By JUDIT NEURINK
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – For the second time in two months members of Iraq’s SWAT team have been involved in excessive violence against civilians. In the latest incident, seven football players of Karbala FC and their coach were beaten by the anti-terror police. Five remain in critical condition, and the coach has been diagnosed as clinically dead.
Sunday’s violence in Karbala, one of the holy sites of the Shia faith some 100 kilometres south of Baghdad, happened after the local team lost again in the national Elite League. The team, which had lost eight matches in a row and had recently changed its coach, lost by 4-2 against Air Force FC.
Coach Mohammad Abbas al-Jaboury, who is in his late 40s and had returned from exile in the Netherlands to save the football club where had been an assistant coach in the 1990s, was severely beaten after he came to the rescue of one of the players, who after the match got caught up in a fight with SWAT team members.
That led to a fight between some 40 policemen and seven members of Karbala FC, plus their coach.
In April, the SWAT team gained wide public disapproval after attacking Sunni anti-government protesters in the town of Hawija near Kirkuk. The aftermath left dozens of civilians dead, and around 100 wounded.
The terror team was present at the Karbala match because of the many attacks on Shite Muslims in the past in Iraq, especially in crowded places. They used sticks and batons against the coach and his players.
Football is a very popular game in Iraq, with media reporting on most foreign top football games, with clubs like FC Madrid and Barcelona achieving almost saintly heights among football fans. Most members of the SWAT team involved in the incident appear to have come from Karbala, and might have been very frustrated with the losses of their team.
The SWAT team is part of the Iraqi Ministry of Internal Affairs, which reports directly to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. It is part of the security apparatus, and comprised solely of Shiites. Its fighters are often former members of Shite militias that terrorized Iraq during the civil war of 2005-2006. SWAT members are considered by many Iraqis as killing machines with no respect for human rights.
The head of Karbala FC, Mohammed Nasser, complained to the Iraqi press that “the security forces in Iraq do not know the meaning of the law and how to apply it, as they do not know how to deal with citizens.” He claimed that force commanders are not trained to handle and contain a situation in which civilians are involved.
Nasser announced that the club has filed a lawsuit against the SWAT forces in Karbala for “committing a crime against its members without any legal justification.”
The governor of Karbala announced the arrest of a number of SWAT team members, who are now under investigation. Karbala FC and others involved have called on Maliki to make sure the perpetrators receive the heaviest possible punishments.
The Karbala football club has suspended all its activities, and has called for a protest demonstration on Friday against the security police.
One board member of Karbala FC, the athlete Ahmad Haddam, castigated the Iraqi government for the fate of a “talented coach who returned from abroad to serve his country,and who himself did not call for, or cause, any harm.”
