| Iraq |
| PMF Lieutenant survives an assassination attempt |
| 2022-04-11 |
 [SHAFAQ] Imad Qarghouli, Lt. Col in al-Hashd al-Shaabi (PMF), survived an liquidation attempt in Baghdad, a security source reported.No further details were disclosed. Qarghouli heads "Ali al-Akbar brigade", affiliated with the PMF and the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala. The brigade was formed following ISIS's invasion of the country in 2014. |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| Al-Khazali: Al-Kadhimi is violating the law |
| 2021-06-02 |
[SHAFAQ] The Secretary-General of Asaib Ahl al-Haq Movement, the villainous-looking Qais al-Khazali ......sinister-looking Iranian stooge, Secretary General of Persian proxy militia Asaib Ahl al-Haq, wannabe Nasrallah......accused Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi of being hostile to al-Hashd al-Shaabi. Al-Khazali said in an interview, "We rejected the arrest of the commander of al-Anbar and Karbala operations command in al-Hashd al-Shaabi, Qassem Musleh, for violating the legal contexts." "The accusation was initially directed against Ali Musleh (the brother of Qasim Musleh), but God knows how, and as a result of interferences in from inside Karbala, he was replaced by Qassem Musleh." He added, "one of the reasons for the arrest is a lawsuit from Ihab al-Wazani's mother against four parties, including the commander of Karbala operations command, the governor of Karbala, and the Imam Hussein shrine security force. So the question is, why was not the arrest warrant implemented against the other three figures against whom the case was filed, and how did Qasssem replace Ali?" "There was not enough evidence to issue the arrest warrant against Musleh. However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... arresting him that way in this timing proves that this is a political targeting that occurred one day after the demonstrations", he noted. "When someone becomes Prime Minister, that does not mean that he has become infallible or the state and the law. If we accept this logic, this will make us return to dictatorship and the police state." Al-Khazali said, "al-Kadhimi's move is a media show. However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... he is supposed to be protecting the PMF. The adversary between the PMF and the PM is only Unilateral from the PMF's side only", hinting that it emerged from the PM's support to the US presence in Iraq. "Accusing al-Hashd's leaders and affiliates of targeting the demonstrators falls within the second policy of the government," noting, "the accused is innocent until proven guilty and what is happening is an unprecedented defamation." Khazali said, "There are protesters' killers known to the security forces, and the demonstrators know them by name. al-Hashd is targeted because of its conviction that the American forces will be removed by force." |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| Mortar attacks kill 41 Shiite pilgrims in Iraq |
| 2010-02-06 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] A mortar bomb attack on the last day of a major mourning ceremony in Iraq killed 41 Shiite pilgrims and wounded more than 144 others on Friday in an atrocity blamed on al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein loyalists. The bomb struck pilgrims who were leaving the holy shrine city of Karbala, 110 kilometers (68 miles) south of Baghdad, where more than a million devotees had gathered to mark the festival of Arbaeen. It was the third major attack this week on worshippers who have for weeks been travelling there on foot for the climax of the event earlier on Friday. A provincial health ministry official earlier gave the death toll and said 150 others were wounded. "A mortar round was launched from fields northeast of the city," provincial governor Amalheddin al-Hir told AFP. "I accuse al-Qaeda who are being supported by the Baath party," he said, referring to Saddam's outlawed political movement. Arbaeen marks 40 days after the Ashura anniversary commemorating the slaying of Imam Hussein, grandson of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), in 680 AD. A series of suicide attacks have seen dozens of pilgrims killed in recent days. Hir said earlier that 10 million worshippers had visited the Imam Hussein shrine in the past two weeks, walking as a sign of piety, with the ceremonies culminating at midday (0900 GMT) on Friday. "The visitors included Arabs and about 100,000 foreigners from the Gulf states, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Tanzania, the United States, Norway and Belgium," Hir said. |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| Bomb kills at least eight pilgrims in Karbala |
| 2009-02-13 |
