Luke Baker
Reuters
05 April 2005
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas and criminal gangs have killed 6,000 Iraqi civilians over the past two years and wounded 16,000, according to the first comprehensive government estimate of the toll from the insurgency.
"These people in the insurgency are involved in looting, terrorism, killing, kidnapping, drug dealing, beheading and all that," Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin told Reuters on Tuesday.
"There are around 6,000 Iraqis who have been killed by these people and 16,000 who have been wounded," he said, citing figures compiled from records kept by the health, human rights, interior and other ministries.
"We have also found that around 5,000 Iraqis have been kidnapped since the fall of the regime, which does not include those cases that have gone unreported," he said.
It has been notoriously difficult to estimate the number of civilians killed since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
While there have been estimates of the number of civilians killed by U.S.-led forces and insurgents before, there has not previously been a breakdown of the overall toll.
AWASH WITH CRIMINALS
U.S. and British authorities have been criticised for not keeping a count, while Iraq's health ministry has produced some figures, saying 3,274 civilians died as a result of military and insurgent activity in the last six months of 2004.
Iraq Body Count, a website run by academics and peace activists and based on reports from two media sources, estimates between 17,316 and 19,696 Iraqis have been killed since the war.
A household survey done in Iraq by U.S. scientists, which was rejected by the British government as unreliable, put war-related civilian deaths at about 100,000 since the invasion -- a figure Iraq's health ministry also dismissed.
Part of the difficulty in coming up with an accurate figure is the fact Iraqis are not just being killed by insurgents, but also as a result of criminal activity, militia fighting, private vendettas and tribal conflicts.
Many criminal gangs carry out their activities under the guise of insurgency, kidnapping Iraqis and foreigners for ransom while making the abductions appear politically motivated. In many cases, criminals and insurgents work hand-in-hand.
The insurgency has been estimated to be at least 20,000 strong, including former members of Saddam Hussein's regime and foreign fighters. It is not clear how many are involved in criminal activity, but it could be more than previously thought.
In October 2002, Saddam freed all the country's criminals in an amnesty, letting loose thousands of murderers, rapists, thieves and gunmen, as well as many political prisoners.
The total number was thought to be around 40,000, but the human rights minister said the number may have been far higher.
"We believe the actual number war around 110,000 and the vast majority of those are now involved in kidnapping, murder and terrorism," Amin said.
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Citation:
Luke Baker, "Iraq insurgency has killed 6,000 civilians", Reuters, 05 April 2005.