ISIS handbook teaches jihadis to eat non-Muslims during food shortage

A counter-terrorism group has said that it has discovered a handbook that teaches Islamic State fighters to eat their enemies if they are in short supply of food.

The handbook revealed that ISIS scholars have come up with a theological argument to justify cannibalism if the food supplies are scarce during a time of jihad, The Daily Record reported.

According to the British counter-extremism think-tank Quilliam Foundation, the curriculum is being used by ISIS to indoctrinate its fighters as well as the indigenous population in areas under its control.

"They say that if there are no supplies, it is OK to kill another non-Muslim or a Muslim who doesn't follow their version of Islam," Quilliam chief executive Haras Rafiq told the Daily Record.

"As a Muslim, I find it utterly revolting. They even give advice on the parts to eat and how to prepare the flesh," he continued.

Rafiq noted that the doctrines on cannibalism are not mainstream, but they are gaining traction.

"It's new to see them advocate cannibalism. They are using Salafism – a fundamentalist theology and political Islamism to justify their views," he remarked.

Rafiq said that the foundation, which was founded by two former members of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, is keen to come to Scotland to root out jihadist teachings in schools, colleges, universities and jails.

ISIS has been linked to reports of cannibalism in the past. In March 2015, it was reported that members of the militant group fed the remains of a Kurdish prisoner to his own mother.

The mother reportedly came to the group's headquarters to beg for his son's release. Upon her arrival, the jihadis appeared to treat the woman with great hospitality and offered her food and beverage. After she finished her meal, she asked to see her son but the militants laughed and told her that she had just eaten him.

In October that same year, ISIS reportedly fed a starving Yazidi mother with her own child.

A Yazidi community member narrated that the Yazidi mother who was captured by ISIS was not given food for two days, and her two children, aged three and five, had been separated. The militants eventually gave her rice and meat, but after she finished eating, they told her that she just ate her three-year-old son.