Rico's rants: Whacking ISIS

25 July 2017

Whacking ISIS

Rico's friend Kelley forwards this Yahoo article by Jesse Chase-Lubitz from Foreign Policy Magazine:

An execution site has been discovered in the Iraqi city of Mosul, Human Rights Watch says, citing it as the latest evidence of retribution carried out by government forces after the defeat of Islamic State extremists.
International observers found the execution site in western Mosul on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch reported. When international observers, trusted by Human Rights Watch, visited the site, which consists of an empty building taken by Iraqi forces in April, they found seventeen male corpses in pools of blood. A senior government official told the international observers that “he was comfortable with the execution of suspected ISIS-affiliates, as long as there was no torture.”
ISIS has killed thousands of people while fighting between Islamic State forces and Iraqi soldiers has demolished large parts of the city, in which almost a million people once lived. Yet, as Iraqi forces celebrate their victory over the terrorist group, there are increasing reports of war crimes.
A video of Iraqi troops throwing an unarmed fighter from a high ledge was also released. These crimes are not solely against ISIS fighters however, and some accounts include attacks against their families as well.
Human Rights Watch has found and documented at least twelve hundred men and boys detained, and sometimes tortured and executed, under inhuman conditions by Iraqi forces. No Iraqi forces, some of whom are publicizing the murder and torture of suspected ISIS soldiers, have been charged.
ISIS hasn’t even been defeated in full yet but, as Iraqi forces begin to take the upper hand, Sunni Muslims are now the target of the country’s anger. Attacks against Sunni Muslims who once lived in ISIS-controlled areas have been underway since January, with families reportedly being targeted in densely populated areas.
“If we’re to keep ISIS 2.0 from emerging, the Iraqi government is going to have to do something pretty significantly different,” said American Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, commander of US-led coalition fighting ISIS, according to the BBC. “They’re going to have to reach out and reconcile with the Sunni population, and make them feel like their government in Baghdad represents them.”