Ned Parker
By Ned Parker, Ahmed Rasheed and Raheem Salman
The Sunni militants who seized the riverside town of Buhriz late last month stayed for several hours. The next morning, after the Sunnis had left, Iraqi security forces and dozens of Shia militia fighters arrived and marched from home to home in search of insurgents and sympathisers in this rural community, dotted by date palms and orange groves.
According to accounts by Shia tribal leaders, two eyewitnesses and politicians, what happened next was brutal.
“There were men in civilian clothes on motorcycles shouting ‘Ali is on your side’,” one man said, referring to a key figure in Shia tradition. “People started fleeing their homes, leaving behind the elders and young men and those who refused to leave. The militias then stormed the houses. They pulled out the young men and summarily executed them.”
The killings turned this town 35 miles northeast of Baghdad into a frontline in Iraq’s gathering sectarian war.
In Buhriz and other villages and towns encircling the capital, a pitched battle is underway between the emboldened Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the extremist Sunni group that has led a brutal insurgency around Baghdad for more than a year, and Iraqi security forces, who in recent months have employed Shia militias as shock troops.
On the eve of national elections on April 30, Iraq is fast returning to the horrors of its recent past. Security officials, tribal figures and politicians fear ISIL might choke off the capital as an earlier incarnation of the group did in the years following the American invasion. Then, Sunni extremists sent multiple car bombs into Baghdad on an almost daily basis, and killed Shias with impunity.
The vote this month and the race to form a new government will be contentious, with multiple Shia lists vying for the premiership — Sunnis and Kurds looking for plum posts — and Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki determined to stay in office.
Moderation is a rare commodity. Some of Iraq’s Sunni politicians have denied ISIL’s existence in Anbar and blamed all troubles on Maliki, even if it means ISIL continues to grow.
In turn, militia groups have joined the Iraqi military’s combat missions against the insurgents, and sent fighters to battle Sunni rebels in Syria.
Asaib Ahl Al Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah, two groups once suppressed by the American military and sponsored by the Iranians, make up the bulk of the Shia militia fighters aiding the Iraqi security forces. According to three senior Shia politicians, individual Asaib and Kata’ib members and others now defend Baghdad as part of an organisation, attached to the prime minister’s military office, called the Sons of Iraq, a name formerly associated with Sunnis who battled Al Qaeda.
Maliki briefed senior Shia politicians about the new paramilitary group in a meeting about the war with ISIL on April 7, where he expressed frustration about the military’s performance fighting in cities and towns, according to two people who attended the session.
Maliki told senior Shia political figures that they had formed groups “of mujahedeen and Sons of Iraq ... on the periphery of Baghdad”; he called the fighters “better than the army” at “guerrilla warfare,” according to the meeting minutes read to Reuters and confirmed by a second person who attended.
Shia lawmaker Amir Al Kinani, a critic of Maliki, attended the session and said the group, which has been in existence for a year, was drawn primarily from the ranks of Asaib and Kata’ib.
“They have executed several operations in the belt of Baghdad and Diyala. They made qualitative operations there in Buhriz,” he said. “They are ... jihadists ready to die.” Others aware of the initiative described it as an effort to absorb Iraq’s armed Shia hardliners within the state.
Maliki’s spokesman denied any militias were fighting for the government or belonged to a new organisation that reports to him. “We don’t have people who kill themselves to kill others and are considered as martyrs,” said Ali Mussawi. “There is nothing like this.” The spokesman for police and military operations in Baghdad province also dismissed the accounts. “Such allegations are baseless and wrong, launched by those who were infuriated by the victories achieved by our security forces,” said Brigadier Saad Maan.
Asaib has also publicly denied any such involvement in the fighting in Iraq. But security officers, political figures and Shia and Sunni residents tell a different story. One volunteer fighter, who called himself Abbas, said he had joined the new Sons of Iraq and fought three months in Abu Ghraib. He said his battalion reported to the prime minister’s office of commander in chief. “We are all Shias, and when people learn we are Shias there to free them and fight against ISIL they welcomed us in,” Abbas said.
The person who introduced him said Abbas was from Asaib, but he said he was just a labourer who volunteered along with 750 mostly Shia young men from around western Baghdad.
The men had been gathered at an airport base in western Baghdad, and were then given military fatigues, M-16s and shipped to fight in a 750-strong battalion around Zaidan, west of Baghdad, and in Latifya, south of Baghdad, he said. He and others quit when the government did not pay them after three months, but he spoke proudly of combat operations.
“When we found [the terrorists] in a house, we killed them. We burned the house or demolished it. We burned those houses because we didn’t want them to be a shelter for terrorists.”
He estimated they destroyed 25 or 26 homes.
When the killing in Buhriz ended, residents and the mayor of neighbouring Baquba counted at least 23 dead. Local Shia officials said terrorists killed any civilians. But ordinary citizens — Shia as well as Sunni — say regular people died at the hands of the militia.
The lawmaker Kinani confirmed that innocent people died in Buhriz at the hands of Sons of Iraq Shia paramilitaries but called it the cost of the need to expel ISIL from the area. “Yes of course civilians died. I am not defending the killing. ISIL is killing people, they are killing the [Shias]. They are killing even the Sunnis,” Kinani said. “When the Sons of Iraq entered the area, ... they were thinking of only killing ISIL, so there weren’t any war prisoners.”
