Iraq’s main Sunni Arab political party on Wednesday demanded an international investigation into allegations that security forces illegally detained and tortured suspected insurgents at secret jails in Baghdad.
Omar Heikal of the Iraqi Islamic Party said it was now clear that majority Shia in the United States-backed government were trying to suppress minority Sunnis ahead of the December 15 parliamentary elections.
”Our information indicates that this is not the only place where torture is taking place,” he said, reading an official party statement. The party ”calls on the United Nations, the Arab League and humanitarian bodies to denounce these clear human rights violations and we demand a fair, international probe so that all those who are involved in such practices will get their just punishment”.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari confirmed on Tuesday that more than 173 Interior Ministry prisoners were found malnourished and possibly tortured by government security forces at a Baghdad prison.
Al-Jaafari’s comments came a day after an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said an investigation will be opened into allegations that Interior Ministry officers tortured suspects detained in connection with the insurgency.
”I was informed that there were 173 detainees held at an interior ministry prison and they appear to be malnourished. There is also some talk that they were subjected to some kind of torture,” al-Jaafari told reporters.
Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman said US and Iraqi forces went into the facility in Baghdad suspecting that individuals there might not have been appropriately handled or managed, and ”they found things that concerned them”.
Tariq al-Hashimi, the secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic Party, held up photos of the bodies of people who appear to have been subjected to torture and said: ”This is what your Sunni brothers are being subjected too.”
He said his group had sent complaints in the past the government, but without response.
”We told them that if you don’t have information, then where are our brothers who were kidnapped by people wearing your uniforms, using your telecommunication equipment and driving your cars,” he said.
He said that if the investigation proves that the interior minister was involved, then he should resign. He also said the country’s top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, should ”condemn these acts and stop covering” for the Shia minister.
The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq issued a report on Monday depicting a bleak picture of the Iraqi legal system.
”Massive security operations by the Iraqi police and special forces continue to disregard instructions announced in August 2005 by the ministry of the interior to safeguard individual guarantees during search and detention operations,” the report said.
Insurgents trapped, with no way out
Near the Syrian border on Tuesday, US and Iraqi forces swept through most of an insurgent stronghold, encountering pockets of fierce resistance, destroying five unexploded car bombs and killing at least 30 guerrilla fighters, the US command reported.
Separately, three US army soldiers were killed on Tuesday in a roadside bombing near Baghdad.
”Intelligence reports indicate that the strong resistance to the Iraqi and coalition push into the city is due in large part to the fact that insurgents believe they are trapped and have nowhere else to go,” the military report said of the border operation.
”Several detainees were captured trying to sneak out of the area by crawling among a flock of sheep.”
The US-Iraqi attack on Obeidi was the latest stage of an offensive to clear al-Qaeda-led insurgents from towns and cities in the Euphrates River valley near the border with Syria and seal off an infiltration route for foreign fighters sneaking into Iraq.
Earlier this month, US and Iraqi forces overran two other towns in the area — Husaybah and Karabilah. The Americans and their Iraqi allies plan to establish a long-term presence to prevent insurgents from returning.
One marine assigned to regimental combat team two, second marine division, died on Tuesday from wounds incurred from a bomb that exploded on Monday.
Another marine from the same unit died on Monday from a roadside bomb in Obeidi, and a third marine from the unit was killed by small arms fire on Monday, the military said.
That brought to at least 2 071 the number of US service members who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. According to a website called the Iraq Body Count Database, between 26 982 and 30 380 civilians have been killed.
US officials have said the Euphrates Valley campaign is also aimed at encouraging Sunni Arabs to vote in the December 15 parliamentary elections without fear of insurgent reprisals. The Bush administration hopes a successful election will encourage many in the Sunni community to abandon the insurgency.
US says phosphorous shells are standard weapon
Also on Tuesday, a Pentagon spokesperson acknowledged that US troops used white phosphorous as a weapon against insurgent strongholds during the battle of Fallujah last November. The spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable, denied an Italian television news report that the spontaneously flammable material was used against civilians.
Venable said white phosphorous shells are a standard weapon and are not banned by any international weapons convention to which the US is a signatory.
The battle for Fallujah was the most intense and deadly fight of the war, after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. The city, about 55km west of Baghdad on the Euphrates River, was a key insurgent stronghold. – Sapa-AP