The ultra-radical group ISIS has left a trail of indescribable brutalities in its march through the Middle East, Nigeria, Tunisia and Libya. … One of their worst acts of brutal savagery was the public beheading of an 83 year old archaeologist, Khalid al-Asaad, in August, 2015. Khalid Assad was a globally respected keeper of the ancient ruins in the Syrian city of Palmyra. He was killed for his so-called anti-Islamic crimes like attending some “infidel conferences” and serving as “director of idolatry”. It is difficult to ignore the systematic destruction of several historical sites by ISIS, especially the demolition of one of the grandest relics in the ancient ruins of Palmyra - the Temple of Baalshamin.

Anne Bernard, a correspondent of Time magazine pointed out that the destruction of antiquities in Syria and Iraq has reached staggering proportions, causing an irreversible loss to the world heritage. For ISIS, the destruction of the Palmyra temple, like the destruction of ancient statues and monuments in Nimrud, Hatra and other regions, is a part of lawful erosion of the symbols of “apostates”. It is part of an ethnic, religious and cultural cleansing of anything which the zealots deem alien to the pure Islam.

According to Donatella Rovera, the Senior Crisis Response Adviser of Amnesty International, the Islamic State has been carrying out innumerable despicable crimes. Its soldiers have transformed rural areas of the Sinjar Mountain (the home of Yazidis) into blood-soaked killing fields by their brutal campaign to obliterate all traces of non-Arab faiths and non-Sunni Muslims.

Soon after seizing large tracts of Syria, the soldiers of ISIS started targeting the minority groups. All Christians, descendants of the indigenous pre-Christ Assyrian population, who have lived in Iraq for at least 3,000 years, were driven out from Mosul. Their homes were marked with the Arabic letter nun, an abbreviation for the Nazarene (or Nasrani), a term which refers to Christians.

After over-running Mosul, the ISIS vehicles driving through the streets of Mosul announced on loudspeakers that there were three choices available for Christians: pay jizya, i.e., a special tax for Christians fixed at $470 per person (an amount that most could not afford to pay), or convert to Islam, or die. The announcement made the entire Christian community flee the region.

In August 2014, thousands of Yazidis, an ancient minority indigenous to northern Iraq, were ruthlessly slaughtered by the fighters of the Islamic state because they were deemed idol-worshipping ‘satans’. Tens of thousands of them, driven out from their homes, were trapped on Mount Sinjar with no food or water. All sides of the mountain were sealed by the jihadists leaving no escape route. Eventually Kurdish forces backed by the US airstrikes were able to rescue most of those trapped, but not before hundreds fell to exposure, thirst and the bullets of ISIS. …

Gender Segregation and Female Persecution

In true Islamic style, gender segregation is rigorously enforced in the Islamic State. Every woman is compelled to wear the veil while appearing in public. The morality police, known as the Hisbah, patrol the streets to ensure that Sharia law is being followed. Alcohol, tobacco and drugs are banned. Punishments for various transgressions of Sharia law include flogging, amputation of limbs and death. By displaying raw violence in public squares, a high level of fear is created among citizens. This display of raw savagery is included in their propaganda campaign, too. The Islamic State has been circulating gruesome videos of mass killings, individual assassinations, including the beheadings of American journalists James Foley and Stephen Sotloff and an aid worker from the United Kingdom. The on-camera beheadings are used for publicizing their ruthlessness as a strategy to motivate the religious-minded young Muslims.

ISIS Jihadi Executes Own Mother

An extremely brutal instance of raw savagery came from the town of Raqqa in January, 2016. According to newspaper reports an ISIS jihadi, Ali Saqr al-Qasem, executed his own mother in public after she tried to persuade him to quit the group. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria from London, said that a number of reliable local sources informed them of the killing. …

The ISIS is believed to have executed a number of women, including Ruqia Hassan, a “citizen journalist” from Raqqa who reported on life inside the town, on her Facebook page. Those who become subjects of the nascent Islamic state have to obey Sharia law or face fierce penalties. Beatings and lashes are common. In Mosul, the group shot a female doctor for refusing to wear a headscarf. Subsequently they shot two more female doctors for refusing to treat Islamic State fighters. …

Rape is routinely practiced in the style of medieval Islam for humiliating and subjugating the womenfolk of conquered populations. It is also used to ‘reward’ the fighters for services rendered to the caliphate. Women as young as fourteen years are given as ‘gifts’ to ISIS commanders, while others are sold as slaves in the marketplace. It is not known how many women have been captured by the Islamic State. The number, however, is believed to be in the thousands. They are being beaten, tortured, raped, sold and re-sold. …

Atrocities on Yazidis

The worst victims of the savagery of the ISIS have been Yazidis who are a helpless minority in Iraq, Kurdistan and neighboring countries. … They are traditional worshippers of the Peacock Angel or Taus Malik and claim to have originated in India and Iran. It is said that Malik Taus, or Peacock Angel, is the Yazidi symbol of the Hindu God Murugan, or Karthikeyan, the elder son of Shiva and Adishakti. The Muslims of West Asia and soldiers of the Islamic State consider them devil-worshippers, fit to be killed for their pagan religious beliefs. …

An eighteen years old Yazidi girl, Jinan, who survived a brutal ordeal at the hands of the militant jihadists of the Islamic State is the co-writer of a book in French titled “Esclave de Daesh” (“Daesh’s Slave”). She authored the book with the help of a French journalist, Thierry Oberle and has explained to the AFP (Agence France-Presse) how she was kidnapped, beaten, sold, and raped. According to her, ISIS militants run an international market in Iraq where Yazidi and Christian women are sold as if they were cattle. Jinan was captured in early 2014 and held by militants of the Islamic State for three months before she managed to flee after stealing a key of the room in which she was imprisoned.

She has explained in the book how, after being captured, she was moved around to a number of locations before being bought by two men, a former police officer and an Imam. She described to the Agence France-Presse (AFP) how she and some other Yazidi prisoners were locked up in a house. The ISIS soldiers tortured them and tried to forcefully convert them. …

Fighters came to make purchases in the foyer where traders acted as intermediaries between the slave owners and Emirs who inspected the girls as if they were inspecting “livestock,” Jinan wrote in the book. “I will exchange your Beretta pistol for the brunette,” one of the traders had said. “If you prefer to pay cash it is $150 (133 euros). You can also pay in Iraqi dinars.” …

After managing to escape, Jinan made her way back to her husband and is now living in a Yazidi refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan.

According to Fox News, in the first week of June, 2016, nineteen Yazidi girls were burnt alive by the ISIS because they refused to have sex with the jihadis. They were held captive in iron cages and burnt alive while hundreds of people watched helplessly. …

Excerpted from Chapter 2

Global War Against Kaffirs. The Rise of the Islamic State

R K Ohri, 2017