Sectarian violence against Sunni Arabs in Iraq

Sectarian violence against
Iraqi Sunni Arabs
Sectarian violence against; Iraqi Sunni Arabs
Part of the Iraqi conflict and War against the Islamic State
	Popular Mobilization Forces enter Fallujah in 2016
Location	Iraq
Date	2003–present
Target	Iraqi Sunni Arabs
Attack type	Genocide (alleged); Revenge killing; Mass killing; Abduction; Torture; Extrajudicial killing; Summary execution;
Deaths	At least 30,000
Victims	250,000–1,000,000 forcibly disappeared during 2016–2020 (Red Cross),; 9,000 sentenced to death, thousands detained and tortured (European Union Agency for Asylum)
Perpetrators	Iraq Federal government of Iraq Iraqi Security Forces; ; Kurdistan Regional Government Peshmerga; Asayish; ; Popular Mobilisation Forces Various Shia militias; ; ; Iran Iranian Armed Forces IRGC; ; ;
Motive	Revenge; Counterterrorism; Anti-Sunnism; Shia fundamentalism; De-Ba'athification;

There had been allegations that Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militias, with the support of the Iraqi central government, had committed genocide against Sunni Muslim Arabs in Iraq. The allegations began after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when Iran-backed Shia factions dominated the Iraqi government. Such reports intensified during the Iraqi civil war from 2006 to 2008 and the War in Iraq from 2014 to 2017 against the Islamic State. Peshmerga and Asayish have also "prosecuted, detained and tortured" Iraqi Sunni Arabs. According to an Amnesty International report, attacks conducted by Shia militias against Sunni civilians were carried out "driven by revenge" for previous attacks committed by ISIS against Shia civilians.