IS rounding up civilians to be used as human shields

They were holding us as human shields. They were keeping us there to protect themselves.

Abu Alaa

HAwI AL-HAwA (Syria): As fighters from the Islamic State group retreat into a shrinking part of Syria’s Raqa, they are dragging along terrified civilians for cover against a ferocious US-backed onslaught.

Locals who managed to flee describe being herded into apartments in buildings used by militants as makeshift military bases, and serving as human shields for fighters as they collect water.

Civilians say the tactic – used elsewhere by the group to slow its opponents – is increasingly putting them in the crosshairs of US air power and allied fighters as they battle IS in densely populated districts near Raqa’s centre.

Raqa resident Umm Alaa and her family were twice forced to provide cover to IS jihadists, she said, hours after her escape from the city.

“Weeks ago, an Iraqi (IS) fighter came to our house in Al-Barid and told us it had become a military zone,” she said, sitting on a plastic chair outside a mosque in Hawi al-Hawa, a western suburb of Raqa controlled by the US-backed force.

IS moved her with her husband, their son Alaa and two-year-old grandson Hassan into a nearby building and refused their pleas to return home.

Three days later, militants displaced them again, this time to a damaged building with other families in the battle-ravaged district of Al-Badu.

“They were holding us as human shields. They were keeping us there to protect themselves,” said her husband Abu Alaa.

“Daesh told us, ‘If you leave Raqa, they are going to destroy the whole city over our heads,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces broke into Raqa in June, and has since captured around 90% of the city, with the help of heavy US-led air strikes.

As its options dwindle, militants are taking up positions inside residential buildings, said Mohannad, who also escaped Al-Badu with her four children.

She and her children were forced to move four times, and when they were moved into Al-Badu there was little to eat.

They were not allowed to leave except to draw water from nearby boreholes.

“At the wells, Daesh would allow its fighters to fill up water first and made civilians wait for hours to protect them from air strikes,” she said.

Her eldest son Mohammad, 19, would leave home at 4am to draw water from a nearby well and often not return for six hours.

“Days ago, he left but never came back. We learned there was an air strike there. I couldn’t even find his sandals.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said a US-led strike killed 18 civilians gathered at a water well in Raqa on Tuesday. — AFP