HAWRAMAN, Kurdistan Region – Fighters of an extremist Sunni militia killed by US airstrikes in 2003 in the Kurdish region of Hawraman in northern Iraq lie buried in some 100 graves in the area, according to residents who are unhappy that the corpses of people they consider to be terrorists are buried in their midst. The graveyards belong to the Ansar al-Sunna group, which took over parts of Hawraman for two years, until its fighters fled or were killed by US airstrikes in 2003. The dead fighters – including Afghans and Arabs – were left buried in parts of Hawraman that belong to the Kurdistan Region. “According to the information that I have gathered after visiting the areas there are five graveyards belonging to the terrorists, containing nearly 100 corpses,” said Mariwan Naqshbandy, spokesman for the office of religious coexistence at Kurdistan’s Ministry of Religious Affairs. There are other graveyards near Khurmal that have been planted over with trees, where locals say the militants buried some of their dead. Their main graveyard is said to be in the heights of Sargataw village, where some of the graves are marked makeshift tombstones made out of rocks. Zaynadin Sahib, an elderly village teacher, remembers that local residents had wanted the dead corpses burned, but that the militants had insisted on special graveyards for their “martyrs.” “I have video film of the group claiming that their dead are sacred and should be not be buried with other dead, she said. Jamal Abdulla, a young man living in the village of Sargata, said that pieces and metal seen in some graves are from makeshift tombstones that the militants had used to write the names of the dead and mark the graves. “But now nothing of that is ever left,” he said. One grave, surrounded by barbed wire, is said to belong to a dead Ansar leader. The graveyards and the grave have been a source of differences among residents, some of whom saw the fighters as heroes for standing up to the US. Naqshbandy, from the religious affairs ministry, wants the graves marked, so that people will know they belong to fighters of the terrorist group. “I ask authorities to label the graves so that people will know they belong to the militants,” he said. “Those militants tried to control Kurdistan. The new generation has no idea that these people fought against the Kurdish people,” he said. “Even now, there are people who praise the militants and show solidarity and plant trees in their graveyards,” he added. One Ansar fighter who joined the group for three months told Rudaw: “According to my knowledge, only the heights of Sargat village are referred to as the main graveyard,” he said. “I went there only once and that was for burying a friend of mine,” he added, without revealing more information about himself or the graves.
