TIKRIT, IRAQ // On April 1, the city of Tikrit was liberated from the extremist group ISIL by the Shiite-led central government and allied militias after a month-long battle.
Then, some of the liberators took revenge.
Near the charred, bullet-scarred government headquarters, two federal policemen flanked a suspected ISIL fighter. Urged on by a furious mob, the two officers took out knives and repeatedly stabbed the man in the neck and slit his throat. The killing was witnessed by two Reuters correspondents.
The incident is now under investigation, said interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan.
Since its recapture two days ago, the Sunni city of Tikrit has been the scene of violence and looting. In addition to the killing of the extremist combatant, a convoy of Shiite paramilitary fighters – the government’s partners in liberating the city – dragged a corpse through the streets behind their car.
Local officials said the mayhem continues. Two security officers said on Friday that dozens of homes had been torched in the city. They added that they had witnessed the looting of stores by Shiite militiamen.
Later on Friday, Ahmed Al Kraim, head of the Salahuddin Provincial Council, said mobs had burned down “hundreds of houses” and looted shops over the past two days. Government security forces, he said, were afraid to confront the mobs. Mr Kraim said he left the city late Friday afternoon because the situation was spinning out of control.
“Our city was burnt in front of our eyes. We can’t control what is going on,” he said.
It was not supposed to be this way. ISIL, an Al Qaeda offshoot that arose from the chaos in Iraq and Syria, slaughtered thousands and seized much of northern and central Iraq last year. The government offensive was meant not only to dislodge the group but also to transcend the fundamental divide in fractured Iraq: the enmity between the now-ruling Shiite majority and the country’s formerly dominant Sunni minority.
Officials close to Prime Minister Haidar Al Abadi, a moderate Shiite, had described the Tikrit campaign as a chance to demonstrate his government’s independence from one source of its power: Iraqi Shiite militias backed by Iran and advised by Iranian military officers. Sunnis deeply mistrust and fear these paramilitaries, accusing them of summary executions and vandalism. But Mr Al Abadi has had to rely on the Shiite militias on the battlefield, as Iraq’s regular military deserted en masse last summer in the ISIL onslaught.
The militia groups spearheaded the start of the Tikrit assault in early March. But after two weeks of fighting, Mr Al Abadi enforced a pause. Asserting his power over the Shiite militias, he called in US airstrikes.
Now, the looting and violence in Tikrit threaten to tarnish Mr Al Abadi’s victory. It risks signalling to Sunni Iraqis that the central government is weak and not trustworthy enough to recapture other territory held by ISIL, including the much larger city of Mosul. Tikrit, hometown of the late dictator Saddam Hussein, is in the Sunni heartland of Iraq.
At stake is much more than future votes: ISIL’s rapid conquests in 2014 were made possible by support from Sunni tribal forces and ordinary citizens. They were convinced that the government — under Mr Al Abadi’s predecessor, Nouri Al Maliki — viewed their community as terrorists. If Sunnis dislike what they see in Tikrit, they may not back the government’s efforts against ISIL.
On Friday, the government sought to assure all sides that it will enforce order. Mr Al Abadi issued a statement calling on the security forces to arrest anyone breaking the law.
Asked to comment on the scenes witnessed by Reuters, his spokesman Rafid Jaboori said he would not address individual incidents but said: “People’s lives and property are priorities, whether in this operation or in the overall military effort to liberate the rest of Iraq.”
Sunni lawmakers who visited Tikrit complained that events have spun out of control since the security forces and militias retook the city.
Parliamentarian Mutashar Al Samarrai credited the government with orchestrating a smooth entrance into Tikrit. But he said that some Shiite paramilitary factions had exploited the situation. “This is a struggle between the [paramilitaries] and the government for control,” Mr Samarrai said.
Neighbourhoods entered by the Iraqi forces and Shiite paramilitaries have been burnt, including parts of neighbouring Dour and Auja, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein.
Security forces blame ISIL for rigging houses with explosives, while Sunnis suspect the Shiite militias and the army and police of deliberately torching their homes.
Looting has also been a problem. Shiite paramilitary fighters in pickup trucks raced through the city carrying goods that appeared to have been looted from homes and government offices.
The vehicles were crammed with refrigerators, air conditioners, computer printers, and furniture. A young militia fighter rode on a red bicycle, gleefully shouting: “I always dreamed of having a bike like this as a kid.”
Gen Maan, the main spokesman for the government forces, said police were stopping vehicles that appeared to have stolen items. “We are doing our best to impose the law.”
Passions were running high among the Shiite militia groups before the assault. ISIL beheaded people and carried out other atrocities in the lands it conquered. In particular, the militias wanted revenge for ISIL’s killing in June of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured from Camp Speicher, a base near Tikrit. It was an event that came to symbolise the extremists’ barbarism.
Despite Baghdad’s efforts to rein in the paramilitaries, the fingerprints of the Shiite militias — and of Iran itself — were all over the operation’s final hours.
On Wednesday, as Tikrit fell, militiamen were racing to stencil their names on houses to take credit for the victory.
An Iranian fighter, with a Kalashnikov rifle slung over his shoulder and a picture of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pinned to his chest, bragged about Tehran’s role in the campaign.
“I am proud to participate in the battle to liberate Tikrit,” said the man, who called himself Sheikh Dawood. “Iran and Iraq are one state now.”
*Reuters
