ISIS – IRAQ - KURDISTAN : NEWS THREAD

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Mail Online
By Keiligh Baker

ISIS hoist their flag over Iraqi city of Ramadi following year-long battle

ISIS militants raised flag over main government building in city of Ramadi
Iraqi city was contested for a year but ISIS launched fierce attack overnight
Began the assault with six suicide car bombs located in prime areas in city
ISIS claim one of suicide bombers was Briton named Abu Musa al Britani

A British suicide bomber blew himself up as part of an attack on the Iraqi city of Ramadi which led to Islamic State seizing the main government buildings and raising their black flag.

The insurgents began the attack on Ramadi last night with six suicide car bombs - which killed at least 10 police officers and wounded seven others - to reach the city centre before they captured the main Anbar government compound.

Islamic State announced today that it had carried out several attacks on army positions east of Ramadi - including one by a British suicide bomber it named as Abu Musa al-Britani.

The terror group named him and branded him 'a martyr' during their daily radio broadcast.

ISIS also claimed to have killed 13 Iraqi soldiers and said it had executed 14 Sunni tribal fighters when it took over the central neighbourhood of Jamiya.

Iraqi security sources and IS said the town of Jubbah, about 180 kilometres (110 miles) northwest of Baghdad, had also been seized by jihadists.

Link to Full Article - Photos - Video:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... amadi.html

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Washington Post

Islamic State tightens grip on capital of Iraq’s Anbar province

Islamic State militants tightened their grip on Ramadi on Saturday as officials, police and residents accused the Sunni extremists of executing dozens of civilians and blowing up homes in the capital of Iraq’s largest province.

On Thursday, the insurgent group launched a brutal offensive involving car bombings and heavy shelling to seize Ramadi, which is about 80 miles west of Baghdad. The militants controlled most of the city by Friday afternoon, hoisting the group’s black flag over government buildings as pro-government forces retreated.

“They blew up the houses of the officers and [tribal] sheiks who fought them,” said Hamid Shandoukh, a Ramadi police colonel, speaking by telephone from the city’s Malaab area.

The attack is a significant setback to Iraq’s U.S.-backed government, which is waging a military campaign to retake territory that the Islamic State seized in sweeping advances last summer. The United States has assumed a prominent role in that effort, leading an international coalition that is conducting airstrikes against the extremist group in Iraq as well as in Syria.

Dozens of residents across Ramadi have been executed by Islamic State fighters, including women and children, according to residents and pro-government forces. “We don’t have precise figures, but we can say that dozens of them were shot by Daesh,” Shandoukh said, using the Arabic term for the group.

Police, counterterrorism forces and tribal fighters have retreated to Malaab and a nearby military command hub, where hundreds of them are surrounded by Islamic State fighters. Police and local officials say that supply lines to the facility have been cut and that those on the inside are in desperate need of food as well as military reinforcements to defend against shelling and car bombings.

“We are calling on the government to provide food as well as military reinforcements to these areas that are besieged by Daesh,” said Suleiman Kubaysi, head of media relations for ­Anbar’s provincial council. He spoke by telephone from ­Baghdad.

Anbar capital is a key prize

Ramadi, capital of the largely Sunni province of Anbar, has been a stronghold of opposition to the Islamic State and its al-Qaeda precursor. A little less than a decade ago, the city’s residents were at the forefront of a U.S.-backed revolt by Sunni tribesmen against al-Qaeda.

Ramadi’s apparent fall is a major blow to U.S.-supported efforts by the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to form another Sunni force against the Islamic State, said Hassan Hassan, an Abu Dhabi-based Middle East analyst and co-author of “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.” ISIS and ISIL are acronyms for the Islamic State.

“This is a heavy blow to the idea of getting Iraq’s Sunnis to rise up to fight ISIS,” he said, adding that Ramadi is “vital” to such an effort. Despite capturing most of Anbar last summer, the Islamic State had been unable to conquer Ramadi in repeated attempts that included an attack last month. In that assault, militants gained control of northern areas of the city.

Now, with its capture of most of the city, the Islamic State has received a major morale boost after losing significant territory recently to Iraqi forces, including the city of Tikrit, Hassan said. “This is important for ISIS in terms of bouncing back and reclaiming momentum,” he said.

During a telephone call Friday that highlights concern in Washington about the Ramadi attacks, Vice President Biden promised Abadi deliveries of heavy weapons, the White House said.

