Iraqi police brigade, death squads link probed

updated 6:07 p.m. ET Oct. 4, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi authorities for the first time pulled a brigade of about 700 policemen out of service Wednesday for investigation of suspected ties to death squads, aiming to signal the government’s seriousness in cleansing Baghdad of sectarian violence.

The government move came amid steadily mounting violence, particularly in the capital. A U.S. military spokesman said the past week had seen the highest number of car bombs and roadside bombs in Baghdad this year.

Four U.S. soldiers patrolling in Baghdad were killed by gunmen on Wednesday, the U.S. military said, also announcing the deaths of two other soldiers a day earlier in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk. The deaths brought to 21 the number of Americans killed in combat since Saturday.

The suspension of the police brigade was the first time the Iraqi government has taken such dramatic action to discipline security forces over possible links to militiamen. Baghdad’s Sunnis widely fear the Shiite-led police, saying they are infiltrated by militias and accusing them of cooperating with death squads who snatch Sunnis and kill them.

The brigade was responsible for a region of northeast Baghdad where gunmen on Sunday kidnapped 24 workers from a frozen food factory. Hours later, the bodies of seven of the workers were found dumped in a district miles away. Sunni politicians have said all those who were kidnapped were Sunnis; the region has a mixed population with a slight Shiite majority.

Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the chief ministry spokesman, said the brigade was being investigated because it “didn’t respond quickly” to the kidnapping. Sunnis blamed Shiite militias for the abduction and accused police of allowing the gunmen to escape and move freely with their captives.

Any militia ties won't be tolerated
The top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, said the police brigade in the area had been ordered to stand down and was undergoing retraining. He said some were being investigated and that any found to have militia ties would be removed.

“The government of Iraq was very clear as we go through this process that if that (unit) comes out at 30 percent of what it went in with, that’s OK with the government of Iraq,” he told a Baghdad news conference.

“There is clear evidence that there was some complicity in allowing death squad elements to move freely when, in fact, they were supposed to have been impeding their movement,” Caldwell said.

The U.S. military appeared to have a key role in getting the brigade sidelined. Caldwell said problems with the unit had emerged during a broad brigade-by-brigade assessment of police in Baghdad carried out by the U.S. military over the summer — and the decision was made by the Interior Ministry to act Tuesday.

U.S. forces have been carrying out raids and arrests of militia members for the past month as part of a wide-scale U.S.-Iraqi sweep of Baghdad launched in August, which has seen the number of American troops in the capital double.

Forces have been moving from neighborhood to neighborhood, searching houses, confiscating weapons and arranging services like water and electricity for residents in an attempt to stop sectarian violence and insurgent attacks. The rise in U.S. deaths in recent days may be linked to their increased presence in the capital, commanders have said.

But at the same time, Sunnis have accused the Shiite-led government of balking at sending its security forces against the Shiite militias, many of which are linked to parties in the coalition.

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