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 News from Around the Americas | September 2006 
UN's Concerned Over Iraqi Killings
 BBC News
| | Residents shout slogans and wave their guns, as they carry the photographs of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, during a demonstration before Friday prayer, in Tikrit, Iraq, Friday Sept. 22, 2006. Some 3,000 people demonstrated outside a mosque in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, Friday and demanded the return of the former dictator to power and condemned Pope Benedict XVI's recent remarks on Islam and violence. The demonstration was organized by Association of Muslim Scholars and the Tikrit Shura Council. (AP/Bassim Daham) |
The indiscriminate killing of civilians by death squads, insurgents and militias in Iraq has reached unprecedented levels, the UN says.
Almost 3,600 civilians were killed in July and just over 3,000 in August, says the UN's Assistance Mission for Iraq in a new report on human rights.
Torture is still a widespread problem in official detention centres, it says.
In ongoing violence, more than 20 people have been killed in attacks in the past 24 hours, Iraq police said.
A car bomb exploded first, in the town of Sharqat, then a suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt as a crowd gathered at the scene of the explosion.
Hours later, at least three people were killed when a suicide bomber drove a truck into a police building in the capital, Baghdad. At least 10 others were wounded.
The police in Baghdad said they had found a total of 35 bodies dumped in the city in the past 24 hours, Reuters news agency reports.
The US military announced one of its soldiers was killed on Tuesday when a roadside bomb exploded in Baghdad.
The commander of US forces in Baghdad, Maj Gen James Thurman, has said he was pushing Iraqi leaders to start doing more about the sectarian militias responsible for killing thousands of people.
More Iraqi troops were needed to combat militias, he said, and described the militias as the biggest threat to the country's future.
"Militias are holding the rule of law in contempt. We're pushing this government to get a policy as to how they're going to deal with it so their own people know how to deal with the militias," he told the Associated Press news agency.
Lack of Control
The UN mission (Unami) report said the inability of state institutions to bring the perpetrators to justice and to provide adequate protection to ordinary Iraqis risks dividing Iraqi society and fuelling sectarian conflict.
Unami expressed concern that "human rights violations, particularly against the right to life and personal integrity, continued to occur at an alarming daily rate in Iraq".
Terror attacks, the growth of militias and the emergence of organised crime reflects a lack of centralised and authorised control over the use of force in the country, which results in indiscriminate killings of civilians, the report says.
In this context, hundreds of bodies have continued to appear throughout the country bearing signs of severe torture and execution-style killing, it adds.
The document also points to the increasing number of "honour crimes" affecting women in Iraq. |
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