GENEVA: The Daesh group executed 741 civilians in the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul, the UN said Thursday, accusing the jihadists of perpetrating “international crimes” during the nine-month military campaign.
A total of 2,521 civilians were killed, mostly by Daesh attacks, during the fight between Daesh and the internationally-backed Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) that ended in July, the UN rights office said in a report.
“Those responsible must answer for their heinous crimes,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said in a statement.
Mosul, Iraq’s second city, was captured by Daesh in 2014 and became the capital of the group’s self-styled “caliphate” in the country.
Following Daesh’s defeat in the city, the rights office said it had compiled witness testimony documenting “mass abductions of civilians, the use of thousands as human shields, the intentional shelling of civilian residences, and indiscriminate targeting of civilians trying to flee the city.”
More than 800,000 people were displaced by the fighting, the report said.
The rights office also called for investigations into alleged violations committed by the ISF and their allies, including militia groups.
The report “recorded 461 civilian deaths as a result of airstrikes during the most intensive phase of the ISF-led offensive from 19 February,” the UN said in a statement, noting that it was impossible to establish responsibility for the strikes “in almost all cases.”
The rights office urged the Iraqi government to invite the International Criminal Court to investigate the country’s situation “as an immediate step.”
“By prosecuting those responsible for ‘international crimes’ in Mosul the Iraqi authorities would be sending a message to the people of Iraq who have suffered, no matter when or where, that justice is eventually delivered,” the rights office said.
Daesh executed 741 civilians during Mosul battle: UN
Daesh executed 741 civilians during Mosul battle: UN
Syria says detained senior Daesh jihadist in Damascus
- The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers
DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities have arrested a senior Daesh group official in the Damascus region in a joint operation with a US-led international coalition, a security official said on Wednesday.
Taha Al-Zoubi, also known as Abu Omar Tabiya, an Daesh leader in Damascus, was detained with several of his men, General Ahmad Al-Dalati was reported as saying by state news agency SANA.
The arrest came less than two weeks after a December 13 attack killed two US soldiers and a US civilian that Washington said was carried out by a lone Daesh gunman in central Syria’s Palmyra.
“Our specialized units, in cooperation with the General Intelligence Directorate and and International Coalition forces, carried out a precise security operation targeting” an Daesh hideout, Dalati said.
On December 20, a Syria monitor said that five Daesh members were killed in US strikes in retaliation for the December 13 attack.
It was the first such incident since the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and Syrian authorities said the perpetrator was a security forces member who was due to be fired for his “extremist Islamist ideas.”
