if statement condition- if a forum has new posts?

[BirdOPrey5]

Any ideas on a condition I could test for in an "IF' statement in navbar to tell if a certain forumid has new (unread) posts in it? Basically I have custom status icons for each forum and have a quick link to each forum in a bar below my navbar. Currently I display the 'old' version of each status icon in this bar but would like to upgrade functionality so users can tell by looking at the bar if there are new posts in the forum... basically for each I'd make an if statement..

Something like this;

IF fiorum1 = new posts
Show "new" status icon
ELSE
Show "old' status icon

I know how to make the if statements, i'm just looking for what code I could put in condition="" to test if there are new posts given I pass it a forum id.

My current navbar: