http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0216iraq-deathsquad0216.html
U.S. finds likely death squad in Iraq 22 in police force targeted Sunni
Liz Sly Chicago Tribune Feb. 16, 2006 12:00 AM
BAGHDAD - The U.S. military has stumbled across the first evidence of a death squad within Iraq's Interior Ministry after the detention last month of 22 men wearing police commando uniforms who were about to shoot a Sunni man, according to the American general overseeing the training of Iraqi police.
The men turned out not to be police commandos but were employed by the Ministry of Interior as highway patrolmen, according to Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, who commands the civilian police training teams in Iraq.
"We have found one of the death squads," he said.
"They are a part of the police force of Iraq."
Allegations that death squads targeting Sunnis are operating within the Shiite-dominated police forces have been circulating since last May, when the bodies of Sunnis detained by men wearing police uniforms began turning up in garbage dumps and waste ground around Baghdad. Most of the victims had been tortured, and many were shot execution-style.
The killings started after the current Shiite-led government took office and appointed a new interior minister, Bayan Jabr, a leading official in the Iran-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, fueling suspicions that the ministry's forces were waging a sectarian campaign against Sunnis.
Thousands of Sunnis have since been rounded up by Interior Ministry forces as part of a crackdown against the Sunni-dominated insurgency, according to ministry figures. Sunni political organizations say 1,600 of those detained by men wearing police uniforms have subsequently turned up dead.
But there has been no solid evidence that those killed were detained by real police, and Iraqi officials have frequently said they suspect insurgents, criminals or militias posing as police have been behind the killings, perhaps to fuel the sectarian tensions that have destabilized the country.
The old Republican Guard uniforms resemble those of the new police commandos charged with carrying out counterinsurgency operations, Peterson said.
Police uniforms and paraphernalia are readily available in local markets, making it possible for anyone to disguise themselves as police.
Nonetheless, he said, it is likely there are other death squads operating within the security forces.