Iraq Watch: November 16, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Upon the discovery and disclosure of a secret jail hidden in the bowels of an Iraqi Interior Ministry building in southern Baghdad, where more than 173 Sunni prisoners were found tortured and malnourished late Sunday, prominent Iraqi Sunni groups on Wednesday demanded a full investigation into the alleged incident.

Omar Heikal of the Iraqi Islamic Party called for a "fair, international probe so that all those who are involved in such practices will get their just punishment." Tariq al-Hashimi, secretary-general of the Iraqi Islamic Party, harshly criticized the Interior Ministry along with prominet Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani stating that al-Sistani should "condemn these acts and stop covering."

Iraq's Interior Ministry, headed by Shiite Bayan Jabr, has long been accused by Iraq's Sunnis of deliberately targeting the minority religious sect. Much of the ministry, like that of Iraq's security forces, are comprised of former Shiite militiamen. Jabr, himself, is a former leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq's (SCIRI) Badr Brigade.

Elsewhere on Wednesday, in the ongoing 'Operation Steel Curtain' in western Iraq, five U.S. Marines were killed and 11 others injured when they were ambushed by insurgents outside of Ubaydi. Also Wednesday, a Task Force Baghdad soldier died from wounds sustained in an IED attack northwest of the capital. Separately, the U.S. military announced that a U.S. Marine died in a VBIED attack yesterday near Al Karmah.

Also, four Iraqi policemen were killed in two separate shootings Wednesday in the northern city of Mosul and the executed bodies of three unidentified people were found in Mukaithif, south of Tikrit.