ISIS News: Heartless ISIS Fighters Hack Limbs Off Women and Children in Latest Massacre
The onslaught of coalition forces against the Islamic State (ISIS) has been slow running, which provided the jihadi group leeway to attack several government-held communities in central Syria. The extremists massacred at least 50 civilians, mostly women and children, in Hama province.
Thursday's incident took place near the town of Salamiyeh and the highway that links the capital, Damascus, to the northern city of Aleppo. The mass killing was committed as government troops concentrate its offensive to the northern city of Raqqa, ISIS' de-facto capital.
The massacre was so gruesome that many of the victims had their limbs and heads chopped off. Dr. Noufal Safar, head of the National Hospital in Salamiyeh said they received 52 bodies, including 11 women and 17 children. Some of them were decapitated while others had their limbs amputated.
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Syrian news agency SANA reported that ISIS fighters stormed into the southern part of Aqareb al-Safi and Al-Mabujeh villages. They barged into homes, rounded residents and killed them in a brutal fashion. The attackers were repelled later on by government forces but not after leaving mangled bodies behind.
Most of the bodies taken to the hospital had missing limbs while children were beaten to death with heavy objects like bricks or stones. Rami Razzouk, a coroner at the hospital who inspected the bodies, said there were "a couple of children whose heads were fully dismembered because of the beating."
Two of the children "had most of their limbs removed so they had to be carried in blankets" while most of the men died from shelling or heavy machine gun fire. Dozens of residents are missing, but it is not clear if they were kidnapped by ISIS. "Two men were shot in the eye," Razzouk added.
Fifteen of the dead have been identified as civilians and 27 as pro-government fighters. Some 15 ISIS militants were also killed. Most of the residents in the two villages belong to the Ismaili branch of Shiite Islam that is viewed as apostates deserving of death by Sunni extremists.
