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44 Sunni Prisoners Killed as Iraqi Violence Spreads As Sunnis Die in Iraq, a Cycle Is Restarting
(about 4 hours later)
BAGHDAD — The first signs of sectarian reprisal killings of Sunnis appeared in Iraq on Tuesday, as 44 Sunni prisoners were killed in a government-controlled police station in Baquba, north of Baghdad, and the bodies of four young men who had been shot were found dumped on a street in a Baghdad neighborhood controlled by Shiite militiamen. BAGHDAD — As Sunni militants rampaged across northern Iraq last week, executing Iraqi soldiers and government workers and threatening to demolish Shiism’s most sacred shrines, Iraq’s Shiites suffered mostly in silence, maintaining a patience urged on them by their religious leaders through months of deadly bombings.
A police source in Baquba said the prisoners were killed after militants who had been advancing on Baquba attacked the police station, where the men, who were suspected of having ties to the militants, were being held for questioning. On Tuesday, though, there were signs that their patience had run out.
The bodies of 44 Sunni prisoners were found in a government-controlled police station in Baquba, about 40 miles north of Baghdad. They had all been shot Monday night in the head or chest. Then the remains of four young men who had been shot were found dumped Tuesday on a street in a Baghdad neighborhood controlled by Shiite militiamen.
By evening, it was Shiites who were the victims again, as a suicide bombing in a crowded market in Sadr City killed at least 14 people, local hospital officials said.
It is a darkly familiar cycle of violence, one that took hold in Iraq in 2006 and generated a vicious sectarian war over the next three years: Sunni extremists explode suicide bombs in Shiite neighborhoods, and Shiite militias retaliate by torturing and executing Sunnis. This time, though, without the presence of the American military, it has the potential to grow much worse.
That bloodletting was stopped in 2008 only after Iraqi tribal leaders in the pay of the American military rebelled against the Sunni extremists. With Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki now encouraging what he says are hundreds of thousands of Shiites to rise to the defense of Iraq, and after years of sectarian government that has deeply alienated the tribes as well as the Sunnis, it is not clear that such a strategy, if tried, would meet with the same success.
“If there is no fast solution to what is happening, the situation will go back to daily attacks and will return to what happened back in 2006,” said Masroor Aswad, a member of the Independent Human Rights Commission here. He said the minority Sunnis were terrified that they would be blamed for any violence against Shiites, leaving them vulnerable to brutal retaliatory attacks from the Shiite militias.
In Baquba, the killings took place after an assault in which militants aligned with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria overran several neighborhoods, security officials there said. A police source said the Sunni militants attacked the police station where the men, suspected of ties to the insurgents, were being held for questioning.
“Those people were detainees who were arrested in accordance with Article 4 terrorism offenses,” he said, referring to Iraqi antiterrorism legislation that gives security forces extraordinary arrest powers. “They were killed inside the jail by the policemen before they withdrew from the station last night.”“Those people were detainees who were arrested in accordance with Article 4 terrorism offenses,” he said, referring to Iraqi antiterrorism legislation that gives security forces extraordinary arrest powers. “They were killed inside the jail by the policemen before they withdrew from the station last night.”
Militants aligned with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, on Monday night took several neighborhoods in Baquba, which is just 44 miles from Baghdad, according to security officials in Baquba. Brig. Gen. Jameel Kamal al-Shimmari, the police commander in Baquba, said that officers had repulsed the militants from the city after a three-hour gun battle in the same area as the police station where the prisoners were subsequently killed.
Brig. Gen. Jameel Kamal al-Shimmari, the police commander in Baquba, said that officers had repulsed the militants after a three-hour gun battle. “Everything in the city is now under control, and the groups of armed men are not seen in the city,” General Shimmari said on Tuesday. “Everything in the city is now under control, and the groups of armed men are not seen in the city,” General Shimmari said on Tuesday.
Officials at the morgue in Baquba said that two policemen had been killed in the fighting. Officials at the morgue in Baquba said that two police officers had been killed in the fighting.
ISIS claimed in a Twitter post on a feed associated with the militants that the prisoners had been executed by the police. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria claimed in a Twitter post that the prisoners had been executed by the police.
