Some Iraqi forces wage campaign of punishment against ISIS fighters, suspected sympathizers

JUDY WOODRUFF: The battle to retake Mosul from ISIS is nearing its end.
And yet a new deadly campaign is under way by some Iraqi forces of revenge and retribution
against those suspected to have fought for or aided ISIS.
From Northern Iraq, special correspondent Marcia Biggs and videographer Alessandro Pavone
report.
And a warning: Images and accounts in this story may disturb some viewers.
MARCIA BIGGS: It starts at dawn here in West Mosul, members of Iraqi special forces going
door to door in search of ISIS sleeper cells.
Clashes continue in a small pocket of the Old City, but for most of Mosul, this is where
the fight against ISIS stands.
In some houses, we find the remnants of life under ISIS.
This was a Da'esh prison, he says.
So this was once the home of a local politician.
When ISIS took the area, they turned his house into a jail.
ISIS imprisoned anyone who didn't pledge loyalty to them, who didn't join them and stick to
their rules, this lieutenant says.
They considered them outlaws.
After several hours searching, they come across this man, who they believe may have escaped
the current clashes in the Old City.
He is arrested immediately.
Do you believe he is an ISIS fighter?
MAN (through translator): I think he is.
He is not from this area.
No one has ever seen here.
People here don't know him.
He is very thin, and the I.D. card is fake.
So, probably he is ISIS.
MAN (through translator): For no reason, the militias took my son five months ago.
We don't know where.
We are not ISIS.
My son is a shepherd.
If we were ISIS, you could come and kill me.
Ask anyone here.
(GUNFIRE)
MARCIA BIGGS: Just last week, this photo emerged of suspected ISIS fighters rounded up and
held in a small dark room in the 120-degree heat, an eye for an eye, as the captors become
captive.
Dr. Mansour Maarouf Mansour was working in Qayyarah General Hospital when this video
was taken last spring.
The hospital was inundated with unidentified bodies coming down the Tigris River.
The morgue could barely handle the grim deluge.
A local resident described the what he saw at the riverbank.
MAN (through translator): They had their hands tied behind their backs.
They were blindfolded and shot in the head.
They were floating down the river.
MARCIA BIGGS: And just last week, even more bodies.
You received a lot of bodies that looked to have been the victims of execution, is that
right?
MAN: Yes.
MARCIA BIGGS: What was the state of the bodies that you received?
DR.
MANSOUR MAAROUF MANSOUR, Iraq: Yes, most of them were killed by shooting to the head.
It's very little in compared to those who were killed by the liberation process, through
the mines, land mines, or the bombs, mortar bombs, or airstrike.
MARCIA BIGGS: The number of civilian casualties has been staggering.
Former Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Hoshyar Zebari says at least 40,000 dead, many of
them at the hands of coalition airstrikes, which include both Iraqi and American firepower.
As residents return home to a Mosul depleted of ISIS fighters, the new campaign may be
one of collective punishment against possible ISIS sympathizers.
We traveled to a village just south of the city, where many of the residents collaborated
with ISIS.
We had heard reports of so-called revenge death squads coming for them in the dead of
night.
Um Nazim's husband was a taxi driver, and she says he just joined the group to survive.
He was later killed in an airstrike.
She was too scared to let us show her full face.
UM NAZIM, Iraq (through translator): They told us, if your sons and husbands do not
declare loyalty, we will bring back the religious police and we will behead them.
He was an old man when we were threatened, so he was scared.
He thought it would be better to declare loyalty.
It is better than being killed.
MARCIA BIGGS: Since the liberation of her town from ISIS, she says local militias have
threatened her, demanding that she leave, even shooting up and raiding her home.
UM NAZIM (through translator): We have lost our minds.
Every night when we sleep, we don't know if we will be alive in the morning.
What is our life?
We were all throwing their clothes in bags, but we didn't know where to go.
We don't have money to leave or even to rent a car.
I don't know what to do, where to go.
I was pacing back and forth in the front yard.
I told them, kill me.
It's better than this.
Come on and kill me and end my suffering.
MARCIA BIGGS: The Iraqi government maintains that any abuse is being dealt with in due
process, and Iraqi commanders admit the mistakes.
MAJ.
GEN.
NAJIM AL-JUBOURI, Iraqi Commander: We don't lead eagles.
We lead humans.
I mean, our soldiers, our police, they are human, not eagles.
Maybe someone make some bad thing, but the majority, the general of our forces deal very
good with the people.
MARCIA BIGGS: So what do you do when you find out one of your men has been part of this
abuse?
MAJ.
GEN.
NAJIM AL-JUBOURI: We put him in the jail, and we send him to the court.
e
MARCIA BIGGS: Do you worry about revenge attacks creating an atmosphere that would make Iraq
vulnerable to another ISIS?
MAJ.
GEN.
NAJIM AL-JUBOURI: Yes, I worry about that.
We try to push the local government to put some solution to these things.
MARCIA BIGGS: Human rights groups say this is not enough.
TOM PORTEOUS, Deputy Program Director, Human Rights Watch: The Iraqi government sometimes
responds to our reports and our advocacy by making the right sort of noises and making
the right kinds of statements, but it's never followed up with a proper procedure to secure
accountability for the abuses that we document.
You can win the war militarily against the Islamic State, but if you continuing to commit
abuses with impunity, then you are simply sowing the seeds for the reemergence of extremism
and radicalism in Iraq.
MARCIA BIGGS: Like many Sunni Arabs that lived under ISIS, Um Nazim feels she is under siege
by the Shia-dominated government and militias that fought and won the battle against ISIS.
Do you hope that ISIS will come back?
UM NAZIM (through translator): I don't hope that ISIS will come back, but there was peace
and no one interfered in the life of anyone else.
No one oppressed anyone.
The situation was calmer.
MARCIA BIGGS: For you, but for those who weren't part of ISIS, they were very scared.
UM NAZIM (through translator): No, no one in Iraq was scared.
Everybody was living in peace under ISIS, not just us, because my husband was with ISIS.
MARCIA BIGGS: But how can you say that?
We have heard so many stories of people who were killed, people who were repressed, who
couldn't go to school?
UM NAZIM (through translator): I don't know.
I didn't go out.
I didn't see anything.
I'm only responsible for myself, not for others.
I didn't see anyone kill anyone else in front of me.
I heard people say that others were killed, but who knows who killed them.
MARCIA BIGGS: What do you say to the children whose parents were killed by ISIS suicide
bombers?
UM NAZIM (through translator): I don't know.
I didn't see.
I wasn't with ISIS to know anything about that.
ISIS became a state and a government.
Who can say anything to them under their rule?
MARCIA BIGGS: Like many under occupation, Um Nazim turned a blind eye in order to ensure
her own safety.
The dust is beginning to settle in Mosul, but revenge can be a dirty game.
The battle may have ended, but a new war in Iraq may be just beginning.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Marcia Biggs in and around Mosul, Iraq.

Some Iraqi forces wage campaign of punishment against ISIS fighters, suspected sympathizers

Latest Posts