BAGHDAD (AP)-[off the wire, no link]-At least 700 "terrorists" have been captured and 28 killed in the first four days of a major counterinsurgency operation being carried out by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces in Baghdad, the Interior Minister said Thursday.
Bayan Jabr said an additional 118 criminal suspects were rounded in Operation Lighting, al-Barq in Arabic, which involves 40,000 Iraqi troops.
The presence of security forces on the streets of Baghdad, a city of about six million people, has increased dramatically since the operation began Sunday, with snap checkpoints, round-the-clock patrols by police commandos in pickup trucks, and raids on suspect houses.
Jabr, a member of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq - the country's largest Shiite party that's also known as SCIRI - told The Associated Press in an interview that he was determined to end any torture of suspected insurgents held in police custody.
He added that he has already fired a police major-general and a brigadier for their alleged torture of detainees and abuse of authority.
"It's a clear message to everyone that they will loose their jobs if torture continues," said Jabr, formerly a senior official of the Badr Brigade, a militia that belongs to SCIRI.
"I am a victim of torture myself, he said, adding that out of 16 family members killed under the regime of Saddam Hussein "10 died of torture." |
