The Islamic State executed 10 of its own soldiers Sunday for abandoning their post during a battle with the Kurdish Peshmerga in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
At least 10 militants were arrested, found guilty of “high treason” for deserting the battle, and publicly beheaded in the town square, reported reported Syria’s ARA News. Kurdish and ISIS forces had clashed as tensions build ahead of a planned full-scale assault on Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.
“The militants were found guilty for evacuating a post at the battlefront,” activist Abdullah al-Mallah told ARA News, adding: “The Sharia Court of Mosul decided to behead them in front of hundreds of ISIS members in order to prevent others from taking such a move without the permission of their military leadership.”
Six of the executed militants were Syrian locals, according to ARA News, and the rest were foreign fighters.
ISIS similarly executed scores of militants in November, because they abandoned their posts in Sinjar rather than resist a Kurdish coalition that overtook the city. In December, 2014, the group beheaded 100 foreign fighters who had traveled to Raqqa to join the Caliphate, but attempted to desert the de facto capital.
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