Arkady explains that he was embedded at ERD headquarters in Kajara south of Mosul “not far from a US base.”

…Arkady wrote that on October 22 one of the ERD fighters arrived with two young prisoners “presumed IS supporters.” Arkady claims he was later told they had been tortured for three days and then after a week were killed.

The photos, Arkady says, were taken shortly after they arrived at the facility.

One photo shows a bearded man in a blindfold with black hair with his arms tied behind his back. He appears to be hanging by his wrists with a pack of water bottles placed in the small of this back for extra weight.

A similar photo shows a man suspended by his hands in a similar manner. His neck tied to his feet making it impossible to straighten his back.

Arkady says he was surprised that he was permitted to continue filming.

“No one stopped me,” he wrote.

…On December 16, Arkady says the unit received information about an ISIS informant. Arkady recalls the man being dragged out, while one the Iraqi fighters he was with “announced that he was going to rape the woman.”

In one photo Arkady says was taken that night a woman is clutching a baby in a room as someone opens the door. She appears to be crying out and pointing at the person opening the door.

Arkady claims that the abuse wasn’t only directed at ISIS fighters and informants; Sunni members of the unit also raped Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary fighters.

Arkady works for a US-based photo agency, and said he was surprised when he was asked to participate in the beatings. 

“I come from Khanaqin, a small city in the north-east of Iraq, where the Kurdish and Arabic parts meet. With us, it was always normal that Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Arabs live side by side and together,” Arkady wrote.

He wrote that shortly after he went back to Khanaqin to get his wife and daughter, and then fled from Iraq.

Kurdish journalist prompts Iraq to investigate rape, torture, ki

hmmm