HRW: Iraqi Militias Looted Villages After Routing IS From Amerli
▻http://www.rferl.org/content/islamic-state-iraqi-militias-looting-villages/26907394.html
Iraqi Shi’ite militias looted and destroyed villages in the wake of a September ground offensive to rout Islamic State (IS) gunmen near Amerli in Salah Ad-Din Province, Human Rights Watch (HRW) claim in a report published on March 18.
The offensive to clear Islamic State militants from Amerli, a Shi’ite Turkoman and Sunni Arab town, followed air strikes by the Iraqi Air Force and the U.S.-led coalition, and culminated in a ground operation by around 6,000 pro-government Shi’a militias, Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Iraqi troops.
After clearing Islamic State militants from the area, Shi’ite militias raided 47 predominantly Sunni villages, according to Peshmerga officers interviewed by HRW. Residents said that fighters from the Badr Brigades, Asaib Ahl Al-Haqq, Kataib Hezbollah and Saraya Tala’a Al-Khorasani destroyed villages in a 50-kilometer stretch between Al-Khales in southern Diyala Province and Amerli in Salah Ad-Din Province.
The Peshmerga officers said the Shi’ite militias had attacked and destroyed homes, mosques, businesses and public buildings. The officers and local tribal sheikhs said that they saw militia fighters taking valuable items like refrigerators and televisions out of houses before burning down the homes.
HRW said that satellite imagery it has obtained supports testimony from witnesses, who said that the militias and Iraqi government forces had raided the same villages where they had fought Islamic State militants before routing the group from Amerli.