“They’ve lost touch with their parents. They’ve lost touch with people in their villages, they’re not able to articulate, to help trace their relationships, they can’t even tell you what their names are.” From BBC: Boko Haram’s child captives forgot their own names.

+ Is the latest ISIS video (this one featuring a child-soldier execution) aimed at stifling dissent among the ranks?

+ “American forces, with their warplanes and twenty-six hundred military trainers and advisers in Iraq, are nowhere in sight. Nor were they part of the planning.” The New Yorker’s Robin Wright on the battle over Tikrit.