Iraqi security forces have arrested four individuals in the southern city of Basra suspected of killing anti-government protesters and vocal journalists, two senior security officials told AFP on Sunday.

The arrests would represent the first major step towards justice for some of the nearly 600 Iraqis killed in protest-related violence, including assassinations, since 2019.

"Intelligence forces arrested four suspected members of a 16-person network responsible for the assassinations in Basra targeting activists," one of the sources said.

The source said Iraqi intelligence was still working to identify the remaining members of the network and would not comment on whether the accused were linked to any political party or paramilitary force.

"They confessed to their crimes, including the killing of Iraqi journalist Ahmad Abdessamad, and a number of other activists," the official said.

Abdessamad, 37, was killed in January 2020 alongside his cameraman Safaa Ghali, 26, in their hometown of Basra.

Armed men in a 4x4 approached the two reporters as they were parked in a car near a police station.

Abdessamad had been vocally supportive of anti-government rallies that erupted across southern Iraq in October 2019.

Since then, hundreds of young Iraqis died in protest squares, hit by live bullets or military-grade tear gas canisters that pierced their skulls or chests.

Security forces were widely blamed for the killings, though Iraq's government has repeatedly denied its forces shot at protesters.

Others were gunned down in what appeared to be targeted killings, including scholar and government advisor Hisham al-Hashemi, shot outside his home in July.

Even as the protests quieted, the violence continued, with an activist shot dead in Baghdad in December and others kidnapped and beaten earlier this month.

Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi has repeatedly pledged to hold killers to account, but there have been no public arrests or trials.

In December, eight human rights organisations said the Iraqi government was "failing" in its obligation to bring those individuals to justice, thereby "entrenching decades of impunity".

Top government advisors have admitted to AFP that their intelligence investigations found the perpetrators of the bloodshed hailed from powerful paramilitary groups.

"We know who killed Hisham, for example, but we cannot go after them," one advisor said.

Kurdish rebels executed 13 Turks in north Iraq: Ankara
Istanbul (AFP) Feb 14, 2021 - Turkey on Sunday accused Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels of executing 13 Turkish nationals, mainly members of the security forces, whom they had held captive in northern Iraq.

The alleged killings threaten to heighten tensions between Ankara and Baghdad, as well as with Washington, which backs groups tied to the PKK in Syria.

Ankara has long accused the Iraqi government of being too tolerant of the PKK, listed as a terror group by Turkey and much of the international community.

The PKK has for decades used Iraq's mountainous areas as a springboard for its insurgency against the Turkish state.

Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said Turkish soldiers had discovered 13 bodies in a cave in the Gara region of northern Iraq, where Ankara launched an operation against the PKK on Wednesday.

Each of the victims was shot dead with one bullet to the head or chest soon after Turkish soldiers launched an assault on the cave, Akar said, citing the testimony of two Kurdish fighters who were taken prisoner.

The governor of eastern Turkey's Malatya province, where the bodies were taken, said 10 of the victims have been identified. Most were soldiers and police officers who were kidnapped by the PKK in 2015 and 2016.

Citing autopsy reports, the governor, Aydin Barus, said the victims appeared to have been shot at pointblank range.

The PKK on Sunday admitted that a group of prisoners had died but rejected Ankara's version of events, saying instead that they had been killed by Turkish air strikes.

AFP could not independently confirm either version.

Meanwhile Defence Minister Akar said 48 PKK fighters and three Turkish soldiers had been killed in northern Iraq since Wednesday.

The Turkish army regularly conducts cross-border operations and air raids on PKK bases in northern Iraq.

The operations have strained relations with Baghdad, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly said his country would "deal with" the PKK in northern Iraq if Baghdad did not.

The Kurdish insurgency against the Turkish state is believed to have killed tens of thousands of people since being launched in 1984.

In December, Erdogan called on Iraq to step up its fight against the PKK during a visit to Ankara by Iraqi PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi.

The losses reported Sunday threaten to heap pressure on Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) party, which Erdogan accuses of being a political front for the outlawed PKK.

The HDP is Turkey's second-largest opposition group in the parliament.

Dozens of HDP elected and party officials have been arrested since 2016, raising concerns among Western countries.

On Sunday the HDP expressed "deep sadness" over the deaths of the 13 Turks in Iraq, calling on the PKK to free its remaining prisoners.

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