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U.S. soldiers find torture chamber in Iraq

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military said it discovered a home in a farming area southeast of here that served as an al-Qaida in Iraq training facility and prison.

The brick house was located on a dirt road in a remote area of Zambraniyah, about 20 miles southeast of Baghdad.

From the outside, nothing appeared unusual. But inside the house, found handcuffs attached to the floor and another connected to a barred window, hooks used to hang people attached to a wall and interrogation books written in Arabic, the military said.

“It looked like there were remnants where people suffered,” said Spc. Daniel Murray, of Troop C, 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, who was on the mission Wednesday.

Troops also found a treadmill and stair-climbing machine in another room, said Murray, of Jacksonville, Ill.

Squadron commander Lt. Col. Mark Solomon said it appeared that the home was used as a base but it was hard to tell when it was last occupied.

“We didn’t miss them by hours ... but certainly over the past weeks and months there was activity at the house,” he said. “They had invested in it, in terms of the shackles on the walls, the treadmills. It was a place they used for a good period of time.”

Solomon said the military worked with members of the Sons of Iraq to locate the house. Sons of Iraq is a phrase often used by the military to describe U.S.-funded Sunni tribesman who are now fighting al-Qaida.

The military, meanwhile, announced a flurry of raids over the last several days in which a total 13 suspected insurgents were killed and dozens captured.

The heaviest clash involved the Tal Afar Special Weapons and Tactics team, made up of U.S. forces and Iraqi SWAT teams.

Last Sunday, it targeted a cell responsible for assassinations and bombing attacks in the Tal Afar area of Iraq’s restive Ninevah province, the military said in a statement.

During the raid, several fighters opened a barrage of gunfire at the Iraqi and U.S. troops, killing three Iraqi soldiers and wounding three others.