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Iraq to put Baghdad under unified security command

BAGHDAD: Iraq will bring its Baghdad security forces under a unified command in a bid to quash death squad activity, national security advisor Muwaffaq Rubaie told AFP Thursday.

He said as part of the plan the role of the Facility Protection Service (FPS), the 150,000-strong force providing security for infrastructure sites and ministries, will be reexamined.

“We are working on a new security plan that would help control the violence and the role of FPS needs to be revisited,” Rubaie said. Iraq’s interior minister Bayan Al-Solagh has implicated the FPS in the wave of death squad killings that have ravaged the country in recent months and have been blamed on the Shiite-controlled government security forces.

“We need to revisit the issue of FPS, unify them under a single command and relook at their code of practice,” Rubaie said.

Solagh told AFP Tuesday that there were about 200,000 security personnel not controlled by his ministry and that they needed to be put under a single authority, including the FPS. Solagh said that most of the human rights abuses attributed to the police and the interior ministry in Iraq can be laid at the feet of the various security bodies belonging to other ministries. Reuters

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