NYT: Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Military of Executions

[DeepModem Mom]

Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Military of Executions
By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: November 29, 2005


BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 28 - As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.

Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation.

Some Sunni males have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.

Some of the young men have turned up alive in prison; in a secret bunker discovered earlier this month in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials acknowledged that some of the mostly Sunni inmates appeared to have been tortured.

Bayan Jabr, the interior minister, and other government officials, denied any government involvement, saying the killings were carried out by men driving stolen police cars and wearing police and army uniforms purchased at local markets....Many of the claims of murder and abduction have been substantiated by at least one human rights organization working here - which asked not to be identified because of safety concerns - and documented by Sunni leaders working in their communities....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/29/international/middleeast/29security.html?hp&ex=1133240400&en=020e059c73999991&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[NanceGreggs]

1. I guess some people just don't recognize ...

... Freedom on the March when they see it.

Untold billions, untold deaths, all spent to leave Iraqis a country that is worse than it was when we got there.

[rodeodance]

2. its the tribal--an eye for an eye.

[rodeodance]

3. and the Americans know about this.

Many of the claims of killings and abductions have been substantiated by at least one human rights organization working here - which asked not to be identified because of safety concerns - and documented by Sunni leaders working in their communities.

American officials, who are overseeing the training of the Iraqi Army and the police, acknowledge that police officers and Iraqi soldiers, and the militias with which they are associated, may indeed be carrying out killings and abductions in Sunni communities, without direct American knowledge.

But they also say it is difficult, in an already murky guerrilla war, to determine exactly who is responsible. The American officials insisted on anonymity because they were working closely with the Iraqi government and did not want to criticize it publicly.

The widespread conviction among Sunnis that the Shiite-led government is bent on waging a campaign of terror against them is sending waves of fear through the community, just as Iraqi and American officials are trying to coax the Sunnis to take part in nationwide elections on Dec. 15.

[rodeodance]

4. a human rights group is looking into this.

."There is no question that bodies are turning up," said the investigator, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns. "Quite a few have been handcuffed and shot in the back of the head."

As an example, the human rights investigator said that the group had been able to verify that a number of Sunni men taken from the Baghdad neighborhood of Huriya and shot to death last August. Relatives of the dead told the group that more than 30 men had been taken from their homes by the Iraqi police in what appeared to be a roundup of Sunni males.

In the Iskan neighborhood in Baghdad, the human rights group said it had confirmed that 36 Sunni men had been abducted and killed in the neighborhood in August. Sunni groups say the men were taken from their homes by men who identified themselves as intelligence agents from the Interior Ministry.

"The stories are pretty much consistent across the board, both in the manner that the men are being abducted and in who they say is taking them," the human rights investigator said.

[hang a left]

5. Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Military of Kidnappings and Slayings

Sunnis Accuse Iraqi Military of Kidnappings and Slayings

By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: November 29, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 28 - As the American military pushes the largely Shiite Iraqi security services into a larger role in combating the insurgency, evidence has begun to mount suggesting that the Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods.

Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation.

Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.

Some of the young men have turned up alive in prison. In a secret bunker discovered earlier this month in an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials acknowledged that some of the mostly Sunni inmates appeared to have been tortured.

snip>

http://nytimes.com/2005/11/29/international/middleeast/29security.html?ei=5094&en=f18810368c98ae2c&hp=&ex=1133326800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1133244304-nzIynQilARivM25Ek92YuQ

[RamboLiberal]

6. LA Times also running extensive story on this

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-death29nov29,0,2153825.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Shiite Muslim militia members have infiltrated Iraq's police force and are carrying out sectarian killings under the color of law, according to documents and scores of interviews.

The abuses raise the specter of organized retaliation to attacks by Sunni-led insurgents that have killed thousands of Shiites, who endured decades of subjugation under Saddam Hussein.

And they undermine the U.S. effort to stabilize the nation, and train and equip Iraq's security forces -- the Bush administration's key prerequisites for the eventual withdrawal of American troops.

In recent months, hundreds of bodies have been discovered in rivers, garbage dumps, sewage treatment facilities and alongside roads and in desert ravines. Many of them are thought to be victims of Sunni insurgents, who are known to target Shiite civilians and Iraqi security forces, and even Sunni Arabs believed to be collaborating with U.S. forces or the Iraqi government. But increasingly, the Shiite militias operating within the national police force are also suspected of committing atrocities.