US Strikes Near Mosul Dam, Islamic State Massacres 80 Yazidi Men in Iraq

On Saturday, the US struck the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq in an attempt to retake the Mosul dam. These strikes came a day after IS massacred 80 Yazidi men and kidnapped over 100 women and girls in Kocho village in northern Iraq. The terrorists rounded up the men who refused to convert to Islam and shot them.

“They arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this afternoon,” said senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari. “We believe it’s because of their creed: convert or be killed.”

“The villagers had received local assurances that they were safe,” he continued. “Maybe they killed them in revenge for the setbacks they have suffered from the air strikes.”

Residents of Kocho spoke to Yazidi Member of Parliament Mahama Khalil. They said the attack lasted an hour. One IS fighter described the carnage to residents in a nearby village.

“He told me that the Islamic State had spent five days trying to persuade villagers to convert to Islam and that a long lecture was delivered about the subject today,” said one resident. “He then said the men were gathered and shot dead. The women and girls were probably taken to Tal Afar because that is where the foreign fighters are.”

Nasar Muthana, a 20-year-old British jihadist in IS, told CNN on Twitter the terrorist group has hundreds of Yazidi slave women in Syria.

Muthana later deleted the tweet. However, he kept tweets about slave women and killing Yazidi men.

Adnan Kochar, chairman of the Kurdish Cultural Center in London, said IS will do anything to convert non-Muslims.

“But because the Yazidis are such a closed community they have retained a fairer complexion, blonder hair and bluer eyes,” he said. “They don’t marry non-Yazidis. ISIS have taken around 300 women from Sinjar to give to jihadists to marry and make pregnant to have a Muslim child. If they can’t kill all Yazidis, they will try to smash the blond bloodline.”