This just came into my email.

Iraq: Execution of Captive Soldiers Violates the Laws of War

Iraq Insurgent Group Claims to Have Executed Two Missing US Soldiers

(New York, June 8, 2007) - An insurgent group named the Islamic State of
Iraq announced on Monday that it had executed two US soldiers who went
missing last month. If confirmed, this act would constitute a serious
violation of international humanitarian law and those responsible would be
guilty of war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.

On Monday, television networks around the world showed a video clip
purportedly made by the Islamic State of Iraq, which showed what appears
to be both the missing soldiers' identification cards. In the video, the
insurgent group, which in the past has claimed links to al-Qaeda, claims
that it executed the men.

"Those claiming to hold the US soldiers captive must treat the men
humanely," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights
Watch. "If they have done otherwise, they have committed war crimes."

The two soldiers - Specialist Alex Jimenez, 25, and Private Byron Fouty,
19 - went missing on May 12 when insurgents ambushed their patrol near the
town of Mahmoudiya, 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad. In the
Euphrates River, US forces later found the body of Private First Class
Joseph Anzack, Jr., a third US soldier who went missing at the same time.

US forces subsequently deployed some 4,000 troops, backed by Iraqi army
soldiers, to sweep through a large swath of territory around Mahmoudiya in
search of the missing soldiers. In a statement, the US command said that
American troops had detained 11 people and questioned 450 in connection
with the search.

On May 14, two days after the soldiers went missing, the Islamic State of
Iraq issued a statement calling on both US troops and the Iraqi Army to
halt their search if they wanted their soldiers back alive. In the video
clip that aired on Monday, the insurgent group stated that it had killed
the US soldiers because US troops and the Iraqi army had failed to heed
its warnings.

"Fearing the occupying army will continue its searches, harming our Muslim
brothers, we decided to settle the matter and announced the news of their
killing to cause bitterness to God's enemies," a spokesman for the Islamic
State of Iraq said in the video.

Customary international law requires that all captured belligerents be
treated humanely and provides that the murder or willful killing of a
captured belligerent is a war crime.

"No matter what the cause, killing captives violates international
humanitarian law," said Whitson. "Every party to a conflict is subject to
the laws of war, and the requirement to treat captive soldiers humanely is
one of the most basic provisions."

Executing a captured combatant also violates basic precepts of Islamic law
governing the conduct of war, according to most scholars of Islamic law.

Human Rights Watch has documented violations of the laws of war of all
parties to the conflict, including insurgent groups, US forces and the
Iraqi government forces.

To view the October 2005 Human Rights Watch report on violations of the
laws of war by Iraqi insurgent groups, "A Face and a Name: Civilian
Victims of Insurgent Groups in Iraq," please visit:

http://hrw.org/reports/2005/iraq1005/