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| Iraq |
| Iraq's Shiite militias killed 70 civilians after IS rollback: Sunni leaders |
| 2015-01-28 |
| [ARABNEWS] Sunni politicians and tribal chiefs from Iraq's eastern Diyala province accused Shiite militias on Monday of killing more than 70 unarmed civilians who had fled festivities with Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... krazed killers. Interior Ministry front man Brig. Gen. Saad Maan denied the claims, saying IS was trying to undermine the reputation of Iraqi security forces. A local Shiite official said it was too soon to draw conclusions and suggested IS could have been behind the deaths in the eastern village of Barwanah. The accusations followed a three-day offensive in which Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias captured two dozen villages from Islamic State fighters in Diyala. The assault, which began on Friday, enabled Shiite militias, the Iraqi army and Sunni rustics to push the gunnies out of the Muqdadiya area, the closest Islamic State outpost to the Iranian border 40 km (25 miles) to the east. Iraq's Shiite-led government, backed by US-led air strikes, has been trying to push back Islamic State since it swept through northern Iraq in June. Diyala's governor, Amir Salman, and Nahida Al-Daini, an MP from nearby Baquba, called on Baghdad to intervene in Barwanah, 5 km (3 miles) northwest of Muqdadiya where pro-government militias and some security forces took control of about two dozen villages from IS fighters earlier on Monday. "This evening the militias entered the village of Barwanah and executed more than 70 residents. This is a real massacre by the militias," Daini told Rooters. Sagar Al-Jabouri and Ahmed Ibrahim, Sunni sheikhs from Muqdadiya, confirmed the reports. "The militias are acting above the law. The security forces are unable to restrain them," Jabouri said. "We will defend ourselves. We are afraid we will be next." Rooters was unable to independently verify these claims due to the security situation in the area. "Daesh turbans might have killed those people because they refused to fight with them," said Amal Omran, a Shiite member of the Diyala provincial council, using a derogatory acronym to refer to Islamic State. |
| Posted by:Fred |