and was set up to share good practice. Support was also offered, though what was expressly stated was that it was for Sikh communities to find solutions within their communities to reduce hate crimes against Sikhs. This was expressly stated on a number of occasions at the meeting. Sadly, if the response for a call for solidarity is a call for division and separationism, then the only people who are strengthened by these actions are those who seek to divide and play off one community against another. In the end, protecting the dignity and safety of Sikhs means protecting the dignity and safety of us all as communities and people. We therefore continue to put out the hand of friendship to all communities and we will always do so. This also includes maintaining our openness to work with any group whose values are based on the defence of pluralism within communities.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah used drones to strike Islamic State in Syria close to the border with Lebanon, a military media unit it runs said on Monday, their first public declaration that they had used such a weapon.

Hezbollah deployed the drones to hit Islamic State positions, bunkers and fortifications in the Western Qalamoun area near the border with Lebanon, achieving direct hits, the military media unit said.

An official in the military alliance fighting in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters it was the first time Hezbollah had declared its use of the weapons.

Footage released by the media unit seemingly taken from a drone, showed two types of munition, one of them with a tail fin, dropping towards the ground and explosions as they hit.

Early on Saturday Hezbollah and the Syrian army began an operation against an Islamic State enclave straddling the border with Lebanon in Syria’s Western Qalamoun.

The Lebanese army began a separate but simultaneous operation against the same jihadist pocket from inside Lebanon.

Any joint operation between the Lebanese army on the one hand and the Syrian army on the other would be politically sensitive in Lebanon and could jeopardise the U.S. military aid the country receives.

Islamic State holds the last militant pocket on the border after a Hezbollah offensive last month that forced Nusra Front militants to leave for rebel-held Idlib province in Syria.

Northeastern Lebanon was the scene of one of the worst spillovers from Syria’s civil war in 2014 when Islamic State and Nusra Front militants attacked the town of Arsal.

Three women dressed in burqas killed a man who had been accused of blasphemy in 2004 in a northeastern Pakistani town, police said on Thursday, the second brutal killing over alleged insults to Islam in a week.

Blasphemy is a highly charged topic in Pakistan where there have been at least 66 murders over unproven allegations since 1990 according to figures from a Centre for Research and Security Studies report and independent records kept by Reuters.

The country’s strict blasphemy laws carry sentences ranging from small fines to the death penalty.

The women entered the home of Fazal Abbas, a faith healer and a leader of the minority Shia community in the small city of Sialkot, and asked him to perform a spiritual ritual during which one of them shot him in the chest, police told Reuters.

Abbas was accused of blasphemy in 2004 by members of a hard-line conservative group after which he fled to Denmark, his cousin Azhar Hussain and police inspector Nadeem Afzal said.

“He returned recently with the conviction that he would prove his innocence in court and had been granted bail by a local judge,” Hussain said.

Police say that one of the women acted as an instigator, persuading the other two to carry out the act and identifying Abbas as a blasphemer.

“It is their personal act, and I could not find their link to any religious group,” inspector Afzal said.

However, Abbas’ family believe that a hard-line religious group incited the women to track down their victim and pull the trigger.

On April 13 a mob beat student Mashal Khan to death when blasphemy accusations spread across a university campus in the northern city of Mardan. Police are now investigating a number of university students and faculty for their involvement in a brutal attack that shocked the entire nation.

In 2011, a bodyguard assassinated Punjab provincial governor Salman Taseer after he called for reforming blasphemy laws.

Taseer’s killer, executed last year, has been hailed by religious hardliners as a martyr to Islam and a shrine has been erected at his grave.

Recently, fighting blasphemy has also become a rallying cry for the government.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif issued an order last month for the removal of blasphemous content online and “strict punishment” for those found guilty of posting such content.

Saudi Arabia’s top religious authority said Iran’s leaders were not Muslims, drawing a rebuke from Tehran in an unusually harsh exchange between the regional rivals over the running of the annual haj pilgrimage.

