BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraq's Shiite militias have abducted and killed scores of Sunni civilians with the tacit support of the government in retaliation for Islamic State group attacks, Amnesty International said Tuesday, as a suicide car bombing claimed by the Sunni extremists killed 23 people, including a Shiite lawmaker.<br />
<br />
The Shiite militiamen number in the tens of thousands and wear military uniforms but operate outside any legal framework and without any official oversight, the London-based watchdog said, adding that they are not prosecuted for the crimes.<br />
<br />
The accusations were based on interviews with relatives of victims and survivors who claimed that members of four prominent Iraqi Shiite militias - Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the Badr Brigades, the Mahdi Army, and Ketaeb Hizbollah - were behind many abductions and killings of Sunnis in the country, the rights group said in a 28-page report, entitled "Absolute Impunity: Militia Rule in Iraq."<br />
<br />
Sunni grievances have metastasized since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and handed power to the long-oppressed Shiite majority. Sunni anger helped fuel the rampage across northern and western Iraq by the Islamic State group and the onslaught has aggravated sectarian tensions elsewhere, again driving Iraq to the brink of civil war.<br />
<br />
Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Hezbollah Brigades were among a group of Shiite militias backed by Iran that carried out lethal attacks against U.S. bases in June 2012.<br />
<br />
A spokesman for the Iraqi military, Brig. Gen. Saad Maan Ibrahim, dismissed the Amnesty report, saying that the government would "in no way be an accomplice for killing its own citizens." He added that the Iraqi government and its military "do not support any group, including militias, which work to kill innocent people."<br />
<br />
Amnesty says the fate of many of the Sunni abductees remains unknown and that some captives have been killed even after their families paid ransoms of $80,000 and more.
