Officials from 20 countries involved in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are gathered in Quebec City this morning.

For the second time in two months, representatives are meeting behind closed doors to talk about how the the fight against ISIS can be improved.

On June 2, an anti-ISIS coalition conference was held in in Paris.

Thursday’s meeting, held at Château Frontenac, will include representatives from countries such as Australia, Saudi Arabia, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson will be at the conference, which is being co-chaired by Canada, the United States and Iraq.

“ISIS continues to present a serious threat to regional and global security, including a direct threat to Canadian citizens at home and abroad,” Nicholson said in a statement released earlier this week.

In March, Parliament passed a motion renewing Canada’s mission to fight ISIS for another 12 months and to include air strikes in Syria and part of its mission.

The conference will explore all aspects on the fight against ISIS, not just military initiatives. One example includes delving into how members of ISIS treat women and girls.

“Minorities and the women and girls targeted by ISIS are not incidental victims of terror but are deliberately selected by ISIS and are even used to recruit, encourage and reward its fighters,” Nicholson said.

Zainab Bangura, United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict, says the international community has to do more to prevent that from happening.

“The issue of sexual violence has been institutionalized by ISIS. The brutalization of women is part of their key strategy,” Bangura told CBC News on the eve of the conference.

Last spring, Bangura travelled to five Middle Eastern countries to gather first-hand accounts of sexual atrocities committed against women at the hands of ISIS.

She said naked women are sold at market like cattle, with manuals on how to sell slaves and deal with them.

Bangura says women and children make up 80 per cent of the refugees in the ISIS conflict.

At Thursday’s meeting, Bangura will make recommendations to the coalition, stressing that there cannot be peace in Middle Eastern conflict zones unless women are protected too.

“That is very central because women form the core of society, all the fabric of society together and I think we’ve neglected it to focus more on the issue of military and other assets.”

Nicholson said Canada supports efforts to prevent sexual violence in conflict zones, and is providing $8 million to the cause.

“Minorities and the women and girls targeted by ISIS are not incidental victims of terror but are deliberately selected by ISIS and are even used to recruit, encourage and reward its fighters,” he said, adding that financial aid goes to local and international organizations that support victims of sexual violence.

Discussing Turkey’s recent military action in Syria and Iraq, CNN quotes Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blaming the Western world for creating ISIS by failing to remove Bashar Assad from power in Syria–a long-standing strategic objective of the Turks.

Davutoglu described ISIS as the “product of a crisis, not only the cause of a problem,” and said if the Syrian regime had been changed by Western arms long ago, Assad “wouldn’t be killing so many people, or pushing them to Turkey, Jordan, or Iraq, or Lebanon. There wouldn’t be any power vacuum for Daesh, for ISIS, to be active.”

“Assad lost this legitimacy long before; unfortunately, because of inactivity of international community, he continued his crimes, and he created a power vacuum–he admitted this vacuum a few days ago–and ISIS filled this vacuum,” the Turkish PM added, referring to the recent public statement in which Assad admitted the civil war is not going very well for his regime.

He went on to describe Assad as the individual most responsible for the humanitarian horrors of Syria, from his own use of indiscriminate (and chemical) weapons, to setting the table for ISIS. He called for more international support for moderate Syrian rebels–who have been distressingly difficult to find, or build into a force that can challenge both Assad and his terrorist enemies–and allowed that direct foreign military intervention to take out Assad may not be necessary.

Turkey’s long-standing grudge against Assad has been interpreted by various analysts as some combination of sectarian dispute (Turkey supporting the Sunnis against the Alawite Shiite regime), a proxy war between Turkey and Iran for dominance of the Middle East, and Turkey seeking stability in the region for economic reasons.

Davutoglu stressed that Turkey’s airstrikes against the PKK were not an attack against Kurds as a whole, but rather part of “a combined fight against terror, against any type of terrorist activity.” The internal stresses created in surrounding countries by the rise of ISIS remain matters of grave concern, especially in NATO member Turkey, which seems on the verge of coming apart in any of several unpleasant ways.

It has been speculated that Turkey reassessed its tolerance–or, according to its stronger critics, covert assistance–of ISIS after recent suicide bombings in Turkish cities. The Turks are using their air force to bomb ISIS positions in Syria now and recently announced they would allow American forces to use Turkish airbases for operations against the Islamic State, with an eye toward creating a protected “safe zone” along the Turkey-Syria border for refugees. However, Turkish Kurds suspect their government continues to regard them as a more serious threat than ISIS.

