IRAQ
Not heroes, but monsters
A photographer accompanies members of a special unit to document their struggle against the IS. And suddenly witnesses rape, torture and targeted killing - a protocol.
By Ali Arkady

Captured Mahmoud at the headquarters of the Iraqi ERD troops
Torture allegations against Iraqi special units
The Iraqi photographer and documentary filmmaker Ali Arkady has been accompanying the events in his home country since 2006. He is not only an excellent photographer, his diverse contacts in the country as well as numerous documentaries, he also gave him unusually deep insights into the different conflict foe of Iraq.
Since 2011 the SPIEGEL cooperates with Arkady. The torture scenes, rapes and targeted killings that Ali Arkady photographed and photographed over the past few months have confirmed similar observations from human rights organizations as well as witness statements. The SPIEGEL also reported that Iraqi security forces arbitrarily detain, torture and kill people.
For example, in a search in the city of Tus Churmatu to the south of Kirkuk, SPIEGEL reporter found a tragedy and murder campaign of Shiite militias in May of last year. Witnesses told each other of abducted relatives. Even then it was said that up to a thousand Sunnis had vanished from Tus Churmatu alone. Fugitives from other provinces of Iraq confirmed the abductions. But there was always evidence beyond the witnesses and the deserted places.
Ali Arkady has now delivered these. There is no doubt about the authenticity of his material and the identity of the perpetrators. His descriptions are in contrast to the usual reporting on the campaign to liberate Mossul. Many reporters had previously experienced and described the Iraqi army units as liberators. Perhaps because they just could not see what was happening outside the city? Arkady's unit, the Emergency Response Division, which is under the responsibility of the Ministry of Interior, did not carry their victims out of Mossul's liberated neighborhoods, but out of the villages, always at night, when there were no journalists.
I come from Chanakin, a small city in the north-east of Iraq, where the Kurdish and Arabic parts meet. With us, it was always normal that Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Arabs live side by side and together. Perhaps I thought more than others that Iraqis of different origins could live together in the future.
In October of last year, I started with my project, I wanted to accompany two soldiers of the Emergency Response Division (ERD), a military unit of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, to document their struggle against the "Islamic State" (IS). The at least was the plan.
During the liberation of the city of Fallujah, I had met two members of this unit in the summer. Even then, they were talking about killing people. But then I thought they were joking.
I met them again in the autumn, when Mossul's liberation began: Chief Omar Nazar, a Sunnis, and Haider Ali, a Shiite unofficial. They would be opponents after all the usual stereotypes. But the two were "buddies", closest friends who protected each other on the battlefield. I accompanied, filmed her for days. The idea was to make the two protagonists of a documentary film: The film was to show that Sunnis and Shiites of Iraq can cope in the fight against the "Islamic State".
"WHERE ARE YOU ONLY GUIDEING?"

PHOTOGRAPHER The photographer and filmmaker Ali Arkady comments on his disturbing research with the soldiers of the Emergency Response Division (ERD).
I set up a Facebook page called Happy Baghdad, I put a two-minute video of the two under the title "Liberator, not Destroyer". The echo was overwhelming, 345 815 views, the page was divided 1360 times and commented. I'm on the right track, I thought.
I was there when they took several men, among them the Putzmann of the mosque.
