Anbar (IraqiNews.com) A mass grave containing human remains of burnt bodies has been found, north of Ramadi, Anbar Operations Command announced on Thursday.

“Troops of the army’s tenth division, affiliated to Anbar Operations Command, ran into a mass grave containing remains of unidentified burnt bodies inside a house in al-Tarabisha region, north of Ramadi,” a senior source from the command told AlSumaria News.

“The bodies have not been recognized yet; whether they are civilians or members of the Islamic State militant group,” the source, who preferred anonymity, added.

Thousands of IS militants as well as Iraqi civilians were killed since the government campaign, backed by paramilitary troops and the coalition was launched in October 2016 to fight the militant group, which declared a self-styled “caliphate” from Mosul in June 2014.

A total of 104 Iraqi civilians and policemen were killed, while 177 others were injured in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict in Iraq in March, according to casualty figures by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).

As many as 3,298 civilians were killed and 4,781 others were wounded in 2017, excluding Anbar civilian casualty figures for November and December, which are not available, UNAMI said in a report in December.

In December, Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced full liberation of Iraqi lands, declaring end of war against IS members.





</s>Iraqi security forces say they have discovered a mass grave containing some 150 decapitated corpses in the town of Hammam al-Alil which was seized from Islamic State last week. Mana Rabiee reports.</s>In Anbar, there are a lot of new names running for office. But, as locals say, those who ally with the old names have already lost.

“We cannot expect that these individuals are going to defend people’s rights,” says Amjad al-Alwani, a human rights activist in Anbar. “They are the loyal employees of political parties that are already in power in Iraq. They will never give up that power. Because even if it’s not a lot of power, it still allows them to gain power, influence and money.”

Even the new names on the list of candidates, whose party affiliation is not yet clear, are not acting out of pure motives, al-Alwani argues. They’re connected to their own tribes and, given the nepotistic and corrupt political system, they’re just trying to get into politics for the same reasons as existing parties: power and money.

Muayad al-Jumaili, 51, ran as a candidate in the city of Ramadi during the 2014 elections. He says he has noticed a drop in the number of potential candidates. The country’s election authorities say there are 6,904 candidates registered to compete in total, around 1,100 less than in the 2014 elections.

Al-Jumaili believes he knows why. A number of political leaders have dropped out of the race, he says. And there are many reasons for this including scraps within the parties as well as the leaders’ realization that they are no longer as acceptable to the voters, thanks to events of the past four years. They abandoned the people of Anbar during the security crisis caused by the extremist Islamic State group, he says, and everybody knows it.

Additionally, al-Jumaili suggests, “some say that they have been promised senior positions in the new government if they abandon their campaigning and put all their efforts into supporting the new faces.”

Even if the new candidates have unblemished backgrounds, they are only a copy of the old candidates, complains Issa Khlaifawi, a 48-year-old resident of Fallujah.

By attaching their own campaigns to those of prominent politicians who have failed Anbar, they have already lost, Khlaifawi argues. “They just don’t know it yet.”

There is no doubt that the people of Anbar are taking the upcoming federal elections seriously. These will be the first elections since the Islamic State, or IS, group was pushed out of the province. The fight against the extremists has led to seismic changes in local society and politics and many citizens here would love to see free and fair elections, in which their vote truly counts. The thing is, they just don’t know if it will change anything.
A mass grave containing burnt bodies is found in al-Tarabisha, Anbar.