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3800 executed in iraq first three months of 2006 Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002979414_civilians08.htmlhttp://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002979414_civilians08.html
Killing of civilians in Baghdad becomes more personal, brutal
By Louise Roug
Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq —
More Iraqi civilians were killed in Baghdad during the first three months of this year than at any time since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime — at least 3,800 people, most of them found hog-tied and shot execution-style by the assassins stalking this city.
Others were strangled, electrocuted, stabbed, garroted or hanged. Some died in bombings. Many bore signs of torture such as bruises, drill holes, burn marks, gouged eyes or severed limbs.
Every day, about 40 bodies arrive at the central Baghdad morgue, an official said. But the numbers also demonstrate a shift in the nature of the bloodshed, which has increasingly targeted both sides of the country's sectarian divide.
In the previous three years, the killings were indiscriminate, impersonal. Violence mostly came in the form of bombs wielded by the Sunni-led insurgency that primarily targeted the country's Shiite majority: balls of fire and shrapnel tearing through the bodies of those riding the wrong bus, shopping at the wrong market or standing in the wrong line.
Systematic killings
Now, the killings are systematic, personal. Masked gunmen storm into homes, and the victims — most of them Sunnis — are never seen alive again. Targeted killings now claim nine times more lives than car bombs, according to rates provided by a high-ranking U.S. military official, who released them only on the condition of anonymity.
Statistics obtained at the Baghdad morgue showed a steady increase in the number of shootings and other types of targeted killings over the last year, with a stunning spike in March, after the Feb. 22 bombing of one of the holiest Shiite Muslim shrines in the country.
The morgue logs every autopsied body, cataloging each death with a folder and pictures of the dead. Two officials at the morgue — the director and the head of statistics — provided the numbers and descriptions for this report.
On a recent day, coffins were stacked against the wall outside the morgue, waiting to be filled. Every 30 minutes or so, police officers arrived, unloading more bodies from their pickup trucks.
With each new load, crowds of people rushed to look at the bodies, searching for their missing relatives.
The number of bombing victims, who do not normally undergo autopsies, was calculated from daily reports by hospital and police officials between Jan. 1 and April 1. Those reports were conservative and did not include Iraqi security forces, Iraqis killed by U.S. or Iraqi forces, and Iraqis killed outside the capital.
Obtaining accurate numbers from the Health Ministry or the 18 major hospitals serving Baghdad proves difficult because officials from all tiers of government routinely inflate or deflate numbers to suit political purposes.
Sectarian violence
The figures obtained from numerous other sources, however, show the sectarian nature of a conflict that increasingly targets civilians.
In the Sunni cemeteries serving Baghdad, with a population of 5 million, demand for tombs is so high that gravediggers bury people between old graves or at the edges of the burial grounds.
The morgue statistics — 3,472 violent deaths from January through March — depict a higher death toll in Baghdad than ever before, but even they do not offer the full picture of the violence in the capital.
Because those who die in bombings or are shot during gunfights between insurgents and security forces generally are not brought in for autopsy at the central morgue, they are not counted in its statistics. At least 351 civilians were killed in bombings throughout the capital during the first three months of the year, according to police and hospital reports during that time.
Sunni leaders charge that police and special commandos, who are mostly Shiites, operate death squads killing Sunnis in a campaign of sectarian cleansing. Shiite politicians say criminals steal or buy uniforms, then terrorize the capital in the guise of the security forces.
U.S. military officials ultimately lay the blame on the shadowy figure of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, who they charge is trying to provoke a civil war.
After the Feb. 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, the U.S. military began an unprecedented effort to track what it terms ethno-sectarian violence.
Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the top military spokesman in Iraq, said the military logged 152 such killings in the week ending April 22 — in what he said was a decline from previous weeks. How the military arrived at the number is unclear.
Although the number of civilian deaths has steadily risen since 2003 and the number of execution-style shootings began to rise last spring, the violence spiked by 86 percent in the nine weeks after the Golden Mosque attack, according to the rates provided by the U.S. military official.
At the central morgue, the freezers are stuffed with bodies and forensic workers are overwhelmed. "Our small institute just cannot keep up with the number of corpses we are receiving daily," said Abed Razzaq, the acting morgue director.
On a daily basis, he said, the morgue receives about 40 bodies, "and this number is constant, if not increasing."
Gunmen operate throughout Baghdad, killing brazenly during daylight hours and moving with impunity during curfew.
Because there is rarely any meaningful investigation of the deaths, it is all but impossible to determine to what extent the killers are motivated by sectarian feuds or by revenge, money or tribal quarrels.
Torture common
"I cannot say if the killers are trained professionals or just criminals, but the pattern we see is torture and beatings" before the victim is killed, "mostly by shooting or hanging," Razzaq said.
Six out of 10 bodies show sign of torture, he said. Some appear to have been severely beaten; others show one or more limbs cut off.
"There are no limits to the brutality," he said.
The toll is visible in the black banners draped on walls around the capital.
"We never thought that we would reach a day when we would see Shiites and Sunnis fighting," said Halale Ubeidi, a Shiite who as a young woman married a Sunni. Her Sunni son Haitham, 29, was kidnapped along with his younger brother.
"My two sons were taken in front of my eyes, and one of them is dead," Halale said.
One night, attackers charged into the cramped apartment where the family lived among Shiite neighbors.
"You, the Sunnis," said the gunmen, taking Haitham and his younger brother, Othman, according to their sister, Miriam.
The attackers brought the brothers to a house where, during their torture and captivity, they heard the sound of children and a woman cooking in the room next door, Othman told her.
Haitham was beaten and tortured to death in that house, according to Othman, who managed to escape.
Haitham's mutilated body was found in a dump near the vast Shiite slum of Sadr City.
Haitham's captors had gouged one of his eyes, cut his face with a blade, smashed his skull, broken his jaw, slit his back and cut off his penis, his sister and mother said. A copy of Haitham's death certificate says he was shot 14 times.
"We are living in a state of panic and fear," said his sister. "Maybe they'll come again. ... Nobody knows when his turn will come to be captured and killed by these gunmen."
General arrested
in death-squad probe
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The interior minister said on Sunday his police had arrested a general in the ministry on suspicion of involvement in kidnaps and death squads.
Bayan Jabr, who is fighting to keep his job in a new government in the face of criticism that he has tolerated Shiite militias inside his ministry, made the announcement in an interview on Al-Jazeera television.
"We have arrested an officer, a major general ... along with 17 people who kidnapped citizens and in some cases killed them. He is now in jail and under investigation," he said. "We also found a terror group in the 16th brigade that carries out killings of citizens."
— Reuters
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
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