During a television interview Saturday morning, an Iraqi military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Saad Maan, said that troop reinforcements had been sent to the city. “Painful” airstrikes from the U.S.-managed coalition also inflicted damage on the Islamic State, he said, without giving details of the military support.

Kubaysi, the provincial councilman, said a convoy of several dozen military vehicles carrying soldiers and counterterrorism forces arrived at the Malaab area from Baghdad on Saturday afternoon. But the additional troops have not engaged in fighting, he said.

“They are waiting for more reinforcements to arrive from Baghdad before they fight,” he said.

Falih al-Essawi, deputy head of Anbar’s provincial council, said that several members of Iraq’s SWAT team arrived Friday night but that the city is still waiting for special forces units to join the fight.

Coalition airstrikes were targeting militants in the city, Essawi said. He added that officials put the preliminary death toll from recent fighting in Ramadi at more than 500 people, including police, soldiers and civilians.

Unconfirmed video posted on social media by the Islamic State shows the group’s fighters capturing the main hospital in downtown Ramadi. In photographs posted online, the group also claims to have seized rocket-propelled grenades, boxes of ammunition and vehicles from police and military installations in the city. The group also posted pictures of what it says are executions in the city.

Informants in ‘sleeper cells’

Col. Eissa al-Alwani of the Ramadi police said the pro-
government forces besieged in the city’s military operations compound were quickly running out of ammunition. The Islamic State is targeting the compound, where three of Alwani’s brothers are trapped, with heavy shelling and car bombs, he said.

In other parts of the city, he said, Islamic State “sleeper cells” have begun informing the group’s fighters about residents who joined the police and military. Those who were identified as government collaborators, including families, are being executed and their homes are being blown up, Alwani said.

“Yesterday, they killed 20 of my cousins, and they blew up my house in Albu Alwan,” he said by telephone from the Malaab area.

He added: “There will be a massacre if there is no help.”

In the battle for Tikrit, about 120 miles north of Baghdad, pro-Iran Shiite militias proved decisive in overwhelming Islamic State forces.

But those militias have not participated in the fight in Anbar, in part over fear of stoking sectarian tensions with the area’s largely Sunni residents. The Islamic State took control of most of Anbar by capitalizing on Sunni grievances with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/off ... 1840647147

[Anthea]

Iraq: there are reports that the 8th Brigade, west of Ramadi, has fallen to Daesh fighters. Unconfirmed so far

[Anthea]

ARA News

Caliphate’s Wall.. ISIS fortifies Mosul city to avoid Peshmerga attacks
Reporting by: Sarbaz Yousef

Erbil, Kurdistan Region – The Islamic State radical group (IS/ISIS) continued Friday with the construction of its fortifications on the outskirts of Mosul city, in northern Iraq.

The group has started earlier this month with a project of fortifying the city of Mosul, where their main headquarters are based, under the banner “Caliphate’s Wall”.

The so-called “Caliphate’s Wall” includes digging a deep trench around the city, in preparation for sudden ground attacks by the Kurdish forces of the Peshmerga and the Iraqi army.

Local sources inside Mosul told ARA News (on the condition of anonymity) that the group is facing tremendous difficulties for completing this work, “as the Peshmerga forces constantly bomb the IS-manned vehicles used by the group for digging the trench around the city”.

“The Kurdish Peshmerga forces are targeting the group’s vehicles in order to hinder their work on the so-called Caliphate’s Wall, after receiving information about the project,” the sources mentioned.

Local construction workers from the city of Mosul have been forcibly engaged in the IS-led project, under the pretext that such a fortification is aimed at protecting civilians living under the rule of the extremist group in Mosul.

Speaking to ARA News in Mosul, Samir Watban, a human rights activist, said that the group is mainly working at night on the digging of the trench in the suburbs of Mosul, “after the workers faced mounting difficulties when their construction vehicles were working in the daytime, as the Peshmerga artillery repeatedly targeted them and destroyed at least three vehicles last week”.

“The work on the IS-led project is being conducted in coordination with the group’s local leaders who utilized convicted people for the work,” Watban said.

“The prisoners, who were detained on charges of smoking or quarrels, spend part of their sentences under the supervision of engineers and former employees working in the IS-led trench,” the source told ARA News.

