BAGHDAD, Dec. 25 — Hundreds of British and Iraqi soldiers assaulted a police station in the southern city of Basra on Monday, killing seven gunmen, rescuing 127 prisoners from what the British said was almost certain execution and ultimately reducing the facility to rubble.
Woops! There goes all the evidence! They couldn't help it, of course. But there's a history behind this response as you might expect.
When the combined British and Iraqi force of 1,400 troops gained control of the station, it found the prisoners being held in conditions that a British military spokesman, Maj. Charlie Burbridge, described as “appalling.” More than 100 men were crowded into a single cell, 30 feet by 40 feet, he said, with two open toilets, two sinks and just a few blankets spread over the concrete floor.
A significant number showed signs of torture. Some had crushed hands and feet, Major Burbridge said, while others had cigarette and electrical burns and a significant number had gunshot wounds to their legs and knees.
The fetid dungeon was another example of abuses by the Iraqi security forces. The discovery highlighted the continuing struggle to combat the infiltration of the police and army by militias and criminal elements — even in a Shiite city like Basra, where there has been no sectarian violence.
As recently as October, the Iraqi government suspended an entire police brigade in Baghdad on suspicion of participation in death squads. The raid on Monday also raised echoes of the infamous Baghdad prison run by the Interior Ministry, known as Site 4, where more than 1,400 prisoners were subjected to systematic abuse and torture.
The focus of the attack was an arm of the local police called the serious crimes unit, which British officials said had been thoroughly infiltrated by criminals and militias who used it to terrorize local residents and violently settle scores with political or tribal rivals.
“The serious crimes unit was at the center of death squad activity,” Major Burbridge said.
A little over a year ago, British troops stormed the same building seeking to rescue two British special forces soldiers who had been captured by militants. A mob of 1,000 to 2,000 people gathered in protest, and a widely circulated video showed boys throwing stones at a burning British armored fighting vehicle parked outside the station. The soldiers, who were being held in a nearby building, were eventually freed.
This sounds like the incident where the Iraqi police arrested British Special Forces dressed as civilians
firing on Iraqi citizens. Interestingly, this police force had been trained by the British as well. And, deja vu all over again, this building was previously stormed by British troops- with tanks, no less- to release those Special Ops [with thanks to Ibn Alrafidain].Most of the police training in Iraq hasn't been done by the American forces, but by private security firms. A more comprehensive discussion is found here. Most of the police "mentoring" in Basra seems to have been done with the UK's Armor Group.
More from the Telegraph:
The unit has long been accused of involvement in murders, attacks on coalition forces and kidnappings in the southern oil city, where rival Shia factions are fighting for control.
The British military acted after learning that some of the prisoners, all suspected criminals, inside the police station faced imminent execution, Maj Burbridge said.
The troops found dozens of detainees in the station, many of whom had injuries. "But we don’t know if it was torture at this stage," he said.
Capt Dunlop said Iraqi forces had transferred the detainees to another police station. "We used explosives to put the building beyond use so it can no longer be used by the criminal enterprise," he said.
"We had clear directions from the prime minister and governor to dissolve the unit."
Television footage showed most of the building reduced to rubble with at least one police vehicle crushed and one lying upside down.
Looks like somebody got some pics
before it was all reduced to rubble. One hopes anything incriminating was, to say the least, taken care of.There was more monkey business from this fine, private contractor-trained police group last month, as you may recall:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Coalition and Iraqi troops in southeastern Iraq continued their hunt Friday night for five Western security contractors abducted the day before.
The five included four Americans and an Austrian, all employees of Crescent Security Corp. operating over the southeastern border in Kuwait.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry said earlier Friday that police had rescued two Americans from a house but later retracted the statement. (Read full story about abducted man from Minnesota)
A strike operation was conducted Friday by multinational forces in the Safwan area, where the kidnappings took place, the U.S. military said.
Neither the British nor the U.S. military would say whether it was in connection with the abductions. Britain's 7,000-member contingent in Iraq is based in nearby Basra.
During the operation, troops were fired on by gunmen in buildings. The troops returned fire and killed two gunmen, the U.S. military said. There were no detentions.
An official from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad provided more details about the Thursday incident:
- The convoy, consisting of 43 heavy trucks and six security vehicles, was stopped at what appeared to be an Iraqi police checkpoint on Highway 8 near Safwan on the Kuwait border.
- People posing as Iraqi police officers took 19 trucks and one security vehicle.
- Fourteen people were taken and nine of those -- truck drivers -- were released. Five security personnel were kept.
The supply convoy was traveling from Kuwait, where Crescent Security operates, to Tallil Airbase near Nasiriya, a company spokesman said.
The embassy's information conforms with what a military source told CNN earlier, except that the source identified the people who ambushed the convoy as local militiamen posing as police...
One wonders if this didn't start as a turf war among local entrepreneurs. How do people getting paid from the Armor kitty get along with Crescent, for example? It brings a whole new meaning to the term fierce competitor.
Even with a scorecard, it's getting hard to sort out the players.
One longs for the days when everyone wasn't crossdressing in everyone else's uniforms, and competition for the family business didn't involve bullets, torture, and tanks.
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