Former ISIS-fighter talks about inner workings of IS and their terror:
(article in german)
http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/inside-is-101.html
Loosely translated and slightly abbreviated:
While the "other Germans" got the suspects from their appartments in the north-syrian town Manbij, he had stayed in the car, armed with a Kalashnikov and a gold-emplated Browning, Nils D. told.
He had watched over the witnesses, who were always there during arrests: informants from the populace or prisoners who had incriminated others during torture. He took part in 10 to 15 of those "collections". First they knock. When the question comes, who's there, they answer "Dawla Islamiyya", the "Islamic State".
Most people came with them on their own accord. It was rarely necessary to kick doors in or start shooting. Nils D. (25), Islamist from the town Dinslaken in Germany, told german investigators about his time in Syria in dozens of interrogations. For the first time, somebody who returned confesses about being part of a special task-force of the IS, responsible for arresting dissidents and deserters. A "secret intelligence service of the IS".
In October 2013 Nils D. had left Germany. He was arrested upon his return in January 2015 after investigators had eavesdropped a call where he claimed to have worked "directly for the Emir". He's one of the few returnees who talk at all. According to the investigators, Nils D. spent 8 of his 13 months in Syria in a department for internal security. One of the german investigators has unofficially coined the term "the Gestapo of IS".
Nils D.'s testimonies tell a lot about german Islamists taking part in the terror of the IS, about their central role not only in their system of repression against the civilians, but increasingly also against fellow fighters.
His "Stormtrooper-squad" was garrisoned in a former municipal building in Manbij, a town 40 km from Aleppo, which was conquered by IS in January 2014. Nils D. spent most of his time there. The men left the building only while masked. 300 prisoners were kept there and their screams could be heard across the street. There were actual "torture-chambers": tiny cells, so small you can only stand in them.
Once he saw 20 prisoners hanging from a pipe with their arms twisted on their backs. The Emir walked up and down in front of them. But not only the Emir tortured, others also interrogated and beat up prisoners. Although there's a photo of him holding a gun to a prisoner's head, Nils D. denies having been involved in torture or executions. Nils D. claims, he worked as a cook, was responsible for grocery-shopping and for keeping an eye on the prisoners who had to clean the building. Once a week it was his turn to bring food to the prisoners.
According to his testimony, he also worked as a translator once when a german islamist was accused of being a spy. The Emir often put him to important tasks where no questions should be asked: He once had to take the corpse of a prisoner who had been tortured to death from hospital and bury it somewhere. Nils D. boasted during his testimony that the Emir trusted him.
Execution-shootings and beheadings happened almost daily. Nils D. talked about an "execution market-place". He witnessed how an IS-commander was executed by his own militia, to set an example. The corpse was then thrown into a well.
Dissidents and deserters get hefty punishments. They could get anything, from prison to a death-sentence. They get tortured until they confess to what the torturers want to hear, then they get executed.
Once he witnessed a crucifixion: An IS-fighter had robbed people at a checkpoint and was left hanging there for 3 days, as a warning.
Back then, Nils D. thought those draconian punishments to be appropriate. "After a while, it no longer touches you."
He joined the intelligence-service of the IS together with an islamist friend on recommendation of his cousin, another well-known Islamist. Nils D. claims that one of them died as a suicide-bomber and that the other one died in battle.
The trial against Nils D. will begin in January 2016, but before that he will be called as a witness in the trial of two other IS-fighters from Syria.
= new reply since forum marked as read