The war of words on the eve of the mass pilgrimage will deepen a long-running rift between the Sunni kingdom and the Shi’ite revolutionary power. They back opposing sides in Syria’s civil war and a list of other conflicts across the Middle East.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message published on Monday, criticised Saudi Arabia over how it runs the haj after a crush last year killed hundreds of pilgrims. He said Saudi authorities had “murdered” some of them, describing Saudi rulers as godless and irreligious.

Responding to a question by Saudi newspaper Makkah, Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh said he was not surprised at Khamenei’s comments.

“We have to understand that they are not Muslims … Their main enemies are the followers of Sunnah (Sunnis),” Al al-Sheikh was quoted as saying, remarks republished by the Arab News.

He described Iranian leaders as sons of “magus”, a reference to Zoroastrianism, the dominant belief in Persia until the Muslim Arab invasion of the region that is now Iran 13 centuries ago.

“BIGOTRY”

Al al-Sheikh’s remarks drew an acerbic retort from Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who said they were evidence of bigotry among Saudi leaders.

“Indeed; no resemblance between Islam of Iranians & most Muslims & bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric & Saudi terror masters preach,” Zarif wrote on his Twitter account.

Saudi authorities normally seek to avoid public discussion of whether Shi’ites are Muslims, but implicitly recognise them as such by welcoming them to the haj, and by accepting Iranian visits to the Saudi-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Tensions between the two countries have been rising since Riyadh cut ties with Tehran in January following the storming of its embassy in Tehran, itself a response to the Saudi execution of dissident Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

Custodian of Islam’s most revered places in Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia stakes its reputation on organising haj, one of the five pillars of Islam which every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to is obliged to undertake at least once.

Riyadh said 769 pilgrims were killed in the 2015 disaster, the highest haj death toll since a crush in 1990. Counts of fatalities by countries who repatriated bodies showed that more than 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians.

Iran blamed the 2015 disaster on organisers’ incompetence. Pilgrims from Iran will be unable to attend haj, which officially starts on Sept. 11, this year after talks between the two countries on arrangements broke down in May.

The split between Islam’s main sects dates to a dispute among Muslims over who would rule their community after the death of the Prophet Mohammad, and Shi’ites still regard his descendents as a line of imams blessed with divine guidance.

Today such disagreements over history remain emotive points of tension between the sects, but they are also divided over day -to-day issues including differing interpretations of Islamic law and the role and organisation of the clergy.

In the Wahhabi teaching of Sunni Islam followed by the Saudi clergy and government, Shi’ite doctrine about imams is seen as incompatible with the concept of a monotheistic God.

As Iraqi forces prepare to attack Islamic State in its de facto capital of Mosul, residents inside the city and others who have managed to escape expressed relief at the prospect their home could be liberated from the extremist group’s harsh rule.

But they also warned that if the assault is successful, the city’s Sunni-majority population would refuse to return to what they called the repressive yoke imposed by the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad in the past.

The Iraqi army and its elite units that will lead the offensive are gradually taking up positions around the city 400 km (248 miles) north of Baghdad, from whose Grand Mosque in 2014 Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning regions of Iraq and Syria.

The offensive is slated for late September, said Hisham al-Hashimi, who works for the government as a consultant on IS affairs and is author of the book “The World of Daesh” (IS).

Eight Mosulite men, contacted secretly by phone on the outskirts of the city, said signs of dissent are increasing ahead of the expected assault. They all spoke on condition of not being identified for fear of retribution.

Walls have been daubed with the Arabic letter M, for “muqawama”, or resistance, or two parallel stripes, one red and one black, representing the Iraqi flag, said a resident who spoke from one of the rare areas that still gets mobile telephone coverage.

“These are acts of real bravery,” he said. “If you’re caught, you’re dead.”

The Iraqi national flag was raised twice in public squares, once in June and again in July, infuriating the militants who tore them down the next morning, residents told Reuters, authenticating videos posted on Facebook pages.

An unknown number of people were arrested after the July incident, among them former army officers, they said.

With a population at one time as large as two million, Mosul is the largest urban centre under the ultra-hardline militants’ control. Its fall would mark their effective defeat in Iraq, according to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Many IS leaders have fled Mosul for Syria with their families ahead of the planned offensive, Iraq’s defence minister Khaled al-Obeidi said on July 30.

