IMAN Chairman condemns use of children by Islamic extremists
Miércoles, 18 Junio 2014
Children of war: As rebels force boys to watch an execution, gun-toting youngsters join regime troops
DAILY MAIL
Gun-toting children were paraded for the cameras in Iraq yesterday – on both sides of the bloody conflict.
A shocking video emerged showing armed boys watching the execution of a prisoner by masked jihadi fighters.
The children – some as young as eight – look on as a prisoner is made to kneel in the dirt before being shot in the back of the head.
The video of gun-toting children was uploaded on YouTube with the chilling message: 'Brutal sectarian war has come again to Iraq and many say it's as bad as in the dark days of 2007.'
The footage shows a number of children brandishing automatic weapons as they watch the man being shot in the back of the head just a few feet away
It follows two days of sickening propaganda videos posted by ISIS showing their black-uniformed gunmen humiliating, taunting and then executing captured Iraqi soldiers, some apparently shot as they lay in a shallow grave.
The United Nations said yesterday ISIS fighters have carried out hundreds of summary executions since their offensive began last week, including the apparent massacre of captured Iraqi soldiers.
Yesterday as the United States sent 275 soldiers to Baghdad to protect its embassy, insurgents moved closer to the Iraqi capital with an attack on the gateway town of Baquba, 37 miles away, where government troops were said to have 'stalled' their advance after being joined in the fight by Shiite militiamen. Dozens were reported to have been killed in the fighting.
Officials confirmed that the Baiji refinery north of Baghdad had shut down and foreign workers evacuated, although they said government troops still held the vast compound. With the refinery shut, Iraq will face problems generating electricity and pumping water to sustain its cities in summer.
It came as Iraq's Shi'ite rulers defied Western calls to reach out to Sunnis to defuse the uprising in the north of the country, instead declaring a boycott of Iraq's main Sunni political bloc and accusing Sunni power Saudi Arabia of promoting 'genocide.
Washington has made clear it wants Mr Maliki to embrace Sunni politicians as a condition of U.S. support to fight the advance by ISIS forces.
But in what diplomats say is a sign of the problems they face dealing with the Shi'ite prime minister, he has moved in the opposite direction, announcing a crackdown on politicians and officers he considers 'traitors' and lashing out at neighbouring Sunni countries for stoking militancy.
The latest target of his government's fury was Saudi Arabia, the main Sunni power in the Gulf, which funds Sunni militants in neighbouring Syria but denies it is behind ISIS.
'We hold them responsible for supporting these groups financially and morally, and for the outcome of that - which includes crimes that may qualify as genocide: the spilling of Iraqi blood, the destruction of Iraqi state institutions and historic and religious sites,' the Iraqi government said of Riyadh in a statement.
Responding to the news, IMAN Chairman, Ribal Al-Assad said:
"I am shocked and appalled at the exploitation of these innocent children by ISIS rebels - no child should be exposed to such barbarism and it is absolutely criminal to engage children in these heinous acts.
It is a truly perverted ideology that promotes such behaviour; there is simply no excuse and it is absolutely impossible to justify on any moral or human level.
The International Community must rid the region and the world of these Islamist extremists - their sole aim is to kill everyone who does not share their perverted ideology in order to install an Islamic Caliphate State in the Levant.
We cannot allow this to happen.
I condemn this in the strongest terms."
