Iraqi and coalition air-strikes are carrying out air-strikes on convoys of ISIS vehicles fleeing Fallujah, as the city has finally fallen after a five-week siege. Hundreds of vehicles have reportedly been destroyed. (Rudaw, June 30) Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers were killed and more than 3,000 wounded in the battle Fallujah, which was taken by ISIS almost exactly two years ago. (MEE, July 1) Iraqi forces are said to be "screening" some 20,000 people—mostly young men and boys—detained while trying to flee the city. (MEE, June 25) Aid workers say the displacement of almost the entire city—between 60,000 and over 80,000 people depending on who is counting—has been disorganised, at best. "The entire humanitarian community has failed Iraq—from donors, to governments, to the implementing agencies on the ground," Karl Schembri of the Norwegian Refugee Council told IRIN news service. "Fallujah has exposed all of our shortcomings with massive consequences for the tens of thousands of civilians displaced." He added: "When Mosul happens, God help us." (IRIN, June 28)

ISIS is reported to have claimed responsibility for today's triple bomb and shooting attack at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport that left at least 36 dead and some 150 wounded. (BiaNet)  The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) explicitly disavowed the attack, and stated their belief that it was carried out by "Daesh terrorists," using the popular pejorative for ISIS in the Middle East. (Sputnik) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was constrained by these twin statements from explicitly blaming the Kurds in the attack, but still said: "I hope that the Ataturk Airport attack, especially in Western countries...will be a milestone for the joint fight against terrorist organizations, a turning point." (RT) This was a barely veiled criticism of US support for the PKK's sibling organization, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its military arm the People's Protection Units (YPG), in the fight against ISIS in northern Syria.

Russian and US warplanes are each backing rival sides as the Assad regime and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) race to take the ISIS de facto capital of Raqqa. The Kurdish-led forces are in the lead. SDF fighters this week entered the ISIS-held city of Manbij, a key step toward Raqqa. (Al Jazeera, June 23) ISIS is meanwhile reported to have taken back large areas of territory in Raqqa governorate that had recently been taken by regime forces. (Al Jazeera, June 21) The Russian air-strikes in support of the regime forces, as ever, are more indiscriminate. Local monitoring group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (which operates "underground" in ISIS-controlled territory) reports that 32 civilians were killed and 150 injured in Russian strikes on Raqqa city. (Al Jazeera, June 22)

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein on June 7 urged the Iraqi government to "take immediate measures to ensure that" those fleeing the ISIS-held city of Fallujah are "treated in strict accordance with international human rights and international humanitarian laws." Zeid cited "credible reports" that fleeing residents have suffered physical abuse at the hands of "armed groups operating in support of the Iraqi security forces." These groups have reportedly been separating migrants by gender, detaining men for "security checks," which largely amount to physical abuse for the sake of forced confessions. Zeid ended his remarks stating that while the Iraqi government has a legitimate interests in making vetting migrants to ensure that they do not impose security risks, such vetting should take place through the appropriate laws and in a "transparent manner."

Here we go again. Omar Mateen, named as the shooter in the Orlando massacre of at least 50 at a gay nightclub, is said to have made a 911 call before the attack, in which he pledged allegiance to ISIS and invoked the Boston Marathon bombers. (CNN) Amaq News Agency, the ISIS media arm, issued a statement saying the attack "was carried out by an Islamic State fighter." (Heavy) The ISIS statement is doubtless mere opportunism, simply claiming Mateen because he had declared for them, thereby becoming a one-man franchise. But there's more. A bizarre Washington Post story tells us that Mateen's father is a vocal supporter of the Taliban and "appears to be portraying himself as the president of Afghanistan"...

A typically vague BBC report informs us that "Libyan forces" have retaken control of the port in the city of Sirte, after fierce fighting with militants from so-called Islamic State. We are only told several lines in that these "forces" are "aligned to" the "UN-backed unity government" in Tripoli. This vagueness is aimed at obscuring (first) that Libya has no functional government—or three rival governments, of which the "UN-backed" one is the weakest by far. It is also aimed at obscuring that the "UN-backed" government has no armed forces—just autonomous militias that recognize its authority in a token way. For a clearer picture, we have to turn to the Libyan press. A report in the Libyan Herald tells us that the militia force battling ISIS at Sirte is from the city of Misrata, and also notes that it has carried out air-strikes in the battle for the city—indicating that these autonomous militias now have warplane. Libyan Observer identifies one of the Misrata militias as al-Bunyan al-Marsoos—and notes that it is resisting an ISIS effort retake to retake the port. 

Rojda Felat, a Kurdish revolutionary feminist, is leading the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces' offensive on Raqqa, capital of the Islamic State's self-declared caliphate. A three-year veteran of the struggle against ISIS, she is serving as commander of 15,000 Kurdish and Arab fighters, backed by US special forces and warplanes, under the banner of the SDF. "My main goal is liberating the Kurdish woman and the Syrian woman in general from the ties and control of traditional society, as well as liberating the entirety of Syria from terrorism and tyranny," she told the London Times. 

The US responded this week to the Syrian Kurds' declaration of autonomy, with State Department spokesman Mark Toner saying: "We've...made it clear to these Kurdish forces [in Syria] that they should not seek to create autonomous, semi-autonomous zones." He added that Kurdish forces in Syria "should not seek to retain the territory that they liberate, rather that they should make sure it's returned to whatever civilian authorities there are and able to—so that all displaced people can return there." This is a barely veiled reference to accusations that Syrian Kurdish forces are engaging in "ethnic cleansing" against Arabs and Turkmen in areas liberated from ISIS. But not only are these charges dubious, but Toner's statement ignores that often the only "civilian authorities" are in fact those of the Kurdish autonomous administration. More ominously, he warned that the US is in close dialogue with Turkey on the question and understands Ankara's "concerns regarding Kurdish forces in northern Syria." (This as Turkey is wagng a brutal counterinsurgency against Kurdish rebels within its own territory, to Washington's silence.) Ironically, he added that the Kurdish militias in Syria "are effective fighting forces and that they are willing to take on and dislodge Daesh," using the popular pejorative for ISIS in the Middle East.