| A roadside bomb killed eight Iraqi pilgrims and wounded 46 near a revered shrine on Thursday as millions of Shiite pilgrims converged on the central Iraqi holy city for Arbain, one of the most important dates in the Shiite religious calendar, police said. Police said the blast took place less than 1 km (half a mile) from the Imam Hussein shrine in central Karbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, despite intense security. "The explosion came as a result of a small, locally made bomb" in an alley leading to the Imam Hussein shrine, said General Uthman al-Ghanimi, an army commander in Karbala. Millions of Shiites are travelling to Karbala for Arbain, a ceremony next Monday that marks 40 days after the Ashura anniversary of the killing of Imam Hussein by Sunni caliph Yazid's armies in 680. The killings came one day after deadly bombings near a Baghdad bus station shattered a relative lull in violence since largely peaceful provincial elections in Iraq on Jan. 31. The Karbala explosion followed a string of incidents on Wednesday, including one attack that targeted Shiite worshippers in two areas of Baghdad travelling on foot to the holy city.One pilgrim was killed and 14 others wounded, security officials said. Insurgents have targeted the Shiite shrine city on a number of occasions in the past six years. A blast 11 months ago at the same Karbala shrine left 43 people dead. On Wednesday, the United Nations mission in Iraq condemned the targeting of pilgrims and incitement of sectarian tensions just as Sunni-Shiite and insurgent violence in Iraq drops to its lowest level since the war. On April 28 a year earlier, a suicide car bomb attack near the Imam Abbas shrine, a second revered shrine in the city, killed more than 70 people and wounded nearly 160. Two weeks before that, a similar bomb attack close to the Imam Hussein shrine killed 42 people and wounded scores more. |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| 37 killed, over 50 hurt in suicide bomb attack in Karbala |
| 2008-03-17 |
| A suicide bomber struck Shiite worshippers in Karbala in central Iraq on Monday, killing 37 people and wounding more than 50 others, an interior ministry official said. The attack took place in a cafe in the center of the city close to Shiite shrines, Reuters reported, citing police. The worshippers were gathered near the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the holiest sites for Shiites, the Associated Press reported. Police reportedly said the attacker was a woman but provided no other immediate details. |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| Car bomb kills scores near shrine in Kerbala |
| 2007-04-15 |
 A car bomber killed up to 50 people at a crowded bus station in the Iraqi holy city of Kerbala on Saturday, police said. Police added that at least 70 other people were wounded in the attack near the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the most important sites for Shiites. Attacks in Kerbala are rare. Witnesses said as many as 15 ambulances rushed to the area and police were firing into the air to disperse crowds that have swarmed near the ambulances.In Baghdad, police said a bomber detonated his vehicle before a checkpoint at the southern Jadriyah bridge, killing eight people and burning several cars in the second major attack on a bridge in the capital in the last two days. Television footage showed the twisted, blackened wreck of what was thought to have been the car used to deliver the bomb as ambulance and rescue services worked to save the wounded. On Thursday, a truck bomb killed at least seven people on Sarafiya Bridge in northern Baghdad, destroying most of the steel structure and sending several cars plunging into the River Tigris. Saturday's violence came a day after leaders from across Iraq's sectarian divide pleaded for unity at a special session of parliament, gathering under high security to condemn a bombing that tore through the building on Thursday. Television footage from the bombing in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) southwest of Baghdad, showed wounded being carried from the scene and what appeared to be the charred body of a child. A police source put the death toll at 50 but a director of the al-Husseini hospital in Kerbala said 41 people had been killed and 60 wounded. The attack occurred near a crowded market and some 200 metres from the Imam Hussein shrine, where the grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammed ( U.S. and Iraqi officials have launched a crackdown in Baghdad that officials hope will give the government breathing space to pull Iraq back from the brink of civil war between Shi'ites and once dominant Sunni Arabs. An al Qaeda-backed group, the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, claimed responsibility in a Web statement for the worst breach of security in Baghdad's most secure area, which killed a member of parliament and wounded two dozen other people in the building's restaurant. Previous calls for unity by Iraq's leaders have mostly fallen on deaf ears as sectarian violence has spiralled. In the wake of recent violence, Washington and some Iraqi politicians dismissed suggestions the attack signalled a failure of the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital Three US soldiers and two Iraqi interpreters were killed, while eight other soldiers were wounded in two separate incidents on Saturday, a US statement said. The announcement came as the new Baghdad security plan entered its 60th day. According to a US military statement, "Two MND-B Soldiers were killed and seven others were wounded when their patrol base came under attack by anti-Iraqi forces south of Baghdad April 12. Two Iraqi interpreters were also killed in the attack." The statement added "A quick reaction force was sent to the scene along with attack aviation helicopters, which quickly repelled the attack." The statement also noted that the concerned unit had over the past few weeks carried out several raids to clear out militant pockets and arrested 22 militants and found five weapons caches. Two US soldiers were also killed, and another was injured when their car encountered an explosive charge in southern Baghdad last Thursday, to increase the death toll among the US forces to 3,298 so far since the invasion and occupation of Iraq. |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| Dozens slain in Baghdad, Karbala attacks |
