ISIS immolates 9 in Kirkuk
Kirkuk (IraqiNews.com) Islamic State militants have burned to death nine civilians, including children, for attempting to escape the group’s strongholds southwest of the province.
Alsumaria News quoted a security source saying the extremist group burned to death nine civilians from the IS-held town of Hawija over charges of “abandoning the land of the Caliphate’, a common charge poised against people fleeing the group’s areas of control.
“Daesh (IS) arrested the civilians at a road between al-Riyadh and Hamreen Mountains,” said the source. “They burned them before of other civilians on their way to al-Alam,” said the source, referring to a region in neighboring Salahuddin province.
Since Islamic State took over large parts of Iraq in 2014 to proclaim an “Islamic Caliphate”, it held a handful of areas in southwestern Kirkuk, where civilians have been subjected to extreme religious governance, brutal tortures and executions. IS’s reign forced thousands of civilians to flee to central Kirkuk.
Islamic State militants have reportedly tortured and enslaved civilians at areas under their control in Iraq for violating their religious rules, and executed many for either acting as informants for security services or attempting to escape “the land of the Caliphate” as the common charge reads. Many of the brutal executions were filmed and posted on IS’s social media platforms.
There has not been yet an official campaign to liberate Kirkuk, but it is expected that the government will move to clear Islamic State pockets across Iraq after finishing with its campaign to expel the group from neighboring Mosul, the group’s largest bastion in Iraq.
8 Kurds freed from ISIS captivity
(BasNews/IraqiNews.com) Kurdistan Region’s Directorate of Yezidi Abductee Affairs has revealed that eight Kurdish Yezidis were freed from Islamic State (IS) captivity on Tuesday and brought to safety in Kurdistan Region.
Hussein Qa’idi, head of the directorate, confirmed to BasNews that the rescued Yezidis are all from Sinjar and they were abducted by the extremists back in August 2014 when the city was overrun by IS.
Three of them are children and five are women, the official said, noting that Kurdish security forces have transferred them to Duhok province of Kurdistan Region where they reunited with their families after more than two years.
Qa’idi thanked Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani for sparing no efforts in supporting their campaign to rescue every Yezidi abductee, saying that nearly 2,900 Kurdish Yezidis have so far been freed from the jihadists’ captivity; but yet more than 3,500 others remain at the hand of IS.
He also criticized the central government of Iraq for failing to provide any help to rescue the Yezidi abductees.
Thousands of Yazidi Kurds fled Sanjar, a Mosul region on the borders with Syria, to nearby mountain areas following its fall to Islamic State militants in August 2014. The extremist group massacred, enslaved and tortured thousands of that ethno-religious minority.
The Kurdish-speaking community came to the spotlight when Islamic State militants, taking over large parts of Iraq, victimized its members, committing massacres and subjecting them to forced conversions, sexual slavery and other reported atrocities.