DOHUK, Iraq — Not the least of the cruelties inflicted by the so-called Islamic State that has conquered large parts of Syria and Iraq is the suspense suffered by its victims before they are shot or beheaded, raped or imprisoned. When the IS fighters arrived in the village of Kucho in northern Iraq a week ago, they told the locals, most of whom are members of the Yazidi sect who follow an ancient faith, that they had 48 hours to decide whether to convert to Islam or die. When the 48 hours passed, the villagers were given another five hours, and that was extended to three days. Then, on Friday, time ran out. At noon — at what would have been the call to prayer for Muslim worshippers — the cell phones that villagers had used to stay in touch with relatives went silent.

Since then there have been a few sporadic accounts of what happened. One man claimed all the villagers were herded into a school. Another who managed to call out said he survived the massacre because he was hiding under the bodies of other victims. He’d escaped with only a wound to his leg. He was calling a shepherd’s phone, he said. But nothing has been heard from him since.

Between 80 and 100 men are believed to have been killed. Scores of women and girls were taken away in trucks, possibly to be sold off as slave-wives to IS fighters.

Such incidents have attracted world attention, helping to draw the United States back into military operations in the Iraq, most recently with bombing raids on IS positions near the vital Mosul Dam now occupied by the jihadists. The Americans are flying close air support for the peshmerga warriors of what is formally called the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq but is more commonly known as Iraqi Kurdistan.

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