Rights group urges Iraq to probe Fallujah abuses

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government must deliver on its pledge to investigate reports of abuses committed by its forces against civilians during the operation to retake Fallujah, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

Iraqi forces on May 22-23 launched a vast offensive to retake Fallujah from the Daesh terror group.

The Sunni city 50 kilometres west of Baghdad is one of the extremist organisation’s most emblematic bastions and one of only two major urban hubs it still controls in Iraq.

“The Iraqi government needs to control and hold accountable its own forces if it hopes to claim the moral upper hand in its fight against [Daesh],” said Joe Stork, HRW’s deputy Middle East director.

“It’s high time for Iraqi authorities to unravel the web of culpability underlying the government forces’ repeated outrages against civilians,” a HRW statement quoted him as saying.

The operation to retake Fallujah has involved tens of thousands of government fighters, including from the police, army, counter-terrorism service and from the Hashed Al Shaabi, a paramilitary umbrella that is dominated by Shiite militias.

HRW said it had conducted interviews corroborating allegations that members of the federal police and the Hashed Al Shaabi executed at least 17 people fleeing the fighting in Sijr, northeast of Fallujah.

The rights watchdog also listed reports of civilians being stabbed to death and others dying after being dragged behind cars in the Saqlawiya area, northwest of Fallujah.

Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi responded to mounting concern over reports of abuses earlier this week by promising to investigate and prosecute all such cases.

HRW also expressed concern over reports that Daesh was preventing civilians from fleeing areas it still controls by shooting and executing them.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in Iraq, has issued guidelines intended as a code of conduct for forces fighting Daesh and aimed at curbing abuse