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The Beatings Will Continue: Iraqi Edition
[ARA News] ERBIL – Radical group of the Islamic State (ISIS) has executed three Iraqi civilians in the city of Tel Afar west of Mosul on charges of spying for the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, local sources reported.The three men were accused of communicating with the Peshmerga and leaking security information about ISIS positions in Tal Afar. Mussa al-Liwezi, 31, Farah al-Jahishi, 23, and Haidar Yousef, 33, were executed in front of dozens of people in Tal Afar city, local activists and eyewitnesses told ARA News, speaking on condition of anonymity. In the meantime, the pro-ISIS Jazira media centre released footages showing the three men dressed in orange while being shot dead by three masked ISIS jihadis. “A Sharia official read a statement to the public saying the three victims were spies for the enemies of the Caliphate. More than 200 people have witnessed the execution,” media activist Abdullah al-Malla told ARA News. ISIS Uses civilians for human shields [Al Arabiya] ISIS forces are reported to be holding several hundred families as "human shields" in the Iraqi city of Fallujah while government forces close in, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday, citing witness accounts. Some 3,700 people have fled Fallujah, west of Baghdad, over the past week since the Iraqi army began its offensive on the city controlled by militant forces, it said. "UNHCR has received reports of casualties among civilians in the city center of Fallujah due to heavy shelling, including 7 members of one family on the 28th of May (Saturday)," UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told a news briefing. "There are also reports of several hundred families being used as human shields by ISIL in the center of Falluja." The accounts come from displaced people who have spoken to UNHCR field staff, spokeswoman Ariane Rummery said. "Most people able to get out come from the outskirts of Fallujah. For some time militants have been controlling movements, we know civilians have been prevented from fleeing. There are also reports from people who left in recent days that they are being required to move with ISIL within Fallujah," she told Reuters, using another word for the militant group. ISIS militants fought back vigorously overnight and parried an onslaught by the Iraqi army on a southern district of Fallujah, officers said. Iraqi authorities are holding some 500 men and boys under the age of 12 for "security screening" as they leave the city, a clearance process that can take up to seven days, Spindler said. "But people are being released after this process and we understand that 27 men were released yesterday (Monday) after being screened," he said. However, Al Arabiya News channel reported that the joint Special Operations Command in Iraq confirmed that the Federal Police and volunteers from tribes regained control from the ISIS-held area of Saqlawiyah northeast of Fallujah. The Iraqi army stormed to the southern edge of Fallujah under US air support on Monday and captured a police station inside the city limits, which led to launch the assault to retake the ISIS stronghold. With the continued fighting, security forces managed to evacuate 50 families in areas near the center of Fallujah. According to reports from the rescued families, a number of ISIS snipers on rooftops had prevented them from escaping. A Reuters TV crew about 1.5 km from the city's edge said explosions and gunfire were ripping through Naimiya, a largely rural district of Fallujah on its southern outskirts. An elite military unit, the Rapid Response Team, seized the district's police station at midday, state TV reported. The unit advanced another mile northward, stopping about 500 meters (yards) from the al-Shuhada district, the southeastern part of city's main built-up area, army officers said. More at the link Posted by: badanov 2016-06-01 |
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