There are fears that Iraqi police have been infiltrated by Shia Muslim paramilitaries -- in particular the Iranian-backed Badr Brigades -- who have targeted Iraq's minority Sunni community.
Seif Saad, an Iraqi guard, showed no remorse on Wednesday for the detention and alleged abuse of 173 prisoners in Baghdad.
"We placed sacks on their heads and tied their hands behind their backs," he said of their arrests, but, as far as he was concerned, they were suspected terrorists.
He was standing in a watchtower overlooking the ministry of the interior building where the detainees were held. The cells were found at the weekend by US forces and the discovery of the prisoners -- and the allegations of torture -- have provoked an international outcry.
The Iraqi police force is now subject to intense scrutiny. The main charge is that the police have been infiltrated by Shia Muslim paramilitaries -- in particular the Iranian-backed Badr Brigades -- who have targeted Iraq's minority Sunni community, from which the insurgency arose.
Since a new Iraqi government was established in the spring, several accounts have emerged of arrests, abuse and extrajudicial killings by paramilitary forces linked to the ministry and dominated by Shia Muslims operating in squads with names such as the Scorpions and the Wolf Brigade. Almost all the incidents have had a sectarian edge.
Saad, 18, a former laborer with no police training, denied the arrests were religiously motivated. He told a reporter the suspects had been brought in for questioning in connection with bombings, regardless of whether they were Sunni, Shia or Kurd. The reporter said Saad wore a special forces uniform resembling that of a Shia paramilitary group.
US forces said they had been hunting for a missing youth when they uncovered the secret detention center. The Iraqi government has launched an inquiry and promised an answer within a week.
But Manfred Novak, the UN special envoy on torture, yesterday called for an independent inquiry. He has received various allegations of torture and degrading treatment by both US and Iraqi forces in Iraq.
Stephen Bowen, an Amnesty International UK campaigns director, said: "This is by no means the first time that we've encountered cases of detainees apparently being tortured by members of the interior ministry -- a grisly pattern is emerging."
Ayad al-Samarrai, a senior official with the Iraqi Islamic party, a mainstream Sunni group, said his organization had made complaints about the illegal arrest and abuse of Sunni Muslims by government paramilitary forces for six months.
The party wanted an independent Iraqi inquiry established, with support from the US military and perhaps the UN, but with the powers to enter interior ministry buildings to investigate the widely reported accounts of abuse and torture. If no suitable Iraqi inquiry team could be set up, then an international investigation should be set up, he said. He said officials from Iraq's human rights ministry had tried to investigate but had been refused access by the powerful interior ministry.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not