Iraq: three people hanged for one of the worst IS attacks in Baghdad in 2016

August 28, 2023

Three people sentenced to death in Iraq have been hanged for their involvement in an attack that killed 323 people in Baghdad in July 2016 and claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, the Prime Minister’s office announced on Monday.

The head of government, Mohamed Chia al-Soudani, himself made public “the execution of the death sentences” targeting “three of the main criminals convicted for their participation” in the attack, according to a press release from his services.

He spoke as he received on Monday the families of the victims of the “Karrada tragedy”, named after the neighborhood targeted by the suicide attack with the minibus bomb.

The July 3, 2016 attack, one of the bloodiest in Iraq since the 2003 US invasion, was carried out in a crowded shopping district as Iraqis shopped before Eid al- Fitr, the celebration marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Some 323 people died and 200 others were injured in the attack claimed by IS jihadists, who at the time controlled large swaths of Iraqi territory.

The minibus that the suicide bomber blew up was loaded with plastic explosives and ammonium nitrate, police in Baghdad said at the time.

The explosion itself killed a limited number of people, but the flames spread and trapped Iraqis who were in shops and shopping malls in the area, according to the same source.

The hangings announced by the Prime Minister took place on Sunday evening and Monday morning, according to his press release, which does not reveal the identity of the three people executed or the date of their conviction.

According to a government source interviewed by AFP, among the three men is Ghazwan al-Zawbai. The Iraqi authorities announced in October 2021 his arrest “outside the country”, presenting him as the “terrorist” responsible for this attack of July 3, 2016.

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.

Although the Iraqi authorities proclaimed 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.

For several years, the Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of capital sentences and life sentences because the Penal Code provides for a sentence until death for anyone who has joined “a terrorist group”, whether or not the accused fought in its ranks.

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.

According to a UN report published in July, “the main structure” of IS continues to have “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-terrorist 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.

For Iraqi justice, “terrorism”, but also intentional homicides, even drug trafficking, can be worth the death penalty by hanging to their perpetrators.