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Militants Claim Mass Execution of Iraqi Soldiers Militants Claim Mass Execution of Iraqi Forces
(about 14 hours later)
BAGHDAD — Militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria boasted on Twitter that they had executed 1,700 Iraqi government soldiers, posting gruesome photos to support their claim. BAGHDAD — Wielding the threat of sectarian slaughter, Sunni Islamist militants claimed on Sunday that they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite members of Iraq’s security forces, posting grisly pictures of a mass execution in Tikrit as evidence and warning of more killing to come.
The authenticity of the photographs and the insurgents’ claim could not be verified, and Iraqi government officials initially cast doubt on whether such a mass execution took place. There were also no reports of large numbers of funerals in the Salahuddin Province area, where the executions were said to have been conducted. Even as anecdotal reports of extrajudicial killings around the country seemed to bear out the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s intent to kill Shiites wherever it could, Iraqi officials and some human rights groups cautioned that the militants’ claim to have killed 1,700 soldiers in Tikrit could not be immediately verified.
If the claim is true, it would be the worst mass atrocity in either Syria or Iraq in recent years, surpassing even the chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian suburbs of Damascus last year, which killed 1,400 people and were attributed to the Syrian government. But with their claim, the Sunni militants were reveling in an atrocity that if confirmed would be the worst yet in the conflicts that roil the region, outstripping even the poison gas attack near Damascus last year.
The latest attack, if proved, would also raise the specter of the war in Iraq turning genocidal, particularly because the insurgents boasted that their victims were all Shiites. There were also fears that it could usher in a series of reprisal killings of Shiites and Sunnis, like those seen in the Iraq war in 2005-7. In an atmosphere where there were already fears that the militants’ sudden advance near the capital would prompt Shiite reprisal attacks against Sunni Arab civilians, the claims by ISIS were potentially explosive. And that is exactly the group’s stated intent: to stoke a return to all-out sectarian warfare that would bolster its attempts to carve out a Sunni Islamist caliphate that crosses borders through the region.
The office of the Shiites’ supreme spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Saturday night issued what amounted to a revision of the ayatollah’s call to arms on Friday, apparently out of concern that it was misinterpreted by many as a call for sectarian warfare. The sectarian element of the killings, and reports late Sunday that the city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, had also fallen, may put more pressure on the Obama administration to aid Iraq militarily. In fact, the militants seemed to be counting on it. A pronouncement on Sunday by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had a clear message for the United States: “Soon we will face you, and we are waiting for this day.”
The statement, billed as “clarifying the position on taking up arms,” implored Iraqis, “especially those living in mixed areas, to exert the highest level of self-restraint during this tumultuous period.” The group’s announcement was made in a series of gruesome photographs uploaded to an ISIS Twitter feed and on websites late on Saturday night. Some showed insurgents, many wearing black masks, lining up at the edges of what looked like shallow mass graves and apparently firing their weapons into young men who had their hands bound behind their backs and were packed closely together in large groups.
The claim of the mass execution appeared on a Twitter feed previously used for ISIS announcements, so whether or not the executions were genuine, the organization certainly intended to boast of them. The photographs showed what appeared to be seven massacre sites, although several of them may have been different views of the same sites. In any one of the pictures, no more than about 60 victims could be seen and sometimes as few as 20 at each of the sites, although it was not clear if the photographs showed the entire graves.
The militants’ captions seemed tailor-made to ignite anger and fear among Shiites. “The filthy Shiites are killed in the hundreds,” one read. “The liquidation of the Shiites who ran away from their military bases,” read another, and, “This is the destiny of Maliki’s Shiites,” referring to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
Many of the captions mocked the victims. In one photograph, showing a group of young men walking toward an apparent execution site, where armed masked men awaited, the caption read, “Look at them walking to death on their own feet.”
So far, Iraq’s majority Shiites were not rising to the bait. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, their supreme religious leader, issued a statement on Saturday calling for all groups to “exert the highest possible level of self-restraint during this tumultuous period.” And there was little immediate public reaction to the ISIS claims in Baghdad or other southern Iraqi cities.
A senior Iraqi government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make press statements, said news of the executions was slow to circulate because Twitter and other social media sites had been blocked for days. “I don’t doubt they are real, but 1,700 is a big number,” he said. “We are trying to control the reaction.”
