ISIS, other groups killed nearly 19,000 Iraqi civilians in last 21 months, UN says

(CNN) Nearly 19,000 civilians were killed in Iraq between January 2014 and October 2015 -- a toll the United Nations calls "staggering" in a new report.

The report, released Tuesday, outlines the horrific impact that Iraq's ongoing conflict is having on its civilian population.

The numbers are mind-boggling. In the 21-month period:

• At least 18,802 civilians were killed, about half of them in Baghdad.

• Another 36,245 were injured.

• About 3.2 million people were internally displaced, including a million school-aged children.

The actual figures could be much higher, the report said.

ISIS crimes: 'Possibly genocide'

Much of the suffering was attributed to ISIS, the brutal Islamist terror group which has declared an Islamic caliphate across the vast stretches of territory it holds in Iraq and neighboring Syria -- although the report also documented alleged abuses by Iraqi security forces and allied groups fighting ISIS.

"The so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant' (ISIL) continues to commit systematic and widespread violence and abuses of international human rights law and humanitarian law. These acts may, in some instances, amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly genocide," the report said, using another name for ISIS.

The group, which has controlled Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, since June 2014, employed horrifying methods of killing, the report says, including beheading, bulldozing, burning alive and throwing people off the tops of buildings.

However, improvised explosive devices -- including explosives worn by suicide bombers and those carried in vehicles -- were the deadliest tactic used against civilians, it said.

Lord Foul wrote:ragga...I would point you to an old, but non the less trite old joke

what do you call a monkey with a machine gun



"SIR"

Raggamuffin wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:ragga...I would point you to an old, but non the less trite old joke

what do you call a monkey with a machine gun



"SIR"

Surely the men of such places could get machine guns off them if they stuck together. It's not as if ISIS can drop bombs on anyone.

it doesn't have to be a majority.... but enough
and there is the always a reasonable portion that just don’t care as long as it isn't hurting them.

but you understand a point that didge either misses or he truly want to be like the medieval crusader and declare all Muslims evil enough to be put to the sword, in the convenient world where god colour coded the bad guys   

Ben_Reilly wrote:What are the native Syrians and Iraqis fighting ISIS supposed to do about ISIS' established supplies of weapons, not to mention ISIS has full-time, paid soldiers who have been seasoned in battle or trained by battle-seasoned soldiers?

They have to do something to eat and raise their families -- if they tried to fight full-time they'd starve (a lot of them are anyway, as has been seen). They have no advantage over ISIS fighters in terms of familiarity with their terrain that their enemies lack. They have no way of knowing whether Ahmed Next Door is an ISIS informer.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:What are the native Syrians and Iraqis fighting ISIS supposed to do about ISIS' established supplies of weapons, not to mention ISIS has full-time, paid soldiers who have been seasoned in battle or trained by battle-seasoned soldiers?

They have to do something to eat and raise their families -- if they tried to fight full-time they'd starve (a lot of them are anyway, as has been seen). They have no advantage over ISIS fighters in terms of familiarity with their terrain that their enemies lack. They have no way of knowing whether Ahmed Next Door is an ISIS informer.

It just seems preferable to try to do something rather than put up with what's going on. If it's as bad as people say it is, what sort of life do they have anyway? If they're constantly scared, if people they know are being killed, wouldn't you get to a stage where you decided that it's better to fight back?

You say they're raising their families, but what sort of life are they raising them into? One where they get killed for not bowing down to a bunch of thugs? Anyway, they're not all raising families are they?

Raggamuffin wrote:How many ISIS people are in charge in these places? I just don't think they could be in charge without the support of a large percentage of the rest of the population.

Tommy Monk wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:How many ISIS people are in charge in these places? I just don't think they could be in charge without the support of a large percentage of the rest of the population.

Good point/observation... one I have made before too...


I don't believe the story that so many loads of Iraqi army just dropped their weapons and ran away etc... and ran away from who exactly???


The Iraqi army WERE the only armed militias in town and would not have ran away from "only a few" unarmed scroats and then subsequently  armed them by their running away and dropping of weapons etc... I think the truth is that many of the newly US trained Iraqi troops just turned ferral Muslim and ARE now isis!!!

Tommy Monk wrote:Who became isis...!?


I say it WAS many of the Iraqi army!!!