Iraqi Forces ‘Deliberately Killed’ Protesters with Gas Grenades

Iraqi protesters in Tahrir Square, central Baghdad, in 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/MURTAJA LATEEF

A new website, Smokescreen – Iraq’s Use Of Military-Grade Tear Gas Grenades To Kill Protesters, features a three-dimensional reconstruction of deadly incidents captured on video around Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and Jimhouriya Bridge, when Iraqi security forces targeted protesters with Serbian- and Iranian-produced tear gas grenades.

The distinctive grenades are known to have mortally wounded at least two dozen protesters in the area since October 2019, according to the website’s producers, Amnesty International and SITU Research.

“Overwhelming evidence points to a pattern of Iraq’s security forces deliberately using these heavy tear gas and smoke grenades to kill, rather than disperse, protesters, in direct violation of international human rights law,” said Brian Castner, Senior Crisis Adviser on Arms and Military Operations at Amnesty International.

“The security forces knew how deadly these abhorrent weapons were, but continued to fire at will, leading to a string of at least two dozen gruesome fatalities,” Castner added.

Amnesty International last year identified the distinctive grenades – sometimes nicknamed ‘smokers’ by protesters – as two types based on high-explosive military grenades designed for combat.

These include M99 grenades made by Serbian manufacturer Sloboda Cacak as well as M651 tear gas grenades and M713 smoke grenades manufactured by the Defense Industries Organization (DIO) of Iran.

Weighing around 250 grams, the grenades are up to ten times heavier than standard tear gas canisters. However, they are fired at roughly the same velocity and so have significantly more force upon impact.

In Iraq, this has resulted in horrific casualties as heavy metal slugs pierced protesters’ skulls and bodies, with smoke often still billowing from the open wounds. The fatalities were among the most graphic ever seen by the experienced Amnesty International investigators verifying the videos.

“The videos analysed for this report clearly show a pattern of abuse and lethal use of force against Iraqi civilians,” said Brad Samuels, founding partner of SITU Research.

Through reviewing eyewitness video as well as gathering testimonies from protesters and medical workers, Amnesty International has documented more than two dozen deaths caused by these heavy grenades since protests over widespread unemployment, corruption and poor public services began in Iraq in October last year.

Since the research relied on verifying available video evidence and corroborating with testimony on the ground, the real number may be much higher.

“This new analysis just reinforces our belief that these munitions have no legitimate use in policing demonstrations. The Iraqi authorities must recall these grenades from use immediately, and there must be independent and impartial investigations into their use and into the wider pattern of violations that resulted in hundreds of killings and thousands of injuries during the protests,” said Brian Castner.

Since the Iraqi protests began, some 500 people have since been killed and more than 20,000 injured, according to media reports. Nothing has been done so far to hold the Iraqi security forces to account, however.

Investigation links grenades to Belgrade-Baghdad deal

In a collaboration with Amnesty International researchers, a BIRN investigation revealed in December that Serbian tear gas grenades that were used in Iraq were exported as part of an arms deal between Belgrade and Baghdad and shipped direct to the Iraqi authorities in 2009.

The Iraqi authorities have insisted they did not import the deadly grenades, blaming instead a “third party” trying to undermine the government and stoke up instability.

The BIRN investigation, however, found that the Serbian grenades were part of Iraq-Serbia arms deal, with the Iraqi Defence Ministry the specified end-user.

Via eyewitness accounts and analysis of photographs and serial numbers, BIRN traced the weapons to the central Serbian ammunitions producer Sloboda Cacak and the path they took to Iraq via the Serbian state-owned arms intermediary Yugoimport-SDPR.

Serbia’s Ministry of Trade confirmed to BIRN the origin of the grenades and said they were exported directly to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence in 2009. BIRN was unable to ascertain how many were sold.

The Iraqi government, however, said Iraqi authorities were not involved in the import of such weapons.

“The projectiles discovered in the heads and bodies of the demonstrators through examinations and autopsies at the forensic medicine’s department were not imported by the Iraqi government or any official Iraqi side,” Defence Minister Najah al-Shammari told the Nas news site.

Blaming an unspecified “third party”, al-Shammari said the grenades had “entered the country in a mysterious manner”.

Serbia has exported the same types of grenades to, among others, Montenegro, Belgium, Israel and Spain.

The grenades are just one small part of a multi-billion-dollar arms relationship between Iraq and Serbia. Between 2009 and 2017, Serbia also exported arms to Iraq via Jordan, Montenegro, Bulgaria, the US and Poland, but the value of these exports and their precise purpose is not known.

This is not the first time a recipient of Serbian arms has been accused of horrific rights violations.

Just in the last three years, Serbian-made weapons have been spotted in conflict zones in Afghanistan, Nairobi, Cameroon, Yemen and Syria.