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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

IRAQ: Risks for police officers increasing

BAGHDAD, 6 February 2004 (IRIN) - Despite efforts to improve Iraq's post Saddam police force, ongoing attacks and insecurity means the daily risks facing officers are increasing. Law enforcers, however, say they will continue to work and uphold the peace in a country where bomb attacks have become a daily occurrence.

There have been a spate of attacks on police stations in particular, with a message that the new improved force - backed by the US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) - is part of the enemy. On 3 February, three policemen were killed by gunfire in the southern city of Karbala, some 100 km south of the capital, Baghdad, while on patrol.

According to the Interior Ministry, more than 600 police officers have been killed since last May, when the US declared the war to oust the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein as over.

About three weeks ago, first Lieutenant Talib Tahir Salih was sitting at his office at Al-Khadra police station in central Baghdad when a car bomb exploded next to the station. "We lost a good colleague of ours in this incident and another policeman was badly hurt. As for me, I flew off my chair and fell against the wall here," Talib told IRIN in Baghdad.

Lieutenant Ali Hussein Nahi had a similar story to tell. He volunteered for a joint patrol with military police back in January to confiscate weapons, when they were exposed to heavy gun fire.

Relatives of those who have fallen victim to such attacks say more action needs to be taken to uphold law and order. "Policemen now are exposed to danger because of the current security situation," Ali Mosawy, brother of a policeman who was killed in Al-Ma'moun police station in central Baghdad, told IRIN.

"My brother, Mohammed, was killed on 13 January while he was going to work in the morning with his colleague in their police car. His car exploded and his colleague is still in the hospital," he said. He added that his brother was threatened several times by phone and he once found explosives at the front gate of his house.

In a separate incident, another policeman from Abu Ghraib police station, 25 km west of Baghdad, was killed, with the murderers writing a message on his door saying: "A spy and an agent for the Americans".

While police have wrestled control from many organised crime gangs, the daily threats against policemen's families and homes continue from tribal powers who typically threaten revenge for police killings of tribal members.

A policeman from Al-Ja'eefer police station in Baghdad who refused to give his name, said the affiliation with the US forces was the main reason for them becoming targets. "Those who attack policemen think we are working with American troops, especially those who have family members being detained by the American troops and they think we are traitors. They don't think that this is our main job even before the Americans came here. So we can't go and do other jobs. This is what we are trained to do and we need to earn our living," he told IRIN.

One of the biggest attacks to date on police stations was on 27 October, 2003 when insurgents attacked four police stations in central Baghdad, Al-Sha’b, Al-Bayya’, Baghdad Al-Jadida, and Al-Khadra on the same day the building of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was attacked. In total more than 30 people were killed.

Since then, the force has started to increase protection by building higher walls and fences around stations but explosions against them continue.

According to the ministry, there were some 76,000 police officers in Iraq during Saddam's time. After the former Iraqi president was ousted in April, there were no police officers for one month. The CPA dissolved the army and the police but then started to recruit them again. By the end of May, 2003 there was 5,000 officers in the country.

The CPA pays the salaries of all security forces in Iraq. Police salaries start at US $60 a month, while higher ranking officers receive $87 a month. Although the pay is higher than during the former regime, many policemen say that with increasing prices, they are far from enough.

Meanwhile, Nuri Badran, the Minister of Interior at the Iraqi Governing Council, said earlier this week that because of the security situation, police would not be able to handle election procedures in the near future. "The Iraqi police suffers from lack of weapons both in quality and quantity besides the means to investigate criminal acts," he said, adding that the nation was in the process of building a new police force using trainers from Iraq as well as other countries such as Turkey and Jordan.

"We are asking to postpone the matter even for a little while," Badran said in a press conference. He also criticised the CPA for its decision to dissolve the security forces in the country after they came to Iraq. "They could have been helpful in preventing criminals and those outlaws from working inside Iraq," he said, adding that these insurgency acts were done by Saddam loyalists, along with fundamentalist religious groups.

More than 400 officers have graduated recently from the Jordanian-International Centre for Training Police, the first group to have been trained to fill the shortage of trained Iraqi policemen. Some 35,000 Iraqi police will be trained in the kingdom by undergoing an intensive 8 week course which includes instruction on human rights, patrolling skills, firearms, democratic policing methods, investigative skills and Iraqi law skills, the CPA said.

During his visit to the northern town of Mosul this week, US top administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer inspected Iraq's newly-created security forces and declared them far from capable of maintaining stability in the violence-ravaged nation. Bremer toured two training facilities near Mosul where recruits of the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps (ICDC) were being put through their paces, overseen by US troops.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Governance, (IRIN) Human Rights

[ENDS]

This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004