| 2007-04-14 |
| Another bad day. A car bomb blasted through a busy bus station near one of Iraq's holiest shrines Saturday and killed at least 56 people, police and hospital officials said. Separately, a suicide car bomb killed 10 people on a major bridge in downtown Baghdad the second attack on a span over the Tigris river this week, police said. The Jadriyah bridge suffered little damage. The bus station bombing occurred about 200 yards from the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala, where the grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammad is buried one of the most important sites for Shiites. Hundreds of people swarmed around ambulances, crying out and pounding their chests in grief. Police fired into the air to disperse crowds and clear roads for emergency vehicles, but angry mobs attacked them and set two police vehicles on fire. Rioters surrounded the Karbala governor's office and demanded his and provincial council members' resignations blaming them for lax security. Mobs threw stones at the governor's office and set fire to the building. Sorry, folks; 'they' are not responsible for your security - YOU have to help. At least a little good news: Police said four would-be suicide attackers were killed Saturday in the northern city of Kirkuk when one of them detonated his explosives belt prematurely. All four men were killed but no civilians were hurt, said police Brig. Adil Zain-Alabideen. He said all four were insurgents embarking on an attack mission, but did not elaborate. |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| Enraged Ramadi Sunnis rail at al-Qaeda |
| 2006-01-06 |
| The residents of Ramadi had had enough. As they frantically searched the city's hospital for relatives killed and wounded in bomb blasts at a police recruiting station Thursday, they did something they had never publicly done: They blamed al-Qaida in Iraq, the insurgent movement led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "Neither the Americans nor the Shiites have any benefit in doing this. It is Zarqawi," said Khalid Saadi, 42, who came to the hospital looking for his brother, Muhammed. Saadi said he hoped that sympathies in the city, considered a hotbed of support for the Sunni Arab insurgency, would turn against al-Zarqawi's faction. The surviving police recruits showed where their sympathies lay - after the bombing, they got back in line to continue the screening process, the U.S. military said. Saadi later learned that his brother was one of at least 130 people killed in attacks Thursday in Iraq, most occurring within an hour's time. The violence, which included a suicide bombing in Karbala, contributed to one of the bloodiest days since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2003. The attacks came a day after insurgents killed 42 people at a funeral in the city of Muqdadiyah. Before Wednesday, the country had enjoyed a measure of calm and even optimism as rival politicians talked of arranging a broad-based coalition government after the Dec. 15 elections. But the attacks Thursday suggested that the insurgents would remain an important force in the country's future. At least 56 Sunni Arabs were killed and 60 wounded at the recruiting center in Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar, when a bomber standing among some 1,000 police recruits struck near the Ramadi Glass and Ceramics Works, said Mohammed al-Ani, a doctor at the city's hospital. A police official in Karbala said 63 people were killed there. Also, five American soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in the capital, the U.S. military said. In other violence, a car bomb killed three Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad, and gunmen killed three Iraqis in separate incidents, police said. In the Ramadi attack, more than 1,000 men had gathered at the center to apply for new jobs with the Iraqi police, Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said in the statement. A suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest in the middle of the crowd, witnesses and Iraqi police said. Wounded and panicked applicants surged forward in hopes of finding a way from the Jersey-walled entrance into the recruiting center, where another bomber was waiting to detonate an explosive belt, said one witness, Amar Oda, who was among those looking for a job. "I just saw flesh and body parts festooning the cement barriers," Oda, 23, said from his hospital bed, where he was receiving medical treatment for wounds in his head and back. Some of those killed were tribal leaders who had come to supervise the recruitment of residents into the country's police force, Majeed Tikriti, a doctor in Ramadi's hospital, said. Local leaders have repeatedly demanded that U.S. and Iraqi authorities allow men from Ramadi to serve in Iraq's armed forces. They had argued that only locally recruited soldiers could bring a measure of control to the city of 400,000 on the Euphrates