Shi'ite militiamen who fought alongside the Iraqi army in the battle for Fallujah [6] are believed to have seized some 900 civilian men and boys and killed nearly 50. UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said the civilians were detained June 1 during the battle to oust ISIS from the Sunni-majority city. They were among some 8,000 who fled the outlying village of Saqlawiyah as troops moved in on the city. Fighters from Kataaib Hezbollah, one of several Shi'ite militias [7] involved in the siege, reportedly tortured many detainees. Al-Hussein also warned Iraq could see a return to full scale sectarian violence after the July 3 Baghdad attack [8]. (BBC News [9], The Independent [10], July 5)
ISIS claimed a new triple suicide attack July 7 near a Shi'ite mausoleum north of Baghdad that killed at least 35 people and wounded 60 others. After the attack on the Mausoleum of Sayid Mohammed bin Ali al-Hadi in the town of Balad [11], Moqtada al-Sadr [12] ordered his militia, the Peace Brigade, to deploy around the holy site. (The Guardian [13], July 7)