The Kurds, who would rank high on any list of strong critics of Turkey, are not entirely satisfied with this apparent sea change in Ankara’s attitude. The BBC quotes the leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurd political party, Selahattin Demirtas, charging that Turkish bombing runs against ISIS targets were actually a cover for airstrikes against the Kurds.

Specifically, Turkey has been fighting with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which it has classified as a terrorist organization. Several Turkish soldiers have been killed by Kurdish separatists over the past few days. In response, Turkish warplanes hit PKK targets in northern Iraq on Tuesday night, according to a Reuters report quoted by the BBC. A State Department spokesman insisted the United States had not sanctioned these air attacks against the Kurds.

Demirtas also expressed concerns that the “safe zone”–which, with characteristic comical bumbling, the Obama administration refuses to call a “no-fly zone,” even though it will be one–was actually a move to checkmate Kurdish separatist ambitions, preventing Kurds in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey from hooking up and forming a Greater Kurdistan after they drive ISIS from the region. Whatever else one might think of Turkey’s conduct, it cannot be said that their concerns about Kurdish separatism are totally irrational. Given the heavy concentration of Kurds in the eastern part of Turkey, they’d lose a substantial chunk of the country if the Kurds seceded to form their own nation, a far greater loss than anything they think the Islamic State could conceivably inflict upon them.

Demirtas called on the Turkish government to get back into peace talks with the PKK, which seems like a remote possibility at the moment, given that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan just declared that “it is not possible for us to continue the peace process with those who threaten our national unity and brotherhood,” as quoted by International Business Times.

Erdogan’s party suffered a sound defeat during the nation’s recent elections, while Demirtas’ Kurdish People’s Party (HDP) did very well. Erdogan has been threatening to strip HDP representatives of their parliamentary immunity to prosecution so they can be investigated for links to terrorism. Demirtas responded by announcing members of his party would voluntarily waive their immunity, essentially daring Erdogan to investigate them and be embarrassed by the results.

“Our only crime is winning 13 percent of the vote,” declared Demirtas, who also insisted that the PKK is no longer interested in separatism, and continues to bear arms against the Turkish government, only because Erdogan’s government withdrew from peace talks. The Kurdish Rudaw news service quotes Demirtas claiming the PKK was only a week from disarming, but “Ankara didn’t wait.”

Demirtas’ position is perhaps a bit difficult to square with what the PKK has been up to lately–those Turkish soldiers and police did not commit suicide–but he has a point about Erdogan’s government sticking to its agenda and party line, no matter what superficial changes in policy they make.

Russia’s security chief says the Islamic State group has recruited nationals of more than 100 countries, posing a long-term threat to global stability.

Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main KGB successor agency, said at Wednesday’s security conference that ISIS’ aim is to create a global network of sleeper cells that could undermine the security and territorial integrity of its recruits’ home countries.

He said ISIS efforts are mostly focused on young people.

Bortnikov spoke Wednesday at the opening of a two-day security conference in the Volga River city of Yaroslavl attended by representatives of security agencies of more than 60 nations.

He called for broader international cooperation to track down ISIS recruiters and sleeper cells and undercut the group’s funding base.

The Syrian American Forum (SAF) in Boston organized Sunday a demonstration where Syrian community in Boston took part and expressed solidarity with their homeland, Syria.

The participants in the demonstration called on the US to stop supporting terrorists in Syria.

“We want to tell the Syrians that we love them and want to reveal what is happening in Syria for the Americans,” a girl that participated in the demonstration said.

“From Boston, the place in which poet Jubran Khalil Jubran conveyed the first Syrian messages to the world, we came to the same place to say that terrorism is bad for everyone,” Chairman of SAF, Ghiath Moussa, said in a statement reported by al-Mayadeen channel.

U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) on Tuesday urged Turkey to work with the Kurds.

“Turkey’s decision to assist the fight against ISIL is a positive step in the right direction. The use of Turkish bases for US fighter aircraft will improve response times and increase the opportunity to collect intelligence in Syria,” he said.

“The establishment of a humanitarian zone to protect the moderate Syrian opposition as well as ethnic and religious minorities such as the Kurds against Assad, ISIL, al Nusrah, and other violent extremists is consistent with what we have been advocating for over three years,” he added.

However, he expressed concerns over reports that Turkish forces have been shelling the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the most effective ground force against IS in Syria.

