Source: The Guardian
Islamic State fighters have killed scores of alleged spies or battlefield deserters in the past week and are dispatching boys as young as 12 to the frontlines with suicide belts as the group’s enemies advance on its last major strongholds.
Witnesses in Raqqa and Mosul – as well as the UN’s high commissioner for refugees – said Isis had also displaced tens of thousands of residents for use as human shields as it came under increasing military pressure.
The Iraqi army continues to make slow gains inside Mosul’s outer limits while, 260 miles (420km) to the west, a US-backed Kurdish force is edging towards Raqqa in Syria.
As each force advances, new details emerge of the savagery inflicted in the two cities. Nearly 48,000 refugees have fled Mosul, and many have described how the city’s Islamist occupiers are becoming ever more brutal.
Anyone suspected of collaboration with the encroaching Iraqi military has been killed, often in public squares. Several residents told the Guardian that in the past week, relatives and neighbours had been killed by Isis for reasons as trivial as carrying a mobile phone sim card.
According to the UN high commissioner for human rights. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, Isis killed 40 alleged spies in Mosul on Tuesday and 20 more the following day.
On Monday, an underground prison was found in the Shura district, containing 961 men and boys who had been forced into cages as small as 1 metre by 0.5 metre. Many were emaciated and had been tortured.
Zeid said the unchecked brutality highlighted an urgent need for justice, truth and reconciliation. Without that, he said, revenge attacks and collective punishment would undermine efforts to reassemble the shattered communities of northern Iraq.
Categories: Iraq, ISIS, Middle East, The Muslim Times