New evidence against DAESH
UN team cites progress
UNITED NATIONS, May 19, (AP): A UN investigative team says it has made “significant progress” in collecting new sources of evidence in Iraq against Islamic State extremists, including over 2 million call records that should strengthen cases against perpetrators of crimes against the Yazidi minority in 2014.
The team also reported progress in its investigations of the mass killings of unarmed cadets and military personnel from the Tikrit Air Academy in June 2014 and crimes committed by Islamic State extremists in Mosul from 2014 to 2016.
In a report to the UN Security Council obtained by The Associated Press, the investigative team said it is continuing to engage with the Iraqi government on pending legislation that would allow the country to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide allegedly committed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIL.
“In the coming six months, the team will continue its work with the government of Iraq in order to capitalize on this opportunity, with a view to securing the commencement of domestic proceedings based on evidence collected by the team,” the report said.
The Islamic State group’s self-declared “caliphate” that once spanned a third of both Iraq and Syria, has been defeated on the ground but its fighters are still staging insurgent attacks. The atrocities its fighters and supporters committed have left deep scars. Thousands of members of Iraq’s Yazidi minority, mainly women and girls, were raped and enslaved, while men were killed. Suspected homosexuals were pushed off roofs to their deaths. Captured Americans and other Westerners were beheaded, and an unknown number of suspected opponents were killed.
A Security Council resolution backed by more than 60 countries to refer the Syrian conflict to the International Criminal Court was vetoed by both Russia and China in May 2014.
The General Assembly established an independent panel in December 2016 to assist in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for war crimes or crimes against humanity in Syria.
In September 2017, the Security Council voted unanimously to ask the UN to establish an investigative team to help Iraq preserve evidence and promote accountability for what “may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide” committed by Islamic State extremists, both in Iraq and the Levant which includes Syria.
The latest report by the investigative team said that as a result of its expanded cooperation with the Iraqi judiciary, security services and Directorate of Military Intelligence, it stands “at a pivotal moment in its work.”
Cooperation with the Iraqi judiciary in obtaining call data records and with Iraqi security services in extracting and analyzing data from cellphones, SIM cards and mass storage devices previously used by ISIL “have the potential to represent a paradigm shift in the prosecution of ISIL members,” the investigators said.
The data has provided “access to a wide range of internal ISIL documents, cell data, videos and images,” they said.
The team said it is already identifying evidence that can fill gaps in ongoing proceedings as a result of the cell phone data as well as from putting documents held by Iraqi authorities in digital form, and using enhanced discovery and evidence-management systems.
In its investigation of attacks committed by IS against the Yazidis in Sinjar district in August 2014, the team said the recent receipt of more than 2 million call data records from Iraqi cell phone service providers “relevant to time periods and geographic locations connected to this investigation provides a significant opportunity to strengthen case files in relation to alleged perpetrators.”
Scars Also:
BAGHDAD: A rocket struck Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq’s government, early on Tuesday morning, according to an Iraqi military statement, the first attack on the area since a new prime minister was sworn in earlier this month.
The Katyusha rocket hit an empty house, causing minor damages. The Green Zone is where government buildings and foreign embassies are located. A preliminary investigation indicated the rocket was launched from the nearby by Al-Idrisi neighborhood on Palestine Street, the statement said.
Previous attacks have frequently targeted the US presence in Iraq, including the US Embassy and Iraqi bases hosting American troops. The US has blamed Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia group backed by Iran, of perpetrating the attacks.
The new administration of Prime Minister Mustafa alKadhimi, who came to power earlier this month, is preparing for a strategic dialogue with Washington, expected to take place next month. The talks will touch on security and economic cooperation between both countries.
The issue of militias acting outside of state control is also expected to be on the agenda.
An angry mob stormed the offices of a Saudi-owned channel in Iraq on Monday following the airing of a television show that suggested Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, killed in a US strike earlier this year, was involved in orchestrating an attack in Lebanon nearly 40 years ago.
Saudi channel MBC 1 aired a show on Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, which mentioned that his Iraqi wife was killed in the 1981 bombing of the Iraqi Embassy in Beirut
during the Lebanese civil war.
The show suggested a link in that attack to Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed in the January US drone strike in Baghdad. The attack also killed Iranian Gen Qassem Soleimani.
The airing of the show prompted outcry from dozens of angry Iraqis who stormed the office of the television channel located in the Al-Waziriya district, north of the Iraqi capital.
Al-Muhandis was the deputy leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces, an array of militia groups created to help defeat the Islamic State group. Some militia groups within the PMF have links to Iran.