The Islamic State has executed 25 purported “Iraqi spies” by lowering them into a vat of nitric acid, where they remained until their organs dissolved.
The report comes from Iraqi News, whose source described the horrifying execution in Mosul.
The 25 victims were accused of “spying and collaborating with Iraqi security forces.” Each victim was tied with a rope and lowered into a tub of acid inside an ISIS headquarters building.
“Nitric acid is a colourless, yellow or red, fuming liquid with an acrid, suffocating odour which is highly corrosive to all parts of the human body. It is normally used in manufacturing ammonium nitrate for fertilizer and explosives, organic synthesis, photoengraving, etching steel, and reprocessing spent nuclear fuel,” the UK Daily Mail explains.
Several other media sources, such as the Toronto Sun, have said the 25 victims were all men, although that was not clearly specified in the Iraqi News report.
“The brutal executions appear to be a new way ISIS is attempting to keep control of its conquered citizens through fear — even as its conquered territories shrink through several recent military loses [sic],” writes the Sun.
Another hideous ISIS execution reported by the UK Daily Mail was a 12-year-old Christian girl, burned alive in her own Mosul home because her mother was slow to pay the jizya, the special tax demanded of non-Muslims living in conquered territory.
According to the woman, foreign (i.e. non-Iraqi) Islamic State fighters gave her a choice between leaving her home and paying the jizya. When she asked for a few seconds to get the money because her young daughter was in the shower, the ISIS thugs said, “you don’t have a few seconds!” and lit the house on fire.
The girl died from severe burns in her mother’s arms in a hospital. Her last words reportedly were: “Forgive them.”