Ali Saqr Al-Qasem: ISIS Fighter Executes His Own Mother In Public For Apostasy

Days after ISIS executed a citizen journalist named Ruqia Hassani, we now have reports of another brutal act by the terrorist group. According to the Times of India, an ISIS fighter identified as Ali Saqr al-Qasem has reportedly executed his own mother in full view of the public. The public execution of his mother, a woman only identified as Lena, happened in the city of Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State. This is a new low for ISIS, which is widely thought to be among the most brutal terrorist groups ever.

The news of the ISIS fighter killing his own mother was first reported by a Raqqa-based activist group known as Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RIBSS). The woman, who was reportedly in her 40s, was executed after asking her 20-year-old son to leave the Islamic State and escape from the city of Raqqa. After the son reported his mother to Islamic State authorities, they arrested her. The woman was found guilty of apostasy, and her own son was told to shoot her dead in full public view. The execution took place outside the post office building in the city of Raqqa, where the woman reportedly used to work earlier.

The group was cited by Syrian publication SyriaHR in a report, which quoted as follows.

“The activists of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights were able document the execution of a Syrian lady by the ‘Islamic state’ in the city of Al-Raqqah yesterday, the activists of the Observatory were informed by local and other reliable sources that the woman is from the city of al-Tabaqa and she is originally from the Syrian coast and called (L. Q) in her forties, her son executed her in front of hundreds of people near the post office building in the city of Al-Raqqah where she was employed, all sources confirmed to the activists of the Observatory that she was executed under the pretext of ‘inciting her son to leave the Islamic state and escaping together to the outside of Al-Raqqah, and that the Coalition will kill all members of the organization’, her son reported her to the organization which in turn arrested her, so her 20-years-old son executed her yesterday in front of hundreds of citizens from the city.”

Ali Saqr al-Qasem was reportedly remorseless and used an assault rifle to shoot his own mother dead. Hundreds of people had turned up to see the execution happen in public, a CNN report added. It remains unclear if al-Qasem was forced by ISIS fighters to kill his own mother or did the act on his own. The organization seems to use executions like these to spread terror and fear among people and to display that they would not hesitate to kill their own people, even relatives, should they oppose their ways and ideology.

ISIS has recently faced several blows to its occupation across Syria and Iraq. A few weeks ago, Iraqi forces were able to liberate the city of Ramadi from the clutches of ISIS after almost a year of occupation. This operation was followed by an airstrike that targeted Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the chief spokesperson of ISIS. Al-Adnani is widely considered to be the second-in-command in the ISIS hierarchy and is the potential successor to ISIS’ leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Al-Adnani was severely injured in the airstrike and has since then been moved to a safer location is the city of Mosul, another ISIS stronghold. His condition remains unknown.

In related news, ISIS had also recently released a video clip showing the executions of five men who they say were agents of the west. That video also threatened the United Kingdom and abused British Prime Minister David Cameron and called him “an imbecile.”

[Image via the Times of India]