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Provincial official calls on Iraqi gov't to stop burning Sunni homes in Salahudin

Xinhua, March 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Head of provincial council of the predominantly Sunni province of Salahudin on Sunday called on the Iraqi government and the religious Shiite leadership to stop ransacking houses of Sunni residents by some Shiite paramilitary forces in the town of Dour after recapturing it from the Islamic State (IS).

Ahmed al-Karaiym said "militiamen of Kataib Hezbullah and other groups fighting within the Hashid al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization) have looted, bombed and burned some residents' houses and the nearby residential compound of Dour in south of the provincial capital city of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad."

"Those houses belonging to residents who have no relations with Daash (IS militant group)," al-Karaiym said.

Meanwhile, Diyaa al-Douri, a member of Iraqi parliament for Salahudin province, told Xinhua that he also called on the government to disclose the fate of 160 people who were disappeared since the security forces and allied militias recaptured the city about two weeks ago.

Sunni population in the province repeatedly accused the Shiite militias of looting and burning their homes, carrying out extrajudicial killings and preventing the displaced residents from returning to their homes after freeing their towns and villages from the IS militants with the aim of conducting demographic changes.

But such accusations have been strongly denied by the Shiite militia leaders and their leading parties in the Iraqi predominantly Shiite government.

Also on Sunday, the battles to free the provincial capital city of Tikrit from IS militants have been stalled as the militants planted thousands of bombs and booby-trapped dozens of buildings and cars. While sporadic clashes continue after 12 days of operation in the city.

Since March 2, some 30,000 Iraqi troops and thousands of allied Shiite and Sunni militias have been involved in Iraq's biggest offensive to recapture the northern part of Salahudin province, including Tikrit and other key towns and villages, from IS militants.

In last June, the IS took control of the country's northern city of Mosul and later seized swathes of territory in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces. Enditem