Soldiers and civilians (such as captives and "criminals") have been executed by the

Islamic State The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...

(IS) by beheading, immolation,

shooting Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missile ...

, and other means. IS has released a number of propaganda/publicity videos of beheadings or shootings of captives. Houtat Sulūk is reported to be a mass grave.

List of notable Islamic State executions

Military captives

By June 2014, according to United Nations reports, ISIL had killed hundreds of prisoners of war and over 1,000 civilians. Specific incidents involving the killing of military prisoners including the mass killing of up to 250 Syrian Army soldiers near Tabqa Air base,Video shows Islamic State executes scores of Syrian soldiers
. Reuters. 28 August 2014. and killings that took place in Camp Speicher (1,095–1,700 Iraqi soldiers shot and "thousands" more "missing") and the Shaer gas field (200 Syrian soldiers shot). ISIL was reported to have beheaded about 100 foreign fighters as deserters who tried to leave

Raqqa Raqqa (, also , Kurdish language, Kurdish: ''Reqa'') is a city in Syria on the North bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine city and b ...

. * Muath al-Kasasbeh, a

Royal Jordanian Air Force The Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF; Arabic: سلاح الجو الملكي الأردني, ''Silāḥ al-Jaww al-Malakī al-ʾUrdunī'') is the aerial warfare branch of the Jordanian Armed Forces. Founded in 1955, the RJAF serves as the primary ...

pilot whose

F-16 The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American single-engine supersonic multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it e ...

fighter aircraft crashed near

, Syria, on 24 December 2014 during the international military intervention against ISIL, was captured by ISIL, and on 3 February 2015 released a video showing al-Kasasbeh being burned to death while trapped inside a cage. * On 22 December 2016, ISIL has released a video showing two captured Turkish soldiers being burned alive.

Civilian captives

Among the known killings of religious and minority group civilians carried out by ISIL are those in the villages and towns of Qiiniyeh (70–90 Yazidis killed), Hardan (60 Yazidis killed), Sinjar (200–500 Yazidis killed), Ramadi Jabal (60–70 Yazidis killed), Dohula (50 Yazidis killed), Khana Sor (100 Yazidis killed), Hardan (250–300 Yazidis killed), al-Shamal (dozens of Yazidis killed), Kocho (400 Yazidis killed and 1,000 abducted), Jadala (14 Yadizis killed) and Beshir (700 Shia Turkmen killed), and others committed near

Mosul Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ...

(670 Shia inmates of the Badush prison killed), and in

Tal Afar Tal Afar (, ; ) is a city in the Nineveh Governorate of northwestern Iraq, located west of Mosul, east of Sinjar

Journalists

ISIL has tortured and murdered both local and foreign journalists, creating what

Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; ; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organisation, non-governmental organization headquartered in Paris, which focuses on safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its a ...

calls "news blackholes" in areas controlled by ISIL. ISIL fighters have reportedly been given written directions to kill or capture journalists. * James Wright Foley (October 18, 1973 August 19, 2014) was an American freelance journalist and

photojournalist Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (suc ...

of the Syrian Civil War when he was abducted on November 22, 2012, in northwestern Syria. Foley was the first American citizen to be killed by " Jihadi John". James Foley's beheading by ISIL received wide condemnation in the United States. * Steven Joel Sotloff (May 11, 1983 – September 2, 2014) was an Israeli-American journalist for ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine and ''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is an English language, English-language Israeli broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, Israel, founded in 1932 during the Mandate for Palestine, British Mandate of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''Th ...

'', although the ''Post'' disavowed any relationship once Sotloff's life was threatened. In 2013, he was kidnapped in

Aleppo Aleppo is a city in Syria, which serves as the capital of the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Governorates of Syria, governorate of Syria. With an estimated population of 2,098,000 residents it is Syria's largest city by urban area, and ...

, Syria, and was held captive by Islamic militants. On September 2, 2014, a video was released purporting to show " Jihadi John" beheading Steven Sotloff. * On January 8, 2015, ISIL members in Libya claimed to have executed Tunisian journalists Sofiene Chourabi and Nadhir Ktari who disappeared in September 2014. * In January 2015 ISIL threatened to kill two Japanese hostages, Kenji Goto Jogo, a journalist, and Haruna Yukawa ( 湯川遥菜), a military company operator, unless a

ransom Ransom refers to the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release. It also refers to the sum of money paid by the other party to secure a captive's freedom. When ransom means "payment", the word ...

of 200 million

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

is paid. By the end of the month, the group released another video of the beheading of Goto, in which Jihadi John proclaimed to Japanese prime minister

Shinzō Abe Shinzo Abe (21 September 1954 – 8 July 2022) was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan and President of the Liberal Democratic Party ( LDP) from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020. He was the longest-serving pri ...

