Aryavartha
23-11-2006, 22:49
Yeah, what civil war?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061123/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_061123185117
Attack on Baghdad Shiite slum kills 160
By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 26 minutes ago
BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the deadliest attack on a sectarian enclave since the beginning of the Iraq war, suspected Sunni-Arab militants used five car bombs and two mortar rounds on the capital's Shiite Sadr City slum to kill at least 160 people and wound 257 on Thursday, police said.
The Shiites responded almost immediately, firing 10 mortar rounds at the Abu Hanifa Sunni mosque in Azamiya, killing one person and wounding 14 people in an attack on the holiest Sunni shrine in Baghdad. It blew a three-foot hole in the dome and did severe damage to some inside rooms.
Eight mortar rounds fired in Baghdad also slammed into the Association of Muslim Scholars, the top Sunni organization in the country, causing no injuries, police.
Beginning at 3:10 p.m., the three suicide car bomb attackers in Sadr City blew up their vehicles one after another, at 15 minute intervals, hitting Jamila market, al-Hay market and al-Shahidein Square. At about the same time, two mortar rounds struck al-Shahidein Square and Mudhaffar Square, said police Col. Hassan Challoub.
Two other parked car bombs exploded around the same time, one at the edge of Sadr City and another behind the main office of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Challoub said. A sixth car bomb was detected and detonated out of harm's way by Iraqi police, he said.
As the fiery explosions sent up huge plumes of black smoke up over northeastern Baghdad, and left streets covered with burning bodies and blood, angry residents and armed Shiite militiamen flooded the streets, hurling curses at Sunni Muslims and firing weapons into the air.
Sadr City is the home of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to al-Sadr.
Ambulances raced to burning wooden fruit and vegetables stalls in Jamila market to rescue dozens of wounded people. Rescue workers also removed burned bodies from mangled cars and minibuses and took them away on wheeled carts. But many other corpses of adults and children remained in the streets.
Shortly after the attack, Mahdi Army militiamen deployed around the area, setting up checkpoints and roadblocks in the area to keep all strangers away.
[....and we wonder why militia gets local support. People will side with who comes out at this time and helps...]
Challoub said the coordinated attack killed 160 Iraqis and wounded 257.
The government imposed a curfew on Baghdad beginning at 8 p.m. Thursday, saying that all people and vehicles must stay off the streets of the city until further notice. The government also closed Baghdad International Airport to all commercial flights, said Brig. Abdul-Karin Khalaf, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
In addition, top government officials held an emergency meeting at the home of Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim that also was attended by Kurdish President Jalal Talabani, Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi and U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, an aide to al-Hakim said.
Afterward, the three Iraqi officials appeared on national television, with al-Hashimi reading a statement from them calling for calm and self-restraint and urging politicians to work hard to reduce sectarian tensions. "We call for a revision of the government's existing security plans for Baghdad to better protect innocent civilians," he said.
The coordinated attack was the deadliest in Iraq since the U.S.-led war began in March 2003.
It surpassed a bombing in the southern city of Hillah that targeted mostly Shiite police and National Guard recruits, killing 125 and wounding more than 140 in February 2004. On March 2, 2004, coordinated blasts from suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives struck Shiite Muslim shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, killing a total of at least 181 Iraqis and wounding 573. But that attack occurred in two separate cities.
Police Col. Hassan Chaloub said at least 150 people were killed and 238 wounded in Thursday's attack.
Sectarian fighting also broke in another part of northern Iraq on Thursday, when 30 Sunni insurgents armed with machine guns and mortars attacked the Shiite-controlled Health Ministry building. After a three-hour battle, during which Iraqi soldiers and U.S. military helicopters intervened, the attackers were repulsed. But at least seven guards of the ministry were wounded, said police 1st. Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq.
The Sadr City and Health Ministry attacks were the latest example of widespread sectarian fighting involving Sunnis and Shiites that is leaving Iraq either on the verge of a civil war or already fighting one.
At about noon Thursday, heavy clashes broke out between about suspected Sunni insurgent gunmen and guards at the Shiite-controlled Health Ministry building in northwest Baghdad, security officials said.
State-run Iraqiyah television said the Health Ministry was being attacked with mortars by "terrorists who are intending to take control of the building."
