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Iraq: Bombs, shootings fuel Iraq civil war
fears 25.2.2006
News about the Arab part of Iraq
- By Michael Georgy |
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BAGHDAD, Feb 25
(Reuters) - A car bomb attack on a Shi'ite holy
city, the slaying of a family of 12 and a gunbattle
near the home of a top Sunni Muslim clerical leader
heightened fears on Saturday that Iraq may be
pitching toward civil war.
At least eight were killed and 31 wounded in a car
bomb attack on a market in Kerbala, southwest of
Baghdad, and a bomb at the Baghdad funeral of a
well-known Iraqi journalist killed security men, her
employer Arabiya television and police said.
Gunmen killed 12 members of one family in their home
near Baquba, a religiously mixed city northeast of
the capital. Relatives said most of the dead were
Shi'ites but three were Sunni; mixed marriages are
not uncommon in Iraq.
Details of the shooting around the Baghdad home of
the head of the Sunni Muslim Clerics Association,
Harith al-Dari, were confused; speaking live from
the house by telephone on Arabiya, he blamed police
from the Shi'ite-led government: "This is civil war
declared by one side."
An aide said two of Dari's nieces, aged 4 and 15,
were hurt.
In the same area, the funeral cortege of Arabiya's
Atwar Bahjat came under fire, the station said,
adding one person was killed and four wounded. The
journalist was killed on Wednesday in Samarra, where
the suspected al Qaeda bombing of a Shi'ite shrine
sparked reprisal attacks on Sunnis.
On the way back from the burial, the convoy was
struck by a bomb that killed two guards, police
said. Arabiya said several people were killed in the
explosion.
Saturday's violence followed overnight clashes
around Sunni minority mosques in Baghdad, despite a
second day of emergency curfew in the capital; 200
people have died around Baghdad alone since the
destruction of Samarra's Golden Mosque three days
ago.
"This is a moment of choosing for the Iraqi people,"
said U.S. President George W. Bush, who hopes an end
to violence can let him bring troops home. "The
coming days will be intense."
Police said gunmen wearing the black of Shi'ite
militia attacked Sunni mosques in two areas of
Baghdad overnight, including the Abu Hanifa shrine,
the city's most sacred Sunni site; they were
eventually driven off, police said.
Sunni clerics say dozens of their mosques were
damaged at the height of the violence on Wednesday
and Thursday before the curfew imposed on Friday
dampened down the fighting.
In Kerbala, along with Samarra home to one of the
four holiest sites for Shi'ite Islam in Iraq, police
said a remotely detonated car bomb blasted a busy
street market.
Near the northern city of Kirkuk, a Katyusha rocket
damaged a Shi'ite shrine overnight, police sources
said.
Near Baquba, military sources said Iraqi troops
killed four suspected Sunni insurgents and arrested
17.
GOVERNMENT MEASURES
Islamist Shi'ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari
has tried to reassure Iraqis that their government
was doing everything possible to contain the crisis,
saying security would be tightened and holy sites
protected.
Rival Shi'ite leaders, all involved in government,
deny sending their respective militia forces against
Sunni targets; but the shows of force may have
strengthened their hands in U.S.-sponsored
negotiations on a national unity coalition.
The Shi'ite fury that has stalled the talks by
prompting a Sunni boycott is greater than any
provoked by al Qaeda and other Sunni rebel attacks
that have killed thousands since U.S. forces toppled
Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime three years ago.
Untested, U.S.-trained Iraqi police and troops
blocked roads across Baghdad. U.S. patrols, widely
resented by both sides, kept a low profile. The new
Iraqi forces are drawn heavily from rival militias,
and their loyalty may be tested in any battle.
As on Friday, the streets of Baghdad were largely
deserted, although the curfew, which lasts until 4
p.m. (1300 GMT) applies only to vehicle traffic.
Calls for Muslim unity from preachers at Friday
prayers had seemed to calm tensions but senior
government officials told Reuters they were still
concerned tempers could get out of hand, especially
if Shi'ite clerics were unable to contain the anger
of their majority community against Sunni
insurgents.
The main Sunni bloc pulled out of coalition
negotiations that followed its participation in a
December election; it accused Shi'ite leaders of
fomenting the revenge attacks.
Iraqi and U.S. officials blamed the bloodless but
symbolic attack on al Qaeda, saying it wants to
wreck the project for democracy in Iraq; al Qaeda in
turn accused Shi'ites of carrying out the Samarra
bombing to give an excuse for attacks on Sunnis.
Reuters
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