BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi has ordered an “immediate” investigation into the killing of a senior military officer by “undisciplined individuals” at a checkpoint north of Baghdad.
Brig. Gen. Shareef Ismaeel Al-Murshidi, a brigade commander whose forces are tasked with protecting Abadi and Baghdad’s Green Zone, was shot dead Tuesday at a checkpoint outside Samarra. State-sanctioned Shiite militias play a large role in securing the town, which is home to a major Shiite shrine.
The statement issued by Abadi’s office late Tuesday did not provide further details about the incident.
Two police officers in Samarra said the three-vehicle convoy ignored orders to stop at two checkpoints. When it reached a third checkpoint an exchange of fire erupted between the convoy on one side and militiamen and Federal Police on the other. The militiamen belonged to the so-called Peace Brigades, led by Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr.
Two of Al-Murshidi’s guards were also killed, while four others were wounded, they said. A medical official confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information.
On Wednesday, Iraqi state TV aired the official funeral in the Green Zone, which Abadi attended along with the slain officer’s relatives. Al-Sadr has sent a delegation to Samarra to investigate the incident.
When Daesh militants swept across northern and western Iraq in mid-2014, tens of thousands of Shiite men answered a call-to-arms by the country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, to defend the nation. They played a key role in a number of battles against Daesh, which has since been driven from nearly all the territory it once ruled.
Today the militias number in the tens of thousands and are deployed across the country to maintain security, alongside the army and police.
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Iraqi PM orders probe into killing of officer at checkpoint
Iraqi PM orders probe into killing of officer at checkpoint
Palestinian NGO condemns Israeli act of ‘revenge’ after prisoner abuse video
- A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military priso
RAMALLAH: A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military prison.
Just days before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Ben Gvir held a tour of Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s Channel 7 reported.
In footage filmed on Friday and broadcast by the channel, around 20 police officers are seen storming a hallway leading to prison cells, brandishing their weapons and firing stun grenades.
They then pull five detainees from their cells, their hands tied behind their backs, forcing them face-down onto the floor.
The operation took place as a bill proposing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism awaited a final vote in the Israeli parliament.
“This is all part of ongoing displays meant to take revenge on Palestinian detainees,” Abdallah al?Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, told AFP on Saturday.
“Everything Ben Gvir and the far?right government are doing affects not only the Palestinian people and prisoners in detention camps — it also impacts the global legal and human rights system,” he added.
Ben Gvir, known for his inflammatory rhetoric, is considered one of the most hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
“It is simply a source of pride — arriving at a prison like this, a prison for terrorists, the vilest of the vile, seeing them like this,” Ben Gvir said in the video.
“I want one more thing: to execute them — the death penalty for terrorists,” he added.
Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday said the remarks were “a new war crime and a blatant challenge to international humanitarian law regarding prisoners.”
International rights groups have repeatedly warned of alleged abuse and mistreatment inflicted in Israeli prisons since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has become a de facto abolitionist country, with the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann the last person to be executed in 1962.
Just days before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Ben Gvir held a tour of Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s Channel 7 reported.
In footage filmed on Friday and broadcast by the channel, around 20 police officers are seen storming a hallway leading to prison cells, brandishing their weapons and firing stun grenades.
They then pull five detainees from their cells, their hands tied behind their backs, forcing them face-down onto the floor.
The operation took place as a bill proposing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism awaited a final vote in the Israeli parliament.
“This is all part of ongoing displays meant to take revenge on Palestinian detainees,” Abdallah al?Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, told AFP on Saturday.
“Everything Ben Gvir and the far?right government are doing affects not only the Palestinian people and prisoners in detention camps — it also impacts the global legal and human rights system,” he added.
Ben Gvir, known for his inflammatory rhetoric, is considered one of the most hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
“It is simply a source of pride — arriving at a prison like this, a prison for terrorists, the vilest of the vile, seeing them like this,” Ben Gvir said in the video.
“I want one more thing: to execute them — the death penalty for terrorists,” he added.
Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Saturday said the remarks were “a new war crime and a blatant challenge to international humanitarian law regarding prisoners.”
International rights groups have repeatedly warned of alleged abuse and mistreatment inflicted in Israeli prisons since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
While the death penalty exists for a small number of crimes in Israel, it has become a de facto abolitionist country, with the Nazi Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann the last person to be executed in 1962.
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