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Iraq

Troops raid Baghdad Sunni mosque complex, 18 arrested

2007-07-22

US and Iraqi troops raided a prominent Baghdad Sunni mosque complex and detained 18 suspected militants on Saturday, while a bomb aboard a minibus in the capital killed five people. In a pre-dawn sweep, troops raided the Umm al-Qura mosque complex in Baghdad’s western Ghazaliyah neighbourhood to capture an Al Qaeda in Iraq operative “believed to be operating a terrorist media cell,” the military said. “The ground forces surrounded several outer buildings in the compound and secured them, capturing the targeted individual and 17 other suspected terrorists,” it said. US forces did not enter the compound. The mosque houses the headquarters of the Sunni Muslim Scholars Association, a religious body known for its hardline anti-American stance and alleged links to Sunni insurgent groups. The Sunni endowment, the body that manages Sunni religious sites, said one of those detained was the son of the endowment’s head, Sheikh Ahmed Abdul-Ghafour al-Samaraie. “He was heading to perform the morning prayers at the mosque when he was arrested. The Sunni endowment demands that the American forces release him immediately.” The Muslim Scholars Association also criticised the raid. “The brutal forces broke into the headquarters before dawn and destroyed the computers, furniture and the lockers and stole its contents,” the association said. “They also arrested and drove away all those who were inside.” The US military also announced on Saturday the arrest of a former mayor and current city council member of Al-Sadiyah in the restive Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. It did not reveal his identity but said the detainee arrested on Thursday was linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq and was involved in a car bomb attack recently that killed 19 people. The military also announced the arrest of two suspected militants who were brothers and a woman militant in Baghdad’s Shiite slum of Sadr City on Thursday. The three, suspected of carrying out “extra-judicial killings”, are members of a breakway faction of the Mahdi Army militia loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, it said. Insurgents, meanwhile, bombed a minibus in Baghdad. The bomb exploded in the capital’s eastern Baladiyat neighbourhood located close to Sadr City, killing five people and wounding 11, a medic and a security official said. Alleged Sunni extremists regularly target Sadr City, the impoverished slum loyal to Sadr, and areas around it in the ongoing brutal sectarian conflict that has engulfed Baghdad. The US military said six insurgents were also killed and five wounded when a warplane dropped a bomb on a building near the town of Hussainiyah, just north of Baghdad. It said its troops came under small-arms fire from gunmen “operating from a structure near Hussainiyah” late on Friday, and it had to call in air support, which bombed the structure. Meanwhile, three people were killed and 25 wounded, according to the Interior and Defence Ministry, by stray bullets as Iraqis marked the victory of their football team over Vietnam with a barrage of celebratory gunfire. Iraq made their way to the Asian Cup semi-final with a 2-0 victory over Vietnam in Bangkok, in a match televised live for millions of Iraqi fans. As the war-torn country’s team emerged victorious, a massive eruption of gunfire reverberated across Baghdad and several other towns as hundreds of rounds were fired skywards into the evening sky. Such victories are traditionally followed by gunfire as security forces, militia fighters, insurgent guerrillas and the country’s heavily armed citizens put aside their differences and fire into the air. Four people were killed in other attacks in Iraq.

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Iraq

48 among the dead in twin truck bombings

2007-03-28

Bomb attacks killed 75 people in Iraq yesterday, including 48 who died in twin truck bombings in the northwestern town of Tal Afar, police said. Among other attacks, suspected Al Qaida militants killed 21 people in bombings targeting police and Sunnis who have formed an alliance against the militants, officials said. The attacks follow an upsurge in violence in recent days. US and Iraqi security forces have deployed thousands more soldiers in Baghdad to try to stem a sectarian war that threatens to tear the country apart. One of the blasts in Tal Afar, a mixed town of Shiites, Sunnis and Turkmen near the Syrian border, was detonated by a suicide bomber in front of a Shiite mosque, police and witnesses said. Police Brigadier Karim Khalaf Al Jubouri said the bomber lured victims to buy wheat loaded on his truck. A second truck bomb exploded in a used car lot. On Saturday, a man wearing an explosive vest blew himself up in Tal Afar, killing 10 people. In 2006, US President George W. Bush held up Tal Afar as an example of progress being made in Iraq after US-led forces freed it from Al Qaida militants in an offensive the previous year. Near Ramadi, in western Anbar province, a suicide bomber exploded his car outside a restaurant on a main road, killing 17 people and wounding 32, a hospital source said. The restaurant was frequented by police in an area where local tribes have joined the tribal alliance against Al Qaida. Many police were among the casualties, the hospital source said. Earlier four people were killed in two blasts in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad. One of the dead was the son of tribal leader Shaikh Thahir Al Dari, said Ahmad Al Dulaimi, head of the provincial council media office in Anbar province. Dulaimi said it was a double suicide car bombing, but a relative of the shaikh, a member of the anti-Al Qaida alliance, said the son was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the car he was in. Another person was wounded in the car. Relatives blamed Al Qaida for the attack. Dari's dead son, Harith Al Dari, is the nephew of his namesake who leads the Sunni Muslim Scholars Association, an influential body of hardline clerics. The cleric has spoken out against the anti-Al Qaida alliance that includes his own tribe. Thahir Al Dari is the head of the Al Zobaie tribe, to which Deputy Prime Minister Salam Al Zobaie belongs. The deputy prime minister was the target of an assassination bid last week.

