Showing posts with label ISIS war crimes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ISIS war crimes. Show all posts

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Islamic State trained 1,600 Yazidi children in beheading & Suicide attacks, could be in any country.


Islamic State trained 1,600 Yazidi children in beheading: Kurdish official. (IraqNews).

A Kurdish official has said that Islamic State militants trained more than 1600 Yazidi children on killing, battling, committing suicide and beheading over the past three years, DPA reported.
Khairi Bozani, the head of the Yazidi Affairs Office of the Kurdistan Regional Government, told journalists on Saturday that “consuls of countries in Kurdistan were notified that those children could represent danger against the whole world countries at any moment. It cannot be ruled out that IS could use them in terrorist actions in European countries as well as the U.S., Arab countries or elsewhere.”
According to the latest estimate by the Directorate of Yazidi Abductees Affairs in Duhok, more than 6,417 Yazidi persons were freed from IS.
Many Yazidis were persecuted and held in Mosul by Islamic State, which considered them devil-worshippers.
A study on the number of Yazidis affected showed that at least 9,900 of Iraq’s Yazidis were killed or kidnapped in just days in an attack by the militants in 2014.
About 3,100 Yazidis were killed – with more than half shot, beheaded or burned alive – while about 6,800 others were kidnapped to become sex slaves or fighters, according to the report published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.
Related?         One Thousand ISIS Caliphate lion Cubs on the loose in Europe?

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Video - Mosul - ISIS’ Horror Stories Leak from ‘Khasfa’ Mass Grave.



Video - ISIS’ Horror Stories Leak from ‘Khasfa’ Mass Grave.(AS).

Mosul- The horror stories about ISIS’ mass killings at a cavernous hole in the desert near Mosul became legendary over the years.

Soon after the group took control of the Iraqi city more than 2½ years ago, the 100-foot-wide sinkhole five miles southwest of the airport became a site for summary executions. Some victims were made to line up at the edge of the hole and were shot before being kicked inside, while others were tossed in alive, residents said. Sometimes bodies were just trucked in for dumping.

Residents of Mosul whispered about the deaths at the sinkhole, or “khasfa,” as it is called. But with communications limited and locals too fearful to speak out publicly, it was only after Iraqi forces retook the area last month as they closed in on the city’s western side that the scale of the killings at the site began to emerge. Based on anecdotal evidence, Iraqi officials say thousands may have perished there in recent years.

It may be years more, though, before the mass grave gives up its secrets.


No one knows the depth of the hole under the water at the bottom. The militants have filled it and booby-trapped it with explosives, making excavation particularly complex.

 The khasfa, though, could be ISIS’s biggest mass grave.

“It’s swallowed the lives of thousands,” said Muthanna Ahmed. He said he worked near the site for five months and witnessed summary executions. “It was terrifying, very deep and dark.”

Ahmed said victims’ shoes and dried blood lined its rim, while some decaying bodies that got caught on the sinkhole’s rugged edge were still visible. A -gruesome video posted on ¬YouTube in January 2015 shows a similar scene.

The sinkhole was near an ISIS oil refinery, and the militants regularly rounded up workers and Mosul residents who were buying fuel to watch the execution-style killings. Victims included former police and army officers, as well as those accused of spying or working with the Iraqi government, witnesses said.

Hussam al-Abar, a provincial council member, said 3,000 to 5,000 corpses might languish in its depths, though he bases that estimate on lists of missing people that he concedes could have been killed and buried somewhere else.

Given the capacity of the central government and local government, I think it’s impossible to take out the bodies,” he said. “We’d need international assistance. It would be impossible for Iraqis alone.”

Jassim Omar, 33, said he witnessed about 10 executions there. The first was about a month after the city fell to the militants. About 25 prisoners from Badush prison in Mosul were brought to the sinkhole and killed, he said.

“If you want to scare someone from Mosul, just mention the khasfa,” he said.

The militants killed hundreds of the prison’s inmates when they took over the city, according to human rights groups. Most of the victims were Shi’ites, Yazidis and Christians, all of whom the militants consider to be apostates, while many Sunni inmates were allowed to go free. Read the full story here.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Yezidi Women the forgotten IS Victims: Rescuing Yezidi women from ISIS becomes almost impossible.


Too difficult and expensive: Rescuing Yezidi women from ISIS becomes almost impossible. (Rudaw).

