New wave of civilian arrests in Mosul with claims of ISIS affiliation raises concerns
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A high rate of civilians is being arrested with charges of belonging to the self-proclaimed Islamic State, especially in areas liberated from the terrorist group’s rule.
“So far, 6,000 individuals have been arrested based on unreliable intelligence by the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Hashd al-Shaabi militias,” Ahmed al-Jubouri, an Iraqi parliament member, previously said.
According to Jabouri, the majority of suspects detained “have no correlation whatsoever with the so-called Islamic State.”
“The Iraqi security forces do not have complete information regarding the identity of the ISIS members in Nineveh; as a result, they treat every citizen as suspects who belong to the terrorist organization,” the Sunni parliamentarian added.
Sunni Muslims in Mosul and other parts of Nineveh have often faced baseless charges of affiliation to the Islamic State, which have even led to their arrests.
An Iraqi military official also told local news agencies that many people “fall victim to un-authenticated information of being high profile ISIS members,” citing regular cases of ethnic discrimination among Iraqi security forces in liberated areas.
Nineveh is the second most populated province in Iraq, after Baghdad, with three million residents. Most of its people were displaced in 2014 after the Islamic State’s emergence in Iraq’s north.
Over the past two years, many displaced people have returned to Nineveh, but others are hesitant to go back due to security concerns and the lack of essential services in the area.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany
