| Daily Times - Site Edition | Monday, February 20, 2006 |
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Iraq’s Badr Brigade chief blames US for chaos
BAGHDAD: The leader of the Badr Brigade, a powerful Shia militia that fought Saddam Hussein from exile, on Sunday denied running hit squads targeting Sunni Muslims and blamed US errors for the chaos gripping Iraq.
Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority has complained for months of being targeted by death squads operating inside the Interior Ministry, run for almost a year by the pro-Iranian Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Sunnis accuse the Badr Brigade, SCIRI’s military wing that was trained by Iran for 20 years, of running death squads condoned by the Shia-led ministry, which denies the claims.
Hadi al-Amery said insurgents had infiltrated Iraqi security forces or were using their uniforms and cars to carry out kidnappings and killings and that poor coordination between the Interior and Defence Ministry made violations hard to stop.
Iraq has launched an inquiry into complaints by the US military that Shia death squads are operating within the Interior Ministry after four traffic police were caught with a kidnapped Sunni they were planning to kill. “We are very concerned that a stop be put to these violations against the Iraqi people,” Amery told Reuters at his heavily guarded house in Baghdad.
“These violations do happen and we reject them, whether carried out by elements that have infiltrated the Interior or Defence Ministries, or by terrorist elements who are exploiting the cars of the Defence or Interior Ministries and carry out these acts in their name.”
The US military said on Thursday the four patrolmen had confessed and been detained and the Interior Ministry was investigating in conjunction with the US military. The incident could be the first tangible evidence vindicating Sunni Arab complaints.
The Badr Brigade, which has since changed its name to the Badr Organisation and entered politics, says it has nothing to do with killings of Sunni Arabs whose bodies have been turning up in ditches and dumps with hands bound and shots to the head.
Amery, who spent 20 years in Iran but returned to Iraq after the US-led invasion toppled Saddam in 2003, said more Shias than Sunnis had been kidnapped and assassinated since then and blamed the United States for the security breakdown. “Count the assassinations, executions and kidnappings of Shias and they are much more than the Sunnis . . . When you ask me who kills the Sunnis I ask you who kills the Shias?” said Amery, adding that 300 Badr members had been killed so far.
“I am not responsible for security. The American forces are responsible for security ... Rather than asking me, ask the Americans . . . If they have evidence or information that Badr has killed bring me the evidence and I will call for the detention of those who carried out the acts.”
Iraq passed a law in 2004 to disband militia or integrate them into the fledgling Iraqi security forces, but that has resulted in police, soldiers and commandos sometimes more loyal to their political parties than their jobs.
Different forces are seen as loyal to different officials with overlapping responsibilities and no clear command chain.
Meanwhile, a hardline Sunni Muslim clerical group renewed accusations that the Shia-dominated government is operating death squads to kill Sunni civilians and called on Muslim and Arab countries to support Iraqi Sunni community. agencies
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