Two years after militants of the Islamic State (ISIS) kidnapped over 6,000 Yezidis from their towns and villages in the Shingal region, the chance to get them back is diminishing fast, says Yezidi activist and medical doctor Mirza Dinnayi. In the past two years around 3,000 people were rescued from the extremist group, but recently the number has declined. Some of the captives are so damaged and indoctrinated that they no longer think escape is possible, while rescuing missions in general have become too difficult and too expensive for many families to afford. Dinnayi who has helped many Yezidi victims reach Germany for treatment, says that as it becomes almost impossible to rescue more captives, his focus is on getting former ISIS victims, especially women and young girls out of refugee camps to Europe where they could recover and start a normal life again.

Rudaw: How many people are still captive in ISIS (Daesh) territories? Both 3,200 and 3,700 figures have been mentioned?


The correct figure is about 3,700 and the difference between the figures is the men, the rest are women and children.

What should be done to get them out?


I am afraid it is too late. I think most of the men could be dead. When in April 2015 we had the option to rescue 3,500 of them from Talafar, neither the Iraqis, Kurdish nor the allied forces did anything even though they knew their situation there. There was a possibility to make a quick attack because the distance with the Peshmerga troops was no more than ten kilometers. You could release them within days. I do not know why they did not do anything. ISIS, after this, divided all the people. We do not know what happened to the 500 men since then. There were some reports that they were killed. And ISIS separated the women from the children and distributed the women all over their territories. Now it is very difficult to get them back.

In the past some 2,600 people were able to escape one way or another. Did that stop?


In the past our girls escaped and through smuggling networks were brought out. That was not expensive as you only had to pay these people. But escape is no longer possible. The girls are now completely destroyed psychologically. Most have been told that all Yezidis were killed or Islamized. They are brainwashed, and cannot escape. Also, ISIS has in the last year established special Sharia Courts to register all slaves under the name of their owners. So if a girl escapes, any checkpoint would know who to return her to.

The only way is to pay ISIS and that is now very expensive. The smugglers are asking money because it is a dangerous job now, and next to that you pay the ISIS fighter. He does not know that he is selling the woman to the outside, because it is forbidden, he thinks he sells her to another fighter. Three weeks ago I met a girl who was liberated this way. Her brother paid $22,000 for her. $12,000 to the ISIS fighter, about $3,000 to a middleman and $7,000 to the smuggler. He had borrowed the money from his neighbors, who are also living in the camp and are also poor.

Now the number of girls being bought back is very small, as money is the main problem. People cannot pay, and the government is not paying. The special office for Yezidi Affairs is treating people badly. I heard from the families of survivors that they are told there to negotiate about the price, even if they say they cannot. And even though the regulations are different, the office will only pay back afterwards. So the people have to find the money first themselves.

The only other way is to swap them for fighters. The PKK did it two or three times, and with every fighter exchanged they got back 30 to 50 girls.

How many girls or women were found in the towns that were liberated from ISIS?


Hardly any. Just a few from Falluja. That means ISIS takes them when they move, as they have become a commodity. Just like if you have gold, and there is a war, you take it. They do not leave the girls behind, who are in the main cities, and not in the villages.

You have organized, with KRG and your organization Luftbrücke Irak (Air bridge Iraq) the operation that brought girls and women who were saved from ISIS for treatment to Germany. Will this program be extended for more victims?


We transferred 1,100 victims, and would support the most vulnerable who want to leave, especially the victims of ISIS staying in the camps. We now have 1,643 of these survivors in Iraq, who are staying in tents, with all their traumas. Nobody takes care of them, although we have some NGOs trying to. I respect that, but it is not enough. Imagine a girl, woman or child, who lost everything and has been more than a year with ISIS, and with such bad experiences now lives in a tent. She is taken to a psychotherapist for 20 to 25 minute sessions and then sent back, and given some drugs to keep her clam… That is not a solution. A girl like that has no social or economic existence, no family left, and you try to solve her problems with drugs – that, by the way, she has to even buy herself?

Are you planning to get them out of Iraq for treatment?


Yes, I am working to find a way to get at least 90 percent of them out. I recognize what the NGO are trying to do, but I am not convinced that this will help them. Even so, they will not be happy outside either, as they have a lot of problems not related to migration. But I see our girls and women when they come over for a holiday, and then they cannot even stay here for the whole period, as here they have no existence, no health service…

How are the victims coping in Germany?

Till now we have seen nine or ten marriages of victims who went outside. About 60 percent of the group were children, and they go to school. All young girls are visiting the schools, some are trying to study, but many had little education. Their mothers are happy to see that, but it is not easy for them after what they have lost. Not easy, but much better than it would be here.

Will these victims ever be able to live a normal life again?

