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Iraq Offensive Unleashes Tales of Islamic State Brutality
(Wall Street Journal) Ben Kesling and Tamer El-Ghobashy - Survivors from villages surrounding Mosul recounted how ISIS militants kept them impoverished and scared, levying frequent fines and encouraging children to inform on parents. Sunni villagers who decided to stay and live under the new regime lost faith in their Sunni occupiers after the militants showed a brutal face. "They would get small children like this to flog grown men in public," said Assad Ali Hassan, 45, gesturing to his young son. "They would slide a pen into your beard and if it didn't stay, if it fell out because the beard wasn't long enough, you would get lashings." Such punishments often would be meted out in a public square, the violator forced to stand on a single floor tile. If the offender wavered and stepped off, the lash count would start over.