UN tells of horrific 
IS crimes 
against humanity

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said Islamic State fighters reportedly killed up to 670 prisoners in Mosul and committed other abuses in Iraq that amount to crimes against humanity.

Navi Pillay, the body’s top human rights official, said the grave human rights violations carried out by the Islamic State group and other fighters allied with it include widespread ethnic and religious purges in areas under its control in a push to gain a firm grip on the northern and eastern provinces.

She said the violations include targeted killings, forced conversions, abductions, trafficking, slavery, sexual abuse, destruction of places of religious and cultural significance and besieging entire communities for ethnic, religious or sectarian reasons.

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Ms Pillay said “grave, horrific human rights violations are being committed daily” by the Islamic State group and other fighters allied with it.

“They are systematically targeting men, women and children based on their ethnic, religious or sectarian affiliation and are ruthlessly carrying out widespread ethnic and religious cleansing in the areas under their control,” she said.

“Such persecution would amount to crimes against humanity.”

She cited the killing of hundreds of Yazidis in Nineveh and up to 2,500 kidnapped at the beginning of August, and the killing and abduction of hundreds of Yazidis in Cotcho village in Southern Sinjar on August. 15.

She also pointed to at least 13,000 Shia Turkmen in the town of Amirli, including 10,000 women and children, who have been besieged since June 15.

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Meanwhile London mayor Boris Johnson has said he wants the reportedly English jihadist who beheaded an American journalist to be killed in a bomb attack, and has joined the growing calls for Britons fighting abroad to be stripped of their citizenship.

Mr Johnson, who has overall responsibility for the Metropolitan Police, called for new 
laws that would mean anyone visiting Iraq and Syria would be automatically presumed to be 
terrorists unless they had 
notified the authorities in advance.

Former shadow home secretary David Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden, has called for IS fighters to lose their British citizenship and Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, said they must face being stripped of their passports.

Former attorney general Dominic Grieve said Mr Johnson’s suggestion that those travelling to Iraq and Syria should be 
presumed guilty was “draconian”.

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Syria’s foreign minister has warned the US not to conduct 
air strikes inside his country against the Islamic State group without the consent of Damascus.

Walid al-Moallem said such an act “by anyone” without approval from President Bashar Assad’s government would be a violation of Syrian sovereignty and considered an act of aggression.

He also welcomed the release of US freelance reporter Peter Theo Curtis, who had been held hostage for nearly two years by a group allied to al-Qaida,the Nusra Front.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has confirmed the release in Syria of Mr Curtis

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