12 commandos killed in Iraq ("Wolf Brigade")

[bemildred]

BAGHDAD: Twelve troops from the Iraqi interior ministry's elite commando force were killed in a string of attacks in restive Sunni towns north of Baghdad yesterday.

Four commandos from the Wolf Brigade and a civilian were killed in a bomb attack in Samarra, 125km north of the capital, police said.

"Two more commandos were killed in a rocket attack on a police station in the city centre moments later," the source said.

In Baiji further north, six other members of the brigade were shot dead in intense fighting that broke out in the key oil refinery town's industrial zone, police said.

Gulf Daily News

[thebigidea]

1. when did they suddenly get an elite commando force, much less ANY force?

Strings of articles about desertion, poor training, poor performance... suddenly they have an elite commando force? Uh huh. More like some thuggish Negroponte death squad.

[bemildred]

2. There have been several "news" stories about these guys.

It sounds like they are not so "elite" after all.
I think your description is somewhere in the right area.

[norml]

3. Wolf Brigade the most loved and feared of Iraqi security forces

Posted on Sat, May. 21, 2005


Wolf Brigade the most loved and feared of Iraqi security forces

BY HANNAH ALLAM

Knight Ridder Newspapers


BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - Abul Waleed rifled through a pile of papers, considering the latest accusations against the elite brigade of Iraqi police commandos he leads from a dusty fortress.

The complaints against the Wolf Brigade were the usual: excessive force, renegade patrols, kidnapping, murder. The charges came from Iraq's most powerful Sunni Muslim leaders, and Abul Waleed clearly relished reading them. It's precisely this take-no-prisoners reputation that's made his Wolf Brigade the most feared and revered of all of Iraq's nascent security forces.

"The Muslim Scholars Association? They're infidels," Abul Waleed said, tossing his detractors' complaints into the wastebasket. "The Islamic Party? Humph. More like the Fascist Party."

No matter how many complaints about heavy-handedness pile up on Abul Waleed's desk, there's no changing the fact that the Wolf Brigade rules public opinion in a country desperate for Iraqi heroes. With their televised humiliation of terror suspects and their dapper uniforms, the Wolf Brigade restores some of the national pride stripped away by war and foreign occupation.



snip



http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/world/11706330.htm

[thebigidea]

4. " the most feared and revered of all of Iraq's nascent security forces."

bwhahahaha-a-fucking-ha!

that takes the cake.

feared by whom, exactly?

"there's no changing the fact that the Wolf Brigade rules public opinion in a country desperate for Iraqi heroes. With their televised humiliation of terror suspects and their dapper uniforms, the Wolf Brigade restores some of the national pride stripped away by war and foreign occupation."

is this satire? jesus christ, this sounds like something I would've written last year.

desperate for Iraqi heroes?!?!?

dapper uniforms?!?!

DAPPER UNIFORMS?!?!?

I think i've just short-circuited.

But I know who's the one trying to "rule public opinion" here. Nice try, liberal media.

I wish an actual journalist would get off their ass and do some stories on this "televised humiliation of terror suspects" business - they could probably do it from their damn hotel room.

[oasis]

7. "Most feared and revered". A grand tradition of at least 8 months.

[MisterP]

5. Iron Wolf in WWII Romania, Grey Wolves in 80s dictatorial Turkey

[norml]

9. Jin Roh: The Wolf Brigade

http://www.haro-online.com/movies/jin_roh.html

[punpirate]

6. Umm, sounds as if the opposition...

... has started to figure out who the death squads are....

[IChing]

8. El Salvador-style 'death squads' to be deployed by US against Iraq-times

times


January 10, 2005

The Times OnLine: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1433353,0...

THE Pentagon is considering forming hit squads of Kurdish and Shia fighters to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency in a strategic shift borrowed from the American struggle against left-wing guerrillas in Central America 20 years ago.
Under the so-called “El Salvador option”, Iraqi and American forces would be sent to kill or kidnap insurgency leaders, even in Syria, where some are thought to shelter.

The plans are reported in this week’s Newsweek magazine as part of Pentagon efforts to get US forces in Iraq on to the front foot against an enemy that is apparently getting the better of them.

Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi Prime Minister, was said to be one of the most vigorous supporters of the plan.
The Pentagon declined to comment, but one insider told Newsweek: “What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are. We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defence. And we are losing.”

Hit squads would be controversial and would probably be kept secret.

The experience of the so-called “death squads” in Central America remains raw for many even now and helped to sully the image of the United States in the region.

Then, the Reagan Administration funded and trained teams of nationalist forces to neutralise Salvadorean rebel leaders and sympathisers. Supporters credit the policy with calming the insurgency, although it left a bitter legacy and stirred anti-American sentiment.
John Negroponte, the US Ambassador in Baghdad, had a front-row seat at the time as Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85.

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