Iraq forces find location of 2014 Speicher carnage
Iraqi forces have found the place where militants from the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group executed hundreds of troops abducted from Camp Speicher in the north of the city of Tikrit last year, Press TV reports.
The location was found during the military operation by Iraqi forces to liberate the northern Iraq city from the clutches of the ISIL.
The Speicher massacre saw the terrorists executing more than 1,700 army cadets, mostly Shia muslims who had been kidnapped from the camp on June 12 last year.
Following the abductions, the attackers took the victims to the complex of presidential palaces, killed them, and threw their bodies in the river. The massacre was filmed by ISIL and broadcasted on social media.
Many innocent people have been killed by ISIL in the city of Tikrit and its surrounding villages. Some families watched their loved ones being killed on Youtube by ISIL and are still looking for the bodies.
“They took my brother in August and broadcasted a video of him. They said this is the fate of those who enter the Sunni territories as if he was entering another country. I’m looking in the grave so that I may find his body,” said one man.
Iraqi forces have also found a mass grave in Tikrit near the river where ISIL had buried hundreds of soldiers after digging a hole. Clothes and identity cards were also found along with the bodies of the victims.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on March 31 that units of government forces, backed by Shia and Sunni volunteer forces, had managed to retake control of the city.
Tikrit had been seized by ISIL in June last year. The city’s recapture is crucial for the Iraqi army in its quest to take control of the country’s second-largest city, Mosul.
ISIL started its campaign of terror in Iraq in early June 2014. The heavily-armed militants took control of the country’s northern city of Mosul before sweeping through parts of the country’s Sunni Arab heartland.
Iraqi soldiers, police units, Kurdish forces, Shia volunteers and Sunni tribesmen have succeeded in driving the ISIL terrorists out of some areas in Iraq.
HN/MKA/HMV
Report: Israeli warplanes bomb positions in southwestern Syria, Iraq
Iraqi resistance warns US, Israel amid regional tensions
Iraqi resistance to go tough if diplomacy fails to expel US forces: Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq
Voters begin casting ballots in weeks-long election in India
Venezuela slams US over reimposition of 'criminal' oil sanctions
April 18: ‘Axis of Resistance’ operations against Israeli occupation
Blinken ignoring staff recommendation to cut US aid to Israel: Report
Report: Israeli warplanes bomb positions in southwestern Syria, Iraq
US forces smuggle stolen Syrian oil into bases in Iraq: Report
VIDEO | Press TV's news headline
Situation normal after air defenses fire at 'suspicious objects' in Iran
This makes it easy to access the Press TV website
