The militants captured a group of men who were fleeing the battleground in Mosul city of Nineveh province, and executed them in public in an attempt to terrorize its members who may want to leave their posts in the war-torn region.
“The dissidents were arrested at a checkpoint in the vicinity of Mosul on Friday evening. After being identified as fighters who have left their positions at the fighting front in western Mosul, they were transferred to the Sharia Court for prosecution,” a local media activist, who spoke to Syrian independent press agency ARA News on condition of anonymity, cited Daesh official as saying.
Last week, CNN said that Daesh was forced to cut its fighters' salaries by as much as 50 percent, citing documents it had obtained from Daesh-controlled territories.
Previously, it was reported that Daesh fighters made anywhere between $400 and $1,200 a month, received a $50 stipend for their wives and $25 for each child. But the good times are now over, as Daesh is facing an economic downturn due to airstrikes, losing territories in Syria and Iraq and a significant decrease in its illegal oil trade.
"Morale of fighters is decreasing. This trend has been noted by all intelligence services," French political columnist Alexander del Valle said, as cited by Atlantico.
This is not the first time that Daesh executes its own militants on charges of treason. On December 20, 2015, the extremist group beheaded ten militant fighters condemned of “high treason” for evacuating their post at the battlefront without the group’s permission.
On November 15, 2015, Daesh executed 73 militant fighters for escaping battles with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Shingal (Sinjar) district in northern Iraq.
“Under the request of the group’s alleged caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, some 73 ISIS militants, who apparently fled the fighting front with the Peshmerga forces in the Yezidi region of Shingal, were executed,” Kurdish official Saeed Mamozini said, adding that the executions were carried out by firing squad south of Mosul.
