Iraqi militias have destroyed villages and displaced thousands, NGO says

Iraq’s security forces and Shia militias destroyed entire villages and displaced thousands of Sunni civilians in a campaign against Islamic State in northern Iraq last autumn, a rights watchdog has said.
The new report by Human Rights Watch comes at a sensitive time for Iraq, where pro-government forces led by Shia militias and backed by the army and Sunni tribal fighters are close to recapturing Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit from Isis.
“Iraq can’t win the fight against Isis’s atrocities with attacks on civilians that violate the laws of war and fly in the face of human decency,” said Joe Stork, HRW’s deputy Middle East and north Africa director.
“Militia abuses are wreaking havoc among some of Iraq’s most vulnerable people and exacerbating sectarian hostilities.”
Iraqi officials have insisted that this latest offensive is different in that it is being carried out with the participation of Sunni tribes opposed to Isis, and that the militias have clear instructions not to carry out revenge attacks against civilians and to hand over suspected collaborators to the government.

They say the campaign will prioritise the return of civilians who fled the battlefield to rebuild their shattered homes. There have been no allegations of widespread abuses by the militias in the Tikrit campaign so far.
Nevertheless, the latest accusations will heighten fears of sectarian reprisals as the pro-government forces remain poised to reach Tikrit’s city centre and begin plans for a much wider offensive against Mosul, Isis’s crown jewel in Iraq that it seized in a lightning advance last summer and which has more than 1 million civilians.
HRW said that militias, volunteer fighters and Iraqi security forces had engaged in “deliberate destruction of civilian property” around the northern town of Amerli, in Salahuddin province.
The pro-government forces, backed by American air strikes, had pushed back an Isis advance in the area in September last year.
In the 31-page report, HRW accused the militias of looting the property of Sunni civilians who fled the fighting, burning homes and businesses and destroying at least two entire villages, as well as abducting 11 men during the operation in September and October.
The rights watchdog said it conducted field visits, analysis of satellite imagery, interviews with victims and witnesses and photo and video evidence to reach its conclusions.
It said the Iraqi government should rein in the militias and called on the US and Iran, which is backing some of the volunteer forces, to ensure that their support does not pave the way to abuses.
“The prime minister takes seriously any reports on human rights violations,” Rafid Jaboori, the spokesman of the Iraqi premier, Haidar al-Abadi, told the Guardian.
“He made clear time and again that Iraqi forces and popular mobilisation forces must respect and protect human rights.”
Abadi was sworn in after pro-government forces established control over Amerli, breaking a two-month siege. Jaboori said the ongoing operations against Isis aimed to “liberate the people, not only the land” and said Abadi has ordered investigations into past, credible accusations.
“There is zero tolerance on any human rights violations no matter who committed them and against whom,” he said.
The allegations came as the pro-government forces halted the offensive in Tikrit, awaiting reinforcements and a plan on how to seize the city centre, which contains thousands of IEDs and booby traps laid down by Isis militants.