ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The UN body investigating Islamic State (ISIS) crimes received approval to continue its work for another year.
On Friday, the UN Security Council voted to extend the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by by Dae’sh/ISIL (UNITAD)’s mandate until September 21, 2020. In a press release on Friday, UNITAD said it is committed to helping Iraq persecute ISIS members.
“It continues its work to support domestic efforts to hold Dae’sh members accountable,” said UNITAD, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. The group is also sometimes called ISIL.
UNITAD was established in 2017 to help Iraq with the enormous task of prosecuting alleged ISIS members for their crimes.
ISIS swept through northern Iraq in 2014, killing civilians and enslaving others, including thousands of women from the Yezidi ethno-religious minority. Iraq announced the defeat of ISIS in 2017, but the group remains active, particularly near Mosul and in areas disputed between the Kurdistan Region and federal Iraqi governments.
Iraq’s trials of supposed ISIS members and affiliates have received substantial criticism regarding the speed of the trials, the amount of evidence, and the number of executions. Iraq has one of the highest numbers of people executed in the world.
Iraq’s trials of ISIS members have improved this year, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.
Since its founding, UNITAD has helped Iraq gather evidence of ISIS crimes, helping with the exhumation of Yezidi graves, for example.
The UN Security Council said it respected Iraqi sovereignty, and praised its efforts to defeat ISIS in the release.
“The Council reaffirmed in the resolution its respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence, and unity of Iraq, and welcomed the Government of Iraq’s considerable efforts to defeat Da’esh/ISIL,” read the release.
The release also said that the group still “constitutes a threat to global peace and security.”
There are thousands of suspected ISIS members in Iraqi prisons. There are also thousands of Iraqis affiliated with ISIS being held by US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria. Iraq is working to receive some of these people from Syria, and Iraq is also repatriating some children born to foreign ISIS members in Iraq to their parents’ countries of origin.
