ISIL killing scores of Iraqi Sunnis – reports
November 1, 2014, 8:32 pm

Sunni tribesmen who once resisted the Baghdad government and Al-Qaeda are now being rounded up and executed by ISIL fighters [AP]

In early July, reports emerged from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that said local men were mobilizing in an effort to dislodge the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) from the area.

A few days alter, Iraqi social media was full of news that several former Army commanders – who once served under executed President Saddam Hussein – had been kidnapped or killed by ISIL fighters.

The purported kidnappings occurred at the same time that a group calling itself the “Sons of Nineveh” promised to pursue and hold ISIL members accountable for the destruction of Christian and Muslim heritage sites in northern Iraq.

The Associated Press (AP) reported earlier this week that ISIL was “hunting” down former Sunni police officers, military personnel and anyone deemed a threat or a possible lynch-pin for a revolt against the extremist group.

It quoted sources in Nineveh and Anbar, western Iraq, who said that senior security officials who had laid down their arms when ISIL swept through the region in June were now being killed and displayed in public squares.

AP quoted security officials in Anbar who said they found 48 bodies of executed Sunni policemen and civilians over the weekend.

Although infrequently reported in mainstream media, ISIL killing of fellow Sunnis is not new.

In Anbar province, extremists routinely targeted Sunni tribesmen who formed militia to battle Al-Qaeda since 2007. Senior tribal leaders were also targeted for assassination.

ISIL has also killed hundreds of Shia soldiers, Human Rights Watch says. It points to 600 Shia soldiers killed en masse after surrendering to ISIL forces in early June.

The US has in recent weeks stepped up its aerial bombardment of IS positions in northern and western Iraq, opening the way for the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga to retake towns seized by the extremist group in June and July.

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.

Army troops and security forces abandoned their posts at government installations and tore off their uniforms, at the time, and several military operations to recapture lost territory have ended in defeat for Baghdad.

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 and Syria.

The BRICS POST with inputs from Agencies