On February, 2015, the Peshmerga forces arrived to the outskirts of the city of Mosul, in northern Iraq, which is under the Islamic State’s control, amid preparations for storming the city with support of the U.S.-led international coalition. However, the zero-hour has not been specified yet by the joint forces to storm the city of Mosul.

http://aranews.net/2015/05/caliphates-w ... ce=twitter

[Anthea]

BBC News

Islamic State seizes Iraqi city of Ramadi

The strategic Iraqi city of Ramadi has fallen to Islamic State (IS) after government forces abandoned their positions, officials say.

The police and military made a chaotic retreat after being overwhelmed by the militants.

The prime minister had ordered troops to stand their ground, saying he was deploying Shia militia to the city.

Ramadi is the capital of Iraq's largest province, Anbar, and is just 70 miles (112km) west of Baghdad.

A statement purportedly from IS said its fighters had "purged the entire city".

A very well-placed source in the Anbar governor's office told the BBC Ramadi was now under the full control of Islamic State, and all government troops had withdrawn.

An army officer told the BBC that most troops had retreated to a military base in the city of Khalidiya, east of Ramadi.

Government troops were running out of ammunition and could not repel the massive onslaughts by IS, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Footage posted on social media showed military vehicles speeding away from Ramadi, with soldiers holding on to their sides.

Reports said Iraqi forces fled following a series of suicide car bomb attacks on Sunday.

Four almost simultaneous explosions hit police defending the Malaab district in southern Ramadi and later, three more suicide bombers drove explosive-laden cars into the gate of the provincial military headquarters, the Anbar Operation Command, officials said.

Earlier, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi called on pro-government forces to "hold their positions and preserve them and not allow Daesh (IS) to extend to other areas in Ramadi".

"There is continuous air cover that will help ground troops there hold their positions while waiting for support from other forces and the Popular Mobilisation Units," he said, referring to the umbrella group for Shia militias.

The militias played a key role in the government's recent recapture of the city of Tikrit from IS, but pulled out of the city following reports of widespread violence and looting.

The loss of Ramadi represents a very serious setback for the government, and Iraqi officials are alarmed, the BBC's Ahmed Maher reports from Baghdad.

Anbar province covers a vast stretch of the country west from the capital Baghdad to the Syrian border, and contains key roads that link Iraq to both Syria and Jordan.

IS reportedly controls more than half of Anbar's territory.

On Friday, IS took a government compound in Ramadi, raising its black flags, before retreating. Its fighters seized the city centre on Saturday and continued their advance.

The deputy head of Anbar council, Faleh al-Issawi, told the BBC that more than 500 people had been killed in the last two days of fighting in and around Ramadi, including policemen who were trapped after running out of ammunition, and civilians caught in the crossfire.

Some 8,000 people have been displaced over the same period, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32773780

[Anthea]

Mail Online

Prepare for the Battle of Baghdad: ISIS hold victory parade after taking key city of Ramadi just 60 miles from capital in an orgy of violence and beheadings
By Jay Akbar and Steph Cockroft and Simon Tomlinson and Julian Robinson

ISIS has 'surrounded' Iraqi capital and wants 'all-out war' with militia there
Battle between terror group and Shia fighters there would be 'utter carnage'
Islamic State seized strategic city of Ramadi just 60 miles west of Baghdad
Released sick images showing militants and children celebrating victory
3,000 Shi'ite paramilitaries are now preparing to launch counter-offensive

ISIS militants have held a twisted victory parade after taking the key city of Ramadi in an orgy of violence and beheadings - and the extremists could march on the Iraqi capital Baghdad within the next month.

Mutilated bodies scatter the streets of the 'Gateway of Baghdad', where Islamic State slaughtered around 500 and forced nearly 25,000 to flee their homes over the last few days.

Now ISIS has released images of militants celebrating, children wielding automatic weapons and a fleet of pick-up trucks carrying its jubilant fighters through the blood-stained streets of Ramadi.

Shi'ite fighters have already launched a counter-offensive to recapture the city, but these kinds of tactics play straight into Islamic State's grand plan to spark all-out war in the region, according to the Middle East director of counter-terrorism think-tank RUSI.

Islamic State militants are already marching east towards the Habbaniya army base - around 20 miles east of Ramadi - where a column of 3,000 Shi'ite paramilitaries are amassing, witnesses and a military officer has said.

And if ISIS manage to reach Baghdad, it would be 'utter carnage', Professor Gareth Stansfield told MailOnline.



