Informants Decide Fate of Iraqi Detainees

Just after 7 a.m., they streamed into the adjoining neighborhoods of Hassan Koy and Uruba, taking every military-age man into custody at a makeshift pen established by U.S. forces along a main road. The U.S. soldiers uncoiled enough concertina wire to hold an expected 50 or so men. But as detainees streamed out from the neighborhoods, the pens were expanded with more coils of wire until the holding area stretched an entire block.

U.S. commanders have praised the performance of the Kurdish forces during the operation, while privately expressing concern that their tactics sometimes verge on being heavy-handed. The pesh merga supports Kurdish rebels fighting the government of neighboring Turkey, and for many years the militiamen were targets of the Sunni Arab-dominated Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The majority of Tall Afar's residents are Sunni Turkmens, ethnic relatives of the Turks.

Iraqi troops who raided suspected hideouts in a separate sweep late Monday killed 40 insurgents, and arrested 27 in clashes with militants, according to the Associated Press.

In a briefing the night before the morning operation, Lt. Col. Christopher Hickey, commander of the 3rd ACR's 2nd Squadron, instructed the Special Operations soldiers working with the pesh merga to avoid alienating residents.

"We lose these people if we go in there and tear people's homes apart," Hickey said.

By 8 a.m., nearly 400 people were assembled, squatting or seated in the dirt beside the road. Two of the men had bloodied faces and spots of red soaking through their green dishdashas.

"They tried to grab my father, and I said, 'He is old, you don't need to take him,' " said one of the men, whose upper lip and right ear were swollen and bleeding. "They hit us with their fists and their rifles."

Many of the men's hands were bound so tightly with plastic cuffs that their circulation was cut off, so U.S. soldiers cut the bindings and instead wrapped their hands with thick green tape.

The Special Operations soldiers, who do not provide their names to journalists as a matter of policy, said the pesh merga had found a former colonel in Hussein's army inside one home. But when U.S. soldiers looked through the pen, they could not find him. One of the Kurdish fighters said he had been delivered directly to a Kurdish commander.

"Get him down here right now," a Special Forces soldier said. "He is going to be processed here, by the U.S., like everyone else."

After about two hours, the informant arrived. Wearing tan camouflage fatigues, a flak jacket, a green ski mask and green helmet, the informant said he was from the neighborhood and was under 20 years old.

"I am doing this because I want to see the fear and violence leave Tall Afar," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.