Air strikes on jihadists at Mosul dam after ‘massacre’ of Yazidis
17 Aug 2014 10:51 PM GMT
Air strikes were exercised as reports emerged of the massacre of some 80 members of the Yazidi religious minority by Islamic extremists.
Residents living near the Mosul Dam told Associated Press that the area was being targeted by air strikes, but it was not immediately clear whether the attacks were being carried out by Iraq’s air force or the US, which last week launched an air campaign aimed at halting the advance of the Islamic State group across the country’s north.
The extremist group seized the dam on the Tigris River on 7 August. Residents near the dam say the air strikes killed militants, but that could not immediately be confirmed. The residents spoke on condition of anonymity out of fears for their safety.
A Yazidi lawmaker and a Kurdish security official meanwhile said Islamic State fighters massacred scores of Yazidi men on Friday afternoon after seizing the village of Kocho. Both said they based their information on the accounts of survivors and warned that the minority group remains in danger despite US aid drops and air strikes launched to protect them.
Islamic State fighters besieged the village for several days and gave its Yazidi residents a deadline to convert to Islam, Yazidi lawmaker Mahma Khalil said on Saturday.
‘When the residents refused to do this, the massacre took place,’ he said.
Halgurd Hekmat, a spokesman for Kurdish security forces, said the militants took the women and children of Kocho to the nearby city of Tal Afar, which is controlled by the Islamic State group.
Their accounts could not immediately be confirmed. Areas held by the extremist group are not accessible to reporters. Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled when the Islamic State group earlier this month captured the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, near the Syrian border. The Yazidis practice an ancient religion that the Sunni Muslim radicals consider heretical.
The plight of the Yazidis, tens of thousands of whom were stranded on a desert mountaintop for days, encircled by the Islamic extremists, prompted the US to launch aid lifts as well as air strikes to help Kurdish fighters get them to safety.
Most of the Yazidis were eventually able to escape to Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdish region. Some 1.5 million people have been displaced by fighting since the Islamic State group’s rapid advance across northern and western Iraq began in June.
Residents living near the Mosul Dam told Associated Press that the area was being targeted by air strikes, but it was not immediately clear whether the attacks were being carried out by Iraq’s air force or the US, which last week launched an air campaign aimed at halting the advance of the Islamic State group across the country’s north.
The extremist group seized the dam on the Tigris River on 7 August. Residents near the dam say the air strikes killed militants, but that could not immediately be confirmed. The residents spoke on condition of anonymity out of fears for their safety.
A Yazidi lawmaker and a Kurdish security official meanwhile said Islamic State fighters massacred scores of Yazidi men on Friday afternoon after seizing the village of Kocho. Both said they based their information on the accounts of survivors and warned that the minority group remains in danger despite US aid drops and air strikes launched to protect them.
Islamic State fighters besieged the village for several days and gave its Yazidi residents a deadline to convert to Islam, Yazidi lawmaker Mahma Khalil said on Saturday.
‘When the residents refused to do this, the massacre took place,’ he said.
Halgurd Hekmat, a spokesman for Kurdish security forces, said the militants took the women and children of Kocho to the nearby city of Tal Afar, which is controlled by the Islamic State group.
Their accounts could not immediately be confirmed. Areas held by the extremist group are not accessible to reporters. Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled when the Islamic State group earlier this month captured the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, near the Syrian border. The Yazidis practice an ancient religion that the Sunni Muslim radicals consider heretical.
The plight of the Yazidis, tens of thousands of whom were stranded on a desert mountaintop for days, encircled by the Islamic extremists, prompted the US to launch aid lifts as well as air strikes to help Kurdish fighters get them to safety.
Most of the Yazidis were eventually able to escape to Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdish region. Some 1.5 million people have been displaced by fighting since the Islamic State group’s rapid advance across northern and western Iraq began in June.
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