An Iraqi government military spokesman, Gen. Qassim Atta, blamed the deaths in Baquba on the militants, saying the prisoners died when the station was struck with hand grenades and mortars. However, a source at the morgue in Baquba said that many of the victims had been shot to death at close range. Like many of the official sources in Iraq, he spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. An Iraqi military spokesman, Gen. Qassim Atta, blamed the deaths in Baquba on the militants, saying the prisoners died when the station was struck with hand grenades and mortars. However, a source at the morgue in Baquba said that many of the victims had been shot to death at close range. Like many of the official sources in Iraq, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
In eastern Baghdad, the bodies of four young men were found without identity documents on a street in the Benuk neighborhood on Tuesday morning. They were believed to have been Sunnis, because the area is controlled by Shiite militiamen. The area is largely Shiite but also includes Sunnis, and no one had initially claimed the young men’s bodies, according to a police source in the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad. The fighting in Baquba was particularly worrying, because it represented the closest the rebel group and its allies have come to the capital. After capturing Mosul a week ago, the group has advanced more than 230 miles, mostly down the valley of the Tigris River. Baquba, and the surrounding province of Diyala, is a volatile mix of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, and was the scene of some of the worst sectarian violence in past years.
The victims were between 25 and 30 years old and had been shot numerous times, he said. As the fighting creeps closer to Baghdad, the offensive is being led not just by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria but by fighters drawn from other Sunni militant groups — the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the Islamic Army, according to an Iraqi intelligence source. Both of those groups have long had a presence in Diyala Province and were involved in some of the bloodiest fighting during the past sectarian battles. The 1920s Brigades was formed by disaffected Iraqi army officers who were left without jobs after the Americans dissolved the military in 2003.
The killings fit the pattern of death squads during the sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007 at the height of the American-led invasion. Bodies would be dumped in streets and empty lots after execution-style killings, often without identity documents. Many of these extrajudicial killings, as well as kidnappings, were the work of Shiite militias, often in cooperation with the Shiite-dominated police force, although Shiites living in Sunni neighborhoods were killed as well. At the peak of the violence, as many as 80 bodies a day were found in Baghdad and its immediate suburbs. Throughout Baghdad, residents expressed fears that the violence was finding its way back into their neighborhoods. “You see gunmen in the street, you don’t know who is who,” said Ahmad al-Kharabai, who has a small hardware store in Al-Adil, a mixed neighborhood in southern Baghdad where Sunnis live mainly on one side of the main road and Shiites live mainly on the other.
The fighting in Baquba was particularly worrying, because it represented the closest that ISIS and its allies have come to the capital. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has encouraged what he has said are hundreds of thousands of volunteers — nearly all of them Shiites — to join with Shiite militias in the defense of Iraq against the Sunni extremists. “You don’t know who is with you, and who’s against you,” he said.
After capturing Mosul a week ago, ISIS has advanced more than 230 miles, mostly down the valley of the Tigris River toward Baghdad. The militants also took the northwestern city of Tal Afar on Monday, apparently consolidating their gains around Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. On Tuesday, the militants were reported to have attacked the village of Basheer, nine miles south of Kirkuk, according to Reuters. Many militiamen have come into the neighborhood, and although they do not visibly carry guns, no one doubts they have them. Still Mr. Kharabai said he was hopeful that Iraq would not devolve into a cycle of revenge killings. “I think Iraqis know the mistake they made in 2006 and will not repeat it,” he said.
Angered at what he has called a conspiracy by all of Iraq’s enemies to destroy the country, Mr. Maliki has lashed out at fellow Arab states with Sunni majorities, particularly Saudi Arabia, accusing them of fomenting the insurgency in neighboring Syria that has nourished the growth of ISIS. On Tuesday Mr. Maliki was reported to have dismissed security force commanders whom he blamed for allowing ISIS fighters to seize territory in northern Iraq over the past week. Mohammed al-Gailani, who owns a grocery shop in the largely Sunni neighborhood of Dora, was more pessimistic.
