The Children and Wives of ISIS

VICE

Published on Jun 21, 2017
Nine months into the campaign to retake Mosul, Iraqi forces now have ISIS fighters surrounded in the Old City. But the ruthless militants still have women and children to use as human shields, which could make their last stand the most gruesome stage of the battle.

Last December, they used the same brutal tactic 2,000 miles away in the Libyan port city of Sirte -- ISIS’s largest stronghold outside Iraq and Syria.

As VICE News' Seb Walker reports, in those last desperate days the fighters even used members of their own family as collateral.