Our duty is to help them to live with their pain. But life will never be normal for them. The only hope is for their children: they will recover. The women feel stronger now, but normal it will never be for them again.        Hmmm.....Canada took NINE Yezidi out of 25,000 MUSLIM refugees.            

Monday, April 25, 2016

ISIS, Iraqi Government Forces Have Record of Laws of War Violations. HRW.


ISIS, Iraqi Government Forces Have Record of Laws of War Violations. HRW. (HRW).

Use of Child Soldiers.

ISIS and the PMF use children in their ranks. A man who fled Ramadi in May 2015, when ISIS controlled the city, said ISIS recruited children as young as 7 through the mosque or by force:
Whoever had four sons had to give two to ISIS,” he said. “Whoever had three or two sons, had to give one.
In August 2015, Human Rights Watch interviewed two children who managed to flee an ISIS training camp for over 340 children in Tel Afar. They said teachers trained older children in religious studies and boys aged 14 and over in combat. In Syria, ISIS and other groups used children in combat.

ISIS also prevents civilians from fleeing. In Fallujah, ISIS executed people trying to flee in March 2016, a lawyer in Baghdad who had a first-hand account told Human Rights Watch. Several people fleeing the Hawija area, in Kirkuk governorate, said that ISIS has mined fields to prevent people leaving, and executed people caught trying to escape. 

A young man fleeing Atshana village in Kirkuk, in September 2015, said ISIS shot at his group as they made a dash for the Kurdish front lines. Human Rights Watch spoke with several people who said that ISIS is not allowing anyone, including civilians, to leave Mosul at present. 

A civilian from ISIS-controlled Ba’aj, a town 160 kilometers west of Mosul, told Human Rights Watch that he had to pretend his wife was sick to be allowed to leave in May 2015. He said ISIS burned the car of another family because they tried to flee the town, warning them they would be killed if they tried again.

ISIS forces, in August 2014, attacked the city of Sinjar and surrounding areas in Ninewa province inhabited by many from the Yezidi religious minority. ISIS enslaved more than a thousand Yezidi women and girls and executed many Yezidi men.

An Annex on Military Matters of the Islamic State, a manual for its commanders, lists among the necessary attributes of an Islamic State commander, that he “observ[e] the rulings of war in their entirety” without specifying the nature of ISIS’ understanding of those rules. Read the full story here.

Saturday, January 30, 2016

New Report Uncovers 35 Yazidi Mass Graves perpetrated by ISIS Terrorists in Iraq.


New Report Uncovers 35 Yazidi Mass Graves perpetrated by ISIS Terrorists in Iraq. by Matthew Barber.

Yazda is a Yazidi humanitarian and advocacy organization founded after the attempted genocide of the Yazidis by IS on Aug. 3, 2014.

Beginning this past fall, I took a one-year leave of absence from my PhD program at the University of Chicago to serve as Executive Director for Yazda during this period of urgent need. The accompanying responsibilities have unfortunately kept me away from Syria Comment of late.

One of Yazda’s projects is to document the crimes of genocide that were committed against the Yazidi people. Our genocide documentation project focuses on examining physical evidence of mass graves (bones, clothing, grave mounds) while gathering survivor testimonies to corroborate the physical evidence that we find.

Yazda is now issuing a full report on the mass graves in Sinjar, which is available on the Yazda website. VICE News has just published the full report here, and Human Rights Watch and Yazda have released a joint press statement on the urgency of protecting and performing forensic analyses of the mass graves.  Read or download the full report here,

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Vice News presents: 'Inside the Al Nusra Academy Training the Next Generation of Jihadis'



Vice News presents: 'Inside the Al Nusra Academy Training the Next Generation of Jihadis' HT: ViceNews.

In a classroom in northern Syria's Aleppo province a teacher begins a lesson by saying: "Today we will learn about faith and beliefs."

Abu Baser questions the assembled boys — all in khaki green — on the meaning of the word "faith," before having them repeat: "The war gains belong to God and the messenger."

This is the Lion Cubs Religious Academy, one of several schools run by al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the al Nusra Front. VICE News filmmaker Medyan Dairieh gained exclusive access to the group earlier this year, spending time with the militia's current leadership and the younger generation being groomed to replace them.

His footage shows children singing songs with lyrics like: "Oh mother, don't be sad, I've chosen the land of jihad. Wipe your tears, I only went to fight the Jews," and "Our leader [Osama] bin Laden who scares America with the power of his faith and his PK gun."

In unison, they later chorus together: "All the Christians and a message to America, your grave is in Syria, our Front is victorious." Read and see the full story here.
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