OneWorld.net (U.S.)

NEW YORK, Oct 6 (OneWorld) - Armed groups resorting to indiscriminate violence against civilians in Iraq and Palestine are under fire from the world's two leading human rights organizations who have consistently denounced the acts of military aggression by foreign forces there.

"There are no justifications for targeting civilians, in Iraq or anywhere else," says Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch, Middle East and North Africa Division. "Armed groups as well as governments must respect the laws of war."

The U.S.-based influential rights advocacy group released a new report this week, reminding insurgency groups in Iraq that the laws of war "do not prohibit attacks on legitimate military targets, but they oblige all forces in a conflict to protect civilians."

Entitled "A Face and a Name: Civilian Victims of Insurgent Groups in Iraq," the 140-page study examines the impact of targeted attacks on ethnic and religious communities, politicians, academics, journalists, and women.

Authors of the report acknowledge that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the continued military occupation has resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths and that the U.S. and Iraqi government forces continue to violate laws of war.

But they reject the argument that the insurgents' unlawful attacks on civilians are justifiable because the occupation forces are doing the same.

"U.S. forces have used excessive and indiscriminate force, tortured detainees and held thousands of Iraqis without due process," Whitson says. "But that does not justify attacks by insurgents that have deliberately targeted and killed civilians."

The report identifies Al-Qaeda, Ansar-al-Sunna, and the Islamic Army in Iraq as mainly responsible for abductions and executions of civilians, as well as suicide bombing in mosques, markets, and bus stations.

The group's legal researchers describe such acts as possible war crimes and crimes against humanity, which, according to them, are defined as "serious crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population."

Such crimes fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Early this year, the Iraqi interim government had declared that it was willing to endorse the treaty on the ICC, but within a few days it reversed its decision, presumably under pressure from Washington, which continues to oppose the first-ever world court on war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The U.S. military leadership has repeatedly asserted that it does not do body counts regarding civilian casualties in Iraq as a result of war. But the Iraq Body Count, a U.K.-based independent group, estimates that the war in Iraq has claimed nearly 30,000 civilian lives. It is not known how many innocent Iraqis have died as a result of attacks by insurgent groups.

According to official figures, the Coalition forces have lost over 2,100 troops, an overwhelming majority of them from the United States.

Noting that certain insurgent groups and their supporters have condemned attacks on civilians, the human rights group urges the anti-occupation Iraqi political and religious leaders to denounce unlawful attacks on civilians.

"People we have spoken with in the Middle East are increasingly repulsed by the behavior of insurgent groups in Iraq," Whitson says, "even if they support a withdrawal of U.S. troops."

"It is time for political and religious leaders who support the insurgency to denounce the atrocities in public," she adds.

Voicing similar concern over the fate of civilians in armed conflict, the London-based group Amnesty international this week urged Palestinian militant groups to avoid "reckless shooting" and other attacks in residential areas and busy streets.

"Factional fighting by Palestinian armed groups has reached an unprecedented level," the group said in a statement. "It is recklessly endangering the lives of civilians in the Gaza Strip."

Last Sunday, two Palestinian pedestrians were killed and several injured as a result of armed clashes between Palestinian authority security forces and Hamas fighters in Gaza City.

On Sept. 23, about 20 Palestinian civilians, including children, reportedly lost their lives when a vehicle carrying ammunition exploded during a parade of Hamas in the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

Amnesty International also called on the Palestinian authority to observe human rights standards, reestablish the rule of law to protect civilian lives, and order independent probes into the incidents of killings by armed groups.