Iraqi Villagers Express Outrage Over Al Qaeda Atrocities
According to the video, the death of al Qaeda in Iraq's first leader Abu Musaab al Zarqawi left the group in shambles and led it to commit a strategic mistake by declaring the Islamic State. "Members of the group began turning their guns on the mujahideen from other jihadi factions, and shed their blood for no reason other than they refused to adhere to this Islamic State," said the narrator.
The rest of the video showed the testimonies of a number of Iraqi people from the Falahat village, south of the Iraqi capital. They described how al Qaeda operatives destroyed their homes, robbed their assets, killed their cattle and tortured them. "They blew up the whole street, they killed my cousin, and the neighbor, they beheaded them and threw them in the street," said an elderly man, who once hosted al Qaeda fighters in his home.
According to some witnesses, al Qaeda fighters withdrew from the village after occupying it for nearly three months. In what they considered as evidence of the ties between al Qaeda and Iran, the villagers said they discovered boxes filled with weapons and ammunition bearing the official emblem of the Islamic Republic of Iran.