Security officials said about 30 gunmen, believed to be Sunni insurgents, had launched the attack. Iraqi troops were being rushed to the area and all roads leading to the ministry in Bab al-Muadham neighborhood were closed, said the security officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
Police Lt. Ali Muhsin said the attack began at 12:15 p.m. when three mortar shells hit the building, causing damage. After that, gunmen on the upper floors of surrounding buildings opened fire.
Ministry workers were trapped in the building.
"The gunmen fled as American helicopters and Iraqi armored vehicles arrived. Employees were able to leave starting about 3:15 p.m.," Health ministry spokesman Qassim Yehyah said.
Health Minister Ali al-Shemari is a follower of al-Sadr, the radical anti-American Shiite cleric.
Earlier Thursday, U.S. and Iraqi forces searching for a kidnapped American soldier also had swept through an area of Sadr City, killing four Iraqis, wounding eight and detaining five, police said.
The raid was the fourth in six days that coalition forces have raided Sadr City, which is home to the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to al-Sadr.
The militia is suspected of having kidnapped U.S. soldier Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old Ann Arbor, Michigan, resident as he was was visiting his Iraqi wife in Baghdad on Oct. 23.
The Mahdi Army also is suspected of having kidnapped scores of people during the raid on a Ministry of Higher Education office in Baghdad on Nov. 14. The ministry is predominantly Sunni Arab.
In the raid on Sadr City at about 4:30 a.m., coalition forces searched houses and opened fire on a minivan carrying Iraqi workers in the al-Fallah Street area, killing four of them and wounding eight, said police Capt. Mohammed Ismail. Iraqis often pay a small fee to crowd such vehicles and travel early in the morning to sites where they hope to get work as day laborers.
Ismail said the coalition raid also detained five Iraqis.
In a statement, the U.S. military confirmed the raid and said it was conducted in the continuing effort to find al-Taayiean. It confirm the detention of five Iraqis and that a vehicle was shot at by Iraqi forces after "displaying hostile intent." But the coalition did not report Iraqi casualties.
In another development, the U.S. military on Thursday reported the deaths of three Marines who were killed while fighting in Anbar province, where many Sunni-Arab insurgents are based.
So far this month, 52 American service members have been killed or died.
Hey, but don't worry....US troops can be seen here working hard to win the hearts and minds....it is only a matter of time...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9A_vxIOB-I&eurl=
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061123/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_061123185117
Attack on Baghdad Shiite slum kills 160
By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 26 minutes ago
BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the deadliest attack on a sectarian enclave since the beginning of the Iraq war, suspected Sunni-Arab militants used five car bombs and two mortar rounds on the capital's Shiite Sadr City slum to kill at least 160 people and wound 257 on Thursday, police said.
The Shiites responded almost immediately, firing 10 mortar rounds at the Abu Hanifa Sunni mosque in Azamiya, killing one person and wounding 14 people in an attack on the holiest Sunni shrine in Baghdad. It blew a three-foot hole in the dome and did severe damage to some inside rooms.
Eight mortar rounds fired in Baghdad also slammed into the Association of Muslim Scholars, the top Sunni organization in the country, causing no injuries, police.
Beginning at 3:10 p.m., the three suicide car bomb attackers in Sadr City blew up their vehicles one after another, at 15 minute intervals, hitting Jamila market, al-Hay market and al-Shahidein Square. At about the same time, two mortar rounds struck al-Shahidein Square and Mudhaffar Square, said police Col. Hassan Challoub.
Two other parked car bombs exploded around the same time, one at the edge of Sadr City and another behind the main office of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Challoub said. A sixth car bomb was detected and detonated out of harm's way by Iraqi police, he said.
As the fiery explosions sent up huge plumes of black smoke up over northeastern Baghdad, and left streets covered with burning bodies and blood, angry residents and armed Shiite militiamen flooded the streets, hurling curses at Sunni Muslims and firing weapons into the air.
Sadr City is the home of the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to al-Sadr.
Ambulances raced to burning wooden fruit and vegetables stalls in Jamila market to rescue dozens of wounded people. Rescue workers also removed burned bodies from mangled cars and minibuses and took them away on wheeled carts. But many other corpses of adults and children remained in the streets.
Shortly after the attack, Mahdi Army militiamen deployed around the area, setting up checkpoints and roadblocks in the area to keep all strangers away.
[....and we wonder why militia gets local support. People will side with who comes out at this time and helps...]
Challoub said the coordinated attack killed 160 Iraqis and wounded 257.
