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Iraq edges closer to open civil warfare
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-15 09:22
Iraqi authorities discovered at least 87 corpses 錕斤拷 men shot to death
execution-style 錕斤拷 as Iraq edged closer to open civil warfare. Twenty-nine of the
bodies, dressed only in underwear, were dug out of a single grave Tuesday in a
Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.
The bloodshed appeared to be retaliation for a bomb and mortar attack in the
Sadr City slum that killed at least 58 people and wounded more than 200 two days
earlier.
An Iraqi woman
walks past the bodies of Iraqis killed during sectarian violence, at a
hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 14, 2006. Iraqi police reported
Tuesday they had found the bodies of at least 75 men killed by gunshots,
most bound hand and foot, in a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian killing
over the past 24 hours. [AP] |
Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, meanwhile, told The Associated Press
security officials had foiled a plot that would have put hundreds of al-Qaida
men at critical guard posts around Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home
to the U.S. and other foreign embassies, as well as the Iraqi government.
A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were
recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several
ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, said the
official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the
information.
Police began unearthing bodies early Monday, although the discoveries were
not immediately reported. The gruesome finds continued throughout the day
Tuesday, police said, marking the second wave of sectarian retribution killings
since bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine last month.
In the mayhem after the golden dome atop the Askariya shrine in Samarra was
destroyed on Feb. 22, more than 500 people have been killed, many of them Sunni
Muslims and their clerics. Dozens of mosques were damaged or destroyed.
Underlining the unease in the capital, Interior Ministry officials announced
another driving ban, from 8 p.m. Wednesday to 4 p.m. Thursday to protect against
car and suicide bombs while the Iraqi parliament meets for the first session
since the Dec. 15 election.
After the driving ban was announced, the Cabinet said Thursday would be a
holiday in the capital, presumably because residents would not be able to get to
work. Restrictions on movement also had been put in place on the two weekends
after the Samarra bombing in an attempt to quell the violence.
The most gruesome find Tuesday 錕斤拷 the 29 bodies dressed only in underwear 錕斤拷
was made after police, acting on a tip, discovered an 18-by-24-foot grave in an
empty field in Kamaliyah, a mostly Shiite east Baghdad suburb, Interior Ministry
official Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said. He estimated the victims were
killed about three days ago 錕斤拷 before the Sadr City attack Sunday evening.
Residents watched, some covering their eyes in horror, others offering
scarves and newspapers to cover the bodies as they were pulled from the grave.
An abandoned minibus containing 15 other bodies was found earlier on the main
road between two mostly Sunni west Baghdad neighborhoods 錕斤拷 not far from where
another minibus containing 18 bodies was discovered last week, al-Mohammedawi
said.
At least 40 more bodies were recovered elsewhere in Baghdad, in both Sunni
and Shiite neighborhoods, al-Mohammedawi said. Police found three other corpses
dumped in the northern city of Mosul.
Also Tuesday, the U.S. military reported the deaths of two more soldiers in
fighting in Anbar province. The soldiers, assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat
Team of the 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania Army National Guard, were
killed Monday, bringing the number of U.S. military members killed to at least
2,310 since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press
count.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hinted Tuesday that U.S. troop levels
may increase slightly in Iraq in the coming days because of pilgrimages
connected to the holiday of Ashura. The holiday, which ends March 20, includes
pilgrimages to holy sites in Najaf and Karbala. Increased attacks marked the
celebration during 2004 and 2005.
Rumsfeld said Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. military officer in Iraq, "may
decide he wants to bulk up slightly for the pilgrimage." He did not elaborate.
Scores of frightened Shiite families have fled predominantly Sunni parts of
Baghdad in recent weeks, some at gunpoint. More than 100 families arrived
between Monday and Tuesday alone in Wasit province, in the southern Shiite
heartland, said Haitham Ajaimi Manie, an official with the provisional migration
directorate.
More than 300 Baghdad families 錕斤拷 1,818 people 錕斤拷 have taken shelter in the
province after fleeing the capital, he said.
North of the capital, a roadside bomb exploded Tuesday among Shiite pilgrims
headed on foot to the holy city of Karbala, killing one person near Baqouba,
police said.
The sectarian violence has complicated negotiations for Iraq's first
permanent, post-invasion government. A caretaker government has been in charge
since the December elections and U.S. and Iraqi officials fear the vacuum in
authority has fueled the bloodshed.
Once parliament meets Thursday, it has 60 days under the new constitution to
elect a president and approve the nomination of Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim
al-Jaafari and his Cabinet.
After members of all the major Iraqi political blocs met Tuesday with U.S.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, no breakthrough was reported on solving the
deadlock over the nomination of al-Jaafari to head a new government.
But in an interview with Fox television, US Embassy Political Counselor
Robert Ford seemed guardedly optimistic.
"I can't say that we've had a breakthrough, but we had good talks today,"
Ford said.
But Iraqis in the meeting said the sides were still so far apart that major
Sunni politicians were again pressing for the new constitution be thrown out,
despite its adoption late last summer and approval in a subsequent national
plebiscite.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iraqi forces and
civilians, as well as coalition forces, need to provide stability to allow the
new government to do its work.
"The Iraqi people themselves are standing at a crossroads," Pace said Monday
night in a speech at the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs, "and they are
making critical decisions for their country right now about which road they'll
take."
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