Death toll for Iraqi police hits 4,000

BAGHDAD, Iraq – About 4,000 Iraqi police have been killed and more than 8,000 wounded in the past two years, the U.S. commander in charge of police training said Friday, but he said the force’s performance was improving and officials are working to weed out militiamen.

Beefing up Iraq’s security forces is a cornerstone of efforts to stop the violence that has torn the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Police have been a prime target for attacks by Sunni insurgents.

Sunnis accuse the Shiite-led police of helping fuel sectarian violence that has killed thousands this year. They say the police have been infiltrated by Shiite militias and turn a blind eye to death squads who kill Sunnis.

On Friday, a Sunni Kurdish party accused Shiite militias of killing a Kurdish lawmaker, Mohammed Ridha Mohammed, who was kidnapped in Baghdad the night before and whose body was found dumped along with that of his driver.

Members of parliament have fallen victim in the past to Sunni insurgents, who have often targeted Kurds. But Mohammed’s slaying was the first blamed on Shiite militias. He was a member of a religious conservative Kurdish party, the Islamic Group, a small faction in the Kurdish coalition that is part of the Shiite-led government.

More victims were found Friday in the spiral of slayings between Shiite and Sunni groups. Nine bodies were discovered in the southern Shiite city of Kut and the nearby town of Suwayrah. Among them was that of a Suwayrah city councilman.

During Friday prayers at the Imam al-Hussein shrine in the southern city of Karbala, the representative of Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, urged militias to put down their arms.

“The weapons should be in the hands of the government only,” Ahmed al-Safi told worshippers. “No other group should be allowed to carry weapons, so that the state would be able to provide the appropriate security conditions to the Iraqi people.”