Iraq: Pro-Government Militias’ Trail of Death | WPN World People News

Government-backed militias have been kidnapping and killing Sunni civilians throughout Iraq’s Baghdad, Diyala, and Hilla provinces over the past five months. The killings and abductions mark a serious escalation in sectarian violence at a time when the armed conflict between government forces and Sunni insurgents is intensifying.

Human Rights Watch documented the killings of 61 Sunni men between June 1 and July 9, 2014, and the killing of at least 48 Sunni men in March and April in villages and towns around Baghdad, an area known as the “Baghdad Belt.” Witnesses and medical and government sources said that militias were responsible in each case. In many cases, witnesses identified the militia as Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq (League of the Righteous), commonly referred to as Asa’ib

“The government seems to think that if people blame militias for killings it can wash its hands of the matter,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “In fact, the government needs to rein in these militias and call a halt to killing people just because of their sect.”

As the government has lost control over large portions of the country in the wake of an offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS, now renamed the Islamic State) and allied Sunni insurgents, Prime Minister al-Maliki has been forming new security forces made up of militias and is taking little or no action as they kill people, Human Rights Watch found. The government should hold those responsible for these killings to account.

In March, media reports said that Prime Minister al-Maliki had met with senior security advisers and told them that he would form a new security force consisting of three militias to police Baghdad – Asa’ib, Kita’ib Hezbollah, and the Badr Brigades, which is run by Transport Minister Hadi al-Ameri. A government official who provides national security advice to the prime minister’s office told Human Rights Watch in June that while Asa’ib fighters “take orders” from the militia’s military leader, Qais al-Khalazy, “ultimately they’re loyal to Maliki, who gives Qais orders.”

In four of the killings documented by Human Rights Watch in Baghdad, in June and July, witnesses said that men in civilian clothing driving military vehicles without license plates kidnapped the victims, who were all Sunni males ranging in age from their early 20s to late 50s, from the Sha`ab, Baya`a, Za`afraniyya, and Ghazaliyya neighborhoods. In each instance, their bodies were found a few hours or days later with bullet wounds to their heads. In another instance in June, two men in civilian clothing, with their faces loosely covered, drove up to a well-known café in the Sha`ab neighborhood and shot the two Sunni owners in the head in front of café customers and in view of a military checkpoint 10 meters away, a witness told Human Rights Watch.

Baghdad’s forensic medical authority confirmed three other killings in Baghdad that Human Rights Watch had documented through interviews with witnesses and relatives of the dead men. Three forensic doctors told Human Rights Watch they believed militias carried out the three killings, based on what they said was a similar pattern of killing and their observations of militia activity in Baghdad.

Witnesses Human Rights Watch interviewed said that Asa’ib conducts illegal “arrests” in numerous areas in Baghdad and Diyala provinces. One man described to Human Rights Watch how Asa’ib fighters kidnapped him from a mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhood in west Baghdad. He said had he not convinced his kidnappers he was Shia “that would have been the end of me.” When they released him, they identified themselves to him as members of Asa’ib. The sister, wife, and father of another kidnapped man, a Sunni, described how they witnessed militiamen take the man from his shop in a mixed Sunni-Shia neighborhood, on May 28. They said he has been missing ever since.

Sectarian killings have markedly increased since ISIS took over Mosul on June 10. “Sunnis are a minority in Baghdad, but they’re the majority in our morgue,” a doctor working in the Health Ministry told Human Rights Watch. He and three other doctors said the number of Sunnis in the morgue who died violent deaths had increased significantly since June 10.

In nearly all the cases Human Rights Watch documented, witnesses described men who dressed similarly and used the same tactics. Without exception, everyone Human Rights Watch interviewed said they believed militias, particularly Asa’ib, were responsible and that they “control” security forces in areas of Baghdad and Diyala provinces. Two government officials with knowledge of security forces separately told Human Rights Watch that the government pays militiamen who now control security forces in many areas throughout Iraq.

A resident of Baghdad’s Dora neighborhood told Human Rights Watch that Abdullah Zilal al-Jibbouri, a student in his final year of high school, was kidnapped and killed on June 17. Abdullah’s family told the resident that the last they knew of him he had been driving from Dora to the majority-Shia neighborhood of Baya`a to take his final exams.

A forensic doctor told Human Rights Watch that al-Jibbouri’s body arrived in the morgue on June 18. Residents in Hay al-`Amal, a majority-Shia neighborhood next to Baya`a, had found his body, the doctor said. He died of a single gunshot wound to the head. “We don’t know who killed him,” the doctor said, “We can’t tell from the kind of bullet because many people have the same weapons. But there is a heavy Asa’ib presence in street 60 and in the entrance to Abu Sweer in Dora. Everyone knows who is doing this.” The Dora resident told Human Rights Watch his area is “full of Asa’ib” and that they frequently “drive by in pickup trucks waving their guns around to intimidate [Sunnis].”

Government officials and Iraqi media have reported mass executions of Sunnis in Hilla, in Babel province, and Muqdadiyya, in Diyala province. On July 9, police found the bodies of 53 men, all bound and shot in the back of the head, north of Hilla. A government source and the brother of one of those killed told Human Rights Watch that an Asa’ib message claiming responsibility was found next to the bodies when police found them. The government source and the brother of one of the victims said that Asa’ib kidnapped the men on about June 11, killed them, and then dumped their bodies in a ditch in north of Hilla approximately one week before they were found.

Murder is a crime against humanity when committed in a widespread or systematic manner as part of a policy of either a government or organized group to commit the crime. Crimes against humanity are international crimes, meaning that those who can be held accountable include: those who commit the crime; those who order it, assist, or are otherwise complicit; and military and civilian commanders who knew or should have known their subordinates were committing the crimes and fail to take reasonable measures to prevent them.

Given the risk that military assistance provided to the Iraqi government may be used to support the militias, governments that are helping Iraq militarily should halt further such aid until the Iraqi government ends support for militias like Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq, Kita’ib Hezbollah, and the Badr Brigades, and takes steps to hold their leaders and members accountable, Human Rights Watch said.

“These reports of militia murders, often in plain view of security forces, indicate a pattern of sectarian killing that appears to be government-sanctioned,” Stork said. “The takeover of state security by militias is a sure sign that the remnants of the rule of law in Iraq are falling apart.”

Source: Human Rights Watch