Daesh committing 'genocide' against Shias, Christians: Kerry
US Secretary of State John Kerry has determined that the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group is committing “genocide” against religious minorities in Iraq and Syria.
The US House of Representatives on Monday unanimously passed a non-binding measure calling on the Obama administration to declare atrocities against Shia Muslims, Christians, Izadi Kurds and other minorities as "war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide."
The Congress had given a March 17 deadline for the State Department to officially decide whether to issue a comprehensive genocide designation for the terrorist group.
A day after the State Department said Kerry would miss the deadline, the secretary of state on Thursday completed his review and determined that Shia Muslims, Christians, and Izadis are victims of genocide.
Kerry announced "Daesh is also responsible for crimes against humanity against these same groups” and ethnic cleansing.
"Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology and by actions, in what it says, what it believes and what it does," he stated.
Kerry said he hoped that groups he cited as being victimized would take some comfort in the fact that the "the United States recognizes and confirms the despicable nature of the crimes committed against them."
Daesh terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control large parts of Iraq and Syria.
They have been carrying out horrific acts of violence such as public decapitations and crucifixions against all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Izadi Kurds, and Christians, in the areas under their control.
Since March 2011, the US and its regional allies, in particular Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have been conducting a proxy war against the Syrian people and government.
According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the years-long conflict has claimed the lives of some 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.
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