Hunting Baghdad's Death Squads
BAGHDAD-A line of 13 humvees rolled into Baghdad's fetid Shula neighborhood well after midnight early this month, stopping briefly to navigate a makeshift barrier of concrete and concertina wire that a local militia had erected on a bridge leading into the warren of one- and two-story homes and market stalls. When they reached the high-walled house they were looking for, Iraqi and American special operations forces spilled out of the humvees, quickly breaching a metal garage door with an ear-shattering boom. Fire from AK-47 rifles erupted minutes later, and the commandos began shooting out streetlights that silhouetted them with a pop, pop, pop. Inside the house, a quick search revealed only women and children-and a photo of one of the men the team was after.
Almost every night in Baghdad, special operations forces wage an intense battle against the Iraqi groups conducting the massacres, kidnappings, and ghoulish disfigurements that are the city's latest scourge. Together, the Iraqis and Americans are conducting three, four, even five raids a night, with human and electronic intelligence tipping them off to the location of death squad leaders. Iraq's special-ops brigade, with its American combat advisers, has netted 1,320 detainees in 445 operations all over the country this year, including three senior militia leaders and 20 individuals most wanted by the U.S. conventional division commanders. Three years of intensive U.S. mentoring, generous funding, and constant operations have made the elite 1,433-man unit the most capable one in the Iraqi Army.
On this night, four raids were launched, and two death squad members were scooped up. Outside the house in Shula, two sharp-eyed U.S. Special Forces sergeants, one a trained sniper, simultaneously spotted two men sitting in a van in the shadows. The soldiers swung the barrels of their rifles and light machine guns toward the windshield, and the two Iraqis instantly raised their hands. The soldiers zip-tied the men's wrists and had them kneel by the road until an interpreter was free to question them. Their cellphones, thrown into the humvee, began ringing incessantly. Someone was anxious to find them.
Barrage. The Iraqis and Americans rendezvoused briefly in the courtyard, virtually indistinguishable in their U.S.-made night-vision goggles and M-4 rifles with laser sights. A new burst of AK-47 fire came from an alley into the courtyard, and two soldiers stole swiftly down the alley while others manning the big guns on the humvees let loose with a ferocious barrage of .50-caliber and 7.62 rounds. The Iraqi commander spoke a few words to his troops, and they dashed around a corner. A U.S. AC-130 gunship circling overhead had just spotted five men entering the mosque behind them. Past experience had taught the commandos how to handle such delicate targets. They had statements from informants attesting to the mosque's use as a meeting place for militia members and as a possible arms depot. Only Iraqis, not Americans, went in to search it.
One of the men in the van turned out to be one of two brothers the Iraqis and Americans were seeking. He was a Jaish al-Mahdi battalion commander who led a "punishment cell" set up to detain, torture, and kill Iraqis for alleged infractions of Islamic law. Their armed band, led by the man in the photo they found, is accused of some of the most gruesome crimes in Baghdad, including the kidnapping of 14 Iraqi soldiers in May. When the soldiers' bodies were found, their skulls had been burned with a hot iron, then punctured repeatedly with a power drill. Residents say this group has killed over two dozen people, including a young, pregnant wife whose fetus was cut from her womb. The leader's dossier also included making roadside bombs that had killed two U.S. soldiers in February.
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