Iraq to Execute 36 ISIS Terrorists Who Killed 1,700 People
Iraqi President Fuad Masoum has announced that the government will execute 36 terrorists from Islamic State who have been convicted of killing 1,700 people held captive after promising that they would be sent back to their families.
Masoum, who approved the death sentence this week, said the members of the terror group, which is also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, were involved in a June 2014 massacre in Camp Speicher, a former U.S. military base near the central city of Tikrit, according to Ahlu Bayt News Agency.
The ISIS members will be sent to the gallows within days. They were sentenced to death in February by the central criminal court in Baghdad.
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Survivors of the massacre, mostly military students, say they were divided into two groups based on their religious sects and put on trucks. They were told they were being taken back to their homes. However, they were taken to a riverbank, killed with machine guns and buried there. Almost all those massacred were Shia Muslims, according to reports.
ISIS later released videos showing hundreds of men being executed with machine guns.
On Wednesday, ISIS executed seven people in Mosul for refusing to send their children to schools it runs, according to Iraqi News.
"This morning, ISIS executed seven citizens … after they refused to send their children to schools run by the organization," an anonymous source was quoted as saying. "The execution was carried out in one of the ISIS camps."
Meanwhile, Anbar Operations Command announced that 700 ISIS terrorists have been killed since the beginning of the liberation operations of Khalidiya Island in eastern Ramadi, Iraqi News reported.
"Security forces so far has killed 700 ISIS members since the beginning of Khalidiya Island liberation battles. Khalidiya Island has been liberated two weeks ago," Major General Ismail al-Mahalawi was quoted as saying.
IS is an offshoot of al-Qaeda, and wants to establish a caliphate in the Levant region and beyond.
While the Sunni terror group is losing territory in both Iraq and Syria, from where it operates, it still has 18,000 to 22,000 fighters there despite some 13,000 airstrikes by the international coalition led by the United States, according to CIA director John Brennan.
The group uses brutal methods to torture and punish those who it considers to be its enemies, including Muslims who do not believe in its version of Islam. However, Christians and other minorities are among its main targets.
