After the invasion and establishment of ISIS/ISIL in Iraq, the news of countless crimes of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) was heard daily. These inhumane crimes were also unprecedented in number and extent and in terms of the intensity of violence. Mass-killings, racial and religious genocides, as well as beheadings, torture, widespread rape, and child abuse were among the usual acts of ISIS. In the meantime, we can mention some of the most horrible crimes of ISIS. These actions have not gone unnoticed by peace activists around the world. For example, the head of the UN investigation team investigating these heinous crimes, in his report, stressed that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) had committed genocide against Yazidis and that war crimes against unarmed students and military personnel in Tikrit Air Academy.
Massacre of Iraqi Yazidis
In 2014, ISIS terrorists attacked the predominantly Yazidi region of Sinjar in Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS terrorists killed Yazidi men, took their women and children captive, and beheaded, killed, and hanged residents in some areas. These included massacres, sexual violence, torture, and slavery. More than 5,000 people were killed and more than 400,000 were displaced from their homes. 130,000 Yazidis were forced to flee to Kurdish areas. Tens of thousands of Yazidi people who had no other place were forced to take refuge in the Sinjar mountains in very difficult conditions. At least 1,700 people died due to lack of water, food, shelter, and medical equipment. To date, more than 2,800 Yazidi women and children are still being held captive or missing by ISIS.
The total population of Yazidis is not known, but according to the latest published statistics, they are a population of 1.5 million, of which more than a third (550,000) live in Iraq. After ISIS invaded Iraq and Syria, 150,000 Yazidis fled to European countries such as Germany, Sweden, France, Belgium, and Russia. However, 360,000 Yazidis are still living in refugee camps in northern Iraq, and some have returned to Sinjar.
According to the General Directorate of Yazidi Affairs at the Ministry of Endowments of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, ISIL also abducted 6,400 Yazidis, more than half of whom were women and girls, of whom 3,400 survived and returned to their families in Iraq, but some remained. They are missing and no information is available about them.
The attack on Sinjar marked the beginning of violent events to destroy Yazidi identity, characterized by widespread human rights abuses, the separation of families, and the enslavement of surviving women and children as spoils of war. This event was considered by human rights organizations to be tantamount to genocide and crimes against humanity. ISIL launches widespread propaganda about crimes against Yazidis and uses them as propaganda to attract new members and to intimidate civilians.
Killing at Speicher Air Base
At the time of ISIL’s invasion of Iraq and the occupation of cities such as Mosul and Tikrit, about 4,000 military and civilian students, all unarmed, gathered at Speicher base.
The Speicher air base massacre was a massacre carried out by ISIS terrorists in Tikrit, Iraq in 2014 (June 2014). ISIL initially detained about 2,000 students after seizing Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit in 2014. Shortly after capturing Tikrit, ISIL released images of gunmen being massacred after being forced to lie in a shallow pit.
According to eyewitnesses who survived the incident, ISIS promised to release the students and transfer them to their capitals and cities, where they had in fact captured the students. After being transferred to Saddam’s presidential palace in Tikrit, after lengthy investigations and interrogations, Shiites were separated from non-Shiites and all Shiites were killed. The rest of the people waited for the ISIL Sharia court to announce their verdict.
In its latest report on the mass execution of Speicher, the majority of whom were Shiites, the UN investigation team noted that the investigation team was able to obtain evidence and videos proving incitement to genocide against Shiite Muslims because in these videos, we clearly hear terrorists talking about Shiites killing them wherever they are found.
The death toll has risen from 1,700 to 2,100, but according to an official statement from the ISIS terrorist group, the number of Shiites killed in the Speicher attack was 1,700, all of whom were under the age of 22. The death toll from the attack has formed the deadliest sectarian crime in Iraq’s recent history. The massacre of Iraqi students took place en masse with weapons, and some other students were buried alive. Then, the bodies of these martyrs were sometimes buried in mass graves, and some were dumped in the Tigris River, and some were even thrown into the river while they were still alive. ISIL eventually killed more than 2,000 captured Iraqi students at Saddam’s presidential palace in Tikrit.