I resolved to follow the two until the end of this war, the liberation of Mosul. Both agreed, to be the "heroes" of my story.  It was about showing that not only the elite fighters of the "Golden Division", but also other units do remarkable, courageous things.Omars and Haiders troop, the Emergency Response Division, had started small. But since summer 2014, when all of Iraq was at war with the IS, the troops grew rapidly. It was divided into three groups: reconnaissance, sniper rifles and the combat group. Captain Omar Nazar orders the combat group, which also includes Haider Ali, the underoffice. The men carried out raids and nightly command operations. They were trained mainly by Americans. From the ERD commander, Colonel Thamer Mohammed Ismail, I was given permission to accompany the troops in their assignments. With every battle won, the self-confidence of my protagonists grew. At the end of October, 2016, I photographed for the SPIEGEL in Iraq, holding up with Omar and Haider at the headquarters of the troops in Kajara, south of Mossul, not far from a US base. On October 22, Omars arrived with two young prisoners , Presumed IS supporters. I photographed them, but I did not know what would happen to them. Later, the soldiers told me that the two had been tortured after three days of being an IS member. A week later, they were killed. Prisoner Mahmoud The father hung her up on the ceiling, complained his back with water bottles, then they began to hit him. From that time on, my project began to change. My "heroes" did things I never thought possible. At first I was only allowed to watch them, later they had nothing to do with my camera. I went back home, and Omar and Haider also had two weeks off. We had arranged to meet again at Hamam al-Alil's new headquarters, a little closer to Mosul. I arrived before them on November 11th. So I got to know the other officers and from then on I got even more. More than I liked and I could have imagined myself: torture, rape, but also murders of people against whom only vague suspicions were present. Or not even that. The soldiers had at that time just conquered the village Kabr al-Abd of the IS. Captain Thamer al-Duri, who was responsible for the Intelligence Department, ran the raids. I was there when they took several men at night, including Raad Hindiya, the guardian and plasterman of the village mosque. He had been accused by an informant to be an IS man. First they took him only for a few hours to beat him and interrogate him. But even then Hauptmann Duri told me that he would take the man again in a few days and then kill. On November 22, ten men, all equipped with night vision equipment, went off, the US troops were nearby, and they followed the night raid with a drone. Raad Hindiya slept with his family in a room when they arrested him. The soldiers took him to Captain Omar Nazar, my protagonist, where they tortured him for hours before they carried him to the headquarters of the secret service in the morning. There he was tortured for a week. Subsequently, he was killed together with other IS suspects. So later, I told Captain Duri. I was surprised that they let me film everything. They even sent me a video of the corpses. In the same night, they arrested a young man named Rashid, who was innocent, even the Enlightenment of the Iraqi army said. But his big brother had gone to the IS, as was his wife. This was Rashid's doom. He died three days under torture, I saw his corpse in the quarters of the secret service. The nightmare began. The small town Hamam al-Alil had been completely liberated from IS. Many who had fled before the fighting came back. The ERD teams set out to arrest young men, officially, to clarify whether IS men were among them. Among those arrested were a father and his 16-year-old son, the soldiers both took them to headquarters. Mahdi, their father, hung them with their arms behind their heads, squirmed his back with a palette full of water bottles To beat him. The son sat next door and could hear the screams of his father. And I was there and filmed. No one stopped me. Then they beat the son before the eyes of his father. Later they took the son around. All went out of control more and more. I thought, where are you only there? Why do they make you film how they torture people? What should be the part of a documentary about the liberation from the "Islamic State"? But they do not think like journalists. For her, it had just become normal. I said to myself, "You must take it up here." You must document, prove what they are doing, show that they commit war crimes. Foreign reporters were in the area, but they came only during the day, drove back in the afternoon to secure Arbil in the Kurdish area. At night I was alone with the troops of the Ministry of the Interior. Ministry of the Interior Ministry near MossulMitte December we moved around on the other side of the Tigris, to a new base in Baswaja on the eastern edge of Mosul. There were two young brothers, Laith and Ahmed, who had once been arrested by the "Golden Division," but had been released, for lack of evidence. Now they had been captured and brought back here. But in the night there were no officers, only the soldiers who were responsible for the torture. They began to strike the two, first with beatings, then by stopping Ahmed again and again with a knife behind the ear. It was a technique he had learned from American experts, Ali, one of the soldiers, boasted. I was surprised, frightened that they let me film everything. I stayed for an hour. The next morning a soldier told me that both had been