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BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has executed eight Dutch members of the jihadist group, whom it accused of trying to desert, activists said Monday.
“Daesh (ISIS) executed eight Dutch fighters on Friday in Maadan, Raqa province, after accusing them of attempting desertion and mutiny,” Abu Mohammad, a member of the citizen journalist group Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), said via Twitter.
RBSS has been documenting since April 2014 ISIS’ abuses in Raqa, the group’s de facto capital in northern Syria.
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Tension has boiled in Raqa over the past month between 75 Dutch jihadists — among them fighters of Moroccan origin — and ISIS intelligence operatives from Iraq, RBSS said.
Three other Dutch jihadists were arrested by Iraqi ISIS members who accused them of wanting to flee and one of the detainees was beaten to death during the interrogation, according to RBSS.
ISIS leaders in Raqa sent a delegate to solve the dispute with the Dutch cell’s enraged members, but they murdered the intermediary in vengeance, the citizen journalist group added.
The ISIS leadership in Iraq then ordered the arrest of all the members of the Dutch group, and imprisoned them in Tabaqa and Maadan in Syria.
Eight have since been executed, RBSS said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, could not confirm the report.
However it said three European jihadists of North African origin were executed in what ISIS calls the Wilayet al-Furat — an area stretching across the Syrian-Iraqi frontier.
According to the Dutch secret services, 200 people from the Netherlands including 50 women have joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq.