"They [Shi'ites] have admitted to killing shopkeepers in the Karkh
neighborhood and
killing others in Karada while on patrol," Khalaf said.
Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki waited until his party and allies won
provincial elections in Iraq in January 2009 before ordering the arrest of
Shi'ite officers. Following the election victory, based on his promise of
law and order, the prime minister approved a plan to prosecute members of
the security forces found to have participated in the ethnic killings.
Officials said the crackdown has sought both Sunnis and Shi'ites. A
leading Sunni parliamentarian, Mohammed Daini, a member of the Iraqi
National Dialogue Front, has been charged with ordering the killing of
Shi'ites in the Baghdad area as well as the bombing of parliament in a
suicide strike in 2007.
Khalaf said a victim of the detained Shi'ite officers was Maysoon
Hashemi, the sister of Vice President Tareq Hashemi, a Sunni. The ministry
spokesman said most of the Shi'ite killings took place in 2006.
Iraq has been waging an anti-crime crackdown meant to augment its
counter-insurgency campaign. Iraqi security forces and U.S. troops have been
searching central and northern Iraq for long-wanted suspects, including
gun-runners and suicide bombers.
"Collectively, these arrests disrupt terrorist operations in Mosul, Al
Ikha, Baqubah and Rabiah," Col. Bill Buckner, a spokesman for the U.S.-led
coalition, said. "Taking these alleged terrorists out of these communities
eliminates their participation in operations that cover a wide range of
criminal activities, such as IED attacks, kidnappings and murder."
Officials said the Interior Ministry has also sought to prevent the
flight of fugitives to neighboring Iran. They said Iraqi border posts
have been enhanced by U.S.-origin surveillance and detection systems to
prevent infiltration and smuggling.
"A number of their border posts have been recently equipped with some
modern surveillance capability out there, and continue to focus on that,"
U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. David Perkins said on Feb. 22. "At the
same time, while at the political level, the prime minister and others, I
think, have been very active in engaging with their Iranian
neighbors to say, "Look, we need to pick out these things of common
interest. We need to focus on those and we need to both work together to
prevent this malign influence coming across any of the Iraqi borders."