River, which is considered one of the key centers of the Sunni-led insurgency. Though U.S. and Iraqi authorities have been reluctant to allow this, on the grounds that locally recruited soldiers are vulnerable to coercion by insurgents, they have relented in recent weeks. Pool said in the statement that since recruiting began Monday, recruiters have screened 600 applicants who met basic requirements to join the police. The Ramadi residents responded to the attack with fury. Nearly everyone at the scene said they believed it had been ordered by al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq, considered the most ruthless and best-organized faction in the insurgent movement. "People in this city helped Zarqawi a lot, and I hope this would make them change their minds," said Saad Abid Ali, a captain in the Iraqi army hit in the legs by shrapnel. Another group of people beat a doctor in the hospital after he told an Iraqi journalist that U.S. forces were to blame for the attacks. The scene was equally grim in Karbala, where another bomber wearing a vest packed with ball bearings detonated his explosives on a busy pedestrian path about 100 feet from the Imam Hussein shrine. Many of the victims were Shiite pilgrims who had gathered outside the Zainabiya gate to the shrine, an area flanked by first-floor markets and second- and third-story hotels. The attack killed 63 and wounded 120, Karbala police spokesman Rahman Meshawi said. Eight of the dead were Shiite pilgrims from Iran. Mohammed Saheb, who was wounded in the head, said he travels to the shrine every Thursday in advance of Friday prayers - as many pilgrims do. "I never thought that such a crime could happen near this holy site," Saheb said. "The terrorists spare no place from their ugly deeds. This is a criminal act against faithful pilgrims. The terrorists are targeting the Shiites." The bombing brought back memories of the deadliest civilian attack in Iraq since the war began. On March 2, 2004, coordinated blasts from suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives detonated near shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, killing at least 181 people. Since then, however, Karbala had been relatively free of violence. There apparently had been warnings of another attack. A would-be suicide car bomber arrested on Tuesday before he could explode his vehicle told Karbala police a number of suicide bombers were in the city, said a police commander who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media. He refused to say if any others had been arrested. Karbala's governor, Aqeel al-Khazraji, blamed "takfiris and Saddamists" for the attack. The takfiri ideology is followed by extremist Sunnis bent on killing anyone they consider an infidel, even fellow Muslims. Footage on Iraqi television showed police in the city center shouting and waving pistols and assault rifles in an effort to control a crowd of onlookers. The ground appeared to be wet, and lumps of clothing and flesh lay scattered across the bloodstained street. Police and emergency workers loaded bodies onto wooden carts and pushed them away. The al-Iraqiya television network showed a pickup truck pulling away from the scene, black body bags piled in its bed. At the city's hospital, doctors worked to save the lives of the wounded and make an accounting of the dead. More than 150 people, many crying, jostled for a glance at a list of names of people killed in the attack. |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| Shi'ites issue warning over Iraqi violence |
| 2006-01-06 |
| Attacks by suicide bombers killed as many as 130 people in Karbala and Ramadi on Thursday, rekindling fears of a return to mass sectarian killings after a relative lull and prompting Iraq's most powerful Shiite political faction to warn of retribution and indirectly blame the United States for the bloodshed. In a separate attack, a roadside bomb killed at least five American soldiers near Karbala, Iraqi and American officials said. At least two other Americans were reported killed in one of the suicide attacks. More than 60 Shiite pilgrims died just steps from the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala, one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites, when a terrorist detonated an explosive vest just after 10 a.m., the Iraqi authorities said. Pools of blood and body parts were strewn about, and survivors shrieked and cried while people ripped benches from buildings to use as stretchers. The police chief in Karbala said the suicide vest had contained at least 15 pounds of high explosives and was studded with ball bearings that shot through the crowd to maximize the slaughter. Health officials said the dead included Iranian visitors and a 3-month-old baby, and that at least 63 people had been wounded. Forty minutes later, a bomber in Ramadi waded into a crowd of about 1,000 men and ignited a suicide vest as the men waited to be interviewed for jobs as policemen. The blast killed more than 50 and wounded at least 60, according to Dr. Amar al-Rawi, who works at the main hospital in Ramadi, a Sunni Arab insurgent hotbed west of Falluja. A firefighter, Maan Abdul-Jabbar, said that he had helped load at least 40 bodies into trucks and that survivors had recalled hearing two blasts. A Los Angeles Times reporter embedded with the military in Ramadi said two Americans - a marine and a soldier - had also died in the attack, and quoted an American commander who put the death toll at about 70. Amid the recent surge in violence, Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the senior American operational commander in Iraq, has expressed concern that growing sectarian rifts in Iraq could compromise the government and security forces. The brutal assaults of the past two days, including a suicide bombing that killed more than 30 Shiite mourners at a funeral in Miqdadiya on Wednesday, have killed almost 200 people. And they have thrust the country back into an atmosphere of violence not seen since the car-bomb massacre of Shiite day laborers in Baghdad in September. Unlike that attack and the killings in Miqdadiya, Thursday's bombings successfully struck better-guarded areas. Though no group claimed responsibility for the new attacks, the top American intelligence officer here, Maj. Gen. Richard Zahner, said in an e-mail message that suspicion was focusing on foreign fighters organized by the terrorist groups Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia or Ansar al-Sunna. In recent days, overtures by the largest Sunni Arab party to join political negotiations with Shiite and Kurdish leaders have brought hope for forming a new coalition government that could help deflate the insurgency. The interlude of relative calm surrounding the elections on Dec. 15 has been at least partly attributed to efforts by some Iraqi insurgents, as opposed to Qaeda fighters, to not attack Sunni voters in hopes of Sunni parties' gaining more power in the soon-to-be-formed government. But hours after Thursday's bombings, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, accused both Sunni Arab political parties and the United States of responsibility for the last two days of massacres. Sunni Arab groups that have warned of potential civil war "bear the responsibility for every drop of blood that was shed," said Mr. Hakim, whose party is allied with Iran and is the most influential group in the governing Shiite coalition. He said "pressure" from American forces had impeded the Interior and Defense Ministries from "doing their job chasing terrorists and maintaining the souls of innocent Iraqi people." "We're laying the responsibility for the blood of innocents shed in the past few days on the multinational forces and the political powers that declared publicly their support for terrorism," he said. "Our people will not be patient for much longer with these dirty sectarian crimes." As evidence has mounted that Iraqi security forces under the command of Shiite leaders have carried out a program of torture and assassination of Sunni Arabs, American commanders have sought to rein them in. For Sunni Arabs, a particular concern has been the Interior Ministry, controlled by Bayan Jabr, a former Shiite militia leader. He has denied accusations of the killing and torture of Sunnis, but American soldiers have raided jails under his control and found Sunni inmates showing clear signs of abuse. On Tuesday, insurgents kidnapped Mr. Jabr's sister in what was widely seen as retaliation for abuses by security forces, prompting a huge search effort throughout Baghdad. Some Sunni Arab political groups, including the Iraqi Islamic Party, were quick to condemn the Karbala and Ramadi bombings on Thursday. President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, vowed that "these groups of dark terror will not succeed through these cowardly acts in dissuading Iraqis in their bid to form a government of national unity." In recent weeks, American military officials had noted a decline in mass-casualty bombings. Still, "the enemy retains the ability to be extremely dangerous," General Vines said Thursday, adding that "many attacks are relatively ineffective" efforts by "thugs" linked to the former regime of Saddam Hussein. On the other hand, Qaeda terrorists "tend to be more focused and lethal to include the use of suicide bombers," he said. "We have seen some of that as recently as today." General Zahner described the attacks in Karbala, Ramadi, and Miqdadiya as "small numbers but large impact against soft targets designed to generate sectarian violence." Referring to information operations, the military's shorthand jargon for propaganda, he added, "This is their effort to regain the I.O. momentum in the wake of an ineffective effort to derail the elections." |
| Link |
| Iraq |
| 120 massacred as carnage returns to Iraq |
| 2006-01-06 |
 Two suicide bombers killed 120 people and wounded more than 200 in attacks near a Shiite holy shrine and a police recruiting centre on Thursday, the bloodiest day in Iraq for four months. Iraq's prime minister denounced the violence as an attempt to derail the political. But Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI) in Iraq, blamed Sunni Arab groups that fared poorly in the elections for inciting the violence. SCIRI warned that Shiite patience was wearing thin and accused the U.S.