Iraq troops watched as Shiite militiamen executed 72 Sunnis

BAGHDAD: Survivors tell the same story: They were taken from their homes by men in uniform; heads down and linked together, then led in small groups to a field, made to kneel, and selected to be shot one by one.

Accounts by five witnesses interviewed separately by Reuters provide a picture of alleged executions in the eastern village of Barwanah on Monday, which residents and provincial officials say left at least 72 unarmed Iraqis dead.

The witnesses identified the killers as a collection of Shiite militias and security force elements.

Iraqi security and government officials have disputed the accounts, with some saying radicals from Islamic State could have perpetrated the killings.

The government said on Wednesday it was opening a probe into the killings.

“The prime minister has ordered an urgent investigation and we are awaiting the results,” said Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi’s spokesman, Rafid Jaboori. “I don’t want to come to any conclusions now. When the results of this investigation come out, we will have a full picture.”

Monday’s alleged massacre followed a three-day offensive in which Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces captured two dozen villages from Islamic State near the town of Muqdadiya in Diyala province.

Since September, hundreds of civilians have fled to Barwanah’s relative safety from fighting in Sinsil, about 5 km to the southwest, and other nearby villages.

Abu Omar, a businessman displaced from Sinsil, was at home in Barwanah on Monday around 3:30 p.m. when about 10 Humvees arrived carrying a few dozen men. Black and brown uniforms suggested some were affiliated with Shiite militias and government security forces; others appeared to be civilians.

They dragged residents up to age 70 from their homes, beating and cursing them with sectarian slurs, Abu Omar told Reuters by phone.

He said the fighters took the men’s mobiles and ID cards, then bound their hands, tying Abu Omar to his 12-year-old mentally ill son with rope. They did the same with his two older sons and three brothers.

The men were led a few hundred yards to a field where Abu Omar said more than a hundred others had been gathered.

For about two hours, they were forced to kneel and stare at the ground as the fighters selected their targets and led them to a spot behind a mud wall.

“They took them behind the wall. Less than a minute, then a gunshot,” said Abu Omar. “All we could hear was the gunshots. We couldn’t see.”

Survivors say victims were taken also to alleyways, houses, behind a mosque, or an area used to collect garbage, and then shot. Abu Maz’el, 25, a farmer from Sinsil who was displaced to Barwanah five months ago, gave Reuters nearly identical testimony. He said some of the fighters wore green headbands emblazoned with the name Hussein.

They took him and his cousin from their home to the field, walking single file, heads down, with their hands on the other men’s shoulders.

Kneeling beside his 35-year-old cousin, Abu Maz’el heard others beg for their lives as the gunmen dragged them off and shot them. “My cousin raised his head, so someone slapped him,” he said. “Five minutes later, they came and took him away and executed him.”

Monday’s alleged massacre happened in the presence of Iraqi security forces, compounding Sunni doubts about Baghdad’s control over the militias, which took the lead in battling Islamic State after the Iraqi army nearly collapsed last summer.

Abdullah Al-Jubouri, a 23-year-old college graduate fled when he saw Humvees entering Barwanah and hid in a pile of garbage. He watched as a group of soldiers and militiamen near the school fired at a line of 13 men, some with their hands bound. “I saw them falling like domino pieces,” he said.