November 25, 2006

Reprisal killings continue in the no "Law and Order" country. Iraqi civilians wake up on sounds of bombs, shootings, mortars and the screams of children and women. The Fearful Iraqis spent sleepless nights guarding their homes and asking who would be next after gunmen attacked mosques and burned homes in Sunni areas on Friday following the worst bomb attack since the U.S. occupation in 2003.

"Everybody is worried," said my father whom I called yesterday. "We have gathered all our documents as we may escape from the house at any moment," he added. My mother said that our neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods are attacked by mortar shells hitting houses randomly.

Baghdad, which is completely under the control of militias and insurgents, looks miserable. Schools, shops, government institutions are closed. People hid inside their houses fearing the kidnappings and killings.

The Mahdi army, a militia loyal to the radical Shiite anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, stormed into the mixed neighborhoods on Friday defying a government curfew and propelling the country further toward a more sever and full-blown civil war. The militiamen killed dozens of Sunni civilians, burned houses and mosques and allegedly burned several Sunni civilians alive.

Read the details here.

Azzaman newspaper reported that the Mahdi Army militiamen kidnapped several Sunni young men in Jamila neighborhood on Friday. They executed in 83 Square in Talbiya neighborhood after they gathered people to watch the execution.

The paper also reported that residents of al-Hurriya neighborhood were attacked by the militiamen in front of police and security forces who did nothing to prevent the killings.

In northern Iraqi city of Mosul, three bodies were found blindfolded, tortured and shot dead, reported Azzaman.

In the latest news from the "new Iraq", gunmen raided the homes of two Shiite families, dragged out 21 males and shot them dead. The bodies were found early on Saturday. It is thought the youngest victim was a 12-year-old boy.

Residents and a security source said the apparently sectarian attack involved gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms who took the al-Saadi family late on Friday before killing them and dumping their bodies nearby. The bodies were found blindfolded, each corpse with gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

The Reuters news agency reported that a barrage of mortar rounds hit Baghdad's Sadr City on Saturday night, but there were no immediate reports of any casualties according to residents.

An Iraqi journalist who lives locally told the agency he had counted about 12 explosions in rapid succession.

At about the same time, two mortar bombs landed near the local office of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the Shiite enclave of Shula in mainly Sunni west Baghdad, a Sadr official told Reuters.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, mortar rounds killed one mourner at a funeral and wounded six others in the mainly Shiite area of Abu Dshir in southern Baghdad, police and relatives of the victims told Reuters.

Gunmen ambushed and killed one policeman and wounded another in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

In Taji, the U.S. military said it killed 22 insurgents in two separate clashes just north of Baghdad, shortly after carrying out three air strikes that destroyed a bomb-making factory.


The Iraqi government extended a ban on vehicles in Baghdad for a third day but it will be lifted on Monday morning, the government spokesman said on Saturday.