Amid interminable scandals surrounding abuse of Sunni civilians, officials assured that Iraq’s Shi’ite militias could not be involved in the fighting inside Fallujah. Despite that assurance, officials now insist the militias are in the city after all.
During the siege on Fallujah, Shi’ite militias spent most of their time rounding up fleeing civilians, taking them to a section of the Mazraa Army Base run exclusively by militia forces, and torturing them by the hundreds, trying to get them to confess to being ISIS.
Influential Iraqi MP Hadi al-Amiri, who is also the leader of the Badr Brigade, reported around 1,500 militia members entered the city, and officials insist that so far there had been no reports of any abuses since the city was taken over.
Which at best means the militias have behaved themselves for a little over 24 hours, but remains a major concern for the Sunni Arab population, which is hoping news that the city was only “10-15% destroyed” means they might be allowed to return soon, and are also hoping that isn’t going to mean returning to a militia-ruled nightmare.
Al-qaeda and its friends aren’t going to be accepted anywhere. They need to stop trying to force themselves on the world.