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Iraqis mourn expert on armed groups killed by unknown gunmen

Mourners pray carry the coffin of slain Iraqi expert Hisham Al-Hashemi, who was shot dead yesterday outside his house in the Iraqi capital, before his burial on July 7, 2020 in Najaf in central Iraq. (AFP)
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Updated 07 July 2020
AP
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Iraqis mourn expert on armed groups killed by unknown gunmen

  • Gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on Hisham Al-Hashimi outside his home in the Zeyouneh area of Baghdad
  • Al-Hashimi was a well-connected security analyst
Updated 07 July 2020
AP

BAGHDAD: Iraqi mourners and relatives on Tuesday carried the body of a respected analyst shot and killed the previous night in Baghdad after receiving threats from Iran-backed militias. Many Iraqis expressed their shock over the slaying.
Hisham Al-Hashimi, 47, was gunned down on Monday night outside his home in Baghdad’s Zeyouneh neighborhood. His casket, draped in the Iraqi flag, was taken to his family home before being driven to the burial site.
Al-Hashimi, a leading expert on Daesh and other militant organization, was a regular fixture on Iraqi television and his expertise was often sought by government officials, journalists and researchers.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the killing, which comes weeks after he confided to close friends that he had received threats from militia groups. The slaying also coincides with a spate of rocket attacks targeting US interests that has been blamed on Iran-backed armed groups.
Authorities launched a raid last week in Baghdad, in which they detained 14 members of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah group, suspected of orchestrating the attacks. All but one detainees were released days later.
Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi said Iraqi security forces would “spare no effort” in pursuing Al-Hashimi’s killers.

Hours after Al-Hashimi’s killing, authorities fired the top police officer for Zeyouneh and launched an investigation into his activities, according to an order from the prime minister’s office, seen by The Associated Press.
Condemnations from Iraqi officials poured in as shock reverberated across the country at the news of Al-Hashimi’s killing.

Nechirvan Barzani, president of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, said “authorities must find the perpetrators of this terror act and bring them to justice,” in a tweet on Tuesday.

 

 

Topics: Iraq Hisham Al-Hashimi

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Security officer arrested over Syria killings: official

Updated 4 sec ago
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Security officer arrested over Syria killings: official

Updated 4 sec ago
DAMASCUS: Syria’s authorities have arrested an internal security officer as a suspect in the killing of four civilians in the majority-Druze Sweida province, the local internal security chief said.
Four people were shot dead and a fifth seriously wounded in the incident on Saturday, in the village of Al-Matana, said Hossam Al-Tahan, the state news agency SANA reported.
The initial investigation, carried out with the help of one of the survivors of the attack, indicated that one suspect was a member of the local Internal Security Directorate, he said.
“The officer was immediately detained and referred for investigation,” he added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had earlier reported that four people were killed and a fifth wounded by gunfire from unknown assailants as they were harvesting olives.
The authorities had cleared the olive pickers to be in the northern part of the province controlled by government forces, it added.
Sweida province is the stronghold of the Druze minority in the south of the country.
Violence erupted there briefly in July last year, with clashes between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin that rapidly escalated, drawing in government forces and tribal fighters from other parts of Syria.
Syrian authorities have said their forces intervened to stop the clashes, but witnesses, Druze factions and the London-based Observatory have accused them of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses against the Druze.
Although a ceasefire was reached later that month, the situation remained tense and access to Sweida difficult.
Residents accuse the government of having imposed a blockade on the province, from which tens of thousands of inhabitants have fled — a charge Damascus denies.
Several aid convoys have entered since then.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 185,000 people remain uprooted.

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