Last year, he followed Iraqi soldiers as they swept through Fallujah, liberating the city from ISIS control. Based in Iraq, his work has focused on war orphans and Iraqi soldiers disabled by the ongoing violence that has engulfed his home country since the 2003 U.S. вЂњThis is just torture for fun.вЂќДЄrkady, 34, is an Iraqi Kurd and Sunni Muslim working with VII, a news agency that specializes in coverage of conflict. 'Frankly, there is not even a pretext here of torture in the name of obtaining intelligence,вЂќ Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, told ABC News after reviewing several of what she characterized as 'sadistic' videos. military is shown conducting the brutal torture of two men Arkady identified as half-brothers. soldiers appear in any of ArkadyвЂ™s footage, a man who claimed to be a contractor and interpreter for the U.S. Instead, Arkady says, the unit often tortured civilians to provoke false confessions as justification for raids, arrests and what they called 'field executions.' officers rarely collected actionable intelligence on ISIS fighters, leadership or operations. The incidents of torture captured by Arkady's lens appeared to have no military objective, showing the E.R.D. вЂњWe do not want war prisoners in our fight against ISIS,вЂќ said Capt. Omar Nazar did not dispute the authenticity of the footage Arkady documented but said the brutal tactics were justified because the men tortured and killed were linked to ISIS. In a remarkable phone interview last week, E.R.D. But he says, as the soldiers began to trust him, they allowed him to record scenes in which they tortured their captives and later even sent him a video showing the shooting of a handcuffed prisoner. Iraqi officials are now launching an investigation into Arkady's allegations.ДЄrkady originally planned to produce a вЂњpositive storyвЂќ about the Emergency Response Division (E.R.D.) of IraqвЂ™s Ministry of Interior, documenting how soldiers from both the Shi'a and Sunni sects of Islam could work together in the fight against ISIS. 'This is happening all the time,' Arkady said of the war crimes he documented, which he recounted in an exclusive interview with ABC NewsвЂ™ Brian Ross broadcast Thursday on ABC's World News Tonight with David MuirВ and Nightline. Since turning over his cache of photos and videos to ABC News, he says he has received death threats from the soldiers he once considered friends and has now fled Iraq to seek asylum in Europe. The alarming footage was smuggled out of Iraq by a prize-winning Iraqi photojournalist, Ali Arkady, who spent months embedded in combat with the elite Iraqi troops leading the fight against ISIS late last year. It's reprehensible and it shouldn't be allowed on any modern battlefield.' вЂњThere should be punishment for anyone doing it. Col.В ScottВ Mann told ABC News after reviewing the graphic footage. вЂњThat's a murder,вЂќ retired Green Beret Lt. military commanders earlier this year for its role in fighting ISIS, directed the torture and execution of civilians in Mosul in at least six distinct incidents caught on tape.

Officers of an elite Iraqi special forces unit, praised by U.S.

Nazar online videos