Iraq said on Friday executed 13 death row jehadis after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi vowed a forceful retaliation to calm public anger over the Islamic State group’s murder of abducted civilians.
While Iraqis have grown accustomed to the atrocities committed by IS, the killing of the eight civilians shocked the nation and doused hopes the jehadis had been defeated.
For the first time, the authorities released photographs of the hangings, which came after Abadi yesterday ordered the “immediate” executions of hundreds of convicted jihadists.
The justice Ministry said on Friday that the 13 convicts put to death at a prison in southern Iraq “had participated in armed operations with terrorist groups, in kidnappings, bombings and murders of civilians”.
Abadi’s office had earlier announced the execution of 12 convicts whose appeals were exhausted.
More than 300 people, including around 100 foreign women, have been condemned to death in Iraq and hundreds of others to life imprisonment for membership of IS, a judicial source said in April.
Abadi, who has faced charges of failing to respond in force to IS, ordered “the immediate punishment of terrorists condemned to death” whose appeals have been exhausted, his office said.
A photograph released by the justice Ministry showed a group of blindfolded and handcuffed men sitting on the floor waiting to be executed.
Another showed several convicts being hanged at the prison in Nasiriyah.
Abadi vowed to avenge the deaths of the eight civilians held captive by IS, a day after their bodies were found along a highway north of Baghdad.
“Our security and military forces will take forceful revenge against these terrorist cells,” he told senior military officials and ministers.”We promise that we will kill or arrest those who committed this crime,” he added.