As Iraqi forces tighten the noose, the militants have grown increasingly paranoid, residents said.

The militants have always kept tight control on communication to preempt hostile propaganda and prevent informants from passing on information to the Iraqi forces or the U.S.-led anti-IS military coalition that is carrying out most of the airstrikes on their positions.

They blocked mobile networks in 2014 and banned satellite TV earlier this year, allowing home internet access only through a server they controlled.

As of a month ago they restricted internet access further to a handful of official Wifi centres manned by supervisors who monitor content over users’ shoulders.

At checkpoints set up by the IS “amniya”, or security committee, people are asked if they have Facebook and must unlock their phones to prove that they do not.

“Thank God I don’t even know what Facebook is, but I was jailed for a week and paid a fine because they found dancing music saved on my mobile,” said a taxi driver reached by phone.

YOUNIS’S STORY

Younis, a high school teacher of Arabic literature in his 40’s, fled Mosul with his family in May. His biggest fear was that his son, just eight years old, was being indoctrinated into the group’s extreme interpretation of Islam.

“We escaped from Mosul and risked death for my son’s sake; I wanted to rescue him from turning into a jihadist,” he said, speaking in a flat in Baghdad, holding his boy in his arms.

“How can I stay silent and I’m seeing Daesh brainwashing my son and teaching him how to become a suicide bomber?” he said.

He showed a photocopy of the cover of a fifth grader’s textbook featuring a boy with an AK-47 machine gun on his shoulder.

“I know it’s risky to keep this paper with me but I decided to hide it and show it to anybody who asks me how life was under Daesh,” he added, puffing on a cigarette, which is banned by IS.

He expressed frustration that his wife has continued to wear the full veil, or niqab, after moving to Baghdad. The niqab is compulsory under the IS in Mosul, even on store mannequins, and women are forbidden to walk outside without a male guardian.

“Don’t cover your face please for God’s sake,” he pleaded with his wife. “No need to be afraid anymore, you’re a human being and not a slave.”

Younis said he paid a taxi driver $5,000 to help them flee Mosul via the Kurdish Peshmerga lines east of the city, taking advantage of the confusion that ensued after advances made by the Kurdish and Iraqi forces in May.

The army progressed further in July, capturing the Qayyara airfield 60 km (35 miles) south of Mosul, which will serve as the main staging post for the expected offensive.

Once the fighting intensifies, up to one million people could be driven from their homes in northern Iraq, “posing a massive humanitarian problem for the country”, the International Committee of the Red Cross said last month.

More than 3.4 million people have already been forced by conflict to leave their homes across Iraq, taking refuge in areas under control of the government or in the Kurdish region.

IRAQI ARMY SUCCESSES

The Peshmerga fighters have been deployed to the north and east of Mosul with their back to their Kurdish region that hosts a base of U.S.-led coalition troops assisting Iraqi forces. Local Sunni fighters will also join the offensive.

The possible participation of Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias is stirring controversy, however.

Mosul residents and politicians said they dread the participation of these militias, known as Popular Mobilization, or Hashid Shaabi in Arabic.

They cite abuses in Sunni cities retaken from Islamic State, like the looting in Tikrit last year and reports of torture, revenge killings and kidnappings in Falluja, a historic jihadist stronghold near Baghdad.

Although Sunnis are predominant in the northern and western provinces under militant control, Shi’ites are in the majority overall in Iraq.

The Sunnis in Mosul were mostly indifferent to the IS offensive of 2014 and some even supported it if it would end the oppression of the security forces under former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, an ally of Iran.

Maliki has since been succeeded by Abadi, another Shi’ite, who has taken a conciliatory approach toward the Sunnis and softened the alliance with Tehran.

Abadi has yet to decide whether the Shi’ite militias will take part in the offensive.

The former governor of Mosul, Atheel al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, told Reuters the local administration of the city should have more autonomy after the militants are dislodged.

A police force reflective of the city’s complex ethnic and religious make-up should be in charge of security, not the army, added Nujaifi, who leads a Sunni militia that plans to take part in the offensive on Mosul alongside the army.