tortured to death during the night, and showed me a video of their bodies, even sent me about WhatsApp. On December 16, the two men arrived in Basvaja My documentation had wanted to turn: Hauptmann Omar Nazar and underoffice Haider Ali, the Sunnit and the Shiit, who wanted to fight together against the IS. Already the same night, they went on with their orders. The soldiers had received various names from an informer, names of men who had allegedly fought for the IS earlier. The soldiers simply left, without further clarification, or an order from the higher officers. I was allowed to come back. The second they took out this night was a man named Fathi Ahmed Saleh. They dragged him out of the room where he had slept with his wife and the three children. Unofficial Haider Ali went into the room, announced that he was going to rape the woman. I followed the others to see what they did to the husband. Five minutes later, I met Haider Ali in front of the open door. The woman was crying. Captain Omar Nazar asked him what he had done. Fathi attacked Ahmed Saleh They dragged the man out of the room, then unofficial Haider announced that he was going to rape the woman. "Nothing," answers Haider Ali, "she had her days." I filmed into the room The woman with her youngest child in her arms. She looked at me. I filmed without thinking. When I looked at the video later, when I saw her looking in my direction, kissed her children, I thought: She must have accepted that I am filming in this terrible situation. So that people can know what happened! In the meantime, the other soldiers cleared the house, stole what they were going to take. The last prisoner of the night was a young national of the mobilization units, in Arabic for a short time: Hashd, who also fight against the IS. He was Sunnis, but the Shiite Hashd do not like Sunnis. They took him to the building of Omar Nazar, where he was raped by one of the soldiers. The men I accompanied had experienced hard, heavy fighting. But now they thought they would be allowed. Murder, rape, everything is halal, legitimate. When they came back from their traces and the headquarters, they asked about what they had done, Captain Omar replied, "Oh, everything! We took men, women, looted the houses. "The answer:" Okay, what to do! "The superiors knew everything. The Americans must have been aware of what happened. There was even a kind of competition between the National Police and the Ministry of the Interior: when the policemen told how they found and raped a good-looking woman in a house, the ERD men wanted to go there again. The struggle against the "Islamic State" was less and less important. If the men of the unit had a strategy at all, they would put all Sunnis of the area in fear and fright, to drive them into flight to the demographics of North Iraq It was my last days at the ERD. I could not endure it, filming what happened, and later thought, "This could be my wife, my daughter. When chief Omar and one of the soldiers beat other prisoners, they asked me to join in. It was an absurd situation: everyone treated me as part of their team. I got it to do with the fear, I was Kurde, worked for an American photo agency. They were too four, armed, I was alone. They said time and again: "Now come, too, go! "Then I gave one of the prisoners an ear. Not too hard, not too soft. It was terrible and the last thing I did there. I pretended my daughter was sick, I had to go back home. I drove to my home town of Chanakin, but only for a few days. Afterwards, I took my family to safety and left Iraq. My country. But it was clear that my life is in danger as soon as I publish the evidence of these crimes. Prisoner Ahmed In the middle of December east of Mosul: They stabbed him with a knife behind the ear. Now I understand why the IS had so easy to take Mosul and other Sunni regions. The people there were afraid not to survive without military protection. Only that the IS has ultimately aggravated its situation. Now we live abroad. Where exactly, I would not write for security reasons. I sometimes wonder how Omar and Haider think about me now. I did not even broke an appointment, had not filmed anything secretly. All watched as I documented their abuse for hours. Yes, they even sent me videos of their murders when I asked them. And in the case of the killed brothers, they even said explicitly that I could use these videos for my documentation. They had lost all the scales for what was right and what was wrong. Originally, I wanted to roll up with the two in the Mossul, which had been freed after a hard struggle, as the last part of our common history. This will no longer happen. I wanted to represent her as heroes. This will not happen either. It is not easy to start a new life somewhere else. Chanakin is my home, I loved living there. But this is the price for my work, for, to publish what I've seen. It's my price, I pay it. Since Omar, Haider and the other officers have understood what the publication of their deeds can mean to them, I get threats. First came questions: "We have to talk to Ali, where is he?" Then it became more concrete. Very concrete. When I traveled to Qatar on January 4, 2017, everything was still quiet. After I arrived, I contacted Haider Ali about Facebook, asked him if he could send me the video he had shown me how he and Captain Omar Nazar shot one of their prisoners from behind. "Sure," Haider wrote back, and sent me the video. "I'm going to be a man," Haider said, as he walked through the steppes and begged for his life, just to shoot him as he ran. I still have it on my phone. ■