The Obama administration, increasingly exasperated with Mr. Maliki, took exception on Tuesday to his allegation about the Saudis. Jen. Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman in Washington, described it as inaccurate and “offensive.” “People are afraid, we are afraid of the militiamen around; I think things will go as badly as they did before,” he said, adding that he was desperate to leave with his family for Turkey but that flights were booked for weeks. A travel agent refused even to estimate how long it would take to get him and his five children and wife on a plane
White House officials also announced that on Wednesday Mr. Obama would hold meeting on Iraq with congressional leaders, who are increasingly concerned about the administration’s strategy in dealing with the crisis. Mr. Obama, who declared the Iraq war over when the last American troops left at the end of 2011, has repeatedly said he would not drag the United States into another conflict in the country. But on Monday he announced that 275 members of the American military were deploying to Iraq to protect the American Embassy in Baghdad. Mr. Gailani’s greatest fear is that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will gain ground. “Any gain by ISIS will have a negative effect on Sunnis here,” he said.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, said Mr. Boehner expected Mr. Obama “to offer a coherent strategy to ensure that Iraq does not descend further into lawless barbarism.” In eastern Baghdad, the bodies of four young men were found without identity documents on a street in the Benuk neighborhood on Tuesday morning. They were believed to have been Sunnis, because the area is controlled by Shiite militiamen. The area is largely Shiite but also includes Sunnis, and no one had initially claimed the young men’s bodies, an Interior Ministry official said. The victims were 25 to 30 years old and had been shot multiple times, he said.
“We spent years, vast sums of money, and – most importantly – thousands of American lives to improve Iraq’s security and make America safer," Mr. Boehner's spokesman said. “Squandering that legacy would be a tragic mistake.” The killings fit the pattern of Shite death squads during the sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007, at the height of the American-led invasion. At the peak of the violence, as many as 80 bodies a day were found in Baghdad and its immediate suburbs.
Baquba, and the surrounding province of Diyala, is a mixed Sunni and Shiite area and was the scene of some of the worst sectarian violence in past years. As the fighting creeps closer to Baghdad, the offensive is being led by Sunni fighters drawn from other Sunni militant groups, the 1920 Revolution Brigades and the Islamic Army, in alliance with ISIS, according to an Iraqi intelligence source. Both of those groups have long had a presence in Diyala Province and were involved in some of the bloodiest fighting during the past sectarian battles. The 1920s Brigades were formed by disaffected Iraqi Army officers who were left without jobs after the Americans dissolved the military in 2003. The situation was highly fluid on Tuesday, with the Iraqi Army focused on trying to win back some of the ground it had lost. By late Tuesday, government officials said they had regained the northern city of Tal Afar, which the militants had taken just a day earlier. The fight went on for 48 hours and was helped by an air drop of reinforcements, said a local Turkmen leader, Fawzi Akram Terzi.
Residents of Baquba said they feared a renewal of sectarian warfare. “The violence in Baquba will lead to civil war because the villages that surrounded Baquba are Shiite,” said Jassim al-Ubaidi, a lawyer in Baquba. However, there had not yet been any official government announcement of the recapture of the city.
Shiites are fearful, said Jaafer al-Rubaie, a retired government official. “We are afraid of a massacre of the Shiite minority if the security situation collapses.” The Iraqi government issued a statement accusing Saudi Arabia of funding the Sunni extremists, as Mr. Maliki continued to offer explanations for the stunningsuccess of the Sunni extremists that do not focus on his leadership. The statement drew almost immediate criticism from the United States, with Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, describing it as inaccurate and “offensive.”
In Geneva, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, expressed fears that the fighting could ignite sectarian violence across the region and called on Iraq’s government to become more inclusive.
“There is a real risk of further sectarian violence on a massive scale within Iraq and beyond its borders,” Mr. Ban said, expressing his concern over the reports of mass executions by forces linked to ISIS.
Mr. Ban said he had been urging Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, to “reach out” and engage in an inclusive dialogue. “What is important is that the Iraqi government should have one state, whether it is Sunni or Shiite or Kurds,” he said. Mr. Ban also said he was trying to accelerate the search for a successor to Lakhdar Brahimi, who resigned at the end of May as the United Nations and Arab League mediator on Syria. “I will try to minimize the vacuum” left by Mr. Brahimi’s departure, Mr. Ban said.