IS burns 4 Shiite militiamen alive in Iraq: video

The Islamic State (IS) militant group on Monday aired a video of burning four Iraqi Shiite militiamen said to be in revenge for earlier burning of Sunni people by government allied militiamen.

The latest video, posted on jihadist websites, showed the victims who identified themselves as members of Hashd Shaabi, or popular mobilization, tied by chains in their hands and feet before they were hanged to an iron structure and set fire beneath them.

The video showed a masked IS militant saying the burning came in response to earlier burning by Shiite militiamen of a Sunni man near the IS-held town of Garma, just east of the city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, and the burning of three more Sunni people in Iraq's eastern province of Diyala.

The over five minutes video included a clip showing a Sunni man suspended on a fire and Shiite militiamen were looking on him, while another part of the video showed Shiite militiamen cutting with sword a piece of flesh off a suspended burned body.

"Today, retribution has come. We offend them as they offend us, and punish them as they punished us," the masked militant said in the video which did not say where the burning occurred.

However, the militiamen themselves said in the video tape that they were captured by the IS militants during a mission in Nekheib area, some 400 km south Ramadi, the capital city of Iraq's western province of Anbar.

Iraqi security forces and allied Hashd Shaabi paramilitary militias have been fighting for months to retake control of key cities and towns in the largest province from IS militants, which seized most of Anbar and tried to advance toward Baghdad. Endit