The latest UN Human Rights Office report on ISIS has warned that the group has executed scores of people just on the Iraqi side of its territory in the past month, and is increasingly resorting to the use of the death penalty for even minor infractions.
While a lot of those slain are killed for banditry or spying, ISIS’ morality police are also quick to carry out summary executions, with the backing of ad hoc Sharia courts, for things like watching soccer.
This was, of course, entirely expected as ISIS gains power, but they had held off on imposing some of their harshest viewpoints as law in months past for fear of alienating powerful tribal leaders.
Increasingly, it seems, ISIS is willing to risk angering those tribes with enforcement of its rules, even though at times it has fueled fights, particularly in Syria where a strict smoking ban fueled a violent backlash against ISIS police.
