Aug. 25 (UPI) — Iraqi military forces on Friday uncovered a mass grave in Mosul, where the Islamic State terror group executed more than 500 people in a massacre three years ago.
The dead victims were Shiite inmates at a prison in Mosul that was overtaken by Islamic State fighters, according to Human Rights Watch.
In 2014, the inmates at Badush prison were separated into Sunnis and Shiites before the Shiites were executed. Their bodies were buried near the prison, the government said in a statement.
The Iraqi army — backed by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Shiite militias and guided by the United States — retook Mosul from IS control earlier this year. It has uncovered numerous other mass graves in territory previously held by militants during the counter-offensive.
The Islamic State has executed large groups of civilians for any number of reasons since declaring a caliphate in 2014 over parts of Iraq and Syria. Failure to abide by the strict version of Islam the group enforces was frequently enough to draw a death warrant.
