About 1,700 soldiers were captured by the ISIS in June as they were trying to flee Camp Speicher – an airbase on the outskirt of Tikrit that previously served as a US military facility – following an onslaught that stunned security forces and the military, which melted away as the militants advanced and captured key cities and towns in the country’s north and west.
ISIS Biggest Massacre
Then, the extremist group posted graphic photos that appeared to show its gunmen massacring scores of the soldiers after loading the captives on to flatbed trucks and then forcing them to lay face down in a shallow ditch, their arms tied behind their backs.
Other videos showed masked gunmen bringing the soldiers to a bloodstained concrete riverfront inside the presidential palaces complex, shooting them in the head and throwing them into the Tigris.
ISIS Biggest Massacre
A few days after Iraqi security forces and allied Sunni and Shia fighters recaptured the city, government teams started opening up eight locations inside the complex where much of the killing is believed to have taken place.
Iraqi state TV showed teams digging in an open area, helped by bulldozers as family members stood nearby. The bodies were tagged with yellow tags while weeping soldiers and relatives lit candles and laid flowers alongside the covered remains. One clip showed unearthed skeletal remains still wearing combat boots.
DNA samples had been taken from about 85% of the victims’ families and tests on the bodies would begin shortly.
During their blitz last year, the extremists also carried out mass killings in other areas. One of those massacres was outside Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, where they forced 600 Shia inmates captured from Badoosh prison to kneel along the edge of a nearby ravine and shot them with automatic weapons.
The prisoners had been serving sentences for a range of crimes, from murder and assault to nonviolent offences.
In Anbar province, ISIS shot dead dozens of pro-government Sunni tribal fighters in public areas after capturing their towns.