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HRW: Shiite militias violated laws of war in Tikrit battle
[Rudaw] Pro-Iraqi government Shiite militias were in violation of the laws of war in retaking the city of Tikrit from ISIS bully boyz in March and April 2015, according to a report released Sunday by Human Rights Watch
... During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, HRW received a pledge from the Foundation to Promote Open Society, of which George Soros is Chairman, for general support totaling $100,000,000. The grant is being paid in installments of $10,000,000 over ten years.Through June 30, 2013, HRW had received $30,000,000 towards the fulfillment of the pledge....
."Militiamen deliberately destroyed several hundred civilian buildings with no apparent military reason after the withdrawal of the Lion of Islam gang Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
, also known as ISIS, from the area," HRW said in a blurb promoting the report.

The 60-page report, "Ruinous Aftermath: Militia Abuses Following Iraq's Recapture of Tikrit," used satellite imagery to confirm eyewitness accounts.

After ISIS fled Tikrit, "Hizbollah Battalions and League of Righteous forces, two of the largely [Shiite] pro-government militias, kidnapped more than 200 Sunni residents, including children, near al-Dur, south of Tikrit," according to the release. "At least 160 of those kidnapped remain unaccounted for."

In addition to being an ISIS stronghold, Tikrit, the capital of Salahadin province, was the hometown of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, who frequently targeted and killed Shiites.

Before the beginning of the Tikrit campaign, Shiite militia leaders swore to avenge a June 2014 ISIS massacre of at least 770 Shiite military cadets at the Camp Speicher facility near Tikrit, according to HRW. This may have accounted for the Shiites' harsh tactics towards Tikrit's Sunni residents.

HRW said Shiite militias were also responsible for the extrajudicial killings of suspected ISIS prisoners, and that a police officer had seen suspects bumped off after surrendering. Rooters journalists in Tikrit saw another suspected ISIS fighter stabbed to death by a federal police officer.

Sheikh Malik Shahhab, a prominent businessman and brother of al-Dur's mayor, according to the report told HRW he overheard a Shiite fighter say, "We burned and destroyed al-Dur, because they (the residents) are ISIS and Baathists."

"Iraqi authorities need to discipline and hold accountable the out-of-control militias laying waste to Sunni homes and shops after driving ISIS out," Joe Stork, HRW's deputy Middle East director, said in the report. "Abusive militias and their commanders acting with impunity undermine the campaign against ISIS and put all civilians at greater risk."

The Shiite militias cited by HRW in the report are part of the Hashd al-Shaabi, the Arabic term for "Popular Mobilization Units," or PMUs. The PMU's were stood up by a fatwa called by Iraq's Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in June 2014 following the regular Iraqi army's total failure to halt ISIS' blitz of western and northern Iraq. The PMUs receive equipment and salaries from the central government. They have also received support and training from Iran.

HRW in its report called on the US and Iran, the two biggest supporters of the central Iraqi government, to hold the PMUs accountable for their actions and numerous human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
 abuses.

Posted by: trailing wife 2015-09-23
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=430389