IX. Witnesses to the al-Mahawil Arrests and Detentions

There are many others in the al-Hilla area who witnessed the mass detentions and executions. Their testimonies provide further evidence of the mass detentions at al-Mahawil military base and the subsequent executions of thousands.

Iskandar Jawad Witwit, the newly-appointed mayor, was a high-ranking air force officer based at al-Mahawil at the time. He said that the Iraqi government was able to crush the uprising in al-Hilla by March 11, 1991, and immediately began a massive arrest campaign throughout the area:

They arrested everyone they saw [and took them to al-Mahawil military base]. If they found men, women, or children, they took them. People were brought from al-Hilla, al-Najaf, and Karbala for execution. The executions happened every day—they killed thousands of people.²³

Witwit, who was himself arrested on March 16, 1991 on suspicion of supporting the uprising, explained that part of the massive al-Mahawil military base had been taken over by individuals and organizations directly involved in the arrests and the killings, including high-ranking Ba’th party members, General Security, Special Security (al-Amn al-Khas), the intelligence services (mukhabarat), and leading members of the pro-government Albu Alwan tribe, including its head shaikh, Muhammad Jawad Onaifis, who is currently in U.S. custody on suspicion of involvement in the al-Mahawil executions.

Another eyewitness, himself a soldier at the time of the mass executions, provided detailed information to Human Rights Watch about the involvement of Special Republican Guard troops in the detentions and executions. Salim Murgan Hitban drove from al-Najaf to Babel on March 8, together with his cousin Karim `Abd al-Sadiq Hitban, aged thirty-five, and also a soldier. The two men had just completed a three-day leave and were returning to their military base when they were stopped outside al-Hilla by Special Republican Guard troops, whom they identified by the red triangular badges on their uniforms. The Special Republican Guards, he said, detained everyone who came to their checkpoint, loading more than one hundred persons into their trucks, and took them to the al-Mahawil military base:

They took us directly to prison. The prison was in the territory of al-Mahawil military training camp near Babel [Babylon], thirty kilometers from the place where we were detained. There were many people in the track, like one hundred or 150, both servicemen and civilians. They blindfolded us and tied our hands behind our backs. In the prison they took away the blindfolds and untied our hands. ²⁴

The conditions in the al-Mahawil detention camp were very abusive:

We were all herded to a hall where we could hardly stand. We were not allowed to use the toilet and we used a corner of the hall for our necessities. It was very dirty, stuffy and smelly there. From time to time three or four Special Republican Guards came in to the hall and began beating us with their rifles, sticks, or iron bars. They picked out people in groups of three or four, blindfolded them, tied up their hands again and took away from the hall. These people would never return. They also took away my cousin.²⁵

Salim Hitban was fortunate: his former military commander whom he had served under in Mosul, Major Hussein `Abdallah, was one of the Special Republican Guard officers at the al-Mahawil military base. Major Hussein Abdallah recognized his former soldier and released him to return to his military unit. According to Salim Hitban, Major Hussein Abdallah was one of three members of an “execution committee” that decided who would die and who would live:

I know about the execution committee from the Special Republican Guards themselves. When I went out of the hall I saw a group of them at the door of the next building. They told me that the execution committee behind that door decided who will be executed. The door was open and I saw a big room, a table and the members of the execution committee, sitting at the table.²⁶