A human rights monitoring group said Tuesday it had obtained videos and photographs of Iraqi security forces and allies apparently executing, dragging and mutilating the bodies of Islamic State fighters during the ongoing Mosul offensive.
Human Rights Watch said one video shows a man in military uniform with an Iraqi special forces badge on the shoulder calling for a razor, saying he wants the head of a dead fighter. Another shows uniformed fighters encircling a militant as the cameraman calls on him to put his hands up and surrender before they open fire, the group said.
“The Iraqi government should control its own forces and hold them accountable if it hopes to claim the moral upper hand in its fight against ISIS,” Lama Fakhi, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement released with a report Tuesday. “The failure to hold commanders and abusers to account does not bode well for the looming battle inside Mosul. Mutilation of corpses is a war crime, as is killing captured combatants or civilians.”
Iraqi Brig. Gen. Tahsin Ibrahim, spokesman for the ministry of defense, said the prime minister’s office is investigating reported abuses by troops since the offensive began Oct. 17.
Tahsin urged caution, insisting that some videos of supposed abuses by troops were created by IS to damage the army’s image.
