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You will recall that Donald Trumps first executive order banning travel to the U.S., issued back in January, provided a preferential option for Christian refugees from Iraq and the six other majority-Muslim countries it covered.

Not that the order mentioned Christians by name. Rather, it instructed the secretaries of state and homeland security to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individuals country of nationality.

Get it?

The object, of course, was to honor Trumps oft-repeated campaign promise to help Christian refugees, whom he falsely insisted had been disfavored under the Obama administration. It was part of the agenda that enabled him to win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in November.

Evangelical leaders did not all drink the Kool Aid. Some even thrust it aside.

But staunch Trumpistas like Jerry Falwell, Jr., Franklin Graham, and Ronnie Floyd gave it their blessing and 75 percent of white evangelicalssupportedwhat the president himself liked to call the Muslim Ban.

The second executive order the watered down one (as Trump put it) issued in early March after adverse court decisions did away with the preferential option, and took Iraq off the list, but with no apparent loss of evangelical support. A guys gotta do what a guys gotta do.

It now turns out that to get off the list, Iraq had to agree to take back any Iraqis that the American government chooses to deport. Whereupon, over a hundred Chaldean Christians in the Detroit area were rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and, if it hadnt been for a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge in Michigan last week, they would now be back in a country that has seen their communitiesall but destroyed, most horrifically by ISIS.

It should not be glossed over that the detainees are immigrants who have at one time or another during fallen afoul of the law. Butaccording to their ACLU lawyers and members of their community, most have paid their debts to society. Even a minor criminal misdemeanor committed decades ago, however, entitles you to deportation in the Trump dispensation.

A group of evangelical leaders including Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention sent a letter to the secretary of homeland security urging that the Chaldeans not be sent back.

As for the Trumpistas, Franklin Graham has taken to Facebookto say that he finds the plight of the Chaldean Christians very disturbing, but so far not a peep out of Falwell or Floyd. God forbid they question wisdom of their God-given Cyrus.

You might think that the President, obsessed as he is with reliving his astonishing electoral triumph, might realize (if nothing else) that he owes his 11,000-vote victory in Michigan to the 121,000-strong Chaldean community, which vigorously supported him because of his vows to defeat ISIS and rescue their brethren.

But nary a tweet from him on the subject even as his Justice Department did its level best to argue that U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith had no authority to halt an immigration judge deportation order.

The lesson from this sorry state of affairs ought to be that sending people who have paid their debt to society into harms way is wrong, whatever their religious identity. But if Falwell, Floyd, and company talk to their friend in the White House solely on behalf of their co-religionists, so be it.

Lets see how much clout they havebefore the judges restraining order expires next week.

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On deporting Christians to Iraq - Religion News Service

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French journalist dies of injuries after reporting on Isis war in Iraq - The Independent

WASHINGTON In a highly unusual intervention, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to remove Iraq and Myanmar from a U.S. list of the world's worst offenders in the use of child soldiers, disregarding the recommendations of State Department experts and senior U.S. diplomats, U.S. officials said.

The decision, confirmed by three U.S. officials, would break with longstanding protocol at the State Department over how to identify offending countries and could prompt accusations the Trump administration is prioritizing security and diplomatic interests ahead of human rights.

Tillerson overruled his own staffs assessments on the use of child soldiers in both countries and rejected the recommendation of senior diplomats in Asia and the Middle East who wanted to keep Iraq and Myanmar on the list, said the officials, who have knowledge of the internal deliberations.

Tillerson also rejected an internal State Department proposal to add Afghanistan to the list, the three U.S. officials said.

One official said the decisions appeared to have been made following pressure from the Pentagon to avoid complicating assistance to the Iraqi and Afghan militaries, close U.S. allies in the fight against Islamist militants. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Foreign militaries on the list can face sanctions including a prohibition on receiving U.S. military aid, training and U.S.-made weapons unless the White House issues a waiver.

Human rights officials expressed surprise at the delisting, which was expected to be announced on Tuesday, the officials said, as part of the State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.

