Foreign Policy

DISTURBING: Kurdish Documentary Claims ISIS Fighters Sexually Violate New Recruits and Video Blackmail Them!

Isis-rape TRS

In a very disturbing report from AINA News, a documentary that aired on Kurdish television claims that ISIS fighters blackmail new recruits with videos of their being raped in order to force them to fight in their terrorist war.

From AINA:

In a documentary broadcast August 27th on the Kurdish station STERK TV, captured “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) elements say the group has been raping men in a ceremony it describes as “marriage” and recording this to use as blackmail and force them to join.

ISIL uses rape, including gang rape, as a tactic of fear to intimidate populations it seeks to control, according to an August 28th report by the Firat News Agency, a Kurdish agency based in Amsterdam.

The STERK TV documentary records the confessions of more than 20 ISIL elements who were captured by Kurdish fighters in Syria and includes horrific footage of ISIL’s crimes, Firat said.

“The ISIL elements admitted that what they called ‘marriage’ was in fact rape. They said that every new member of the group was raped. The footage of the rape would be used as blackmail in the event of the new recruit refusing to participate in actions,” it said.

So now we can add group raping of each other to all the other atrocities that ISIS is accused of committing. Of course, this has to be taken skeptically without further confirmation.

The report says the documentary had interviews with victims of the “marriage” ceremonies:

“About a fortnight later they came and said I had to join. I did not want to. But they had the footage. They threatened to show it to my family,” Firat reported him as saying.

Ferhan Salim Unuf Safen, 20, described how he had been abducted and raped by “six or seven” ISIL elements and was ashamed to explain the things they had done to him.

“I fainted. When I came round they told me: ‘you are now with ISIL’,” he said.

Ahmed Hussain also described on camera how he had been abducted, drugged, tortured and gang raped by ISIL elements.

“They ‘married’ me 15 times. Then they washed my head and put cologne on me. They told me no one could join ISIL without being married,” Hussain said.

Well. That seems… a little extreme.

This could also just be propaganda meant to shame and humiliate ISIS and deter people from joining up. I certainly wouldn’t join up any group that would sexually violate me, except maybe the Buffalo Bills’ cheerleader squad.

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