Islamic State militants on Tuesday stoned a young man and woman to death on charges of adultery before parading their bodies in the public square in Mosul, Iraq as the group continues to carry out horrific acts of terror.
According to a recent report from the New York Times, the two stoning victims were both in their twenties, and the woman was described as being married.
"Twelve ISIS militants were standing there who had bags with them filled with stones, and they began throwing the stones at them, and after the third stone the woman was killed," Abu Mohammad al-Lahibi, who runs a clothing store in Mosul, said. The man died a short while later, he added.
Another witness told reporters that he had attempted to record video of the execution on his cellphone but was ordered by the militants not to do so.
"I was moved by the crying of this woman, who started bleeding and then died from the stoning," said the witness named Saad. "I was standing there helpless. The government has left us as captives in the hands of ISIS, who make all kinds of crimes in the city. The more I see their crimes, the more I hate them and realize they have come to carry out a paid agenda to destroy the city and its history and civilization and to defame the image of Islam."
Later on Tuesday, the militants publicly beheaded three young men, all in their late 20's, after accusing them of being the nephews of a political opponent. According to the NYTimes report, ISIS militants killed the three young men on a street in central Mosul after a false rumor got out that their uncle had met with the Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.
Since overtaking the predominantly Christian city in August, ISIS has carried out over a dozen executions by stoning and hundreds more by beheading, according to local residents.
In September, jihadists stoned a couple to death in Ar Rutbah in western Anbar province after accusing them of adultery, NBC News reported. "They brought the man and the woman, they tied their hands and covered their faces, and started to stone them," a witness said.
Then, in January, ISIS beheaded thirteen boys because because they watched a soccer match on state TV in Mosul. "The bodies remained lying in the open and their parents were unable to withdraw them for fear of murder by the terrorist organization," activist group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently wrote on their website, the New York Daily News reported.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Tuesday revealed that the militant group had recruited at least 400 children in Syria in the past three months for jihadist training and indoctrination. "They use children because it is easy to brainwash them. They can build these children into what they want, they stop them from going to school and send them to IS schools instead," said Rami Abdulrahman, head of the British group.