“The sweeping advance of Daesh in Mosul created a new reality,” he said.

Younis, the teacher, and Mosulites who still live in the city said even though IS rule was much worse than government rule under Maliki, the population won’t accept to return to the previous situation.

“Berlin after Hitler couldn’t possibly be like before and so should Mosul be after Daesh,” said Younis. “We need a new system to govern Mosul, we cannot suffer more ordeals.”

Suicide bombers struck three cities across Saudi Arabia on Monday, killing at least four security officers in an apparently coordinated campaign of attacks as Saudis prepared to break their fast on the penultimate day of the holy month of Ramadan.

The explosions targeting U.S. diplomats, Shi’ite worshippers and a security headquarters at a mosque in the holy city of Medina followed days of mass killings claimed by the Islamic State group in Turkey, Bangladesh and Iraq. The attacks all seem to have been timed to coincide with the approach of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that celebrates the end of the Islamic holy month.

A suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a parking lot outside the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, the second-holiest site in Islam, a Saudi security spokesman told state news agency SPA.

“Security men noticed a suspicious person among those approaching the Prophet’s Mosque in an open area used as parking lots for visitors’ cars. As they confronted him, he blew himself up with an explosive belt, which resulted in his death and the martyrdom of four of the security men,” the spokesman said.

Five other officers were wounded, the statement added.

A Saudi security official said an attacker parked a car near the U.S. consulate in Jeddah before detonating the device.

A video sent to Reuters by a witness to the aftermath of the Medina bombing showed a large blaze among parked cars in the fading evening light, with the sound of sirens in the background. A picture sent to Reuters showed a burnt and bleeding man lying on a stretcher in a hospital.

Other pictures circulating on social media showed dark smoke billowing from flames near the Mosque of the Prophet, originally built in the 7th century by the Prophet Muhammad, who is buried there along with his first two successors.

In Qatif, an eastern city that is home to many members of the Shi’ite minority, at least one and possibly two explosions struck near a Shi’ite mosque. The security spokesman said the body of a bomber and two other people have been identified, without providing any more details.

Witnesses described body parts, apparently of a suicide bomber, in the aftermath.

A resident of the city reached by telephone said there were believed to be no casualties there apart from the attacker, as worshippers had already gone home to break their fasts. Civil defence forces were cleaning up the area and police were investigating, the resident said.

A video circulating on social media and purporting to show the aftermath of a Qatif blast showed an agitated crowd on a street, with a fire raging near a building and a bloody body part lying on the ground. Reuters could not immediately verify the video.

Hours earlier a suicide bomber was killed and two people were wounded in a blast near the U.S. Consulate in the kingdom’s second city, Jeddah.

The Jeddah blast was the first bombing in years to attempt to target foreigners in the kingdom. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Authorities identified the attacker as a 34-year-old Pakistani driver named Abdullah Qalzar Khan, who lived with his wife and family in the city.

An official of the U.S. State Department said no American citizens or consulate staff were hurt in the Jeddah blast. He said the United States was aware of reports of explosions in Qatif and Medina and would monitor the situation closely.

He said the State Department encouraged U.S. citizens in Saudi Arabia “to be aware of their surroundings, and keep security and situational awareness levels high.”

Islamic State has carried out a series of bombing and shooting attacks in Saudi Arabia since mid-2014 that have killed scores of people, mostly members of the Shi’ite Muslim minority and security services.

Police and groups of local volunteers increased security near mosques in Qatif after suicide bombings hit mosques in Shi’ite areas last year, killing dozens. Another suicide blast at a mosque used by security forces killed 15 a year ago.

The top Saudi clerical body condemned the attacks.

“They are renegades from the (true) religion who have left behind the Muslim flock and their imam, violating all sanctities,” the Secretariat of the Council of Senior Scholars said in a statement.

“They have no religion,” it added.

The leader of the only South Asian Muslim community known to practise female genital mutilation (FGM) came under criticism on Friday by campaigers who accused him of urging followers to continue the centuries-old custom.

