As Iraqis are trying to forget the misery of the footage and pictures of the prisoners and demonstrators abuse in 2003 and 2004, a new scandal showed up. This time, it came by Iraqi Police forces. In yesterday’s edition, the Chicago Tribune reported that “the U.S. military has stumbled across the first evidence of a death squad within Iraq's Interior Ministry after the detention last month of 22 men wearing police commando uniforms who were about to shoot a Sunni man, according to the American general overseeing the training of Iraqi police.”
As a response to this, Iraq’s interior minister’s deputy, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, in charge of domestic intelligence, told the Associated Press that they “have been informed about this and the interior minister has formed an investigation committee”.
The Tribune said that the discovery of the death squad came about almost by chance, when an Iraqi army checkpoint in northern Baghdad stopped the men in late January and asked what they were doing. They responded truthfully, telling the soldiers that they were taking the Sunni man away to be shot dead.
It has been a long time when people in Baghdad and some other cities in Iraq expressed their worries concerning the continuous unexpected raids and kidnappings done by the Iraqi security forces. Sunni politicians and clerics have frequently urged the people, specifically Sunnis, to be more cautious and urged the Iraqi government to investigate in such cases. They have also called on the Prime Minister and the President to order the interior ministry to stop raids and kidnapings at night.
People in areas, where many are kidnapped or found shot dead, believe that the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Council, is responsible. The Tribune quoted Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, who commands the civilian police training teams in Iraq saying that “The uniformed men were all subsequently found to be employed by the ministry as highway patrolmen, and investigations suggest the four "instigators" in U.S. custody owed their allegiance to the Badr Organization.”
For months, the Muslim Sunni minority in Iraq have relatives that have been kidnapped in late hours of the day or at dawn. They found their bodies few days later, blind folded, handcuffed and shot dead.
The last major incident where security forces kidnapped Sunnis was on Jan. 23. “Men in camouflage uniforms rounded up 53 Tobji residents, nearly all of them Sunnis, in pre-dawn raids. Two people were killed. Other than two old men who were released days later, none of those taken have been heard from since” the Washington Post reported in an article published last Saturday.
On the other hand, the Majority Shiite Muslims in Iraq have been massacred in different areas in the country since the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi announced his “war” against the Shiites whom he considered as “infidels” according to the Salafi doctrine he follows.
In latest attack against Shiites in Iraq, “Gunmen killed at least nine farmers from the same family and wounded two others in the city of Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, Iraqi police and hospital officials said Tuesday.” According to the Washington Post.
As a response to this, Iraq’s interior minister’s deputy, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, in charge of domestic intelligence, told the Associated Press that they “have been informed about this and the interior minister has formed an investigation committee”.
The Tribune said that the discovery of the death squad came about almost by chance, when an Iraqi army checkpoint in northern Baghdad stopped the men in late January and asked what they were doing. They responded truthfully, telling the soldiers that they were taking the Sunni man away to be shot dead.
It has been a long time when people in Baghdad and some other cities in Iraq expressed their worries concerning the continuous unexpected raids and kidnappings done by the Iraqi security forces. Sunni politicians and clerics have frequently urged the people, specifically Sunnis, to be more cautious and urged the Iraqi government to investigate in such cases. They have also called on the Prime Minister and the President to order the interior ministry to stop raids and kidnapings at night.
People in areas, where many are kidnapped or found shot dead, believe that the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Council, is responsible. The Tribune quoted Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, who commands the civilian police training teams in Iraq saying that “The uniformed men were all subsequently found to be employed by the ministry as highway patrolmen, and investigations suggest the four "instigators" in U.S. custody owed their allegiance to the Badr Organization.”
For months, the Muslim Sunni minority in Iraq have relatives that have been kidnapped in late hours of the day or at dawn. They found their bodies few days later, blind folded, handcuffed and shot dead.
The last major incident where security forces kidnapped Sunnis was on Jan. 23. “Men in camouflage uniforms rounded up 53 Tobji residents, nearly all of them Sunnis, in pre-dawn raids. Two people were killed. Other than two old men who were released days later, none of those taken have been heard from since” the Washington Post reported in an article published last Saturday.
On the other hand, the Majority Shiite Muslims in Iraq have been massacred in different areas in the country since the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi announced his “war” against the Shiites whom he considered as “infidels” according to the Salafi doctrine he follows.
In latest attack against Shiites in Iraq, “Gunmen killed at least nine farmers from the same family and wounded two others in the city of Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, Iraqi police and hospital officials said Tuesday.” According to the Washington Post.
