Camp Speicher massacre

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The Camp Speicher massacre was a mass killing that happened on 12 June 2014 in Tikrit, Iraq, during the Islamic State’s (IS) invasion of the country. IS captured between 5,000 and 10,000 unarmed Iraqi cadets near Camp Speicher, a large military base in Saladin Governorate about 10 kilometers northwest of Tikrit (the base had been used by the United States and was handed to the Iraqi government in 2011).

Many cadets were surrounded, scattered, or forced to leave the camp. Some fled in civilian clothes, hoping to escape detection, while others were captured. Survivors testified that senior officers at the camp pressured them to leave, promising safe passage. IS fighters then carried out mass killings: some cadets were shot on site, others were loaded into trucks, and some were dumped into the Tigris River. IS released propaganda videos showing mass executions.

Death tolls reported vary widely, with figures commonly cited as between about 1,095 and 1,700 killed or missing. The Iraqi government accused members of the Ba’ath Party of taking part, but most evidence pointed to IS as the principal perpetrators. Official statements also said thousands of cadets were missing, though later figures cited 1,095 missing as of September 2014. The government ordered compensation for the families of the missing.

Survivors and observers described brutal conditions, and some cadets testified that officers compelled them to leave the camp. After Iraqi forces retook Tikrit in 2015, mass graves were found and began to be exhumed.

There have been international and legal responses. In 2015, two identical twin brothers identified in IS propaganda were charged in Finland with murder and war crimes for killings linked to the massacre, but they were acquitted in 2017 and again in 2020 due to lack of evidence. In Iraq, executions and prosecutions related to the massacre followed: 36 men were hanged in August 2016, 27 more were sentenced in August 2017, and some others were released for lack of evidence. In May 2024, three suspects suspected of involvement in the massacre were arrested by the Iraqi National Intelligence Service.

Camp Speicher itself is in the Tikrit area, northwest of the Iraqi capital and near the site of earlier conflict. It was originally built as an air base in 1973, used by the US military through the Iraq War, and transferred to the Iraqi government in 2011 for use as an air base and training facility.