Acutely aware of the potential for retaliatory violence, some government officials who had heard about the ISIS claims took pains to play them down, confirming only that some executions had taken place in Tikrit, but not on a large scale.
One Iraqi security official claimed that no more than 11 bodies of executed soldiers were recovered from the Tigris River downstream from the execution site, a group of six and a group of five, although he confirmed that 800 soldiers had been taken prisoner in the area. He also reported finding 17 bodies washed up against a dam near Samarra, another city the militants are fighting for. But he said, “There is no such superstitious number as 1,700 people executed.”
An official statement posted on the Ministry of Defense’s website denied the executions had taken place at all.
Still, other officials and human rights representatives, while cautioning that they could not confirm the full 1,700 number being claimed, said that ISIS had shown no compunctions against hunting Shiites. And they reiterated that such horrific claims would go to further the group’s intent to sow chaos.
“We’re trying to verify the pics, and I am not convinced they are authentic,” said Erin Evers, the Human Rights Watch researcher in Iraq. “As far as ISIS claiming it has killed 1,700 people and publishing horrific photos to support that claim, it is unfortunately in keeping with their pattern of commission of atrocities, and obviously intended to further fuel sectarian war.”“We’re trying to verify the pics, and I am not convinced they are authentic,” said Erin Evers, the Human Rights Watch researcher in Iraq. “As far as ISIS claiming it has killed 1,700 people and publishing horrific photos to support that claim, it is unfortunately in keeping with their pattern of commission of atrocities, and obviously intended to further fuel sectarian war.”
News was slow to circulate in Iraq, however, since the government last week blocked social network sites, including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Col. Suhail al-Samaraie, head of the Awakening Council in Samarra, a pro-government Sunni grouping, confirmed that officials in Salahuddin Province were aware that large-scale executions had taken place, but did not know how many. “They are targeting anyone working with the government side, any place, anywhere,” he said. He said the insurgents were targeting both Sunnis and Shiites, anyone with a government affiliation, but claiming for propaganda reasons that the victims were all Shiites.
An Iraqi military intelligence official confirmed that the military was aware of the reported executions in Salahuddin Province, which includes the key city of Tikrit, but he did not know how many there were. He spoke on the condition of anonymity in line with his agency’s rules. A New York Times employee in Tikrit said local residents saw hundreds of Iraqi military personnel captured when they tried to flee Camp Speicher, a former American military base and airfield now used as an air force training center on the edge of Tikrit. It is still in government hands.
Col. Suhail al-Samaraie, head of the Awakening Council in Samarra, a pro-government Sunni grouping, also confirmed that officials in Salahuddin were aware of large-scale executions having taken place last week, but he did not know how many. “They are targeting anyone working with the government side, anyplace, anywhere,” he said. He said the insurgents were targeting anyone with a government affiliation, whether Sunni or Shiite. Most of those captured were air force cadets, the employee said. Those who were Sunnis were given civilian clothes and sent home; the Shiites were marched and trucked off to the grounds of Saddam Hussein’s old palace in Tikrit, where they reportedly were executed. He added that the bodies had been dumped in the Tigris River, which runs by the palace compound.
One of those executed by the insurgents was a police colonel named Ibrahim al-Jabouri, a Sunni official in charge of the criminal investigation division in Tikrit, according to Mr. Samaraie. The ISIS photographs appeared to have been taken at that location, the employee said. However, he said he had not spoken to any witnesses who claimed to have seen the executions or the victims’ bodies.
A local journalist familiar with the Iraqi military in Salahuddin Province said the Fourth Iraqi Army Division had collapsed as the insurgents advanced last week, and 4,000 soldiers were believed to have been captured. Local reports said many of the victims were Sunnis as well as Shiites, he added. Ryan C. Crocker, a former ambassador to Iraq and a critic of America’s 2011 withdrawal from that nation after the two countries failed to sign a mutual security pact, said the atrocity claims, proven or not, made it more urgent than ever for Washington to become involved.
A New York Times employee in Tikrit said by telephone that residents spoke of seeing hundreds of prisoners captured when they tried to flee Camp Speicher, a former American military base and airfield on the edge of Tikrit that was turned into an Iraqi training center. Those who were Sunnis were given civilian clothes and sent home; the Shiites were taken to the grounds of Saddam Hussein’s old palace in Tikrit, where they were said to be executed, their bodies dumped in the Tigris River, which runs by the palace compound. “What this administration has to do is get John Kerry on a plane right now, like we did when I was there, and sit down with Shia, Sunni and Kurdish leaders and help them get to a position of declared national unity. Iraqis have to stand together now,” Mr. Crocker said. Regarding the massacres, he said, “Whatever it is, however many people, it’s clearly an effort to ignite an Iraqi civil war.”
