Iraq: thousands of police officers have died in the line of duty

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Being a police officer in post-Saddam Iraq is an incredibly dangerous career choice. Since the invasion of Iraq toppled the dictator in March 2003, Iraqi police officers have lost their lives in the line of duty. And things are not getting much safer. In the first four months of 2021, – most recently in the Diyala province, eastern Iraq, in an attack by Islamic State.

On April 22 a police patrol while responding to an IED attack on an army vehicle in the Al-Waqf region, northwest of Baqubah, which had killed one soldier and wounded three others. The police were hit by gunfire and another IED. Six policemen, including an officer, were killed, and two others, one of them a captain, were wounded.

, a project for which I am a senior researcher, reveals that Iraqi policemen die as a result of shootings, car bombs, suicide bombers and executions by terrorist groups. They are killed as they monitor checkpoints, patrol streets, protect towns and villages from attacks, dismantle bombs, enter booby-trapped homes and engage in clashes with terrorists and insurgents.

Or they are killed just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time: 40 policemen were confronted by Islamic State for not swearing allegiance to the terrorist group on January 10 2015 at Ad Dawr, a small town in Tikrit province, north of Baghdad.

In Iraq, police officers are the biggest, most vulnerable and most targeted non-miltary victim group. Largely recruited after the 2003 invasion, Iraq's police officers tend to be drawn from the communities they serve and the police service is of the demographic makeup of its neighbourhoods. In 2018 a was drawn up by Iraq's interior ministry in consultation with the United Nations Development Programme. The road map outlines the core policing functions in Iraq: to prioritise security and protection, crime management, traffic enforcement and community policing.

Partly as a result of their security function, police officers come under attack on a daily basis, mainly by irregular fighters: terrorists, guerrilla forces and insurgents – groups who target such as government officials, politicians or those who serve them in positions of legitimate authority.

Warfare in Iraq is irregular, waged mainly for political purposes, used by insurgents to demonstrate the ineptitude and powerlessness of the ruling authorities and to intimidate and coerce populations. Violence is used by ethnic or religious groups to achieve power, control and legitimacy, through unorthodox or unconventional approaches.

As agents of the state, the police are whether Shia or Sunni, Ba''athists (supporters of Saddam Hussein's administration), Salafi and Wahhabi ''jihadists'', or Shi''a (Iran-backed) militias. Iraq remains a very dangerous place.

In addition, Iraqi police enjoy little public confidence, receive inadequate training to be able to handle the country's enormous security challenges and have . Iraq may be a democracy since its first parliamentary elections in 2005, but it remains a state with domestic vulnerabilities and internal threats to its leadership. The regime lacks legitimacy, because the majority of citizens don''t identify with the state, but with . It is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and home to .

Lack of public confidence and lack of trust in state leaders and institutions means lack of confidence and trust in the agents of the state: the police.

Islamic State is responsible for the killing of more Iraqi police officers than any other single group. IS is best known in the west for its attempts to establish a caliphate in and around Mosul, for videos of beheadings and for the in northern Iraq. IS members have participated in the mass killings and rapes of women and the . With so many horrific crimes committed against the civilian population of Iraq since 2014, it is easy to forget that policemen and security forces were its main targets from the start.

Policemen like , killed as he entered a booby-trapped house in Kubaisa, on March 28 2016. Or police majors , abducted and executed by Islamic State in September 2015. Colonel Khaled Fadel Muhammad, the director of administration with the Diyala police, who was stuck to his vehicle in Baquba on February 21 2016. Or Lieutenant-Colonel Basim al-Hadeethi, Captain Saeed al-Obeidi and Major Mashkoor al-Hadeethi, , west of Anbar, on January 27 2016 by suicide bombers.

These were people's parents and children. There have now been 14,000 of them, leaving grieving, often angry families. Tasked with making Iraq a safe place for its citizens, they are among the most threatened. They deserve to have their stories told and their names recorded.

MENAFN14052021000199003603ID1102081132

Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.