Iraq makes arrests over reports of Sunnis executed in Falluja
Iraq said on June 13 it had made arrests as it investigates allegations that Shi'ite militiamen helping the army retake Falluja had executed dozens of Sunni Muslim men fleeing the city held by Islamic State.
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Sohaib al-Rawi, governor of Anbar province where Falluja is located, said on June 12 that 643 men had gone missing between June 3 and June 5, and "all the surviving detainees were subjected to severe and collective torture by various means."
The participation of militias in the battle of Falluja, just west of Baghdad, alongside the Iraqi army had already raised fears of sectarian killings.
Iraq's Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi said four military personnel were arrested after video footage showed them abusing people displaced from Falluja. He pledged on Twitter to prosecute any serviceman involved in such acts.
"Harassment of IDPs (internally displaced persons) is a betrayal of the sacrifices of our brave forces' liberation operations to expel Daesh (Islamic State) from Iraq," he said.
Falluja is a historic bastion of the Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003, and the Shi'ite-led governments that followed.
In the north of the country, troops fought with Islamic State militants in the village of Haj Ali for the second day in a row, an Iraqi officer taking part said.
Haj Ali is near the Qayyara, a town under Islamic State control which has an airfield that Baghdad's forces seek to use as a staging ground for a future offensive on Mosul, about 60 km (40 miles) north.
