ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Because of alleged killings committed by the 16th division of the Iraqi army in Mosul, the United States should stop assisting Baghdad militarily, argues a human rights monitor. “The US government should make sure it is no longer providing assistance to the Iraqi unit responsible for this spate of executions but also suspend any plans for future assistance until these atrocities have been properly investigated,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch (HRW). The group released a report on Thursday claiming two international observers witnessed “the summary killings of four people by the Iraqi army’s 16th Division in mid-July 2017.” HRW argues that US government should suspend all assistance and support to the 16th Division pending Iraq’s full investigation of the allegations and appropriate prosecutions. Its basis is that the Leahy Law prohibits the US from providing military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights with impunity. “Two international observers independently told Human Rights Watch that on a day in mid-July at about 10 a.m. in Mosul’s Old City, they saw a group of Iraqi soldiers who identified themselves as members of the 16th Division lead four naked men down an alleyway, after which they heard multiple gunshots,” the HRW report detailed. The observers told HRW they had been in the area earlier in the day and witnessed no fighting or gunfire, then “they saw the soldiers beat the four men with their rifle butts before leading them away.” HRW reported of the observers, “While they were inside, they heard gunshots. An officer then came in and told the observer to leave the area.” “One of the observers said that as they were leaving the area, they saw through the doorway of a damaged house about 20 meters down the street the bodies of a number of naked men lying in the doorway,” wrote HRW. “They said one of the dead men was lying with his hands behind his back and appeared to have been handcuffed, and there was a rope around his legs,” it added. “The observer returned the next day and photographed three naked bodies and a mattress that appeared to cover additional bodies that they had seen the previous day, and shared the photo with Human Rights Watch.” A US State Department official spoke briefly on the topic of Baghdad’s responsibility to hold forces accountable for their actions during a counterterrorism panel at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. "The government of Iraq has the policy to bring all armed groups under its control, and it has to act to implement that policy. And we'll [the US] will obviously do what we can to help,” McGurk said. In May, a Kurdish journalist embedded with the Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service , also known as the elite US-trained Golden Brigade, and Iraq’s Emergency Response Division (ERD) in Mosul, released photos and videos of alleged rape, torture and murder committed by Iraqi forces against people and ISIS suspects. They were published in a number of western media including Germany’s Der Spiegel and The New York Times. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who declared Mosul liberated on July 10, has said he was aware of similar reports and "such violations" are being investigated in a precise manner. The Interior Ministry of Iraq announced it ordered the formation of an investigative committee on May 25, but findings or updates of the process have not been released. US Senator Patrick Leahy who authored the law 20 years ago believes the Department of Defense should continue to investigate the allegations. “The photos are sickening. They clearly depict war crimes,” US Senator Patrick Leahy who authored the law 20 years ago, told ABC News in May. “That they were brazenly lauded by the unit’s leader suggests that they were far from aberrations. “It is my understanding that the United States no longer supports the Iraqi unit involved, but we should insist that the individuals responsible, and particularly the leaders, be prosecuted and appropriately punished. The fact that U.S. military personnel praised the Iraqi unit’s cooperation is deeply disturbing and requires further investigation by the Pentagon.”