The government imposed a curfew on Baghdad beginning at 8 p.m. Thursday, saying that all people and vehicles must stay off the streets of the city until further notice. The government also closed Baghdad International Airport to all commercial flights, said Brig. Abdul-Karin Khalaf, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
In addition, top government officials held an emergency meeting at the home of Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim that also was attended by Kurdish President Jalal Talabani, Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi and U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, an aide to al-Hakim said.
Afterward, the three Iraqi officials appeared on national television, with al-Hashimi reading a statement from them calling for calm and self-restraint and urging politicians to work hard to reduce sectarian tensions. "We call for a revision of the government's existing security plans for Baghdad to better protect innocent civilians," he said.
The coordinated attack was the deadliest in Iraq since the U.S.-led war began in March 2003.
It surpassed a bombing in the southern city of Hillah that targeted mostly Shiite police and National Guard recruits, killing 125 and wounding more than 140 in February 2004. On March 2, 2004, coordinated blasts from suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives struck Shiite Muslim shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, killing a total of at least 181 Iraqis and wounding 573. But that attack occurred in two separate cities.
Police Col. Hassan Chaloub said at least 150 people were killed and 238 wounded in Thursday's attack.
Sectarian fighting also broke in another part of northern Iraq on Thursday, when 30 Sunni insurgents armed with machine guns and mortars attacked the Shiite-controlled Health Ministry building. After a three-hour battle, during which Iraqi soldiers and U.S. military helicopters intervened, the attackers were repulsed. But at least seven guards of the ministry were wounded, said police 1st. Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq.
The Sadr City and Health Ministry attacks were the latest example of widespread sectarian fighting involving Sunnis and Shiites that is leaving Iraq either on the verge of a civil war or already fighting one.
At about noon Thursday, heavy clashes broke out between about suspected Sunni insurgent gunmen and guards at the Shiite-controlled Health Ministry building in northwest Baghdad, security officials said.
State-run Iraqiyah television said the Health Ministry was being attacked with mortars by "terrorists who are intending to take control of the building."
Security officials said about 30 gunmen, believed to be Sunni insurgents, had launched the attack. Iraqi troops were being rushed to the area and all roads leading to the ministry in Bab al-Muadham neighborhood were closed, said the security officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
Police Lt. Ali Muhsin said the attack began at 12:15 p.m. when three mortar shells hit the building, causing damage. After that, gunmen on the upper floors of surrounding buildings opened fire.
Ministry workers were trapped in the building.
"The gunmen fled as American helicopters and Iraqi armored vehicles arrived. Employees were able to leave starting about 3:15 p.m.," Health ministry spokesman Qassim Yehyah said.
Health Minister Ali al-Shemari is a follower of al-Sadr, the radical anti-American Shiite cleric.
Earlier Thursday, U.S. and Iraqi forces searching for a kidnapped American soldier also had swept through an area of Sadr City, killing four Iraqis, wounding eight and detaining five, police said.
The raid was the fourth in six days that coalition forces have raided Sadr City, which is home to the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to al-Sadr.
The militia is suspected of having kidnapped U.S. soldier Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie, a 41-year-old Ann Arbor, Michigan, resident as he was was visiting his Iraqi wife in Baghdad on Oct. 23.
The Mahdi Army also is suspected of having kidnapped scores of people during the raid on a Ministry of Higher Education office in Baghdad on Nov. 14. The ministry is predominantly Sunni Arab.
In the raid on Sadr City at about 4:30 a.m., coalition forces searched houses and opened fire on a minivan carrying Iraqi workers in the al-Fallah Street area, killing four of them and wounding eight, said police Capt. Mohammed Ismail. Iraqis often pay a small fee to crowd such vehicles and travel early in the morning to sites where they hope to get work as day laborers.
Ismail said the coalition raid also detained five Iraqis.
In a statement, the U.S. military confirmed the raid and said it was conducted in the continuing effort to find al-Taayiean. It confirm the detention of five Iraqis and that a vehicle was shot at by Iraqi forces after "displaying hostile intent." But the coalition did not report Iraqi casualties.
In another development, the U.S. military on Thursday reported the deaths of three Marines who were killed while fighting in Anbar province, where many Sunni-Arab insurgents are based.
So far this month, 52 American service members have been killed or died.
Hey, but don't worry....US troops can be seen here working hard to win the hearts and minds....it is only a matter of time...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9A_vxIOB-I&eurl=