Iraqi police major held for death squad role

[maddezmom]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi authorities on Sunday arrested a police major accused of taking part in death squads, Interior Ministry officials said.

They said Arkan al-Bawi, who works in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, was detained after visiting the Interior Ministry.

Sunni Arabs accuse the Shi'ite-led government of sanctioning death squads, a charge the government denies.

Bawi, whose brother is the chief of police in Diyala, was accused of operating in death squads in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060326/wl_nm/iraq_arrest_dc

edited to add previous article

Insurgents kill at least 15 in well-organized attack

By Matthew SchofieldKNIGHT RIDDERBAGHDAD, Iraq - In a daring assault on a heavily guarded government compound in Diyala province, Iraqi insurgents made it clear Tuesday that they can mount a well-coordinated, large-scale attack in what many had considered to be a relatively safe area.

As many as 120 insurgents stormed the government compound in the town of Muqdadiyah, quickly overwhelmed police and released more than 30 prisoners from the city jail. At least 15 police officers were killed.

The insurgents controlled the high-security compound, which also contains the military's joint coordination center and the government offices for the city of 100,000 residents, for about 40 minutes before they were driven off by U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by helicopter gunships. Eleven insurgents died and two were wounded, police said.

One U.S. soldier was injured when his helicopter came under fire, military spokesman Chief Petty Officer Greg Frazho said.
more: http://www.thestate.com/mld/cctimes/news/special_packages/iraq/14157798.htm?source=rss&channel=cctimes_iraq

[LynnTheDem]

1. Oh now wait one minute here!!!

What about all the Iraqi police majors who are NOT being held for their roles with death squads!

Damn librul biased media!

[OKNancy]

2. LOL

:thumbsup:

[rooboy]

3. LOL... n/t

[UpInArms]

4. "The Salvador Option"

The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq

Jan. 14, 2005

Jan. 8 - What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out.

Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras. There is no evidence, however, that Negroponte knew anything about the Salvadoran death squads or the Iran-Contra scandal at the time. The Iraq ambassador, in a phone call to NEWSWEEK on Jan. 10, said he was not involved in military strategy in Iraq. He called the insertion of his name into this report "utterly gratuitous.")

Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.

...more...

[maddezmom]

5. updated link:US troops arrest Iraqi govt forces, find bunker

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops on Sunday arrested at least 40 Iraqi Interior Ministry forces who were holding 17 foreigners in a secret bunker complex, political sources said.

A Reuters reporter who approached the bunker complex on Sunday was turned away by Shi'ite militiamen.

It was not clear who the foreigners were but the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government has launched a crackdown on Sunni foreign fighters from Arab states it accuses of carrying out suicide bombings which have killed thousands of mostly Shi'ite Iraqis.

U.S. troops last year found 173 mostly Sunni Arab prisoners held in a secret Interior Ministry bunker. They showed signs of torture and malnourishment in a scandal that embarrassed the government.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060326/ts_nm/iraq_bunker_dc