"because of your reckless decision to take part in an unwinnable war, this knife will not only slaughter Kenji, but will also carry on and cause carnage wherever your people are found. So let the nightmare for Japan begin."

Aid workers

ISIL has also murdered aid workers. * David Haines (May 9, 1970 – September 13, 2014) was abducted in March 2013 by ISIL while working in Syria for the

humanitarian aid Humanitarian aid is material and Humanitarian Logistics, logistic assistance, usually in the short-term, to people in need. Among the people in need are the homelessness, homeless, refugees, and victims of natural disasters, wars, and famines. Th ...

group Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development assessing the Atmeh

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for in ...

near the Turkish border and the Syrian province of

Idlib Idlib (, ; also spelt Idleb or Edlib) is a city in northwestern Syria, and is the capital of the Idlib Governorate. It has an elevation of nearly above sea level, and is southwest of Aleppo. It is located near the border with Turkey. History ...

. A video of the lead-up and aftermath of David Haines' beheading, entitled "A Message to the Allies of America", was released by ISIL on September 13, 2014. *Hervé Gourdel (September 12, 1959 – September 24, 2014) was a French citizen and

mountaineering Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become mounta ...

guide. Gourdel was kidnapped on September 21, 2014, while hiking in the Djurdjura National Park in Algeria. The following day, an at the time recently formed ISIL affiliate in Algeria, Jund al-Khilafah, released a video which showed Hervé Gourdel being held hostage. The group threatened to kill Gourdel if the French government continued to conduct airstrikes against ISIL. On September 24, they carried through on threats to behead him after a 24-hour deadline passed. The beheading was captured in a video titled "A Message of Blood for French Government." * Alan Henning (August 15, 1967 – October 3, 2014) was a British

worker. Henning was the fourth Western hostage killed by ISIL. Henning was captured during ISIL's occupation of the Syrian city of Al-Dana in December 2013, where he was helping with humanitarian relief. The

British Foreign Office The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. The office was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreign an ...

withheld news of Henning's capture while they attempted to negotiate his release. Alan Henning was shown at the end of David Haines's beheading video, released on September 13, 2014, and referred to by " Jihadi John" as the next victim. A video of Henning's beheading was released by ISIL on October 3, 2014. * Peter Edward Kassig (February 19, 1988 – 2014), also known by the name Abdul-Rahman Kassig which he assumed in captivity, was 26 years old at the time he was beheaded. He was the adopted child of Ed, a school teacher, and Paula Kassig, a nurse. On October 1, 2013, as he was on his way to Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria to deliver food and medical supplies to refugees, Kassig was taken captive by ISIL. While in captivity, Kassig – formerly a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

– converted to Islam and changed his name to Abdul-Rahman Kassig, sometime between October and December 2013. On October 3, 2014, his parents released a video in which they stressed that his conversion to Islam was not forced, and that his path to conversion began before he was taken captive. On November 16, 2014, ISIL posted a video showing " Jihadi John" standing over a severed human head. The beheading itself was not shown in the video. The

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

later confirmed the person killed was Kassig. * ISIL claimed that U.S. hostage

Kayla Mueller Kayla Jean Mueller (August 14, 1988 – February 6, 2015) was an American human rights activist and humanitarian aid worker from Prescott, Arizona, United States. She was taken captive in August 2013 in Aleppo, Syria, after leaving a Doctors Wi ...

was killed in the Jordanian airstrike on

on 5 February 2015. However, some experts believe that she may have been killed before the date of the video's release, in order for ISIL to try to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Jordan by blaming her death on the Jordanian airstrikes. Shortly thereafter President Obama confirmed the death of Mueller by ISIL. * On November 19, 2015, Chinese national Fan Jinghui ( 樊京辉) and Norwegian national Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad were murdered by being shot by ISIL, and pictures were released in ISIL's magazine Dabiq.

References