Globe Trot: Aid convoys trapped by Fallujah fighting

IRAQ: Overnight, aid head Jeremy Courtney reported his Preemptive Love Coalition team in Fallujah—among the first to get relief to 90,000 residents trapped by ISIS—was pinned between ISIS convoys and Iraqi forces. His relief team was forced to hide in sand, at one point coming under fire from U.S. airstrikes. “All major IDP camps cut off from emergency aid after ISIS outbreak last night. Our teams under fire. 1000s suffering,” he tweeted.

Expect a new wave of refugees and humanitarian distress as Iraq’s military presses north from Fallujah to liberate areas under ISIS control. So far, relief measures have been woefully inadequate.

I discuss Iraq and They Say We Are Infidels with Warren Smith on the podcast Listening In.

TURKEY: The death toll in last night’s triple bombing in the Istanbul airport has risen to 41, including 13 foreign nationals, with 240 injured. So far ISIS has not claimed responsibility.

U.S. journalist Steven Nabil came face-to-face with a militant spraying bullets in the international terminal, a transit hub to the Middle East for Western aid workers and government and military officials.

NIGERIA: Reports of Nigeria’s military allegedly freeing 5,000 Boko Haram hostages over the weekend still don’t add up.

RUSSIA: Christians are holding a day of fasting and prayer today, as the state Duma has proposed Communist era-like prohibitions on speaking about religion in public without state permission.

IRAN: Maryam Naghash Zargaran, an Iranian Christian serving a four-year jail term for “acting against national security,” has for the second time been sent back to prison before her medical treatment could be completed.