Daesh Executing Civilians near Mosul as Iraqi Troops Advance
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) terrorist group has in recent days executed dozens of prisoners taken from villages the Takfiri group has been forced to abandon by an Iraqi army advance on the city of Mosul, officials in the region said.
Most of those killed were former members of the Iraqi police and army who had lived in areas under Daesh control south of Mosul, Abdul Rahman al-Waggaa, a member of the Nineveh provincial council, told Reuters.
The militants forced them to leave their homes with their families, and took them to the town of Hammam Al-Alil, 15 km (9 miles) south of Mosul, where the executions took place, he said in Erbil.
The men were shot dead, he said, quoting the testimony of remaining residents of the villages and people displaced from the area.
The executions were meant "to terrorize the others, those who are in Mosul in particular", and also to get rid of the prisoners, he said.
"Daesh was taking families from each village it left," said Waggaa.
UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville on Tuesday said the terrorist group had reportedly killed scores of people around Mosul in the last week.
Colville said security forces discovered the bodies of 70 civilians in houses in Tuloul Naser village south of Mosul last Thursday.
The Iraqi army launched a major offensive on October 17 aimed at wresting Mosul from the hands of Daesh.
“The time has come for the greatest victory,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on state TV at the time. “I announce the start of Liberating Mosul Operation, by the will of Iraqis, and after depending on Allah.”
Al-Abadi said that Daesh would be “punished” for its crimes and that the province's cities and villages will be rebuilt.
In recent years, Iraq has been facing the threat of terrorism, mainly posed by the Daesh terrorist group.
Daesh militants made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq over the summer of 2014, after capturing large swaths of northern Syria.
However, a combination of concentrated attacks by the Iraqi military and the volunteer forces, who rushed to take arms after top Iraqi cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling for fight against the militants, blunted the edge of Daesh offensive.
