BAGHDAD: The Islamic State group says that it has given Yazidi women and children captured in northern Iraq to its fighters as spoils of war, boasting it had revived slavery.

The latest issue of its magazine Dabiq released on Sunday was the first clear admission by the organization that it was holding and selling Yazidis as slaves.

In an article entitled “The revival of slavery before the hour,” Dabiq argues that by enslaving people it claims hold deviant religious beliefs, IS has restored an aspect of Shariah to its original meaning. “After capture, the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters,” the article said.

“This large-scale enslavement of mushrik (polytheist) families is probably the first since the abandonment of this Shariah law,” it said. “The only other known case — albeit much smaller — is that of the enslavement of Christian women and children in the Philippines and Nigeria by the mujahedeen.”