ISIS burns 19 Yazidi women alive for refusing to have sex with fighters

BRIEFCASE

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  Yazidi women burnt to death by ISIS militants in Mosul
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  Women refused to have sex with ISIS fighters
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  Thousands of Yazidi women have been raped, killed by IS since 2014

Nineteen Yazidi women were burnt alive by ISIS militants in the Iraqi city of Mosul after they refused to have sex with the extremists. The incident took place last week.

According to the Kurdish ARA News agency, the women were put in iron cages and burnt to death as hundreds of people watched in horror.

"They were punished for refusing to have sex with ISIS militants," the news agency quoted Abdullah al-Malla, a local media activist, as saying.

THOUSANDS OF YAZIDIS RAPED, KILLED

Islamic State militants have killed, raped and enslaved thousands of Yazidis since 2014, forcing over 400,000 of the religious minority group to flee their homes in northern Iraq, accusing them of being devil worshippers.

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According to the United Nations, the Sunni militants enslaved about 7,000 women and girls in 2014, mainly Yazidis whose faith blends elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam, and is still holding 3,500, some as sex slaves.

Islamic State militants have exploited the five-year civil war in Syria to seize areas in that country and in neighbouring Iraq, taking control of swathes of territory with an eye toward establishing jihadism in the heart of the Arab world.

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The United States began air strikes against militant targets in Iraq in August 2014 in part to save the Yazidis and in March this year declared the attacks on Yazidis and other religious groups amounted to genocide.

IRAQI ARMY'S FINAL ASSAULT IN FALLUJA

The Iraqi government forces, in May, started what they describe as the "final assault" to take back control over Falluja, the second largest Iraqi city after Mosul to remain under Islamic State control. It is the first Iraqi city that the terror group captured in January 2014.

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Falluja is a historic bastion of the insurgency against both the US occupation of Iraq and the Shiia-led authorities who took over after Saddam Hussein, who was a Sunni, was overthrown.

(With Reuters inputs)