Islamic State Jihadist Says He Raped over 200 Iraqi Women: ‘This Is Normal’

Islamic-State-ISIS-Jihad-Jihadi-Fighter-234653-Reuters
Reuters

A jihadist from the Sunni Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group captured by Kurdish forces has shown little remorse after admitting to raping more than 200 women, reveals Reuters.

“Young men need this,” the alleged serial rapist, identified as 21-year-old Ammar Hussein, told Reuters. “This is normal.”

Reuters gained access to the jihadist through Kurdish intelligence authorities.

The news agency, which concedes that it cannot independently verify Hussein’s claim, reports that the terrorist “said his emirs, or local ISIS commanders, gave him and others a green light to rape as many Yazidi and other women as they wanted.”

“Hussein said he moved from house to house in several Iraqi cities raping women from the Yazidi sect and other minorities at a time when ISIS was grabbing more and more territory from Iraqi security forces,” adds Reuters. “Kurdish security officials say they have evidence of Hussein raping and killing, but they don’t know what the scale is.”

The revelation comes on the same day that Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlights some of the first cases of abuse against Sunni women at the hands of ISIS, including arbitrarily detentions, rape, torture, and forcing Sunni girls and women to marry members of the terrorist group.

ISIS atrocities against women have primarily targeted members of minority groups in the Middle East, namely Yazidis and Christians.

Human rights groups, witnesses, victims, and foreign and Iraqi officials have extensively documented widespread abuses by the jihadist group against women and girls from the Yazidi community, including the selling of females into sex slavery.

HRW now reveals that Sunni women and girls have also been victims of the brutality of ISIS, a Sunni group.

The human rights organization reports:

Fighters from the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) are arbitrarily detaining, ill-treating, torturing, and forcibly marrying Sunni Arab women and girls in areas under their control in Iraq, Human Rights Watch said today.

Although accounts of gender-based violence have emerged from areas under ISIS control, these are the first cases against Sunni Arab women in Iraq that Human Rights Watch has been able to document.

“Little is known about sexual abuse against Sunni Arab women living under ISIS rule,” noted Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at HRW. “We hope that the international community and local authorities will do all they can to give this group of victims the support they need.”

Reuters points out that the serial ISIS rapist describes himself as a victim.

He attributes his crimes to “hardship, a product of a broken home and poverty in his hometown of Mosul” where U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and their allies have launched an offensive to push ISIS out.

“I had no money. No one to say ‘This is wrong, this is right.’ No jobs. I had friends but no one to give me advice,” Hussein, who also claimed to have executed about 500 people since joining ISIS in 2013, told Reuters.

“We shot whoever we needed to shoot and beheaded whoever we needed to beheaded,” declared the terrorist, who has been held captive by the Iraqi Kurds since October.

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