Iraqi commander says raid site not a mosque: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An Iraqi commander who led a weekend
raid with U.S. special forces says the target was a Baghdad
office complex used by an armed militia and not a mosque,
confirming a U.S. account of what happened, Time magazine
reported on Wednesday.

A hostage freed in the operation also backed the U.S.
version of the attack, Time said, contradicting some Shi’ite
officials and local residents who said the U.S. and Iraqi
troops targeted a Shi’ite mosque and killed at least 16 unarmed
worshipers in Sunday’s raid.

The U.S. military has insisted the raid involved an office
complex and that those describing the raid as a massacre faked
evidence by moving bodies of gunmen killed fighting the Iraqi
troops.

“We didn’t find a mosque,” Time quoted an Iraqi special
forces commander, whom it did not identify, as saying. “We only
killed men who were armed and fired at us.”

The Iraqi officer told Time his men found neither prayer
mats or books or any of the usual elements of a mosque but they
did find instruments of torture — drills, electrical wires and
other “tools.”

“It is a place used by a political party,” the officer was
quoted as saying. “Other rooms were offices.”

The Iraqi told Time his troops retrieved weapons caches,
bomb-making materials and other evidence that made it clear the
site was used by an armed militia. According to the article, he
said the evidence indicated some militia members were linked to
security forces and others to a notorious kidnapping ring.

In his account, the freed hostage said his captors
initially told him they were intelligence officers from the
Interior Ministry, Time said.

The man told the magazine he was beaten and blindfolded
and, at one point, his captors lifted the blindfold just enough
to let him see bare electrical wires.

“They said they would take drugs and begin torturing me,
that they’d go crazy” if a $20,000 ransom did not come by
morning, he told Time.

According to the freed man, the attack came 12 hours into
his ordeal. Once the firing stopped, he yelled out to the
special forces, “I’m the guy kidnapped, I’m the guy kidnapped.”

Time said the man’s wrists still showed marks of his
bondage and he told the same story as his rescuers about the
disputed Baghdad complex.

“It’s not a prayer place,” he was quoted as saying.

When asked whether it was controlled by a militia, the man
replied: “I can’t answer because I’m scared. It’s not just me,
all Iraqis are scared” of the militia.