Iraqi Official Deflects Criticism

Iraq’s interior minister, whose forces are accused of complicity in sectarian death squad killings, defended his agency in an interview with U.S. reporters Friday, and said he had the backing of the prime minister and parliament to remove corrupt and incompetent police commanders from the streets.

Jawad Bolani, a political independent who took over as interior minister in June, downplayed the problems at his ministry, seen by many as a source of sectarian tension and violence throughout the country.

He said more than two-thirds of sectarian slaying victims were found in areas of Baghdad under the control of the Defense Ministry, which oversees the Iraqi army, suggesting that U.S. and Iraqi focus on the alleged abuses by his forces was misplaced.

“Baghdad is not only the Ministry of Interior,” Bolani said in his office in the capital. “It is divided in responsibility.”

The Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry has been accused by Sunni Arab politicians of harboring or tolerating Shiite Muslim militias linked to killings of Sunni Arab civilians. Dozens of corpses showing signs of torture show up daily in the Tigris River or in abandoned lots. At least 18 bodies were discovered Friday in Baghdad.

North of the capital, near the Tigris River town of Duluiya, police discovered the beheaded bodies of 14 Shiite Muslim laborers who were among 17 abducted Thursday by gunmen believed to be Sunni Arab insurgents. The victims were handcuffed and showed signs of torture.

South of Baghdad, insurgents killed an Iraqi police SWAT commander Friday in a bombing at an Interior Ministry compound that also killed a deputy and injured two others, officials said.

One U.S. soldier was reported killed in combat near Tikrit on Thursday when his vehicle struck a homemade bomb. A U.S. military news release said two Western security contractors guarding a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers convoy were killed by a roadside bomb Wednesday.

Bolani sidestepped questions about whether he saw militia influence in the Interior Ministry. But he drew a distinction between militias that existed before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and others, such as radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr’s Al Mahdi army, that emerged afterward. Under Iraqi law, those that existed before the invasion and fought former President Saddam Hussein have a right to be incorporated into security forces, whereas the others are illegal, he said.

Bolani said few sectarian militia members who had been arrested worked for the Interior Ministry. Often they were employees of an Iraqi security force that guarded government buildings, or were security guards at other ministries or for politicians. He said some had been linked to the Iraqi National Intelligence Service.

Bolani said he had removed 3,000 police officers from their posts, referring anywhere from 10% to 20% of the cases to prosecutors. An aide said Bolani had issued 1,228 “administrative punishments” to employees.

But the minister acknowledged that he was powerless when it came to security in large areas of the capital, especially in Sunni-dominated western Baghdad.

He noted that Amer Hashimi, the brother of a Sunni Arab politician, was killed this week in his Baghdad home in a neighborhood under the control of the Defense Ministry.

Increasingly shaken by the violence, many Iraqis have demanded accountability.

“It is not reasonable that cars in the daylight come to the house of a well-known commander and kill him, and the government says, ‘We don’t know,’ ” Sheik Harith Obeidi told worshipers Friday at the Shawaf Mosque in Baghdad.

Cmdr. Salam Trad, leader of a special police squadron, and his assistant were killed Friday in a bombing at his office in the Shiite city of Hillah, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Investigators provided no details about the blast, but an Interior Ministry official said a bomb might have been placed beneath Trad’s desk.

“It’s obvious there was some kind of inside collaboration,” said Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Kinani, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

The attack in the southern city came as thousands prepared to descend on the Shiite holy city of Najaf to commemorate a religious holiday.

More than 20,000 police officers will be on duty in the city, south of Hillah. Officials worry that Sunni Arab insurgents will attack the worshipers.

daragahi@latimes.com

Times special correspondents in Baghdad, Hillah and Najaf contributed to this report.