Rights group urges Norway to investigate Iraq man who killed civilians, children in Syria

A human rights group in Norway has filed a legal complaint against a man alleged to have been an Iraqi militant who killed civilians while fighting in Syria.

In a statement, the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) announced that it had filed a complaint to Norway’s War Crimes Unit over an Iraqi man who has been living in the country for six years. 

In videos which circulated throughout social media over the past week, the unidentified man boasts of having killed civilians while fighting Syrian opposition forces as a member of Iraq’s paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of mostly Iran-backed Shia militias who operate within Iraq, but that have also fought alongside the Syrian military and forces loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.

In this video, an Iraqi refugee in Norway says that he fought in Syria with the Shiite Popular Mobilisation Forces, where he proudly killed many children, including a month old baby, whose mother begged him to spare.

This has to reach 🇳🇴 authorities.
pic.twitter.com/5OLV1kEGLV

— Velvet | ڤلڤت #DroneAssad (@proud_damascene) August 20, 2023

“The suspect also revealed that he killed several Syrian children without specifying the exact tally, and that the youngest of these children was around a month old”, the SCM’s statement read. “According to the video, he killed the one-month-old baby who was in the arms of his crying mother. The videos also include death threats against Syrians residing in Norway.”

The group demanded “the opening of a structural investigation” by Norwegian authorities – especially as the man reputedly lives in the country – and said that the police confirmed receipt of the complaint on Monday.

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