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Phantom Force
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Apr 21, 2006 05:34pm |
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| Category | General |
| News Date | Monday, April 24, 2006 11:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | In the 'Year of the Police,' a murky security group is mutating and growing.
By Scott Johnson
Newsweek
April 24, 2006 issue - The terrorists trying to drive Iraq toward full-scale civil war have put sacred shrines at the top of their target list. So who, then, is protecting Iraq's most revered holy sites these days? The answer might tell us something about where real power lies in Iraq—or at least how it's divvied up by rival factions competing for power and authority. With that aim in mind, Iraqi reporters for NEWSWEEK set off last week to visit some of the country's most sacred sites. They didn't get far. At the first stop on their list—the 10th-century Kadhimiya shrine in Baghdad—two reporters were detained and questioned. The armed men who held them were from an obscure security force called the Facilities Protection Services, which now apparently numbers a staggering 146,000 men.
[snip]
The incident—part "Sopranos," part Keystone Cops—reveals the murky nature of security in Iraq these days. Iraqis don't know whom to trust. Men who say they are journalists could be insurgents. Yet people dressed as security officers could be just about anyone. Insurgents and militiamen have disguised themselves as soldiers, police and, probably, fighters from rival militia groups. Some security units are fronts for specific militia organizations, and it's widely believed that cops have banded together to form death squads.
Even as American officials trumpet 2006 as the "Year of the Police," a more problematic force with multiple agendas is emerging. |
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