Source in ISIS-held northern Iraq claims terror group killing disabled children

MOSUL, Iraq (Christian Examiner) -- An undercover source in Mosul, Iraq, has reported that the Islamic State has issued a Nazi-style fatwa, or religious edict, calling for the extermination of children with Down syndrome and other congenital conditions, such as physical deformities.

The source, "Mosul Eye," posting on Facebook, claimed that several children had already died when it began investigating the deaths. The source was able to learn that the Sharia board of the Islamic State had issued what it called an "oral fatwa" authorizing its soldiers to kill the children.

The information indicates that most of the children born with Down's syndrome are those of foreign fighters who married Iraqi, Syrian and Asian women. We recorded more than 38 confirmed cases of killing babies with congenital deformities and Down's syndrome, aged between one week to three months. They were killed by either lethal injection or suffocation. Some of those killings took place in Syria and Mosul.

The edict was reportedly issued by a Saudi judge named Abu Said Aljazrawi.

"The information indicates that most of the children born with Down's syndrome are those of foreign fighters who married Iraqi, Syrian and Asian women. We recorded more than 38 confirmed cases of killing babies with congenital deformities and Down's syndrome, aged between one week to three months. They were killed by either lethal injection or suffocation. Some of those killings took place in Syria and Mosul."

"As if it is not enough for ISIL to kill men, women and the elderly, and now, they kill children," the source said.

In the post, the unnamed source posted a video showing a disabled child in a wheel chair rocking back and forth and smiling, while another child played on the ground in front of him. It did not show the children being executed.

Mosul Eye, according to Breitbart and the Daily Mail, is a reliable news source and has provided significant insight into life inside ISIS-occupied territory.

Snopes.com, however, reported that the allegations were as of yet "unproven."

"Although Daily Mail used 'apparently' and 'it is claimed' to buttress its reporting, the outlet didn't emphasize that the information was gleaned from a single blogger's Facebook post. Fox News and multiple concurrent reports cited a group called 'Mosul Eye' as the source for the unverified claims," snopes.com claimed.

The cleansing of "defective" persons is a trait shared between numerous regimes throughout history, but most notably the National Socialists or Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. In 1939, Adolf Hitler's public health authorities began to encourage parents to submit their children to special hospitals around the Third Reich for treatment. In reality, the clinics were execution chambers.

"There, specially recruited medical staff murdered their young charges by lethal overdoses of medication by starvation," according to the U.S. Holocaust Museum. Once the methods were perfected, they were exploited for use on the Jewish population at large.

Several respondents to the Facebook post from "Mosul Eye" dismissed the reports. Those who were Muslim largely rejected the claim. One, Abu Muhammad, claimed it was a conspiracy concocted by Rupert Murdoch, CEO of Fox News, and the "Zionist press" who want newsreaders to believe "this garbage."

"But Murdock won't plaster the dozens of kids killed daily by Russian and western warplanes in Syria," Muhammad wrote.

Another comment from a man in New York asked if the reporting was biased, while another said it was propaganda to cover up a Shiite massacre of children in Syria yesterday.

Ahmed Elmi, from the predominately Muslim coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, asked, "Are you all commenting, seriously believing this? How [much] more gullible can people get?"

He rejected the account provided by "Mosul Eye," claiming "every accusation must come with undeniable truth. Every news item, a reliable source."

A woman in Berlin, Germany, then responded, "Funny thing. THIS is what the German people said, too, during World War II."