IRAQ MILITARY CONFIRMS CAPTURE AND EXECUTION OF 170 SOLDIERS BY MILITANTS
As the Iraqi government bolstered Baghdad’s defences Sunday, the Islamic militant group that captured two major cities last week posted graphic photos that appeared to show its fi ghters massacring dozens of captured Iraqi soldiers. The pictures on a militant website appear to show masked fi ghters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant loading the captives onto fl atbed trucks before forcing them to lie facedown in a shallow ditch with their arms tied behind their backs. The fi nal images show the bodies of the captives soaked in blood after being shot. Iraq’s top military spokesman, Lt.- Gen. Qassim al- Moussawi, said Sunday he was aware of cases of mass murder of captured Iraqi soldiers in areas held by the ISIL. He told The Associated Press that an examination of the images by military experts showed that about 170 soldiers were shot to death by the militants after their capture. U. S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the ISIL militants’ claim of killing the Iraqi troops “is horrifying and a true depiction of the blood lust that those terrorists represent.” She added that a claim that 1,700 were killed could not be confi rmed by the U. S. Security at the U. S. embassy in Baghdad was beefed up and some staff members were being moved out of the capital. In neighbouring Iran, the acting commander of the Islamic Republic’s army ground forces, Gen. Kiomars Heidari, said Iran has increased its defences along its western border with Iraq, though there was no immediate threat to the frontier. Iraqi government offi cials said ISIL fi ghters were trying to capture the city of Tal Afar in northern Iraq on Sunday and raining down rockets seized last week from military arms depots. The offi cials said the local garrison suff ered heavy casualties and the town’s main hospital was unable to cope with the number of wounded, without providing exact numbers. The captions of the photos say the killings were to avenge the killing of an ISIL commander, Abdul- Rahman al- Beilawy, whose death was reported by both the government and ISIL shortly before the al- Qaida splinter group’s lightning off ensive, which has plunged Iraq into its bloodiest crisis since the withdrawal of U. S. troops in 2011. Most of the soldiers who appear in the pictures are in civilian clothes. Some are shown wearing military uniforms underneath, indicating they may have hastily disguised themselves as civilians to try to escape. The captions did not provide a date or location, but alMoussawi said the killings took place in Salahuddin province, the capital of which is Tikrit. Some of the pictures appeared to show some of the soldiers pleading for their lives. Others seemed terrifi ed. The Iraqi government bolstered defences around Baghdad Sunday, a day after hundreds of Shiite men paraded through the streets with arms in response to a call by Grand Ayatollah Ali alSistani for Iraqis to defend their country.