UN sanctions target ISIL
August 16, 2014, 5:17 am

The Resolution was submitted to the Council by UK ambassador Lyall Grant [Xinhua]

The Council noted its “gravest concern … [at] the terrorist acts of ISIL and its violent extremist ideology, and its continued gross, systematic and widespread abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law”.

The UN Resolution cited that as a splinter faction of Al-Qaeda, ISIL was subject to existing sanctions restricting access to funds and materiel.

It also threatened measures against those provide assistance to ISIL and its affiliates, “including those who are financing, arming, planning or recruiting for [those groups] and all [Al-Qaida associates] through information and communications technologies including the internet and social media or through any other means”.

The UN Resolution comes a week after the US military began air strikes against ISIL targets in northern Iraq to allow relief operations to rescue tens of thousands of civilians from the Yazidi minority who were trapped along a mountain range after fleeing the fighting.

Some raised the alarm about possible genocide committed against this ancient minority.

Last week,the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that at least 40 Yazidi children had died of thirst in the mountains near Sinjar in northern Iraq.

Unverified stories told by fleeing refugees indicated that ISIL may have executed a large number of Christian, Yazidi and Muslim men who refused to acknowledge their rule or convert to Islam.

The UN Resolution on Friday cited “the negative impact of their violent extremist ideology and actions on the stability of the region, the devastating humanitarian impact on the civilian populations and the role of these groups in fomenting sectarian tensions”.

The Baghdad government’s hold on Iraq began to unravel when fighters belonging to a coalition of Islamist militant groups operating under the ISIL banner seized the ethnically mixed city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in June.

With their fighters entrenched in Mosul and most of Nineveh, the former Al-Qaeda affiliates – who have maintained a brutal campaign against the forces of President Bashar Al-Assad in neighbouring Syria – now effectively control a third of Iraq.

In late July, Mosul was emptied of its Christian minority for the first time in more than 1,800 years as many fled after an ISIL ultimatum that they convert to Islam or face death

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki backed down from a challenge he had made earlier in the week against his successor Haider Al-Abadi.

Iraqi political groups have for months called for Maliki to step aside, calling his eight-year rule divisive and adding to sectarian tensions.

More on Iraq.

Source: Agencies