Iraqi Forces ‘Deliberately Killed’ Protesters with Gas Grenades

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,...