Journalist’s Footage Shows Iraqi Forces Torturing Civilians, ABC Report Says

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