Little is known about FGM in India, where it is carried out in great secrecy by the close-knit Dawoodi Bohra community, a Shi’ite Muslim sect thought to number over 1 million that considers the practice to be a religious obligation.

An audio clip of Syedna Muffadal Saifuddin’s speech at a mosque in Mumbai, has been authenticated by several members of the community. According to a transcript, he said: “The act must be done. It needs to be done discreetly when it is a woman, but it needs to be done.”

Calls and e-mails to a spokesman for the Syedna and the leader’s administrative office received no response.

“The speech is a huge disappointment for us,” said Masooma Ranalvi, who was cut as a seven-year-old and leads an online petition as part of the ‘Speak Out on FGM’ campaign, which has drawn almost 50,000 signatories, including Mia Farrow, who tweeted her support on Thursday.

“Ever since we began the campaign, there has been only silence from the clergy. But now that it’s out in the open, at least there’s no ambiguity about where they stand,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A person described as a close friend of the Syedna family told the Times of India newspaper that the remarks were a “general comment” and that people were “interpreting it differently”.

RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION

FGM, which can cause serious physical and psychological problems, is more commonly linked to African countries which have led international efforts to end the practice.

India is not included on U.N. lists of countries affected by FGM. Campaigners estimate that up to three quarters of Bohra girls are cut.

Although it is not mentioned in the Koran, the Bohras consider ‘khatna’ – the removal of part of the clitoris – to be part of their religious duty, and debate on the subject has long been taboo.

But the practice among Indian Dawoodi Bohras hit the headlines in November when a court in Australia found two members of the diaspora community guilty of cutting two girls. A Bohra religious leader was convicted of being an accessory.

Since then, more than a dozen Bohra communities in Europe and the United States have passed resolutions against the practice.

“Why should girls in some parts of the world be spared from circumcision, while girls in other countries continue to be cut?” the non-profit group Sahiyo, which aims to end FGM in India, posted on its website on Friday.

“The strongest form of opposition to khatna is now coming from within the community.”

Campaigners will now focus on petitioning the government while still working with the community, said Ranalvi.

“There is hypocrisy in the clergy’s stance, so the government is the most important route open to us now,” she said. “We need them to step in to protect our girls.”

Abu Azrael has managed to build up a persona of a fearless Shia fighter in Iraq. Versatile in media management of his image and muscle bound, (which adds to the media portrayal of a fearless warrior), Abu Azrael is also known as ‘Iraq’s Rambo’ and his real name is Ayyub Faleh al-Rubaie.

Abu Azrael is a commander of the Kataib al-Imam Ali Shia militant group which is connected to the Popular Mobilisation Forces which was put together to fight the threat of ISIS. The Popular Mobilisation Forces consist mainly of Shia fighters in Iraq.

Abu Azrael has become a popular figure through his manipulation of social media with video films of him driving in military vehicles are regularly posted on Facebook pages. He also has a huge social media following and was a former militia member in the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr.

The following pictures emerged in the last day of Abu Azrael slicing off parts of what is alleged to be an ISIS fighter whose bodies was burnt and who was hung upside down. The pictures seemingly show Abu Azrael with a large sword, which it is purported he carries with him and the pictures have drawn shock and revulsion in the Middle East, given the large, mainly Shia support for him.

The brutality of the war in Iraq and Syria continues to produce gruesome and shocking pictures on virtually a daily basis and also shows the on-line media management and manipulation that is taking place in the heart of combat zones in the region.

The Developing Diversity Directory has been developed by Faith Matters over the last year and through contact and consultation with over 480 mosques in England. Faith Matters undertook focus groups with Muslim women in England around 5 key areas they wanted to see within mosques in terms of core service delivery and each of the mosques was then benchmarked against the 5 areas. The top 100 which met 4 or 5 of the key criteria have been published in this directory and reflect service provision as of February 2010.

We hope that this directory serves Muslim women in giving them a snapshot of mosques that provide good services to them and in assisting other mosques in giving them contact points and mosque institutions that they can work with to ensure that best practice is implemented within their respective institutions.

Further information on the directory can be obtained from the Director of Faith Matters, Fiyaz Mughal OBE on fiyaz@faith-matters.co.uk

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