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Iraq

Sunnis and Sadr's Shiites make peace

2006-02-26

THE movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, alleged to have played a role in the anti-Sunni violence over the last few days, publicly made peace with political and religious Sunni leaders overnight. Four sheikhs from the Sadr movement made a "pact of honour" with the conservative Sunni Muslim Scholars Association, and called for an end to attacks on places of worship, the shedding of blood and condemning any act leading to sedition. Why do I get this sense that Moqie has had his cake and has eaten it as well? The agreement was made in the particularly symbolic setting of Baghdad's premier Sunni mosque Abu Hanifa where the Shiite sheikhs prayed under the guidance of Sunni imam Abdel Salam al-Qubaissi. The meeting was broadcast on television and the religious leaders all "condemned the blowing up of the Shiite mausoleum of Samarra as much as the acts of sabotage against the houses of God as well as the assassinations and terrorisation of Muslims". The statement made reference to the key concerns of both communities with the violent aftermath to the attack on the Samarra mausoleum which saw more than 119 people die. The sheikhs condemned "those who excommunicate Muslims" a reference to the "takfireen" or Islamist extremists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who justify killing fellow Muslims by declaring them non-Muslims. "It is not permitted to spill the Iraqi blood and to touch the houses of God," said the statement, adding that any mosques taken over by another community should be returned. The meeting also announced the formation of a commission to "determine the reasons for the crisis with a view to solving it", while also calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. On the political front, Salam al-Maliki, a cabinet minister allied to Sadr, and Iyad al-Sammaraie of the Sunni Islamic Party proclaimed their own reconciliation at a joint press conference, aired on Iraqi state television. The Islamic Party belongs to the Sunni National Concord Front, which won 44 seats in parliament and has broken off talks on forming the next Iraqi government since Wednesday's eruption of violence. While overwhelmingly Shiite and representing thousands of poor and disaffected Shiites across the country, Sadr's movement has often made overtures to the Sunni Arabs over their mutual dislike of the US presence in the country. Still, the roving bands of gun-toting, black clad youths attacking Sunnis and their places of worship on Wednesday were widely believed to have connections to the Mehdi Army, the armed wing of Sadr's movement. In fact, Sadr's office in Najaf issued a statement Saturday calling on his followers to eschew their trademark black uniforms. "The order has been given to members of the Mehdi Army to no longer wear their black uniform, so that it not exploited by those who commit crimes," said the statement. The statement added that those attacking mosques were "criminal bands with no links to the Sadr movement." Still think Moqie should be pushing up daisies.

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Iraq

Sunnis and Sadr's Shiites make peace

2006-02-25

We'll see ... looks like the religious conservatives may be joining forces against the seculars/moderates. THE movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, alleged to have played a role in the anti-Sunni violence over the last few days, publicly made peace with political and religious Sunni leaders overnight. Four sheikhs from the Sadr movement made a "pact of honour" with the conservative Sunni Muslim Scholars Association, and called for an end to attacks on places of worship, the shedding of blood and condemning any act leading to sedition. The agreement was made in the particularly symbolic setting of Baghdad's premier Sunni mosque Abu Hanifa where the Shiite sheikhs prayed under the guidance of Sunni imam Abdel Salam al-Qubaissi. The meeting was broadcast on television and the religious leaders all "condemned the blowing up of the Shiite mausoleum of Samarra as much as the acts of sabotage against the houses of God as well as the assassinations and terrorisation of Muslims". The statement made reference to the key concerns of both communities with the violent aftermath to the attack on the Samarra mausoleum which saw more than 119 people die. The sheikhs condemned "those who excommunicate Muslims" a reference to the "takfireen" or Islamist extremists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who justify killing fellow Muslims by declaring them non-Muslims. "It is not permitted to spill the Iraqi blood and to touch the houses of God," said the statement, adding that any mosques taken over by another community should be returned. The meeting also announced the formation of a commission to "determine the reasons for the crisis with a view to solving it", while also calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. On the political front, Salam al-Maliki, a cabinet minister allied to Sadr, and Iyad al-Sammaraie of the Sunni Islamic Party proclaimed their own reconciliation at a joint press conference, aired on Iraqi state television. The Islamic Party belongs to the Sunni National Concord Front, which won 44 seats in parliament and has broken off talks on forming the next Iraqi government since Wednesday's eruption of violence. While overwhelmingly Shiite and representing thousands of poor and disaffected Shiites across the country, Sadr's movement has often made overtures to the Sunni Arabs over their mutual dislike of the US presence in the country. Still, the roving bands of gun-toting, black clad youths attacking Sunnis and their places of worship on Wednesday were widely believed to have connections to the Mehdi Army, the armed wing of Sadr's movement. In fact, Sadr's office in Najaf issued a statement Saturday calling on his followers to eschew their trademark black uniforms. "The order has been given to members of the Mehdi Army to no longer wear their black uniform, so that it not exploited by those who commit crimes," said the statement. The statement added that those attacking mosques were "criminal bands with no links to the Sadr movement."

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