ISIS Crucifies Civilian 'Spies' on Advertising Billboards in Libya
Islamic State militants are crucifying civilians accused of spying by stringing them up on advertising billboards and leaving them there to hang for days in the Libyan city of Sirte.
U.S. intelligence estimates suggest the number of fighters from the terror group in the North African country has now doubled.
The Zafaran roundabout in Sirte, which once used to be a local business advert hub, is now the scene of violence, Britain's Express newspaper reports.
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After victims are brutally killed and left for dead, grieving families are barred from retrieving their bodies.
One of the victims has been identified as Milad Aburgeeba, a 37-year-old man whose body, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and with the message "spy" written across his body, was hung on a billboard for al least two days.
Sirte was the birthplace of Muammar Gaddafi, who governed Libya as an authoritarian leader from 1969 until he was killed by rebel forces in the Libyan Civil War in 2011. IS loyalists seized Sirte in February 2015.
The U.S. estimate of IS terrorists in Libya has doubled as the fighters are now finding it difficult to enter Syria, according to CNN, which quoted U.S. intelligence officials as saying there may now be up to 6,500 IS fighters in Libya, twice the number previously thought.
"ISIS is investing heavily in Libya," an official was quoted as saying.
In Iraq and Syria, IS has about 25,000 fighters, down from a previous estimate of up to 31,000, according to a U.S. intelligence report revealed by the White House last week, Reuters reported.
"They (IS) continue to be a substantial threat, but the potential numbers have declined," White House spokesman Josh Earnest was quoted as saying. "ISIL is having more difficulty than they've had before in replenishing their ranks, and we have long been aware of the need of the international community to cooperate to stop the flow of foreign fighters to the region."
"The decrease reflects the combined effects of battlefield deaths, desertions, internal disciplinary actions, recruiting shortfalls, and difficulties that foreign fighters face traveling to Syria," Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, was quoted as saying.
IS, also known as Daesh, is an offshoot of al-Qaeda and is working to establish a caliphate in the Levant region and beyond. Christian minorities in Iraq and Syria are among the main civilian targets of the Sunni terror group.
In a recent propaganda video, titled "To the Sons of Jews," IS showed child soldiers executing shackled prisoners in a "game" of hide-and-seek.
A group of young IS terrorists were then shown studying and practicing martial arts with an instructor. The next scene showed the selection of six of the young recruits, all masked and apparently below the age of 9, by the instructor to play the "game."
They were shown as stalking six tied-up victims in an ancient fortress, shooting five of them in the head from close range and then beheading the sixth one. The prisoners were all accused of spying in the IS territory.
