The Islamic State armed group (ISIS) is committing crimes against humanity on a historic scale in northern Iraq. According to London-based Amnesty International, who have people on the ground there, “entire communities are at risk of being wiped off the map of Iraq”.

Amnesty International interviewed hundreds of witnesses, survivors, and victims, including the families of those who were killed or abducted, and many others displaced by the violence of the Islamic State in its new report, Ethnic cleansing on historic scale: the Islamic State’s systematic targeting of minorities in northern Iraq.

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Islamist rebels clashed Monday with Syrian government forces in the province of Quneitra, close by the Israeli- controlled Golan Heights, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The observatory said in a statement that fighting continued throughout the day between Syrian army units and insurgents including the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliated group.

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Iraqi security forces backed by Shiite militias and U.S. airstrikes have reportedly entered the northern town of Amerli, where Islamic State militants have laid siege to the town for weeks, prompting fears of a sectarian massacre.

Reuters and BBC report that Iraqi Army and volunteer fighters entered the town on Sunday after defeating the Sunni rebels, also known as ISIS or ISIL, east of the city. The Islamic State, which claims to enforce a pure version of Islam, has apparently targeted Amerli because of its large Shiite Turkmen population, seen by them as apostates.

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Filipino UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights who earlier had defied demands from Syrian rebels to surrender had figured in a clash Saturday morning in Syria, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said yesterday. He added in a text message to reporters that Filipino troops had been “extricated” from one of their two positions and that another group of Filipino soldiers “is now under attack.”

He was referring to two positions on the Golan Heights where more than 70 Filipino troops had previously been surrounded by Syrian rebels.

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Kurdish Peshmerga security forces fighting militants from the al-Qaida inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). (AP)

Kurdish Peshmerga forces say they have retaken oilfields near Mosul in north Iraq from Islamic State (IS) militants.

The attack on the three Ain Zalah installations began on Thursday morning, they said, but the militants blew them all up as they retreated.

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