Iraqi commander says raid site not a mosque: Time

Washington, Mar 30: An Iraqi commander who led a weekend raid with US special forces says the target was a Baghdad office complex used by an armed militia and not a mosque, confirming a US account of what happened, Time magazine reported.

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

The US 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 ,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.

REUTERS