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| Iraq |
| Iraqi police unit linked to militias |
| 2006-10-04 |
| Iraqi authorities have taken a brigade of up to 700 policemen out of service and put members under investigation for "possible complicity" with death squads following a mass kidnapping earlier this week, the U.S. military said Wednesday. Meanwhile, a series of bombs went off in rapid succession in a shopping district in a mainly Christian neighborhood of Baghdad, killing 16 people and wounding 87, police said. The dead were among 26 people killed in attacks across Iraq. The U.S. military also announced the death of two soldiers — the latest in what has been one of the bloodiest stretches of days for American troops this year. At least 17 troops have been killed in combat since Saturday, including eight U.S. soldiers who died in gunbattles and bomb blasts Monday in Baghdad — the most killed in a single day in the capital since July 2005. The Iraqi police officers were decommissioned following a kidnapping Sunday when gunmen stormed a frozen food plant in the Amil district, abducted 24 workers and shot two others. The bodies of seven of the workers were found hours later but the fate of the others remains unknown. The action appeared aimed at signaling a new seriousness in tackling police collusion with militias at a time when the government is under increased pressure to put an end to the Shiite-Sunni violence that has killed thousands this year and threatened to tear Iraq apart. Sunni leaders blamed Shiite militias for the kidnapping and suggested security forces had turned a blind eye to the attack. The top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, said the Iraqi police brigade in the area had been ordered to stand down and was being retrained. "There was some possible complicity in allowing death squad elements to move freely when they should have been impeding them," he told a Baghdad news conference. "The forces in the unit have not put their full allegiance to the government of Iraq and gave their allegiance to others," he said. He said problems with the unit had emerged during a broad brigade-by-brigade assessment of police in Baghdad led by the U.S. military. The suspended brigade has about 650-700 police, said Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Karim Mohammedawi. The Iraqi Interior Ministry said Tuesday that the commander of the unit, a lieutenant colonel, had been detained for investigation and the major general who commands the battalion that includes the brigade had been suspended temporarily and ordered transferred. Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the chief ministry spokesman, said a random selection of troops in the suspended unit were being investigated for ties to militias. ... |
| Posted by:ed |
| #1 Parole il n'est pas aussi! |
| Posted by: .com 2006-10-04 17:54 |