Iraq IS: Scores found dead in mass graves in Anbar
31 October 2014 Last updated at 07:29 BBC
The bodies were said to have been dumped on the streets of Hit, where Iraqi forces have been battling IS
Scores of bodies of Sunni Muslim tribesmen apparently killed by Islamic State (IS) militants have been found in mass graves in western Iraq.
The graves that were found in the province of Anbar may contain between 80 and 220 bodies, reports suggest.
Many of the dead belong to the Al Bu Nimr tribe, which joined Iraq's Shia-dominated government in fighting IS.
It has also emerged that Islamic State may have killed 600 prisoners at a jail in Mosul they seized in June.
The inmates were forced to kneel along the edge of a ravine before being shot, the campaign group Human Rights Watch said.
A graphic video allegedly showing some of the victims of the IS attack in the Anbar town of Hit has emerged online.
Analysis: Orla Guerin, BBC News, Baghdad
Details about the latest mass executions attributed to the self-declared Islamic state are still sketchy, particularly the number of victims.
The bodies - all male - were discovered in two separate locations in Iraq's contested Anbar province.
Footage alleged to be the aftermath of the killings shows a line of blood-soaked bodies dumped in a street. Several are blindfolded, and some have their hands bound.
The video - which cannot be independently verified - shows cars and pedestrians passing by the bodies.
Analysts say mass killings are a very deliberate strategy by Islamic State to spread terror in their opponents.
This latest atrocity is a stark warning to Sunni tribesmen as the Iraqi government and the White House tries to get more of them involved in battling IS.
One local official, Sabah Karhout, described the killings in Anbar province as a crime against humanity and called for more international support for Sunni tribes fighting the militants in Anbar.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the killing of Sunni tribesmen in Iraq by Islamic State fighters was the brutal "reality of what we're dealing with" in the conflict.
The US military chief, Gen Martin Dempsey, said American advisers should be sent to Anbar province, but that first Baghdad must arm local Sunni tribes.
"We need to expand the 'train, advise and assist' mission into Anbar province but the precondition for that is that the government of Iraq is willing to arm the tribes," he told reporters on Thursday.
IS militants have killed hundreds of people in the large areas of Iraq and neighbouring Syria they control.
It will be a joy for the human race when the scourge of the Abrahamic religious cults is relegated to the scrap heap of the gods.
ReplyDeleteThe destruction of one human life based on the insane belief and the ignorant hallucination of a higher being that possesses every possible loathsome aberrant human behavior and depravity is the legacy of the crime of religion.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't quite agree with that, having read some really really good stuff in Jewish literature, I take my rest in my long hour's long song of Happy Birthday To You from my wife to be in the other life.
ReplyDeleteAll in piano.
She is Hindu, and would think all this shit silly, and has said so too,
She says she has a 'reservation' on me in the next life.
I rest in that.
She's at the Max Planck Institute of Brain Research in Dresden, Germany working on the information flows in Quirk's brain.
DeleteOla Einai Endaxi.
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ReplyDeleteEarlier this year, Denmark's leadership announced that the nation would run entirely on renewable power by 2050. Wind, solar, and biomass would be ramped up while coal and gas are phased out. Now Denmark has gone even further, and plans to end coal by 2025.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteThe destruction of one human life based on the insane belief and the ignorant hallucination of a higher being that possesses every possible loathsome aberrant human behavior and depravity is the legacy of the crime of religion.
Bullshit. IS isn't committing these atrocities because of any religious reasons they may claim. They are doing them to terrify everyone in the area. The message is submit or die. The message is political rather than religious. It's a power grab.
Saw an article where one of Assad's main general's was being interviewed about IS. He talked about all the various groups fighting in Syria. He didn't like any of them. The last question he was asked was about the atrocities IS was committing and about the mass killings. Hard to remember the exact words but basically it was a ho hum and an indication that there are not many prisoners being taken in this war by anybody. The guy was being honest.
Any enemy of ISIS is a friend of the US and the civilized World
More nonsense. If the Assad regime is aiding us in the fight against IS, not interfering with him be expedient but it doesn't make him our friend.
Which is worse, being made to kneel by a ditch and be shot in the head or being blown apart by a barrel bomb? Dead is dead.
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