Stoning in Syria

In Syria, the medievalists of ISIS stoned another woman to death this week:

A cleric read the verdict before the truck came and dumped a large pile of stones near the municipal garden. Jihadi fighters then brought in the woman, clad head to toe in black, and put her in a small hole in the ground. When residents gathered, the fighters told them to carry out the sentence: Stoning to death for the alleged adulteress.

None in the crowd stepped forward, said a witness to the event in a northern Syrian city. So the jihadi fighters, mostly foreign extremists, did it themselves, pelting Faddah Ahmad with stones until her body was dragged away.

"Even when she was hit with stones she did not scream or move," said an opposition activist who said he witnessed the stoning near the football stadium and the Bajaa garden in the city of Raqqa, the main Syrian stronghold of the Islamic State group.

I am glad to see that although this poor woman was killed, the fanatics failed in their aim to stage a traditional stoning. The point of stoning as a method of execution is to involve the whole community in the death of the criminal. Everyone is supposed to cast at least one stone, making them all responsible for the killing. But modern Syrians will not participate in enforcing judgments made by ISIS. The support of the "caliphate" among the people is weak, and they wield power only because they is no legitimate force capable of doing it instead.