About 45 Iraqi citizens were burned to death by ISIS in al-Baghdadi, according to reports. Local Police Chief Qasim al-Obeidi said that some victims may have been part of the Iraqi Security Forces, as the military had been trying to take back the town from ISIS control.
The mass burning occurred only days after the terrorist group shocked the global community by beheading 21 Coptic Christians in a video and weeks after a Jordanian pilot was locked in a cage and burned alive.
Christian News Network reports that President Obama has requested further U.S. involvement in the conflict from Congress this week. However, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said ISIS will not be stopped until the Middle Eastern economy improves, rationalizing that poor Muslims join the terrorist group because they cannot find jobs otherwise.
“...we cannot win this war by killing them,” Harf said. “We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium-to-longer-term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups…”
“We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people.”
Some mocked Harf’s comments via social media.
Publication date: February 18, 2015