-led coalition forces of restraining the Iraqi army and its police and security forces.The suicide bombers struck in Kerbala, one of Shiite Islam's holiest cities, and Ramadi, a Sunni Arab stronghold in western Anbar province and a hotbed of the insurgency. The Kerbala bomber detonated an explosive belt laced with ball bearings and a grenade, killing 50 and wounding 138 at a market within sight of the golden dome of the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam. Television pictures showed pools of blood in the street, which was littered with debris. Passers-by loaded the wounded into the backs of cars and vans, and one black-clad woman stood crying while clutching her dead or wounded baby to her chest. About an hour after the Kerbala blast, another bomber blew himself up near police recruits in the western city of Ramadi, killing 70 people and wounding 65, hospital sources said. The U.S. military said the blast ripped through a line of some 1,000 men waiting to be security screened at a glass and ceramics works that was used as a temporary recruiting centre. After the debris and body parts had been cleared away, hundreds of Iraqis returned to the queue, the military said. Coming a day after 58 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings, the latest bloodshed ratcheted up tension between Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs and majority Shiites. "This is a war against Shiites," said Rida Jawad al-Takia, a senior SCIRI member. "Apparently to the terrorists, no Shiite child or woman should live," he told Reuters. "We are really worried. It seems they want a civil war." In a separate statement, SCIRI said that U.S.-led coalition forces were preventing Iraq's army and police from stopping insurgents, an apparent reference to increased American oversight of Shiite-dominated security forces following widespread charges of abuse - especially of Sunni Arab detainees. "The multinational forces, and the political entities that declared their support for terrorism, bear the responsibility for the bloodshed that happened in the recent few days. They should know that the patience of our people will not last for a long time," it said. "It's an odious crime which shows the savagery and sectarianism of these criminals," said Jawad al-Maliki, a top leader from Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Daawa party, speaking of the attack in Kerbala. "They are trying to change the results through terror," he said in a veiled reference to complaints by Sunni-based parties of ballot-rigging in the poll. President Jalal Talabani blamed the attacks on "groups of dark terror" and said they would fail to stop Iraqis forming a national unity government capable of meeting the demands of the country's rival sects and ethnic groups. A senior official in the Iraqi Accordance Movement, the main minority Sunni coalition, denounced the violence and called for solidarity among Iraqis to defeat it, but he blamed the government for allowing it to happen. "This government has not only failed to end violence, but it has become an accomplice in the cycle of violence by adopting sectarian policies and by weakening the state and strengthening militia groups," Izzat al-Shahbandar said. |
| Link |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Toe tag for 32 Mahdi Army members |
| 2004-05-24 |
| U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a Kufa mosque Sunday where they said insurgents stored weapons, and the military said at least 32 fighters loyal to a radical Shiite cleric were killed during the first American incursion into the holy city. U.S. troops also clashed with militiamen loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in a Shiite district of Baghdad and in Najaf, Kufa's twin city. Nine U.S. soldiers were wounded Sunday around Baghdad, the military said, including four injured in a mortar attack in the east of the capital. In another holy city, Karbala, militia fighters appeared to have abandoned their positions after weeks of combat. A U.S. Marine was killed and several other troops were injured when a bomb hidden in a parked car exploded as two American convoys passed by near Fallujah, the military said. American tanks and troops moved into the heart of Kufa, a stronghold of al-Sadr, for the first time since the fiercely anti-U.S. cleric launched an uprising against the coalition early last month. Al-Sadr, sought for the April 2003 killing of a moderate rival cleric, has taken refuge in Najaf and routinely delivers a Friday sermon in Kufa. U.S. soldiers fought militiamen near Kufa's Sahla mosque and then raided it for weapons after an Iraqi counterterrorism force "cleared" the site, the military said. Soldiers seized a machine gun, two mortar tubes and more than 200 mortar rounds, along with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and rounds. American troops smashed the gate to the mosque complex with an armored vehicle and killed people inside, mosque employee Radhi Mohammed said. An Associated Press photographer saw bloodstains on the ground indicating that someone was dragged for at least 10 yards. There also was blood in mosque bathrooms. The fighting around Shiite holy cities south of Baghdad, among the world's most sacred Shia sites, has enraged Shiite communities in Iran and elsewhere. In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran sent a "warning" message to the United States through the Swiss Embassy concerning American actions in Iraq. Switzerland looks after American interests in Iran. Asefi did not say whether the warning involved military actions around the holy cities. "There were American forces in that local mosque last night," said Maj. David Gercken, spokesman for the 1st Armored Division. "They went in after the Iraqi