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IRAQ WARS
Eight dead as US-led strike hits Iraq forces
By Ammar Karim
Baghdad (AFP) Jan 27, 2018


Dozens of bodies found in Iraq mass grave
Kirkuk, Iraq (AFP) Jan 26, 2018 - A mass grave containing the remains of dozens of civilians and security personnel apparently executed by jihadists has been found in northern Iraq's Kirkuk province, its governor said on Friday.

Rakan Said al-Juburi told AFP it was the 14th such discovery in the area.

"Local residents and shepherds guided security forces to the mass grave which appears to contain the remains of more than 75 civilians and security personnel," he said.

The governor said the victims had been "savagely executed by jihadists who occupied Hawija", one of the last urban centres held by the Islamic State (IS) group before its ouster last year by Iraqi security forces.

The corpses found near Ryadh village, 45 kilometres (28 miles) west of the city of Kirkuk, had been shot in the head with their hands bound behind their backs, he said.

Residents fear that many missing relatives and friends, especially members of the security forces, have probably suffered the same fate.

Security forces have discovered dozens of mass graves since they drove out IS in 2017 after three years of occupation of swathes of northern and western Iraq.

An air strike by the US-led coalition battling the Islamic State group hit Iraqi security personnel on Saturday, officials said, in an apparent mistake that killed eight people.

The friendly fire incident drew swift criticism of the US military presence in Iraq from pro-Iranian figures in Baghdad.

"Eight people -- a senior intelligence official, five policemen and a woman -- were killed by a US strike on the centre of Al-Baghdadi," a town in western Iraq, a provincial official said, asking not to be identified.

"It seems the strike was a mistake," the official said of the incident in the Euphrates Valley town, adjacent to the Ain al-Asad airbase 250 kilometres (160 miles) west of the capital.

Those killed were travelling in a convoy which had been deployed to support a dawn raid on suspected IS militants in the area.

Despite the government's declaration of victory over IS last month, the jihadists remain active underground in several regions of Iraq, particularly along the Euphrates Valley and in the vast desert to its west.

The US-led strike destroyed most of the vehicles in the convoy and also wounded 20 people, including the town's police chief, who was in a serious condition, the provincial official said.

Iraq's Joint Operations Command, which coordinates the country's campaign against IS, said it had ordered a special forces raid in the town after receiving intelligence of a "meeting to be attended by terrorist commander Karim al-Samarmad".

It said it had requested "air support from the international coalition".

"Once the terrorist was arrested and while troops were carrying out searches, a grenade was thrown from an adjacent building."

- Investigations opened -

As the special forces troops withdrew to base, they ran into a convoy of police and paramilitaries of the Hashed al-Shaabi auxiliary force that had been sent to support them.

The convoy was composed of pick-up trucks and the returning forces mistook them for jihadists and called in a coalition air strike, the JOC said, lamenting the lack of coordination.

"An inquiry has been opened," it added.

Coalition spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon said the strike had been carried out at the request of Iraqi forces, who would take the lead in investigating any failings.

"Anything we do in Iraq is in support of the Iraqi security forces. We were asked for support and we provided it," Dillon told AFP.

"Iraqi forces have announced an investigation, they are on the lead for the investigation.

"For any allegation, especially of civilian losses, we conduct an investigation."

But leaders of the pro-Iran militias that form the backbone of the Hashed auxiliary force, which played a major role in the campaign against IS independently of the coalition, were unswayed by the explanation.

Populist Shiite militia leader Moqtada Sadr, who led repeated uprisings against coalition troops during the US-led occupation that followed the 2003 invasion, demanded immediate action against those responsible for the strike.

"Once again the American occupation forces have shown their tyranny and arrogance by flagrantly violating the independence and sovereignty of the Iraqi government," he said on Twitter.

Senior Hashed commander Qais al-Khazali, who heads the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, said the strike "raises serious and dangerous questions".

Those questions concern "the American military presence in Iraq, the role it intends to play and the justification for its presence after the military defeat of IS," he said on Twitter.

IRAQ WARS
Three French female jihadists risk death sentence in Iraq
Paris (AFP) Jan 23, 2018
Three French women who joined the Islamic State group before being captured by Iraqi forces could be facing the death penalty as they await trial in Baghdad, sources close to their cases told AFP. The women were detained after Iraqi fighters ousted the jihadists from Mosul last July, one source said, confirming a report on RMC radio. One 28-year-old woman left in 2015 for the group's "ca ... read more

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