By Mark Baber
January 21 – Claims that members of the ISIS/ISIL group in Iraq have executed 13 teenagers in Mosul for watching the Iraq v Jordan football match have spread via internet publications, the newspapers and social media.
The claims appear to have originated with an Arabic article by an activist group called Syria Being Slaughtered Silently (SBSS) which maintains a website in Arabic and English and aims “to expose the atrocities committed by the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and terrorist extremist group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS” toward the civilian populations of the city.
In their article SBSS variously claim the sources for the story as the Petra news agency in Jordan, Iraqi media and press sources as they claim “members of the Daash snatched young people to the big sports arena to be executed by firing squad in front of the eyes of scores, pointing out that members of the organization have called through loudspeakers that the penalty was a message to those who violates the provisions of the Islamic State (Daash).”
Whether or not this undocumented crime proves to have happened or not, there is no doubt gatherings of football fans have been attacked by extremists in Iraq in the past and it is possible some amongst the ISIS recruits regard the Islamic world’s most popular sport with suspicion as a “western import,” as a distraction from their jihad or simply a very soft target in establishing a rule of terror over the local population.
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