Videos appear to show Iraq troops killing IS detainees

BAGHDAD: Videos allegedly shot in the Mosul area appear to show Iraqi security personnel executing a detainee and brutally beating others, Human Rights Watch said on Friday.

Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State group in Mosul earlier this week after a nearly ninemonth battle that ravaged the city and took a heavy toll on residents and security forces.

The videos “appear to show Iraqi soldiers and federal police beating and extrajudicially killing detainees”, the rights group said in a statement.

In one video, men in Iraqi army uniforms beat a bearded detainee, drag him to the edge of a cliff, throw him off and shoot him and another body at the bottom.

HRW said it had located the site of the first video using satellite imagery, but was not able to confirm where three other clips were filmed.

“In the final weeks of the battle for west Mosul, I observed firsthand the desire of armed forces to get the battle wrapped up as quickly as possible,” HRW’s senior Iraq researcher Belkis Wille said. This was accompanied by “what seems to be a resulting decline in their respect for the laws of war”, she said, calling on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to launch investigations.

IS overran Mosul in the summer of 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since regained much of the territory they lost.

Abuses by security forces now are a boon to IS, which is likely to increasingly revert to bombings and hit- and-run attacks as its cross-border statehood project continues to fall apart. AFP