US troops arrest Iraq police death squad

An inquiry has been launched into the infiltration of Iraq's police by militia forces after a 22-member death squad was caught red-handed at a checkpoint in Baghdad. Guards stopped the men–all wearing police uniforms–as they tried to cross a roadblock in the north of the capital. When questioned, they freely admitted they were on their way to execute a Sunni Muslim prisoner. Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, who commands the civilian police training teams in Iraq, told reporters that the men were employed by the Ministry of Interior as highway patrol officers. "The amazing thing is... they tell you exactly what they're going to do," he said. Four of the men are believed to have links to the Badr brigades–the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI), one of Iraq's main Shia parties. They are being held at the US detention facility at Abu Ghraib. The others are in an Iraqi jail. The Sunni man, who is accused of murder, is also being held in Iraqi custody. Peterson said he believed that there were other sectarian death squads operating within the security forces. "We continue to believe that there's more of these out there," he said. He said that he was certain that Bayan Jabr, the Interior Minister who is a member of SCIRI, had no knowledge of the death squads. "They are discrediting him and his organization. He wants to find these guys. He does not support them," he said. Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, Iraq's deputy interior minister, responded to the report by ordering an investigation. As the inquiry was announced, police discovered the bodies of a dozen executed men in the predominantly Shia Muslim suburb of Shula. "We have been informed about this and the interior minister has formed an investigation committee to learn more about the Sunni person and those 22 men, particularly whether they work for the Interior Ministry or claim to belong to the ministry," Kamal told the Associated Press. Allegations of death squads targeting Sunnis from within the Shia-dominated ranks of the police have been circulating since May last year. Bodies of Sunnis seized from their homes or mosques by men in uniform regularly turn up in land fills around Baghdad, bound, gagged and bearing execution-style gunshot injuries. On the other side of the sectarian divide, there is also evidence of Shia Muslims being systematically massacred by Sunni extremists in Baghdad, Diyala province and mixed areas to the south of the capital. Executions are also regularly reported in the southern city of Basra, where British troops patrol. Maj. Alex Wilson, a senior British officer involved in training police in Basra, said that he believed death squads "masquerading" as police or members of the interior ministry, were responsible for more than 140 killings between November and January. He told the Associated Press that this was double the number killed in the previous six months. "We are doing our best to counter the death squads. We want to take them off the street," he said. Nermine Othman, the human rights minister, said that she believed lower-level interior ministry officials were using criminals to kill Iraqis. "I think there are many people inside the interior ministry involved with these deaths or giving the uniforms of colleagues to criminals," she said. "These officials are helping the criminals by informing them on where targeted people are going or where people are living. They are helping them in different ways." The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party praised the investigation and said perpetrators should be brought to justice. "Since a very long time, we have been talking about such violations and we have been telling the Interior Ministry officials that there are squads that raid houses and arrest people who are found later executed in different parts of the capital," said Nasser al-Ani of the Iraqi Islamic party.