ISIS executes 13 teenage boys for watching football

Militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants are reported to have publicly killed 13 teenage boys.

Their crime?

Watching a football match.

The young fans were reportedly watching an Asian Cup match between Iraq and Jordan on TV last week when the militants in the Iraqi city of Mosul, which ISIS controls, arrested them.

The boys were killed because they were said to be violating "religious law" by watching the game, reported NY Post.

The teenagers were later executed in public by a firing squad that used machine guns, according to Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RIBSS), an activist group that exposes ISIS atrocities.

Before their execution, their "crime" was announced over a loudspeaker, reports said.

PARENTS COULDN'T CLAIM BODIES

RIBSS posted on its website that "the bodies remained lying in the open and their parents were unable to withdraw them for fear of murder by the terrorist organisation".

Iraq beat Jordan 1-0 in the Jan 12 match, which took place in Brisbane, Australia.

The news of this execution comes days after ISIS released a gruesome video showing two men being flung off a tower in Mosul.

Just before the execution, a masked fighter, using a hand-held radio, announced to a crowd of onlookers that the condemned duo had been found guilty of engaging in homosexual activities.

Separately, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe admitted yesterday that it was a "race against time" to free two hostages snatched by Islamist militants who are demanding US$200 million (S$270 million) for their lives.

A defiant Mr Abe said he would not bow to "terrorism" as he took charge of the crisis that Japan was thrust into with the release of a chilling video apparently showing two Japanese men kneeling in the desert of Syria or Iraq, AFP reported.

He told reporters: "I have ordered the government to use all diplomatic channels and routes possible... to ensure the release of the two people."

Mr Abe, who rushed home from a tour of the Middle East, said he had sought help from Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, as well as from Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Jordan's King Abdullah and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This article was first published on Jan 22, 2015.
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