IS massacres Christians in Nigeria

Ahmed Adel

The Islamic State (IS) draws on slaughtering innocent people as strategy for intimidation. The terrorist organization’s leaders believe that the slaughtering of innocent people will intimidate other citizens to boost its influence.

The Islamic State has released a video of a massacre killing 11 Nigerian Christian men. The terrorist organization said the execution of the Nigerian men was in retaliation for the killing of its former leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed by US troops in an October raid in Syria.

Earlier, IS released a series of videos of executions, killing hostages who were forced to dig their graves. The terrorist organization massacred Japanese, Syrian, Iraqi, and Lebanese hostages, in addition to US journalists.

IS has persecuted Christians in the areas seized in Iraq, Syria and Libya. Some reports say around 1,000 Christians were killed in Iraq after the terrorist organization controlled large regions there in 2014.

IS has been promoting hate among Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, where there are around 85 million Christians, according to the US-based Pew Research Center.

Between January and July in 2018, more than 1,300 people were killed in Nigeria, and around 30,000 Nigerians were forced to flee their homes in a number of states that were hit by violence.

Thousands of people in Nigeria’s northeastern region fled to Cameroon due to violence. Nigeria has been suffering from Boko Haram’s terrorist attacks over the past period.