Yazidi women
Latest issue of Dabiq, the group’s propaganda magazine, confirms horrifying speculation of the women, who went missing during Sinjar op
BAGHDAD: The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant says that it has given Yazidi women and children captured in northern Iraq to its fighters as spoils of war, boasting it had revived slavery.
The latest issue of its propaganda magazine Dabiq was the first clear admission by the militant group that it was holding and selling Yazidis as slaves.
Tens of thousands of Yazidis, a minority whose population is mostly confined to northern Iraq, have been displaced by the fourmonth-old jihadist offensive in the region. Yazidi leaders and rights groups warned in August that the small community faced genocide and that threat was put forward by Washington as one of the main reasons for launching air strikes.
In an article entitled “The revival of slavery before the hour”, Dabiq argues that by enslaving people it claims hold deviant religious beliefs, ISIS has restored an aspect of sharia to its original meaning. “After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the sharia amongst the fighters who participated in the Sinjar
operations,” the article said.
“This large-scale enslavement of mushrik (polytheist) families is probably the first since the abandonment of this sharia law,” it said.
Dabiq argued that while the “people of the book” — or followers of monotheistic religions such as Christians or Jews — can be given the option of paying the “jizya” tax or convert, this did
not apply to Yazidis. The Yazidi faith is a unique blend of beliefs that draws from several religions and includes the worship of a devil figure they refer to as the Peacock Angel.