February 24, 2006

This is how Badrists and Sadrists treat people they don't like.



Look at this picture. The chaos lil George of Crawford created in Iraq.

An Iraqi journalist, Atwar Bahjat, dragged screaming by Badrists while covering Sammara. She knew her fate.

This is what remained of her.

Curfew not working
Meanwhile, some parts of Baghdad seem to have survived the curfew intact, but in others street battles continue.

As you leave the Baghdad periphery, the news is more bleak.

According to Aljazeera, "Police sources said Friday's clashes were between unidentified gunmen, possibly Sunnis, and members of the Jaish al-Mahdi (the al-Mahdi Army) loyal to Shia figure Muqtada al-Sadr."

Twenty more bodies of Sunnis were found overnight in Baghdad bringing the numbers of those killed since the Sammara bombing to at least 200, most of them Sunnis.

I am hearing that the so-called Iraqi army is not standing up to the Mehdi army but giving them open passage. When gun battles break out, neither the Iraqi army nor the police intervene.

Some government.

Outside Baghdad

In Basra, where the curfew was not in effect, on Friday armed men kidnapped three children of a Shia legislator. The son and two daughters of Qasim Attiyah al-Jbouri - aged between seven and 11 years - were abducted by armed men near the family home, police said.

Al-Jbouri is a member of the Islamic Dawa Party-Iraq Organisation and is the former head of Basra's provincial council.

Elsewhere, police found the bodies of two bodyguards for the Basra head of the Sunni Endowment, a government body that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines. They had been shot.

Gunmen stormed a house and killed two Shia men and a woman in Latifiya, southwest of Baghdad, at about 7am on Friday, despite a curfew. Two children, aged about 11 and 13, were wounded in the attack.

Police Captain Ibrahim Abdullah, said five men were also killed in the attack.

They speak of civil war
Yesterday, Talabani told Iraqis on national TV that if a civil war breaks out, no one will be safe.

If? This has to be the most corrupted incompetent government ever assembled by US foreign policy. It doesn't function on so many different levels.

But then again, this government was never about governance, but sowing dissent. This dissent was planted in the early days by the Iraq Governing Council and now it is bearing fruit. The three-year plan is hatching. la3nat allah 3aleikum ya huthalat al bashariya (I just cursed them).

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish elder statesman, told The Associated Press: "This is the first time that I have heard politicians say they are worried about the outbreak of civil war."

More attacks

AP also reported: "A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said discussions were under way to rebuild the shrine as quickly as possible because the shattered structure would serve as a "lasting provocation" until it was reconstructed. Italy announced Thursday it was offering to rebuild the dome to help battle "fanaticism.""

Fanaticism, is that what they are calling the Badrists today? Why not just call them terrorists equal in measure to the Zarqawists.

But that is typical. The US offered to rebuild the shrine. How about reubuilding our shattered hearts first? Can you restore the tens of thousands who have been killed since this great war of liberation?

Meanwhile, the "fanaticism" rages on. A Shiite cleric was shot dead Thursday night in Tuz Khormato, a mostly Kurdish city 130 miles north of Baghdad, and another Sunni preacher was killed the mostly Shiite city of Hillah 60 miles south of the capital.

Two Sunni mosques were burned Thursday in Baghdad and another in Mussayib to the south, police said. A Sunni was killed when gunmen fired on a mosque in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Kuwait's news agency is reporting that US forces killed a military commander of the Al-Qaeda organization in northern part of the Iraqi capital, in a raid carried out after sunrise today.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, gunmen killed a member of Badr organization of the (Shiite) Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), police said. Ali Mohammed was gunned down in Al-Qadisiah district, they said.

A source of the Iraqi Interior Ministry said a member of the Iraqi Elite Squad was killed and four others were wounded in a gunfire attack that targetted their patrol in the district of Al-Dora in Baghdad.

Some 95 Iraqi prisoners have been recently set free from detention after they were found innocent of terrorist activities.

Interior Ministry statement on Sammara bombing (AFP)

Construction Minister Jassem Mohammed Jaafar said Friday the placing of the explosives must have taken at least 12 hours. (Where the hell were the 35 soldiers protecting this site? Oh they were withdrawn for inexplicable reasons)

"According to initial reports, the bombing was technically well conceived and could only have been carried out by specialists," the minister told Iraqia state television.

"holes were dug into the mausoleum's four main pillars and packed with explosives."
(Doesn't this make a loud rattle for many to hear?)

"Then the charges were connected together and linked to another charge placed just under the dome. The wires were then linked to a detonator which was triggered at a distance," the minister added.

To drill into the pillars would have taken at least four hours per pillar, he also estimated.

"The dome was completely wrecked and collapsed on the tombs which were covered over by debris. The shrine's foundations were also affected as 40 percent of the power of the blast was directed inwards," he added.

"It's a historic site, a symbol of Iraqi culture and must be treated as such," he said, adding that he would call on Iraqi officials and on UNESCO to help rebuilt the golden mosque.

Baghdad today