charrob
03-24-2015, 06:03 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmZI7tP90bM&index=210&list=PL0EZz2Yc8N2u0VggYwQYN_oJVa5LTlpNJ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfaDnV9RyA&index=211&list=PL0EZz2Yc8N2u0VggYwQYN_oJVa5LTlpNJ
From Human Rights Watch:
NARRATOR: Witnesses say that pro-government militias, volunteer fighters and Iraqi security forces carried out a campaign of destruction in the aftermath of operations to drive the extremist group ISIS away from the town of Amerli in Iraq.
IRAQI WOMAN: [translated] At first, we were afraid of ISIS. When ISIS came, we didn’t escape. They were all around us, so where could we go? Then we were hit by heavy airstrikes. Everyone stayed in their homes. Then the militia came and started firing at us. When they attacked us, we fled to the mountains.
NARRATOR: Last June, ISIS laid siege the mostly Shia town of Amerli for nearly three months. Thousands of people were trapped until U.S.-backed Iraqi forces drove ISIS fighters out with airstrikes and ground operations by an alliance of Shia militias and Iraqi and Kurdish government forces. Witnesses told us that on September 1st, the day after the siege was broken, Shia militias returned to the Sunni villages around Amerli and began looting, burning and destroying homes and businesses.
IRAQI MAN 1: [translated] From what I saw, they used fire [to burn houses], but we also heard explosions. We thought it was bombs that ISIS had left behind, but about 10 days ago, when we snuck back in, we saw that houses had been blow up with explosives. The walls were gone, and the ceilings were collapsing.
PESHMERGA OFFICER: Amerli, behind the electric poles.
TIRANA HASSAN: Amerli is just behind these electric—how many kilometers?
NARRATOR: In mid-October, we visited some of the villages on the outskirts of Amerli. Our escorts were Kurdish military forces known as peshmerga.
PESHMERGA OFFICER: [translated] The Shia militias destroyed all of these shops. This restaurant used to be owned by a Kurd. That one belonged to a Sunni Arab. They came to the area after the airstrikes. The houses and shops were untouched during the airstrikes, but when the militias came, they were destroyed. When we came back, we saw militia flags with the words "Ya Hussein" and "Ya Ali."
NARRATOR: As we headed towards the village of Yengija, we saw the yellow flags of the pro-government militia, Saraya al-Khorasani. They still controlled the area at the time of our field investigation in mid-October. Once inside the village, we saw homes still burning. It was nearly seven weeks after the siege of Amerli was broken. Other homes and buildings showed signs of arson. Black soot marked the windows and doors where flames had engulfed the interior and charred the outer walls. On many of the houses, militias spray-painted sectarian slogans and the names of their group. We analyzed satellite imagery recorded over Yengija and found evidence of a systematic and sustained campaign of arson and demolition that lasted over two months after the end of the siege of Amerli. We also analyzed a 500-kilometer square radius of Amerli, which confirmed destruction in 30 out of 35 villages. Most of the damage was caused by arson and intentional demolition inflicted after ISIS had fled the area.
IRAQI MAN 2: [translated] Those 20 families, living over there, all fled Suleiman Bek when the militia came.
NARRATOR: Iraq clearly faces serious threats in its conflict with ISIS. But the abuses committed by the forces fighting ISIS are threatening the country in the long term. Iraqis are caught between the horrors ISIS commits and the abuses by militias, and civilians are paying the price.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the Iraqi security forces. A report by ABC News revealed U.S.-trained and -armed Iraqi military units are under investigation for committing war crimes. This is an except of ABC’s report by Brian Ross.
BRIAN ROSS: Innocent civilians massacred, prisoners tortured, acts that shock the civilized world—all discovered by ABC News online, not from the usual ISIS accounts, but on social media sites connected to elite units of the Iraqi army, the very forces the U.S. is counting on to help stop such atrocities.
Here, a group of men in Iraqi army uniforms give a sign of approval after a civilian is beheaded behind them. In this video, a young boy, a suspected ISIS recruit, is about to be executed, shot dead in the street with men in what appear to be Iraqi uniforms crowding around the scene. This appears to be an insignia of the Iraqi special forces. There are dozens of such videos and still images now being investigated by U.S. and Iraqi authorities to determine if they are in fact part of the Iraqi army, like these men with a severed head or these men dragging the body of a captured prisoner. In this video, what appears to be two unarmed Iraqi civilians are about to be murdered, like the others already dead next to them. This video, slowed down, shows militia fighters with U.S.-supplied weapons.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s an excerpt of an ABC report by Brian Ross. Erin Evers, you reviewed all of this footage for them?
