Can everyone here imagine how horrifying it would be to have to hide under corpses to get away from a bunch of barbarians?
Hiding under corpses: Iraqi tribesmen recount escape from Islamic State
By By Saif Hameed | Reuters – 5 hours ago
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Muhammed Hilal and about 100 other members of Iraq's Albu Nimr tribe felt safe hiding from Islamic State militants in tall grass -- until the headlights of dozens of cars exposed them.
"We know you are there, traitors," militants shouted, before opening fire on the tribesmen who had fought them for weeks.
Most died. Some were taken prisoner.
Shot in the arm and leg, Hilal survived, after smothering himself in blood and playing dead under corpses as the militants beat the wounded and called them "scum", he said.
Hilal says he spotted more bodies, including children and the elderly, dumped on the roadside as he fled the scene after hours of hiding beneath the dead.
"I'm waiting for my family. I have no way of reaching them. Their cellphones are switched off and I'm powerless to do anything," Hilal told Reuters by telephone from Haditha, a town under the control of Iraqi forces and tribal fighters but still vulnerable to attack from nearby Islamic State militants.
Many other members of the tribe face that same uncertainty after Islamic State executed hundreds to punish the tribe that had fought back.
After seizing the tribe's main village, Islamic State militants combed the area for those who had set out on foot hoping to escape the wrath of a group notorious for beheading or shooting dead anyone opposed to their ultra-hardline ideology.
The killings raised new concerns about Iraq's ability to defeat Islamic State, which swept through northern Iraq in June, meeting little resistance from the U.S.-trained army.
The Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi wants Sunni tribes like Albu Nimr, which once helped the United States defeat al Qaeda in Anbar, to back government forces fighting Islamic State.
But tribal leaders say the government ignored repeated pleas for help as Islamic State pushed through Anbar, a vast desert province that includes the Sunni tribe-dominated towns in the Euphrates River valley running from the Syrian border to the western outskirts of Baghdad.
SURRENDER
Islamic State was on the march in Anbar even before it seized much of northern Iraq, coming ever closer to Baghdad as part of its ambition to redraw the map of the Middle East.
Continue reading at:
https://in.news.yahoo.com/hiding-under-corpses-iraqi-tribesmen-recount-escape-is
Hiding under corpses: Iraqi tribesmen recount escape from Islamic State
By By Saif Hameed | Reuters – 5 hours ago
View Photo
Tribal fighters and Iraqi security forces take part in an intensive security deployment …
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Muhammed Hilal and about 100 other members of Iraq's Albu Nimr tribe felt safe hiding from Islamic State militants in tall grass -- until the headlights of dozens of cars exposed them.
"We know you are there, traitors," militants shouted, before opening fire on the tribesmen who had fought them for weeks.
Most died. Some were taken prisoner.
Shot in the arm and leg, Hilal survived, after smothering himself in blood and playing dead under corpses as the militants beat the wounded and called them "scum", he said.
Hilal says he spotted more bodies, including children and the elderly, dumped on the roadside as he fled the scene after hours of hiding beneath the dead.
"I'm waiting for my family. I have no way of reaching them. Their cellphones are switched off and I'm powerless to do anything," Hilal told Reuters by telephone from Haditha, a town under the control of Iraqi forces and tribal fighters but still vulnerable to attack from nearby Islamic State militants.
Many other members of the tribe face that same uncertainty after Islamic State executed hundreds to punish the tribe that had fought back.
After seizing the tribe's main village, Islamic State militants combed the area for those who had set out on foot hoping to escape the wrath of a group notorious for beheading or shooting dead anyone opposed to their ultra-hardline ideology.
The killings raised new concerns about Iraq's ability to defeat Islamic State, which swept through northern Iraq in June, meeting little resistance from the U.S.-trained army.
The Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi wants Sunni tribes like Albu Nimr, which once helped the United States defeat al Qaeda in Anbar, to back government forces fighting Islamic State.
But tribal leaders say the government ignored repeated pleas for help as Islamic State pushed through Anbar, a vast desert province that includes the Sunni tribe-dominated towns in the Euphrates River valley running from the Syrian border to the western outskirts of Baghdad.
SURRENDER
Islamic State was on the march in Anbar even before it seized much of northern Iraq, coming ever closer to Baghdad as part of its ambition to redraw the map of the Middle East.
Continue reading at:
https://in.news.yahoo.com/hiding-under-corpses-iraqi-tribesmen-recount-escape-is
