Hunting Baghdad's Death Squads
Lt. Col. Sean Swindell, the Special Forces battalion commander in charge of special operations forces in Baghdad and the south, described the extensive documentation compiled before any targets are nominated for raids. "We do not go after anyone until we have assembled an evidence packet with numerous sworn statements," he said. "We often add to those packets as we detain others." For one thing, the soldiers want to make sure there are ample grounds to hold those they capture, whether in Iraqi or U.S. custody. The other reason is to have all the details ready to divulge if politicians or the public begins questioning the motives for an operation. In the explosively charged climate of Iraq today, that has happened more than once.
Crying foul. In particular, when those detained are members of a Shiite militia, the Shiite-led government has sometimes cried foul. The powerful cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has denounced raids on his Jaish al-Mahdi militia, even though he has also criticized some of its excesses. In March, after special operations forces killed 16 armed Iraqis in a religious school, or hussainiya, the raids were virtually halted for three months while an investigation was conducted. Since he assumed the job of prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki has strongly supported the commandos and paid them a visit in August. He backed their detention of a sheik in Karbala who ran an armory and assassination cell, even when politicians there complained.
But Maliki is not immune to pressure. Just this month, he criticized the commandos for using aircraft to defend their raids. The AC-130 gunship has been a vital part of the raids' success. The small commando units defend themselves with overwhelming firepower. And in heavily armed neighborhoods like Sadr City, the militias fire antiaircraft guns from rooftops. In video footage of a July 23 raid viewed by U.S. News, heavy fire from a rooftop into the sky was clearly visible during the pitched battle. In that raid, the commandos rescued two Iraqis held in a mock sharia court who had been burned with acid and beaten with electric prods. On the night of the raid in the Shula neighborhood, the AC-130 swung into action to cover the commandos' departure. With AK-47 fire growing steadily, the gunship shot lethal 40-mm rounds to suppress it long enough for the convoy to turn around and wend its way out of the market area. Thirteen Iraqis were killed that night, 10 of them from the aircraft fire and three in the earlier gun battle.
Although U.S. officials take pains to avoid naming the particular groups they are going after, Sunni insurgents, al Qaeda in Iraq, and the Shiite militia commanders who are committing atrocities are all targets of the raids. The hope is to remove these hard-core leaders while the political leaders negotiate an amnesty and offer jobs to the foot soldiers.
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