Iraqi militia kidnapped and killed mentally ill individuals, falsely claiming they were IS militants: audio leaks

A new audio leak published online on Saturday allegedly reveals a plan by a faction within Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces in which they abducted at least 14 mentally ill individuals from the streets, forcing them to wear explosives, to present them as suicide bombers for ISIS. 

Ali Fadhil, an Iraqi journalist living in the United States who had previously leaked audio clips attributed to former Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, and senior other Iraqi politicians, leaked the new audio on his Twitter account.

In the latest audio leak, a dissident, named Karim Salim Karim, from Iran-backed Brigades of the Imams of Al-Baqi (KAB), told Fadhil that KAB, with the cooperation of senior army commanders in the Iraqi army in Diyala province, abducted at least 14 mentally-ill individuals off the streets to present them as ISIS militants.

The dissident said the militias once kidnapped a mentally ill person selling fuel on the streets. The militia allegedly forced the individual to ingest sleeping pills, wear an explosive belt and handed him a weapon, then released him near a checkpoint in Diyala.

"Then the militias opened gunfire on the mentally-ill person and detonated him as if he was an ISIS suicide bomber," the dissident said in the audio recording.  

فالح الفياض انت ما تستحق ان تسرح بنعاج اثنين والدليل بعض قادة الحشد يقتلون العراقيين والجيش بأسم الحشد وانت نايم متدري وما بيك خير تعدل قميصك .
حبيب المالكي سعد طعيس يفجر العراقيين ( المجانيين ) على انهم دlعش ويسرق و يخطف بعلم ضباط وزارة الدفاع بديالى#الجزء_الأول#حرب_التسريبات pic.twitter.com/byGltS63RZ

— Ali Fadhil _ علي فاضل (@ali_alifadhil) September 16, 2022

According to The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, KAB "was established in late 2014 by Saad Taees Al-Tamini (aka Abu Mujahid Al-Tamimi and Jihad Al-Tamimi)" and the militia - formally part of PMF - is close to al-Maliki. 

The dissident further said in the audio leak that he left KAB after he refused orders to attack an Iraqi army barricade in the Hamrin Mountains as part of a false-flag operation to suggest that ISIS is still active and that the Iraqi army cannot maintain the security of the area. 

In response to the audio leak, KAB immediately released a statement refuting the claims and describing them as "fake". The military requested Mustafa al-Kadhimi, prime minister of Iraq's caretaker government, to file a legal case against Fadhil on charges of mocking the militia. 

رداً على التسـريبات التي نشرها علي فاضل @ali_alifadhil لواء ائمة البقيع يصدرون بيانًا من ديالى#حرب_التسريبات pic.twitter.com/e53ShQBUs1

— Abdulateef Alhajwel (@Alhajwel1) September 17, 2022

Meanwhile, on Monday, the Karkh second court in Baghdad stripped immunity from MP Ahmed Al-Jubouri, the former governor of Salahuddin, also known as Abu Mazen, on charges of "wasting public money."  

On 25 August, an audio leak by Fadhil in which Abu Mazen speaks over the phone with another person called Mohammed al-Hajaf.

During their conversation, al-Hajaf delivers a demand by a judge called Faisal al-Azawi to al-Jabouri to appoint the judge to the Iraqi criminal court, as well as 15 other people in the ministry of education, in exchange for bribes.

Al-Hajaf, in the recording, also said that he had passed on around 300 million Iraqi dinars (around US$200,000) to a judge named Khalaf.

IS militants dominated large swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in 2014, declaring a "caliphate" before Baghdad, backed by an international coalition, fought the organisation and declared victory against the fundamentalist group in late 2017.

But a low-level jihadist insurgency persists, particularly in rural areas north of Baghdad around the city of Kirkuk and in the eastern provinces of Diyala and Salaheddin.