Show of strength: ISIS flags line the streets of Ramadi as a procession of militants - riding on the backs of Toyota Land Cruisers - parade through the city



Surrounded: ISIS already has control of Fallujah which is on Baghdad's doorstep and has now conquered the strategically important city of Ramadi further west. It has Sunni support to the south of the Iraqi capital and is waging battles with security forces in the north to effectively 'surround' Baghdad



Parade: After slaughtering 500 people and forcing over 8,000 from their homes, ISIS triumphantly drive through Ramadi (pictured) in a fleet of pick-up trucks

Link to Full Article & Photos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... bings.html

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Barzani "I have always pursued the goal that Kurdistan becomes independent"

[Anthea]

The ISIS March Continues: From Ramadi on to Baghdad?

Anyone telling you the Islamic State is in decline isn’t paying attention.

Once again, in less than a year, Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions en masse and fled in the face of advancing Islamic State forces. The fall of the city of Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province, leaves no doubt about the jihadi group’s capabilities: Despite U.S. attempts to paint it as a gravely weakened organization, the Islamic State remains a powerful force that is on the offensive in several key fronts across Syria and Iraq.

Ramadi is far from the only front on which the Islamic State is advancing. The group last week launched an offensive, supported by multiple suicide operations, in the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor against President Bashar al-Assad regime’s holdouts in the military air base. In the central city of Palmyra, it attacked a regime base near the ancient Roman ruins. It also recently clashed with Syrian rebels and the regime in the eastern countryside of Aleppo, the provinces of Homs and Hama, and the southern city of Quneitra, near the border with Israel.

Nor are the Islamic State’s gains in Iraq confined to Ramadi.

The group has advanced deep into the Baiji oil refinery, the largest in the country. And it has since pushed on from Ramadi, attacking the nearby town of Khalidiya; if the group is successful, that might provide it with the territorial depth to advance on Baghdad.

The Islamic State’s recent advance did not take the world by surprise, as it did when the group captured Mosul and other areas across Iraq last year. This time, the United States said it conducted seven airstrikes in Ramadi, in an effort to prevent its fall, in the 24 hours before the city was lost. Local officials in Ramadi, meanwhile, had repeatedly warned that the city would be overrun if they did not receive urgent reinforcements. But the international and Iraqi support that arrived was simply insufficient to hold the city.

Therefore, the prevalent narrative that the Islamic State is destined to decline appears to be false. Rather than suffering from resource and manpower shortages, the group is only increasing its grip on the local populations in its strongholds of Mosul and Raqqa, Syria; it is also attracting a considerable number of recruits, especially among teenagers.

As with the occupation of Mosul, the fall of Ramadi will have a ripple effect across both the Syrian and Iraqi battlefields. In Syria, Iraqi Shiite militias fighting alongside the Assad regime will feel compelled to return to defend their home country, a move that would further undercut the regime’s ability to stop recent rebel advances. There are signs this is already happening: The leader of one Damascus-based militia announced that he was returning to “wounded Iraq.”

The failure to defend Ramadi also sets the stage for increased tensions between Washington and Baghdad over the use of Shiite militias to push back the Islamic State. This is the second time this issue has arisen: In the battle to retake the city of Tikrit, the Iraqi government deployed the Hashd al-Shaabi, an umbrella organization for Iranian-backed Shiite militias, which prompted the United States to refuse to launch airstrikes in support of the offensive until the irregular units withdrew.

The United States reportedly pressured the Iraqi government not to dispatch the Hashd al-Shaabi to Ramadi, insisting that local forces along with the Iraqi Army should fight in the Sunni city. As a result, some Iraqi officials blame the Americans for the fall of the city. With Shiite militias now heading to Anbar en masse to confront the resurgent threat by the Islamic State, the stage seems set for another confrontation with Washington, which fears that the fighters will only stoke sectarian tensions in the largely Sunni province.

Ramadi’s local leaders were instrumental in the U.S.-backed Awakening Councils, which were credited with the demise of al Qaeda in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 and which bravely held out against the Islamic State for the past year. The fall of the city, however, will significantly undercut the U.S. effort to recruit and train Sunni forces to fight the Islamic State.

“After Ramadi, [the Islamic State] will be able to present itself as the only Sunni force standing against the [Shiite] militias,” Wael Essam, a veteran journalist who embedded with the Iraqi insurgency after the war in 2003, told me. “Sunni forces allied with the government have failed to achieve the demands of the Sunni community for nearly a decade. ‘Suleimani Sunnis [a reference to Iranian spymaster Qassem Suleimani],’ as ordinary Sunnis now call them, have become tools to legitimize the government oppression against them.”

