Amnesty: Iraq and foreign states armed Shiite Hashd forces without accountability

LONDON — Iraq’s Shiite militia forces have received weapons and ammunition from local and foreign governments without any accountability and they have carried out human rights abuses including summary executions and abductions, says Amnesty International.

Since June 2014, Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) militias have extra-judicially executed or otherwise unlawfully killed, tortured and abducted thousands of men and boys,” Amnesty says in a 48-page report titled, Iraq: Turning A Blind Eye, The Arming of the Popular Mobilization Units. “Victims were picked up from their homes, workplaces, camps for internally displaced persons, checkpoints or other public places. Some were later found shot dead. Thousands more are still missing, weeks, months and years after they were abducted.”

The report says the Shiite forces have received arms from the governments of Iraq, Iran, Russia and the United States without accountability for the militias’ actions.

While Iraqi state institutions have directly or implicitly supplied or funded the arms, ammunition has come directly from Iran to the PMUs, either in the form of gifts or sales.

The PMU were created in June 2014 when Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, Iraq’s highest Shiite religious authority, called for able-bodied men to join the fight against ISIS. These Shiite militias are commonly referred to as Hashd al-Shaabi.

In December the Iraqi parliament approved a law recognizing Hashd al-Shaabi as an official force under the umbrella of the army.

“The fight against (ISIS) has been marred by serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, committed mainly by militias but also by government forces, which have compounded the suffering of civilians and for which there can be no justification,” the report asserts. “There can be no excuse for turning a blind eye to PMU militia violations.”

The Amnesty report builds on research conducted in northern and central Iraq from June 2014 to November 2016 by speaking to former detainees, witnesses, survivors, and relatives of those killed, detained or missing.

Amnesty International concluded through “commissioned expert analysis of verified photographs and videos featuring PMU militias deploying weapons, drawn from both open and closed sources” that PMU militias are equipped with a mix of Soviet-era arms; Iranian rifles, anti-materiel guns, mortars and light vehicles; and US small arms and armored fighting vehicles.

The United States is main provider of military equipment to the Iraqi army.

In 2014, US Congress appropriated $1.6 billion for an Iraq Train and Equip fund which included the transfer rifles, light and heavy machine guns, various heavy mortars, and other equipment. The 2017 funding request from the US Department of Defense to Congress includes direct requests for the arming of local security forces in Anbar, Saladin, and Nineveh provinces.

Amnesty International’s memorandum to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Sept. 21, 2016, requesting information on whether “any members of the PMU had been charged or tried for committing human rights violations since 2014” had gone unanswered.