A State Department official said the TIP report's contents were being kept under wraps until its release and the department "does not discuss details of internal deliberations."

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008, the U.S. government must be satisfied that "no children are recruited, conscripted or otherwise compelled to serve as child soldiers" in order for a country to be removed from the list and U.S. military assistance to resume.

In the lead-up to Tuesday's report, the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which researches the issue and helps shape U.S. policy on it, along with its legal office and diplomatic bureaus in Asia and the Middle East concluded that the evidence merited keeping both countries on the list, the officials said.

Officials said that although the report had been finalized there was always the possibility of last-minute changes.

BETRAYING CHILDREN

Human Rights Watch said removing Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, from the list would be a "completely premature and disastrous action that will effectively betray more children to continued servitude and rights abuses."

The decision also would put the Trump administration at odds with the United Nations, which continues to list the Myanmar military, along with seven ethnic armed groups, on its list of entities using and recruiting child soldiers.

"What's particularly astonishing is this move ignores that the U.N. in Burma says that it is still receiving new cases of children being recruited" by the Myanmar military, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Rights groups have long accused Myanmar of using child soldiers. Bordering both China and India, Myanmar is also of growing strategic importance to the United States at a time of increasing encroachment in the region by China, which has sought closer relations with its neighbor.

Iraq, which has received more than $2 billion in U.S. arms and training over the last three years, was added to the State Departments "Child Soldier Prevention Act List"in 2016. However, the flow of U.S. assistance has continued.

Former President Barack Obama handed out full or partial waivers regularly, including last year to Iraq, Myanmar, Nigeria, South Sudan and others out of 10 countries on the list.

Last year's State Department report said some militias of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of mostly Shi'ite Muslim factions with ties to the Iraqi government and backed by Iran, "recruited and used child soldiers."

The report said that despite the PMF being funded by the government, Baghdad struggled to control all of its factions.

"The government did not hold anyone accountable for child recruitment and use by the PMF and PMF-affiliated militias."

Human Rights Watch said in January that it had learned that militias had been recruiting child soldiers from one Iraqi refugee camp since last spring.

The broader TIP report, the first of Trump's presidency, is sure to be closely scrutinized for further signs that under his "America First" approach there will be little pressure brought to bear on friendly governments, especially strategically important ones, for human rights violations at home.

The Obama administration, while more vocal about political repression around the world, also faced criticism from human rights groups and some U.S. lawmakers that decisions on annual human trafficking rankings had become increasingly politicized.

(Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski in Yangon and Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Grant McCool and Leslie Adler)

MARAWI CITY, Philippines Fighting between government forces and Islamist rebels holed up in the heart of a southern Philippine town eased on Sunday as the military sought to enforce a temporary truce to mark the Eid al-Fitr Islamic holiday.

LONDON Britain said 34 high-rise apartment blocks had failed fire safety checks carried out after the deadly Grenfell Tower blaze, including several in north London where residents were forced to evacuate amid chaotic scenes.

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Exclusive: Overruling diplomats, US to drop Iraq, Myanmar from child soldiers' list - Reuters

Iraqi forces haveopened exit routes for hundreds of people to flee the Old City of Mosulwith the United Nations voicing alarm at the rising civilian death toll and the unimaginablerisks trapped residents face.

Troops are battlingto retake the Old City district from Isisfighters mounting a last stand in the final major city they hold in the country.

Urban warfare units have been channelling their onslaught along two perpendicular streets that converge in the heart of the Old City, aiming to isolate the jihadist insurgents in four pockets.

The week-old battle in the Old City is turning into the deadliest of the eight-month US-backed campaign to take back the northern city, which fell to Isis in June 2014.

I saw ayoung girl with facial injuries walking dazed and shocked across the frontline out of heavily-populated district with a group of neighbours. All her family was killed when their house collapsed, they said.

The United Nations has said as many as 12 civilians were killed and hundreds injured in fightingon Friday.

