60 Killed in Iraq Prison Convoy Attack North of Baghdad

Officials Accuse ISIS of Attacking Convoy

At least 60 people were killed today in what officials are calling a “suicide attack” against a prison convoy just north of Baghdad. Iraqi Interior Ministry officials are blaming ISIS.

Overwhelmingly, the dead were Sunni prisoners, held on terrorism charges, and while Iraqi officials couched it as an attempt to free the prisoners, they also claimed the attackers blew themselves up amid the prisoners, killing most of them.

The claims must be immediately suspect, since the last “attack” on a prison convoy, less than a month ago in Hillah, was eventually revised to Iraqi police bragging about the summary execution of the detainees because they didn’t trust the courts to handle the case.

The fact that today’s incident once again had a mass of slain prisoners, but only 9 or so dead police once again will raise suspicions among Iraqi Sunnis that this was, at best, them using the prisoners as human shields, and at worst another mass execution.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.