Iraq executed, on Sunday August 27 and Monday August 28, three people sentenced to death for their involvement in an attack that killed 323 people in Baghdad in July 2016. It was then claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group. The text, published by the office of Mohamed Chia al-Soudani, the Iraqi Prime Minister, does not indicate the identity of the three hanged people or their date of conviction.

The families of the victims of the “Tragedy of Karrada”, named after the neighborhood targeted by the suicide attack with the minibus bomb, were received today by the Prime Minister.

In October 2021, the Iraqi authorities announced the arrest, “outside the country”, of the “terrorist Ghazwan al-Zawbaï”, then presented as the person responsible for this attack of July 3, 2016. He is one of the three people executed, said a government source said Monday.

The attack was carried out when Iraqis were shopping before Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. Some 323 people died in the attack claimed by IS, which still controlled large swaths of Iraqi territory at the time. The attack rocked the commercial district of Karrada in the center of the capital, destroying buildings and causing massive fires.

After its meteoric rise in 2014 and the conquest of vast territories in Iraq and neighboring Syria, IS saw its self-proclaimed “caliphate” crumble under the impact of successive offensives in these two countries.

While the Iraqi authorities declared their “victory” against IS at the end of 2017, jihadist cells continue to sporadically attack army and police personnel, particularly in rural and remote areas outside major cities.

In 2022, Iraq was the sixth most executing country in the world, according to a report published by Amnesty International, with more than 11 executions. In the same year, more than 41 death sentences were handed down, according to the same source. By 2020, more than 45 people had been executed, according to the NGO. For Iraqi justice, “terrorism”, but also intentional homicides, are worth the death penalty by hanging to their perpetrators.

According to a UN report released in July, ISIS’s “main structure” continues to number “5,000 to 7,000 members in Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic, most of whom are fighters.”

According to this same source, “the counter-terrorism action of the Iraqi forces continued to lead to a reduction in the activities of Daesh (acronym in Arabic for the EI, editor’s note), which however maintained a low intensity insurgency”. In March, a senior Iraqi military official, however, assured that the IS had between 400 and 500 active fighters in Iraq.