The ISIS photographs appeared to have been taken at that location. However, the Times employee said he had not spoken to any witnesses who claimed to have seen the executions or bodies. Political analysts here mostly agreed about the militants’ intent. “The problem now is that you are dealing with emotions and ISIS is trying to provoke the other side to take revenge,” said Ameer Jabbar al-Sa’aedi, a Baghdad-based analyst. “There are extremists among the Shia, too, and if they respond, they could begin killing and not exclude anyone. It would be just like what happened in 2006.”
The still photographs uploaded on the ISIS Twitter feed were bloody and gruesome, showing the insurgents, many wearing black masks, lining up at the edges of what looked like hastily dug mass graves and apparently firing their weapons into groups of young men who were bound and packed closely together in large groups. Even though Ayatollah Sistani’s statement over the weekend was intended to call for restraint on the part of Shiites, it came after his call just a day before for every Iraqi to take up arms to support the government.
The photographs showed at least five massacre sites, with the victims lying in shallow mass graves with their hands tied behind their backs. The number of victims that could be seen in any of the pictures numbered between 20 and 60 in each of the sites, although it was not clear whether the photographs showed the entire graves. Some appeared to be long ditches. That appeal was expected to greatly accelerate the formation of volunteer groups to supplement Shiite militias — nominally to fight alongside the Iraqi Army. But during the worst of the sectarian bloodletting in Iraq, from 2005 through 2007, some such Shiite groups were deeply involved in violence that was killing as many as 1,000 civilians each week.
The photographs showed the executioners flying the ISIS black flag, with captions such as “the filthy Shiites are killed in the hundreds,” “The liquidation of the Shiites who ran away from their military bases,” and “This is the destiny of Maliki’s Shiites,” referring to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. One militia leader, Abu Bakr al-Zubaidi, from a group called Asaib Al Haq, a hard-line offshoot of the Mahdi Army militia, said he was not surprised to hear of the executions.
Many of the captions were viciously mocking toward the purported victims. In one photograph, showing 25 young men walking toward an apparent execution site, where armed, masked men awaited, the caption read, “Look at them walking to death on their own feet.” “ISIS regards Shia as their eternal enemy, and they will kill whoever falls in their hands who is Shia, whether they are soldiers, grocers or even singers,” he said. “Our response to that is there will not be any living ISIS prisoner.”
And another showed a couple hundred prisoners, all of whom had been made to stand, bent over from the waist with their hands clasped behind their backs, as armed men guarded them. All were in civilian clothes, and the caption claimed they had jettisoned their uniforms. “They were lions in uniform, and now they are just ostriches,” it read.
Other photographs showed prisoners, mostly young men, stuffed in large numbers in dump trucks and pickup trucks. They appeared extremely frightened.
A senior Iraqi government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make press statements, said news of the executions was slow to circulate because Twitter had been blocked. “I don’t doubt they are real, but 1,700 is a big number,” he said. “We are trying to control the reaction. They are trying to bring back the 2005 to 2006 days.” Sunni and Shiite militias engaged in a wave of tit-for-tat killings of civilians during that period, killing tens of thousands.
Ayatollah Sistani’s statement late Saturday came only one day after his office had said it was the duty of every Iraqi to take up arms to support the government, which greatly accelerated the formation of volunteer groups, supplementing Shiite militias and planning to support the Iraqi Army.
Adamant that his words on Friday not be taken as a starting bell for a repeat of that period of bloody sectarian fighting or potentially something even more brutal, Ayatollah Sistani used plain language to make clear that he was opposed to and would condemn any sectarian behavior.
All citizens need “to steer clear from sectarian and untamed nationalistic discourse that is of detriment to Iraq’s national unity,” he said.
Both the Iraqi military and the informal Shiite militias already appear to have embraced each other, and in at least some cases, militia commanders are already working inside Iraqi Army bases, blurring the line between the government troops and informal squads of gunmen — some of whom may wear government uniforms but are not army soldiers.
Such groupings in 2005 to 2007 were responsible for much of the sectarian bloodletting, when as many as 1,000 civilians were being killed every week.