Beheaded bodies discovered in mass grave near Mosul
A mass grave containing around 100 decapitated bodies has been found in a town south of Mosul as Iraqi forces continue to liberate towns from the hands of ISIS.
The Iraqi military stated that the mass grave was located in the School of Agriculture on the outskirts of Hammam al-Alil, which was recaptured from ISIS on Monday.
"Gangs of ISIS militants continue to commit crimes against our people," Iraq's Joint Military Command said in a statement. Special teams have been deployed to the site to investigate the killings.
Iraq's federal force started attacking the town of Hammam al-Alil on Saturday. The day before the operation, a U.N. Refugee Agency said that it had received reports that ISIS was forcing residents to surrender boys aged 9 and older to fight for the jihadist group.
It was revealed that ISIS has deployed a brigade of child soldiers and more than 300 have been killed since the operation to retake Mosul began in mid-October.
"This will raise the death toll to at least 480 Syrian fighters killed in the ranks of the Islamic State since the start of the battles in the Mosul area, among them more than 300 child soldiers from the 'lion cubs of the caliphate,'" the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights also reported that ISIS has abducted tens of thousands of men, women and children from their homes to be used as human shields. They were forced to walk alongside the terror group on their way to Mosul. Those who refused were killed on the spot.
"ISIL's depraved, cowardly strategy is to try to use the presence of civilian hostages to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military action, essentially using tens of thousands of men, women and children as human shields," said the U.N. agency's spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani.
Human rights groups are also concerned about revenge committed by government-sanctioned forces against civilians.
Last week, Amnesty International reported that fighters from the Sab'awi tribe, who are part of the Mosul operation, tortured civilians with electric shocks and placed them in cages while some were tied up to vehicles and paraded in the streets.
Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty International's Beirut office, has called on Iraqi authorities to arrest those responsible for the unlawful torture.