Unlike in 2006, when whole Sunni tribes rose up against al Qaeda in Iraq, there are now deep divisions over what to do about the Islamic State. With the fall of Ramadi, tribesmen loyal to the Islamic State will find themselves in a better position to pull their relatives toward their side, citing the failure of pro-government tribal leaders across Anbar.

The fall of Ramadi will echo far further than just across Anbar.

In Washington, it should be clear that the current U.S. strategy to fight the Islamic State has failed. The White House’s focus on airstrikes in Iraq — while making little progress in training anti-Islamic State Sunni forces in either Syria or Iraq — is allowing the group immense space for planning, maneuvering, and redeployment.

Despite attempts by U.S. officials to downplay the significance of Ramadi’s fall, the development marks a dangerous new phase of the war. The Islamic State seems poised to take new areas despite American firepower and despite Iranian backing of tens of thousands of Shiite and Kurdish forces. The idea that the Islamic State is losing or declining now seems absurd.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/05/19/ram ... ign=buffer

[Anthea]

BBC News

Ramadi 2,000 Iraqi soldiers ran away from 200 Islamic State militants

Iraqi forces and Shia militias have begun moving against Islamic State militants after the fall of the city of Ramadi last week, officials say.

The action was concentrating on the town of Husayba, east of Ramadi.

Shia militias began gathering for a counter-offensive after Ramadi's fall. IS militants moved out to face them.

Ramadi - the capital of Anbar province - is only 110km (70 miles) west of Baghdad. Its fall was seen as a major embarrassment for the government.

About 500 people died in the city, and more than 40,000 - a third of the population - have fled in the past week.

"Military operations to liberate Husayba, 7km (4.5 miles) east of Ramadi, have begun," a police colonel told AFP news agency.

Witnesses also said they had seen troops move out of their base at Habbaniyah, about 20 miles (30km) from Ramadi.

About 3,000 Shia fighters - and Iraqi troops - were involved.

A senior local official in Anbar told the BBC they now controlled about 90% of Husayba was under their control.

Ramadi's fall was a massive blow to the Iraqi army, to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and to the US, which had encouraged his policy of relying on the official armed forces and police and ruling out a role for Iranian-backed Shia militias, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut.

Link to Full Article - Photos - Videos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32857198

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Voice of America

Battlefield Gains for IS Raise Fears of Assault on Baghdad

Reports from Syria say the so-called Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has seized the last government-held border crossing to Iraq. It’s the latest in a series of territorial gains for the group, and there are mounting fears that it could soon launch an assault on the Iraqi capital. Henry Ridgwell looks at how Islamic State continues to fight on several fronts against coalition and government forces.

Link to Video:

http://www.voanews.com/media/video/batt ... 86759.html

[Anthea]

BBC News

Islamic State suicide bombings kill troops in Iraq's Anbar

At least 17 Iraqi soldiers have been killed in a series of suicide attacks by Islamic State (IS) militants in Anbar province, security officials say.

The militants reportedly launched a wave of bombings outside the IS-held city of Falluja on Tuesday night.

The attacks came hours after pro-government forces began an operation to drive the jihadists out of Anbar.

On Wednesday, troops and militiamen were said to have taken up positions south of the provincial capital Ramadi.

The city was captured two weeks ago after troops withdrew despite vastly outnumbering the IS forces attacking, prompting the US defence secretary to question their "will to fight".

Sandstorm

A source in the Iraqi army's 1st Division told the BBC that 17 of its soldiers were killed in an attack on its headquarters 5km (3 miles) east of Falluja that involved three suicide car bombs.



The source added that suicide car bombs and militants wearing explosive vests were also used to attack troops and Shia militiamen north of the town of Karma, also east of Falluja.

In both cases, the militants took advantage of a sandstorm that engulfed most of Iraq on Tuesday night to get close to their targets.

Jihadists were also besieging troops stationed at one of the locks along the canal connecting Lake Tharthar with the River Euphrates, the source said.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi army colonel told the AFP news agency that troops and fighters from the Popular Mobilisation (al-Hashid al-Shaabi), a force comprising dozens of mostly Shia militias and some Sunni volunteers, had taken up positions on the southern edge of Ramadi, outside the city's ring road.

They took control of the southern districts of Taesh and Humayra and also managed to enter the campus of the University of Anbar, the colonel said.

'Sectarian divides'

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Popular Mobilisation announced that an operation to regain control of Anbar had begun and that pro-government forces would seek to encircle Ramadi before launching an assault to retake it.

