Journalist’s Footage Shows Iraqi Forces Torturing Civilians, ABC Report Says
By LIAM STACKMAY 26, 2017
Video smuggled out of Iraq by an Iraqi journalist and broadcast by ABC News on Thursday appears to show members of an Iraqi special forces unit — one
that has been praised by the United States — torturing and executing civilians in Mosul during a campaign against the Islamic State last year.
The disturbing footage appears to show uniformed Iraqi soldiers beating Iraqi civilians
and hanging one man from the ceiling by his wrists while demanding they confess to working with the Islamic State.
Mr. Arkady told ABC he originally had intended to do a story on how Sunni
and Shiite soldiers worked together in the unit, the Emergency Response Division of Iraq’s Ministry of Interior, to fight ISIS.
He previously embedded with the unit when it helped push the Islamic State out of Falluja and made a video at
that time, "Happy Baghdad," that portrayed the division positively.
"The U.S. has not provided military aid, arms or assistance to the Emergency Response Division,"
Kim Dubois, a United States embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad, told ABC News in a statement.
Colonel Dillon said on Friday that U.S. forces were not involved with the Iraqi unit with which Mr. Arkady had worked.