Activists: Islamic State kills 13 teens for watching soccer
Mosul boys executed for viewing Asian Cup match between Iraq and Jordan, says anti-IS group
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
The Islamic State terrorist group killed 13 teenage Iraqi boys for watching a soccer match last week, according to local activists.
The teens, from the city of Mosul, were executed in public by IS members using machine guns, the Daily Mail reported.
They were caught watching an Asian Cup soccer match between Iraq and Jordan.
“The bodies remained lying in the open and their parents were unable to withdraw them for fear of murder by terrorist organization,” read the website of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, a local anti-IS group that covertly documents violence by members of the jihadist group.
Before the boys were killed by the firing squad, IS members read out their charges out by loudspeaker.
Earlier in the week, IS published disturbing pictures of what it says are the executions of two homosexual men in Iraq — shown being thrown off a high-rise rooftop to their deaths.
The organization also released images of two men being crucified for theft, and a woman being stoned to death for infidelity.
The two men, accused of being gay, are seen being led to the edge of a tall building as a large crowd gathers below to watch. The men are then photographed falling through the air. A later photograph shows their broken bodies laying on the ground.
Additional photographs show two men accused of stealing as they are tied crucifix-style to a metal frame, their eyes blindfolded as a masked IS member reads the charges.
Two other IS militants then shoot the two in the head, killing them.
A final killing depicts woman draped in an all-black niqab as she is led to her stoning, on charges of infidelity.
IS members are seen hurling rocks at her and waving the IS flag. Finally her limp body is covered with a tarpaulin.
IS is believed to have executed thousands of people since its violent take over of large parts of Syria and Iraq last year. It has held multiple foreign hostages, including a number of Western journalists and aid workers, beheading five of them in gruesome videos published online.
IS has declared an Islamic “caliphate” in territory it holds and has been accused of myriad crimes and human rights abuses.
Times of Israel staff and AFP contributed to this report.