Wolf Brigade (Iraq)

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The Wolf Brigade, one of the Badr Organization’s offshoots, is a unit of roughly 2,000 special commando police officially under the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior that is among Iraq’s most feared groups. In November 2006, the brigade — which was formed in the fall of 2004 by a former three-star Shiite general and SCIRI official whose nom de guerre is Abu Walid — fought alongside U.S.-led forces in Mosul, a Sunni stronghold northwest of Baghdad. Its members dress in garb — olive uniform, red beret, wraparound sunglasses — redolent of Saddam’s elite guard; their armband logo is a menacing-looking wolf. Last December, the Wolf Brigade won further notoriety after the success of Terrorism in the Grip of Justice, a primetime show on U.S.-funded al-Iraqiya television that featured live interrogations of Iraqi insurgents by Wolf Brigade commandos. In one show, Abu Walid questioned around thirty shabbily dressed suspects, some clutching photos of their victims, waiting to confess their crimes.

The Wolf Brigade was reportedly responsible for the July seizure of eleven Sunni bricklayers who were then locked in the back of police cars and held for sixteen hours in scorching-hot temperatures. The brigade’s fierceness has given it a mythological aura among Shiite Iraqis: Parents are said to warn their children about the “wolves.” There are also patriotic songs devoted to the group.

However, in May, the Sunni-controlled Muslim Scholars Association and other Sunni Arab leaders accused the Wolf Brigade of targeting Palestinian refugees in Iraq, using torture to extract confessions from prisoners, raiding Sunni homes, and engaging in “mass killings” and arrests in northeastern Baghdad. Walid denies the charges. Yet human rights groups say the Wolf Brigade, because of its counterterrorism television show, is violating the Geneva Conventions by publicly humiliating detainees. Despite its heavy-handed tactics, the group has proved useful to counterinsurgency operations. In mid-November 2004, the Wolf Brigade successfully arrested more than 300 suspected insurgents, including several Sunni officials, in Baqubah, a city northeast of Baghdad. The militia has also spawned copycat groups, not necessarily under the aegis of the Interior Ministry, with names like the Tiger, Scorpion, or Snake brigades.