BARCELONA, Spain – An international rights watchdog said it had documented evidence and witness testimonies indicating that Iraqi security forces and pro-government Shiite militias executed at least 255 Sunni prisoners over the past month.
“At least eight of those killed were boys under age 18,” said Human Rights Watch (HRW), which is based in New York.
It said it documented five massacres of prisoners between June 9 and 21 – in Mosul and Tal Afar in northern Nineveh province, in Baaquba and Jumarkhe in eastern Diyala province, and in Rawa in western Anbar province.
“In each attack, statements by witnesses, security forces and government officials indicate that Iraqi soldiers or police, pro-government Shia militias, or combinations of the three extrajudicially executed the prisoners,” the group said in a statement.
It said that in nearly all cases the victims were shot dead. “In one case the killers also set dozens of prisoners on fire, and in two cases they threw grenades into cells.”
“In all but one case, the executions took place while the fighters were fleeing Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other armed groups,” said the statement, referring to the al-Qaeda offshoot that recently changed its name to Islamic State (IS).
“The vast majority of security forces and militias are Shiia, while the murdered prisoners were Sunni,” HRW said.
It added that these mass extrajudicial killings “may be evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity, and appear to be revenge killings for atrocities” by IS, a Sunni extremist group that in the past month has captured large areas from the Shiite-led central government.
“The murder of detainees during armed conflict is a war crime and, if carried out on a large scale or in a systematic manner, as a state policy, it would be a crime against humanity,” HRW said.
IS summarily executed scores of captured soldiers, Shiite militiamen, and Shiite religious minorities in areas it controls, HRW added.
The al-Qaeda offshoot has not been shy about killings it has committed: it has posted online videos showing massacres of Iraqi soldiers captured in sweeping advances.
IS has declared an Islamic State from Aleppo in Syria to Diyala in Iraq and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has called on Muslims around the world to join its “jihad.”
“While the world rightly denounces the atrocious acts of ISIS, it should not turn a blind eye to sectarian killing sprees by government and pro-government forces,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW.
The government of embattled Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has in the past denied allegations it summarily executed prisoners, and HRW said that Iraq’s defense and interior ministries did not reply to requests for comment on the five cases it documented.
“The United States and other countries engaged in Iraq should halt military assistance to the Maliki government until it takes concrete steps to halt crimes like killing prisoners,” HRW said. “Maliki also needs to remove and prosecute all commanders involved in these slaughters.
“In each case that Human Rights Watch investigated, the accounts we heard point directly to Iraqi security forces and pro-government militia slaughtering captive men in large numbers as ISIS and allied fighters were poised to seize the area,” Stork said.
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