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.
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.
This story appears in the September 4, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.