The spokesman said the operation would be called "Labayk ya Hussein" ("At your service, O Hussein") - a reference to one of the most revered imams of Shia Islam.

A US defence department spokesman said the choice of name for a military campaign taking place in a predominantly Sunni Muslim province was "unhelpful".

The key to victory against IS would be a unified Iraq "that separates itself from sectarian divides, coalesces around this common threat", Col Steve Warren added.

The US has previously urged the Shia-led government not to send Shia militias to Anbar in case they drove more of Anbar's Sunnis into supporting the jihadists.

IS exploited widespread Sunni anger at the previous administration sectarian policies to seize control of Falluja and parts of Ramadi in January 2014.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-32898993

[Anthea]

When the Iraqi soldiers fled from Ramadi they left behind innocent iraqis

It is those innocent Iraqis who will suffer if the Iraqi forces try to retake the city

I believe that the reason many thousands of Ramadi citizens are leaving the city now is NOT a fear of the Islamic State but a fear of what will happen to them if the Iraqi troops attack Ramadi

It is the same reason that so many Mosul inhabitants left their homes

[Anthea]

Mail Online
By John Hall

Sickening new ISIS video shows caged prisoners lowered into a swimming pool and drowned, shot with an RPG and blown up with explosive-filled 'necklaces'

Sickening seven-minute video shows the deaths of several ISIS prisoners
Five men are filmed being drowned in a pool in the ISIS stronghold Mosul
Underwater cameras capture them thrashing before falling unconscious
Another group are shot with a grenade launcher while locked in an old car
Final sequence shows seven prisoners being chained together with explosive necklaces, which are then detonated

Vile jihadis fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq have brutally murdered five prisoners by locking them in a metal cage and lowering them into a swimming pool.

Filmed in the ISIS stronghold of Mosul, the sickening seven minute long video uses expensive underwater cameras to film the terrified men as they sink below the surface with no hope of escape.

Shortly afterwards the cage is lifted back out of the water, with the dying men - who are understood to have been accused of spying - seen foaming at the mouth as they lie motionless on the floor of the cage, piled on top of one another.

Elsewhere in the video, ISIS militants are filmed brutally killing prisoners by locking them in a car and shooting them with a grenade launcher, while another group of jihadis chain a set of prisoners together with explosive necklaces which are then detonated.



Full Article - Photos - Videos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... laces.html

[Anthea]

BBC News

A court in Iraq has sentenced 24 suspected members of Islamic State (IS) to death for their role in the massacre of hundreds of soldiers in June 2014.

As many as 1,700 soldiers, most of them Shia Muslim recruits, were killed when the jihadist group overran the Camp Speicher military base near Tikrit.

IS posted graphic photos and video online documenting the atrocity.

Iraqi government forces arrested dozens of people suspected of involvement after recapturing Tikrit in March.

Forensic teams also began exhuming the remains of victims from mass graves in the area. So far more than 470 bodies have been found at four sites.

'Relieved'

The 24 Iraqi nationals sentenced to death by hanging on Wednesday by a court in Baghdad were charged with the killings and membership of a terrorist group.

All of the defendants pleaded not guilty, insisting they had not taken part in one of the worst atrocities committed in Iraq in recent times.

Link to Full Article - Photos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33443096

[Anthea]

Mail Online

Their sickest video yet: ISIS release footage of their biggest massacre in which prisoners were made to lay in mass graves before being machine-gunned to death
By Corey Charlton

Islamic State fanatics release sickening new footage of mass execution
The 22minute-long film shows wholesale slaughter of Iraqi military cadets
It was filmed at last year's notorious Speicher massacre, in Tikrit, Iraq
Men are machine gunned in mass graves, while others are shot in the head
It continued into the night and an excavator was needed to shift bodies

Islamic State fanatics have released one of their most sickening videos yet - new footage of hundreds of military cadets being machine gunned to death while lying face down in the dirt.

The grisly footage shows executions on an industrial scale, as young men are seen falling from trucks and pleading for their lives before being lay down in shallow graves and sprayed with bullets.

Others are shot individually and their bodies dumped into the Tigris River, while an excavator is seen shifting vast piles of bodies as the executions continue into the night.

The footage reveals the true scale of last year's Speicher massacre, in Tikrit, Iraq, where up to 1,700 military cadets are thought to have been slaughtered.


ISIS has released new footage showing hundreds of people being killed during the infamous Speicher massacre

Link to Full SHOCKING Article - Photos - Video:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... death.html