Fighting is very intense in the Old City and civilians are at extreme, almost unimaginable risk. There are reports that thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of people are being held as human shields [by Isis],Lise Grande, the UNhumanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said in a statement. Hundreds of civilians, including children, are being shot.

Iraqi authorities are hoping to declare victory in the northern Iraqi city in the Muslim Eid holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, during the next few days.

Helicopter gunships were assisting the ground thrust, firing at insurgent emplacements in the Old City.The government advance was carving out escape corridors for civilians marooned behind Isis lines.

There was a steady trickle of fleeing families on Saturday, some with injured and malnourished children. My baby only had bread and water for the past eight days, one mother said.

At least 100 civilians reached the safety of a government-held area west of the Old City in one 20-minute period, tired, scared and hungry. Soldiers gave them food and water.

More than 100,000 civilians, of whom half are believed to be children, remain trapped in the crumbling old houses of the Old City, with little food, water or medical treatment.

Related video: Mosul residents on Isis blowing up Grand al-Nuri Mosque

The urban-warfare forces were leading the campaign to clear the Sunni Islamist militants from the maze of Old City alleyways, moving on foot house-to-house in locations too cramped for the use of armoured combat vehicles.

A US-led international coalition is providing ground and air support in the eight-month-old campaign to seize Mosul, the largest city Isiscame to control in a shock offensive in Iraq and neighbouring Syria three years ago.

Iraqi government offensives supported by the coalition have wrested back several important urban centres in the countrys west and north from Isis over the past 18 months.

Military analysts said Baghdads campaign to recover Mosul gathered pace after the jihadi group blew up the 850-year-old al-Nuri mosque with its famous leaning minaret on Wednesday.

The mosques destruction, while condemned by Iraqi and UNauthorities as another cultural crime by the jihadists, gave troops more freedom to press their onslaught as they no longer had to worry about damaging the ancient site.

It was from the mosque that Isisleader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced himself to the world for the first time as the caliph, or ruler of all Muslims, in July 2014. Mosuls population at the time was more than twomillion.

Baghdadi fled into the desert expanse extending across Iraq and Syria in the early phase of the Mosul offensive, leaving the fighting there to local Isiscommanders, according to USand Iraqi officials. Recent Russian reports that he was killed have not been confirmed by the coalition or Iraqi authorities.

The Iraqi government once hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign dragged on as Isis reinforced positions in inner-city neighbourhoods of the citys western half, carried out suicide car and motorbike bomb attacks, laid booby traps and kept up barrages of sniper and mortar fire.

By Saturday, the area still under Isiscontrol was less than twosquare kilometres (0.77 sq miles),skirting the western bank of the Tigris River that bisects Mosul.

Isisretaliated for government advances on Friday evening with a triple bombing in a neighbourhood in eastern Mosul, which Baghdads forces recaptured in January. The attack was carried out by three people who detonated explosive belts, killing five, including three policemen, and wounding 19, according to a military statement on Saturday.

The fall of Mosul would mark the end of the Iraqi half of the so-called-Caliphateas a quasi-state structure, but Isiswould still hold sizeable, mainly rural and small-town tracts of both Iraq and Syria.

In eastern Syria, The de facto Isis capital, Raqqa, is now nearly encircled by a US-backed Kurdish-led coalition.

Reuters

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Iraq forces help hundreds of civilians escape Isis-held Mosul as UN warns of 'unimaginable' risk to life - The Independent

The Jerusalem Post

5 reasons why Nasrallah's threat to use Iraq and Iran fighters against Israel is alarming The Jerusalem Post In recent years, Iran has been accused of attempting to create a route to the sea via Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. This would link Tehran with its allies in Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. These allies include the Iraqi based Shi'ite militias called the ... Future Israel War Could Draw Iran, Iraq FightersFinancial Tribune all 9 news articles »

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5 reasons why Nasrallah's threat to use Iraq and Iran fighters against Israel is alarming - The Jerusalem Post