[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] on Sunday urged Iraqi military commanders to prevent historically abusive militias from participating in the campaign to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State (IS). Last March the Iraqi army began working [HRW report] with Peshmerga forces and affiliates of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) to launch a ground offensive against the IS, which had been holding Mosul since June 2014. Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Brigades, officially stated [text] in late June that the PMF would be taking part in the liberation of the city. HRW has stressed, however, that the PMF has a long reported history of abuses, including summary killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and the destruction of homes. In the May campaign to retake Fallujah, there were numerous reports of PMF members abusing civilians, performing executions, and mutilating corpses despite Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s prior declaration that the PMF would not enter the city. In light of the PMF’s various reported offenses, HRW stated that the Iraqi army has a duty to protect the civilian population and hold militia fighters accountable for past war crimes.

IS, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has been accused of war crimes on a massive scale in Iraq and Syria. In June a UN-mandated human rights inquiry reported that the IS has been committing genocide [JURIST report] against the Yazidi people, in addition to a carrying out a variety of other war crimes and human rights violations. In March US Secretary of State John Kerry said [JURIST report] that IS “is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims.” Also, in March the US House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution [JURIST report] denouncing the actions of IS as “genocide” and calling for the establishment of international and domestic tribunals by UN member states. In December Amnesty International said that IS is in possession of a “large and lethal” arsenal [JURIST report] due to decades of reckless arms trading and the poorly regulated international flow of weapons into Iraq. In November IS claimed responsibility for a series of coordinated attacks in Paris [JURIST report] that killed more than 120 individuals. In September members of Iraq’s Yazidi community met with International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and urged the court to open a genocide investigation [JURIST report] into IS actions in Northern Iraq.