ERIN EVERS: Yes, I did. You know, the sad thing about all this footage is that it’s essentially visual documentation of abuses that we, other organizations and the media have been documenting for years on the part of Iraqi security forces, and that successive U.S. and Iraqi governments have turned a blind eye to. So, the kinds of abuses that we saw in that report, these atrocious—you know, absolutely atrocious acts of no accountability whatsoever, is something that the U.S. government has known about for a long time and just failed to do anything about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfaDnV9RyA&index=211&list=PL0EZz2Yc8N2u0VggYwQYN_oJVa5LTlpNJ
From Human Rights Watch:
NARRATOR: Witnesses say that pro-government militias, volunteer fighters and Iraqi security forces carried out a campaign of destruction in the aftermath of operations to drive the extremist group ISIS away from the town of Amerli in Iraq.
IRAQI WOMAN: [translated] At first, we were afraid of ISIS. When ISIS came, we didn’t escape. They were all around us, so where could we go? Then we were hit by heavy airstrikes. Everyone stayed in their homes. Then the militia came and started firing at us. When they attacked us, we fled to the mountains.
NARRATOR: Last June, ISIS laid siege the mostly Shia town of Amerli for nearly three months. Thousands of people were trapped until U.S.-backed Iraqi forces drove ISIS fighters out with airstrikes and ground operations by an alliance of Shia militias and Iraqi and Kurdish government forces. Witnesses told us that on September 1st, the day after the siege was broken, Shia militias returned to the Sunni villages around Amerli and began looting, burning and destroying homes and businesses.
IRAQI MAN 1: [translated] From what I saw, they used fire [to burn houses], but we also heard explosions. We thought it was bombs that ISIS had left behind, but about 10 days ago, when we snuck back in, we saw that houses had been blow up with explosives. The walls were gone, and the ceilings were collapsing.
PESHMERGA OFFICER: Amerli, behind the electric poles.
TIRANA HASSAN: Amerli is just behind these electric—how many kilometers?
NARRATOR: In mid-October, we visited some of the villages on the outskirts of Amerli. Our escorts were Kurdish military forces known as peshmerga.
PESHMERGA OFFICER: [translated] The Shia militias destroyed all of these shops. This restaurant used to be owned by a Kurd. That one belonged to a Sunni Arab. They came to the area after the airstrikes. The houses and shops were untouched during the airstrikes, but when the militias came, they were destroyed. When we came back, we saw militia flags with the words "Ya Hussein" and "Ya Ali."
NARRATOR: As we headed towards the village of Yengija, we saw the yellow flags of the pro-government militia, Saraya al-Khorasani. They still controlled the area at the time of our field investigation in mid-October. Once inside the village, we saw homes still burning. It was nearly seven weeks after the siege of Amerli was broken. Other homes and buildings showed signs of arson. Black soot marked the windows and doors where flames had engulfed the interior and charred the outer walls. On many of the houses, militias spray-painted sectarian slogans and the names of their group. We analyzed satellite imagery recorded over Yengija and found evidence of a systematic and sustained campaign of arson and demolition that lasted over two months after the end of the siege of Amerli. We also analyzed a 500-kilometer square radius of Amerli, which confirmed destruction in 30 out of 35 villages. Most of the damage was caused by arson and intentional demolition inflicted after ISIS had fled the area.
IRAQI MAN 2: [translated] Those 20 families, living over there, all fled Suleiman Bek when the militia came.
NARRATOR: Iraq clearly faces serious threats in its conflict with ISIS. But the abuses committed by the forces fighting ISIS are threatening the country in the long term. Iraqis are caught between the horrors ISIS commits and the abuses by militias, and civilians are paying the price.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the Iraqi security forces. A report by ABC News revealed U.S.-trained and -armed Iraqi military units are under investigation for committing war crimes. This is an except of ABC’s report by Brian Ross.
BRIAN ROSS: Innocent civilians massacred, prisoners tortured, acts that shock the civilized world—all discovered by ABC News online, not from the usual ISIS accounts, but on social media sites connected to elite units of the Iraqi army, the very forces the U.S. is counting on to help stop such atrocities.
Here, a group of men in Iraqi army uniforms give a sign of approval after a civilian is beheaded behind them. In this video, a young boy, a suspected ISIS recruit, is about to be executed, shot dead in the street with men in what appear to be Iraqi uniforms crowding around the scene. This appears to be an insignia of the Iraqi special forces. There are dozens of such videos and still images now being investigated by U.S. and Iraqi authorities to determine if they are in fact part of the Iraqi army, like these men with a severed head or these men dragging the body of a captured prisoner. In this video, what appears to be two unarmed Iraqi civilians are about to be murdered, like the others already dead next to them. This video, slowed down, shows militia fighters with U.S.-supplied weapons.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s an excerpt of an ABC report by Brian Ross. Erin Evers, you reviewed all of this footage for them?
ERIN EVERS: Yes, I did. You know, the sad thing about all this footage is that it’s essentially visual documentation of abuses that we, other organizations and the media have been documenting for years on the part of Iraqi security forces, and that successive U.S. and Iraqi governments have turned a blind eye to. So, the kinds of abuses that we saw in that report, these atrocious—you know, absolutely atrocious acts of no accountability whatsoever, is something that the U.S. government has known about for a long time and just failed to do anything about.