UN report confirms ISIS’s atrocities ‘may amount to war crimes’

http://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/un-report-confirms-isiss-atrocities-and-muslim-barbarism-that-may-amount-to-war-crimes/

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Mass executions of up to 1,500 at a time, girls abducted as sex slaves and children used as soldiers: UN report confirms ISIS’s atrocities across Iraq 

• Jihadist barbarism ‘may amount to war crimes that should be prosecuted’
• UN chief: ‘Array of violations and abuses perpetrated by ISIS is staggering’
• 1,500 Iraqi soldiers and security forces were killed in a single massacre
• Female doctors and lawyers murdered as militants target women
• But report says Iraqi air strikes have also caused ‘significant civilian deaths’
• Comes as Turkey prepares to vote on whether to launch attacks on ISIS

By Simon Tomlinson for MailOnline

Published: 13:38, 2 October 2014 |

Islamic State militants have carried out mass executions, abducted girls as sex slaves and used child soldiers in what may amount to systematic war crimes in Iraq that demand prosecution, the UN said today.

It said ISIS fighters had committed gross human rights violations of an ‘increasing sectarian nature’ against groups including Christians, Yazidis and Shi’ite Muslims in a widening conflict that has forced 1.8 million Iraqis to flee their homes.

However, it also said Iraqi government air strikes on the Muslim militants had caused ‘significant civilian deaths’ by hitting villages, a school and hospitals in violation of international law.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein said: ‘The array of violations and abuses perpetrated by ISIL and associated armed groups is staggering, and many of their acts may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.’

It came as Turkey’s parliament was debating a motion to give the government new powers to launch military incursions into Syria and Iraq and to allow foreign forces to use its territory for possible operations against the Islamic State.

Barbaric: A UN report has confirmed a series of atrocities committed by the Islamic State including this mass execution of around 1,500 Iraqi soldiers and security officers in the Salahuddin province of Iraq in June

In a statement, he called again for the Baghdad government to join the International Criminal Court, saying the Hague court was set up to prosecute such massive abuses and direct targeting of civilians on the basis of their religious or ethnic group.

The report said the ISIS atrocities ‘include attacks directly targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, executions and other targeted killings of civilians, abductions, rape and other forms of sexual and physical violence perpetrated against women and children, forced recruitment of children, destruction or desecration of places of religious or cultural significance, wanton destruction and looting of property, and denial of fundamental freedoms.’

Archive: Shocking video shows mass execution in Iraq by ISIS

In a single massacre on June 12, about 1,500 Iraqi soldiers and security officers from the former U.S. Camp Speicher military base in Salahuddin province were captured and killed by Islamic State fighters, according to the 29-page report by the UN Human Rights Office and the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).

However, the bodies have not been exhumed and the precise toll is not known.

Persecuted: The report also said ISIS snatched hundreds of women and girls, predominantly from the Yazidi (above) and Christian communities, and took them to Syria as a reward or to be sold as sex slaves

No one disputes that Iraqi military recruits were led off the base near Tikrit unarmed and then machine gunned in their hundreds into mass graves by Islamic State, whose fighters boasted of the killings on the Internet.

Women have been treated particularly harshly, the report said: ‘ISIL (has) attacked and killed female doctors, lawyers, among other professionals.’

In August, it said, ISIS took 450-500 women and girls to the Tal Afar citadel in Iraq’s Nineveh region where ‘150 unmarried girls and women, predominantly from the Yazidi and Christian communities, were reportedly transported to Syria, either to be given to ISIS fighters as a reward or to be sold as sex slaves’.

But the report also voiced deep concern at violations committed by the Baghdad government and allied fighters, including air strikes and shelling that may not have distinguished between military targets and civilian areas.

At least 9,347 civilians had been killed and 17,386 wounded so far through September, well over half of them since the Islamist insurgents began seizing large parts of northern Iraq in early June, the UN said.

Yazidis call for help to leave Iraq


Turkish army tanks are transported close to the Syrian border as its parliament prepare to vote on whether to vote to allow its military to enter Iraq and Syria as well as letting foreign troops to use its territory against ISIS


A Turkish soldier holds a lost baby as he looks for its mother as thousands of new Syrian refugees arrive in Turkey from the town of Kobani which is under siege from ISIS militants
Iraqi forces capture 30 villages east of Baghdad from IS

Islamic State and allied groups have attacked and destroyed places of religious and cultural significance in Iraq that do not conform to its ‘takfiri’ doctrine, the U.N. report said, referring to the beliefs of Sunni militants who justify their violence by branding others as apostates.

Islamic State pushed on with its assault on a Syrian border town today despite coalition air strikes meant to weaken them, sending thousands more Kurdish refugees into Turkey and dragging Ankara deeper into the conflict.

As the militants close in on Kobani, Turkey was preparing to vote this afternoon on whether to join the conflict by launching incursions into Iraq and Syria.

The motion before lawmakers sets the legal groundwork for any Turkish military involvement or the use of Turkish bases by foreign troops.

Parliament had previously approved operations into Iraq and Syria to attack Kurdish separatists or to thwart threats from the Syrian regime.

‘The motion prepares the legal ground for possible interventions, but it is too early to say what those interventions will be,’ said Dogu Ergil, a professor of political science and columnist for Today’s Zaman newspaper.