Other Shias are horrified by what happened, and feel confused about how to face the threat of ISIL, who they now worry will over-run them. The lawmaker Kinani, other politicians and tribal figures say the Shia paramilitaries are now assisting the army around the Baghdad belt to fight the insurgency, in part due to desertions and the decimation of some army units. REUTERS
By Ned Parker, Ahmed Rasheed and Raheem Salman
The Sunni militants who seized the riverside town of Buhriz late last month stayed for several hours. The next morning, after the Sunnis had left, Iraqi security forces and dozens of Shia militia fighters arrived and marched from home to home in search of insurgents and sympathisers in this rural community, dotted by date palms and orange groves.
According to accounts by Shia tribal leaders, two eyewitnesses and politicians, what happened next was brutal.
“There were men in civilian clothes on motorcycles shouting ‘Ali is on your side’,” one man said, referring to a key figure in Shia tradition. “People started fleeing their homes, leaving behind the elders and young men and those who refused to leave. The militias then stormed the houses. They pulled out the young men and summarily executed them.”
The killings turned this town 35 miles northeast of Baghdad into a frontline in Iraq’s gathering sectarian war.
In Buhriz and other villages and towns encircling the capital, a pitched battle is underway between the emboldened Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the extremist Sunni group that has led a brutal insurgency around Baghdad for more than a year, and Iraqi security forces, who in recent months have employed Shia militias as shock troops.
On the eve of national elections on April 30, Iraq is fast returning to the horrors of its recent past. Security officials, tribal figures and politicians fear ISIL might choke off the capital as an earlier incarnation of the group did in the years following the American invasion. Then, Sunni extremists sent multiple car bombs into Baghdad on an almost daily basis, and killed Shias with impunity.
The vote this month and the race to form a new government will be contentious, with multiple Shia lists vying for the premiership — Sunnis and Kurds looking for plum posts — and Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki determined to stay in office.
Moderation is a rare commodity. Some of Iraq’s Sunni politicians have denied ISIL’s existence in Anbar and blamed all troubles on Maliki, even if it means ISIL continues to grow.
In turn, militia groups have joined the Iraqi military’s combat missions against the insurgents, and sent fighters to battle Sunni rebels in Syria.
Asaib Ahl Al Haq and Kata’ib Hezbollah, two groups once suppressed by the American military and sponsored by the Iranians, make up the bulk of the Shia militia fighters aiding the Iraqi security forces. According to three senior Shia politicians, individual Asaib and Kata’ib members and others now defend Baghdad as part of an organisation, attached to the prime minister’s military office, called the Sons of Iraq, a name formerly associated with Sunnis who battled Al Qaeda.
Maliki briefed senior Shia politicians about the new paramilitary group in a meeting about the war with ISIL on April 7, where he expressed frustration about the military’s performance fighting in cities and towns, according to two people who attended the session.
Maliki told senior Shia political figures that they had formed groups “of mujahedeen and Sons of Iraq ... on the periphery of Baghdad”; he called the fighters “better than the army” at “guerrilla warfare,” according to the meeting minutes read to Reuters and confirmed by a second person who attended.
Shia lawmaker Amir Al Kinani, a critic of Maliki, attended the session and said the group, which has been in existence for a year, was drawn primarily from the ranks of Asaib and Kata’ib.
“They have executed several operations in the belt of Baghdad and Diyala. They made qualitative operations there in Buhriz,” he said. “They are ... jihadists ready to die.” Others aware of the initiative described it as an effort to absorb Iraq’s armed Shia hardliners within the state.
Maliki’s spokesman denied any militias were fighting for the government or belonged to a new organisation that reports to him. “We don’t have people who kill themselves to kill others and are considered as martyrs,” said Ali Mussawi. “There is nothing like this.” The spokesman for police and military operations in Baghdad province also dismissed the accounts. “Such allegations are baseless and wrong, launched by those who were infuriated by the victories achieved by our security forces,” said Brigadier Saad Maan.
Asaib has also publicly denied any such involvement in the fighting in Iraq. But security officers, political figures and Shia and Sunni residents tell a different story. One volunteer fighter, who called himself Abbas, said he had joined the new Sons of Iraq and fought three months in Abu Ghraib. He said his battalion reported to the prime minister’s office of commander in chief. “We are all Shias, and when people learn we are Shias there to free them and fight against ISIL they welcomed us in,” Abbas said.
The person who introduced him said Abbas was from Asaib, but he said he was just a labourer who volunteered along with 750 mostly Shia young men from around western Baghdad.
The men had been gathered at an airport base in western Baghdad, and were then given military fatigues, M-16s and shipped to fight in a 750-strong battalion around Zaidan, west of Baghdad, and in Latifya, south of Baghdad, he said. He and others quit when the government did not pay them after three months, but he spoke proudly of combat operations.
“When we found [the terrorists] in a house, we killed them. We burned the house or demolished it. We burned those houses because we didn’t want them to be a shelter for terrorists.”
He estimated they destroyed 25 or 26 homes.
When the killing in Buhriz ended, residents and the mayor of neighbouring Baquba counted at least 23 dead. Local Shia officials said terrorists killed any civilians. But ordinary citizens — Shia as well as Sunni — say regular people died at the hands of the militia.
The lawmaker Kinani confirmed that innocent people died in Buhriz at the hands of Sons of Iraq Shia paramilitaries but called it the cost of the need to expel ISIL from the area. “Yes of course civilians died. I am not defending the killing. ISIL is killing people, they are killing the [Shias]. They are killing even the Sunnis,” Kinani said. “When the Sons of Iraq entered the area, ... they were thinking of only killing ISIL, so there weren’t any war prisoners.”
Other Shias are horrified by what happened, and feel confused about how to face the threat of ISIL, who they now worry will over-run them. The lawmaker Kinani, other politicians and tribal figures say the Shia paramilitaries are now assisting the army around the Baghdad belt to fight the insurgency, in part due to desertions and the decimation of some army units. REUTERS
