US troops in Iraq accused of 'violating the laws of war'

US military forces in Iraq appear to have "violated the laws of war" by demolishing the homes of relatives of suspected insurgents or wanted former officials, Human Rights Watch said today.

In a letter to US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Human Rights Watch said that at least four house demolitions over the past two months appeared to be for purposes of "punishing families of suspected insurgents or compelling their cooperation". Destroying civilian property as a reprisal or deterrent "amounts to collective punishment", which is prohibited by the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the human rights group said.

“Troops are entitled to suppress armed attacks, but they can only destroy a civilian structure when it is being used in an attack,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “These demolitions did not meet the test of military necessity.”

Human Rights Watch also claimed that US forces in two of the cases reportedly took into custody persons who were not suspected of wrongdoing, but instead were close relatives of persons whom the US military was trying to apprehend.

Detaining persons for the purpose of compelling actions from the opposing side amounts to hostage-taking, which is a "grave breach of the Geneva Conventions", or in other words, "a war crime", the agency said.

“US forces should immediately release anyone being held solely because they are related to a wanted person,” Mr Roth said.

Elsewhere, a US Apache attack helicopter has been shot down west of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

The US military has said that the two pilots on the aircraft were recovered safely from the crash site.

(gmcg)