9 Islamic State: Outrage upon outrage
We have to be wary of demonising one side in any conflict: bogeymen make for good propaganda, but are dangerous to the truth. In the case of Islamic State, however, it's almost unavoidable. Its reign of terror across large tracts of Syria and Iraq was accompanied by wide-scale atrocities unseen in a generation. There really is no mitigation, no justification, no "second side to the story".
Also known as ISIS, ISIL and IS, the Sunni jihadist group is so brutal and sadistic, with such unparalleled contempt for any norms of human decency, that even hard-line terror groups like Al Qaeda have disavowed them. The beheading of US photojournalist James Foley last summer - broadcast to the world - was Islamic State's most high-profile act of depravity.
But it forms merely a fraction of a distressingly long list: mass-murder and human rights abuses described by the UN as being "on an unimaginable scale". There have been mass executions of enemy soldiers and non-combatants alike, including children. Women and girls were sold into slavery and forced prostitution; IS recently released a document detailing exactly when and how men are allowed beat and rape their "slaves".
Hundreds of non-Muslims were slaughtered for nothing more than religious apostasy. Children as young as nine have been brainwashed and inducted as soldiers. Torture, kidnapping, robberies, crucifixions - and the full panoply of vicious Islamicist dictates on morals and religion - have reduced parts of Syria and Iraq to hell on earth.
And the beheadings continued, of soldiers, journalists, aid workers: Islamic terrorism's signature move, their bloody stroke of "grand guignol" theatre, guaranteed to shock the infidel. In December, reports emerged that IS were trying to sell James Foley's headless corpse; a tellingly gruesome ending to another nightmarish year for the Middle East. Their forces continue to push forward, slaughtering all around in the name of a global caliphate. That ambition will never be realised, and hopefully IS will be defeated soon. Still, their trail of destruction they'll leave behind is almost impossible to contemplate.
Source http://m.independent.ie/life/9-islamic-state-outrage-upon-outrage-30853762.html
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