forces." Sheik Mansoor al-Asadi, head of the central council of tribes in the Najaf area, said he was "astonished" by the Kufa raid, saying it undermined efforts by local leaders to resolve the standoff between al-Sadr and the coalition peacefully. Salama al-Khafaji, a Shiite member of the Iraqi Governing Council, denounced the U.S. move against the mosque as a "violation of sanctity" that will put an added burden on Iraqi authorities who work with the Americans. But Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armored Division, said U.S. forces took care not to damage Shiite Muslim shrines even though militiamen used them as fighting positions. "We have no intention of entering the shrines," Dempsey said, adding that Iraqi security forces would enter them if necessary. American troops also fought his militia, known as the al-Mahdi Army, around Kufa's technical college and a building known as Saddam's Palace, the military said. Thirty-two militiamen died, it said. Medical personnel at the city's Furat al-Awsat hospital said at least 10 people were killed and 11 were wounded, however, and it was unclear whether those numbers included the fighters or referred to civilians. No U.S. casualties were reported. Resident Mohammed Abdul-Kareem said the dead included three civilians whose houses were damaged in the fighting, which lasted from 10 p.m. Saturday until 6 a.m. Sunday. Sixteen people also were wounded in clashes between U.S. forces and al-Sadr loyalists in Najaf on Sunday, according to hospital officials and witnesses. Two other militiamen were wounded when three projectiles exploded in central Najaf. In Karbala, no al-Sadr fighters or American forces were seen on the streets Sunday, but the U.S. military denied claims by al-Sadr's office that all combatants agreed to withdraw from the city. "There was no cease-fire, no deal made in Karbala," Gercken said. "We do not and will not make deals with militias or criminals." U.S. forces captured 10 militiamen overnight in Karbala but encountered little resistance during patrols, Gercken said. Iraqi leaders in Karbala were trying to negotiate an end to the fighting, but coalition officials have demanded that al-Sadr disband his militia and "face justice" on the arrest warrant. "There is no presence of armed militias in the city," said Adham Mahmoud, a Karbala hotel worker. "People have started leaving their homes and going into the streets. Some have started rebuilding their damaged houses." No insurgents were seen around Karbala's Imam Hussein shrine, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites. It was guarded by a special security force in civilian clothing that was appointed by top Shiite clerics. "Iraqi security forces are already patrolling the city," a U.S. military statement said. Gunmen killed a police captain and a university student and wounded a police sergeant in Baqouba, north of Baghdad, a hospital official said. Capt. Haidar Hadi and the sergeant were giving the student a lift to Baghdad when the gunmen opened fire, said Nassir Jawad of Baqouba General Hospital. Also Sunday, a policeman was killed and two others seriously wounded by a bomb while patrolling between Basra and Zubeir in southern Iraq, police said. |
| Link |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Coalition warns Karbala residents to leave |
| 2004-05-15 |
| US-led coalition forces urged residents to leave this Iraqi holy city after three civilians were killed and seven wounded in fighting between Shiite Muslim militiamen and Iraqi troops. US warplanes flew low overhead and coalition soldiers drove through town telling people to leave over loudspeakers following clashes between US-trained Iraqi paramilitaries and loyalists of Shiite radical leader Moqtada Sadr. A patrol of the Iraqi Civil Defence Corps (ICDC) came under attack 50 metres (yards) from the mausoleums of Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas, among Shiite Islam's most revered shrines, said witness Hassan Ghanem. Ghanem said he saw a fighter from Sadr's Mehdi Army militia beat an ICDC officer. Doctor Ali Ardawi told AFP three dead and seven wounded had been admitted to Karbala's hospital. "All the victims were civilians," he said. A Qatari cameraman working for the Al-Jazeera Arabic television channel told AFP he was lightly wounded around 6:30 pm (1430 GMT) Saturday after a US tank opened fire near the Imam Hussein shrine. He was being treated at the hotel where he was staying because it was impossible for ambulances to get near the area. "I was filming US tanks firing at the Mehdi militia near the holy shrines when a strong explosion suddenly knocked me to the ground," he said. The Polish-led multinational division based in the region said one coalition soldier was wounded after his patrol came under attack around 10:50 am (0650 GMT) near the Al-Muhayem mosque in Karbala. A representative of Shiite Islam's top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on local people to find a "peaceful solution" to the violence. "I call on residents to intervene with both parties in the conflict to find a peaceful solution," Sheikh Abdel Mehdi Karabalai told AFP. A senior official said the US military was urging local leaders to secure a peaceful outcome, but insisted that the militia disband and Sadr face justice for his alleged role in the murder of a rival cleric last year. |
| Link |