In a grotesque twist of fate, a top Islamic State (ISIS) executioner in Syria has been found beheaded with a cigarette in his mouth, the
International Business Times reported Tuesday.
The body of the man — reportedly deputy emir of the al-Hisbah, the ISIS religious police force in Deir al-Zor, a province in eastern Syria — was found recently near a power plant in the city of al-Mayadeen, according to the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
His torso showed signs of torture, and his severed head had a cigarette in the mouth. His body carried the message "This is evil, you Sheikh."
The name of the dead man, reportedly an Egyptian, has not been released.
The slaying is widely believed to be connected to ISIS' staunch opposition to tobacco use, which it has denounced as "slow suicide." The jihadist group demands that "every smoker should be aware that with every cigarette he smokes in a state of trance and vanity" he is "disobeying God," the International Business Times reported.
The group has imposed a strict version of Sharia law barring the use of cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol in the regions of Iraq and Syria under its control.
In August, the website
VICE News released a documentary showing what life is like during Ramadan in Raqqa, a city in northeastern Syria now occupied by ISIS. The city, with a population of more than 220,000 before the war, had been relatively Westernized. But the jihadists are determined to change that.
The documentary shows the heavily armed al-Hisbah religious police making their rounds inside Raqqa, visiting shops, interrogating merchants about the items they sell and the prices they charge, and admonishing men about the way their wives are dressed.
A reporter for VICE News visited an ISIS prison where he spoke with inmates awaiting sentencing for crimes such as selling alcohol and abusing drugs. Alcohol selling is usually punished by whipping the perpetrator, while illicit drug users are subject to capital punishment.
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