Militants fighting for the Islamic State in northern Syria have erected shocking anti-smoking posters throughout its self-declared caliphate featuring images of burning human lungs.
It is not certain whether the images depict what ISIS plans to do to those caught smoking in its territories, but for a militant group known in the past to carry out monstrous crimes against humanity, nothing is impossible.
According to Daily Mail, photographs taken in the northern town of Barqah, close to the border with Turkey, show members of ISIS’ feared religious police force setting light to vast piles of cigarettes in a field.
Some have viewed the recent anti-smoking campaigns by ISIS as hypocritical because many ISIS fighters continue to regularly smoke. Cigarette butts have been found in abandoned ISIS positions suggesting a thriving black market exists in the vast swathes of Syria and Iraq under the militants’ control.