“However, we are concerned about reports of Turkish forces shelling Kurdish villages inside Syria. As the United States and Turkey enhance our cooperation against ISIL, we believe these mutual efforts will be most effective in collaboration with local forces on the ground, including the Kurds,” he said.

The Republican Senator called on the US president and Turkey to form a coordination strategy to end the war.

“Our ineffective approach to Syria and Iraq continues to allow mayhem and violence to spread across the region, putting our allies in greater danger and fostering the conditions for an attack on the United States,” he said

Widely experienced in successfully fighting terrorists, Russia “has never used double standards in the sphere of counter-terrorism. The country has always been guided by the importance for the world community to join efforts to repel a global terrorist threat”, Syromolotov told the Kommersant newspaper.

General of the Army Syromolotov was appointed to the post of Russian Deputy Foreign Minister for Anti-Terrorism Matters this March. He previously headed the Federal Security Service (FSB) Counter-Intelligence Service and was responsible for security at the Olympic Games preparations in Sochi.

“The Islamic State (of Iraq and the Levant) is the embodiment of this (terrorist) threat but there are other dangerous components of the ‘terrorist international’ such as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban movement, Imarat Kavkaz and Hizb ut-Tahrir,” Syromolotov stressed.

The Russian diplomat has also said that methods in the struggle against terror should be based on international law and rules envisaged in the United Nations agreements.

“Principles of sovereignty and equality of states should be preserved and any attempts to use certain groups in pursuit of their political and geopolitical purposes have to be eliminated”, added Deputy Foreign Minister.

“Successful experience of Russian competent authorities in the fight against terrorism, and in terms of its prevention, and overcoming extremism should be exampled internationally,” said diplomat.

“After all, in fact, the terrorists never taught such serious lessons in Russian. Russia has a unique experience in this case. Remember what happened in Chechnya, and see what it is now,” Syromolotov stated in the interview.

Syromolotov expressed hope that multilateral anti-terrorism cooperation will be based on honest communication and will get international coverage to further push its effectiveness.

Adam Brookman, an Australian nurse who worked as a medic for the Islamic State group in Syria, was arrested by the Australian federal police from the Sydney International Airport. Brookman, who turned himself in to Turkish authorities earlier this week, will now be extradited to Victoria to face terrorism charges, according to media reports.

“A 39-year-old Australian national was arrested upon arrival at Sydney International Airport last night on an interstate arrest warrant, relating to his alleged involvement in the conflict in Syria,” the Australian federal police said in a statement released Saturday. “The man voluntarily surrendered himself to Turkish officials in Turkey on Tuesday, 21 July. His travel back to Australia was negotiated between the individual, the AFP, Victoria Police, other Commonwealth Government agencies and international partners.”

Following his arrest, the Melbourne resident appeared via a video link at a Sydney bail court on Saturday, where a magistrate granted an application by the Melbourne Joint Counter Terrorism Team to extradite him to Victoria.

Formal charges have not been filed against him yet, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. However, if charged, the onus would be on Brookman to prove that he was in the region for a legitimate reason. Under current Australian laws, traveling to a “declared area” — regions were ISIS is currently active — in Syria is prohibited.

Brookman had earlier said that he was forced to join ISIS when he was in Syria for humanitarian work.

“I’ve not done anything illegal,” the father of five told the Sydney Morning Herald. “I saw Syria being ignored by the international community. I thought I could help. I support the struggle of the Syrian people.”

Brookman reportedly said that he was forcibly recruited by ISIS after he was injured in an airstrike and taken to a hospital controlled by the Sunni militant group. “After I recovered, they wouldn’t let me leave,” he said.

Over 20,000 foreign nationals are believed to be fighting for various militant groups, including ISIS, in Iraq and Syria. This includes over 100 Australian nationals.

Islamic State (IS) fighters are using birds strapped with explosives to target the enemy, a media report said on Tuesday.

Pictures of the radical group using bomb vests strapped to poultry have emerged on social media, Mirror Online reported citing a Daily Star report.

The report said the birds are encouraged to wander into enemy territory so that the explosive device can be detonated via remote control. However, experts believe the bizarre images could be a sign that IS is running out of supplies.

According to a report by British newspaper Daily Star, IS fighters are trying to make their own bombs using mortar shells, gas canisters and fertiliser as their delivery lines leading to Syria and Iraq have been cut.

Other pictures have also emerged on social media showing improvised weaponry, the report added.