Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: AFP
Byline: Dave Clark
Date: 13 October 2006
BAGHDAD, Oct 13, 2006 (AFP) - Radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his
Shiite militia not to take part in the wave of sectarian bloodshed sweeping
Iraq on Friday, as dozens more Iraqis fell to sectarian death squads.
Police found the corpses of 36 murder victims on Baghdad's streets on
Thursday, according to the US-led coalition, after what a military
spokesman dubbed a "tremendous spike" in killings in the Muslim holy month
of Ramadan.
Iraqi police said another 14 corpses had been found in a plantation north
of the capital, where gunmen had rounded up workers and shot them in the
head.
Most of the murders are thought to have been were carried out by the death
squads that roam Iraq, killing with virtual impunity on behalf of the Sunni
and Shiite factions vying for control.
According to US commanders, many of the estimated 23 militia groups in and
around Baghdad are linked to or protected by Sadr's Mahdi Army, a loosely
organised force of young Shiite gunmen.
But on Friday, Sadr called on those who had killed Iraqis to "repent".
"There are rumours that there are groups or persons from the Mahdi Army
attacking the Iraqi people with no right to do so," Sadr said in a
statement bearing his signature distributed by his office in the shrine
city of Najaf.
"It is not proved so far but, if proved, I will declare their names and
will renounce them with no fear or hesitation," he said.
Tens of thousands of young men have flocked to the Mahdi Army banner in the
three-and-a-half years since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, giving the
fiery preacher a powerful political and military voice.
In August 2004, Sadr's gunmen fought fierce battles with US forces in Najaf
and in their Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City but their leader has since
chosen to follow a more political route to power.
Nevertheless, in recent months black-clad fighters claiming allegiance to
the Mahdi Army have again been fighting US and Iraqi forces and have been
accused of supporting death squads.
US commanders now cite Shiite militias as the biggest single threat to the
stability of Iraq and say they are awaiting the green light from Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki to launch an operation to clear Sadr City of
gunmen.
"Criminals should not take righteousness as a shield," Sadr said, warning
that if they continue to fight he will no longer seek to protect them. "I
ask them to do this because I love them, not because I need them."
Iraq's slaughter continued on Friday, when a bomb exploded in the office of
Colonel Salaam Maamuri, commander of a US-trained police rapid intervention
team in the mainly Shiite central city of Hilla, killing him and his
deputy.
Maamuri has survived several previous assassination attempts. His squad was
set up with US support to fight insurgents in an area just south of the
capital that has become notorious as the "Triangle of Death".
Meanwhile, a curfew was imposed in the northern city of Mosul after fierce
overnight clashes left eight insurgents and one police lieutenant dead,
police Colonel Abdel Karim al-Juburi said.
There was another massive security operation in the Shiite shrine city of
Najaf at the start of several days of ceremonies to mark the martyrdom of
the sect's first leader, the Imam Ali, who was killed in the year 661.
Violence is spiralling in Iraq, where overlapping sectarian, political and
ethnic conflicts combined with a rebellion against the US-backed government
and US-led forces claim more than 100 lives a day.
Against this background, British army chief of staff General Richard
Dannatt said in a newspaper interview Friday that Britain's 7,200 troops in
the south of the country were "exacerbating" the situation and should be
pulled out.
Dannatt said Britain should "get ourselves out sometime soon because our
presence exacerbates the security problems".
In other attacks Friday, three Shiite youths -- thought to be Sadr
supporters -- were gunned down by a cigarette stand in the ethnically
divided northern oil hub of Kirkuk, police Captain Imad Jassim Khudir told
AFP.
Kirkuk and its oil fields are claimed as part of Kurdistan by the leaders
of Iraq's Kurdish minority, but Saddam flooded the area with settlers in a
policy of forced Arabisation, leading to ethnic tension.
Last week, 14,000 Iraqi troops conducted a broad security operation in the
city with US support, but the violence continues. Gunmen also shot an
off-duty Iraqi soldier in front of his home Friday, police said.
And in the southern city of Amara, a Shiite militia stronghold, a police
corporal was shot dead inside his house, police said.
Byline: Dave Clark
Date: 13 October 2006
BAGHDAD, Oct 13, 2006 (AFP) - Radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his
Shiite militia not to take part in the wave of sectarian bloodshed sweeping
Iraq on Friday, as dozens more Iraqis fell to sectarian death squads.
Police found the corpses of 36 murder victims on Baghdad's streets on
Thursday, according to the US-led coalition, after what a military
spokesman dubbed a "tremendous spike" in killings in the Muslim holy month
of Ramadan.
Iraqi police said another 14 corpses had been found in a plantation north
of the capital, where gunmen had rounded up workers and shot them in the
head.
Most of the murders are thought to have been were carried out by the death
squads that roam Iraq, killing with virtual impunity on behalf of the Sunni
and Shiite factions vying for control.
According to US commanders, many of the estimated 23 militia groups in and
around Baghdad are linked to or protected by Sadr's Mahdi Army, a loosely
organised force of young Shiite gunmen.
But on Friday, Sadr called on those who had killed Iraqis to "repent".
"There are rumours that there are groups or persons from the Mahdi Army
attacking the Iraqi people with no right to do so," Sadr said in a
statement bearing his signature distributed by his office in the shrine
city of Najaf.
"It is not proved so far but, if proved, I will declare their names and
will renounce them with no fear or hesitation," he said.
Tens of thousands of young men have flocked to the Mahdi Army banner in the
three-and-a-half years since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, giving the
fiery preacher a powerful political and military voice.
In August 2004, Sadr's gunmen fought fierce battles with US forces in Najaf
and in their Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City but their leader has since
chosen to follow a more political route to power.
Nevertheless, in recent months black-clad fighters claiming allegiance to
the Mahdi Army have again been fighting US and Iraqi forces and have been
accused of supporting death squads.
US commanders now cite Shiite militias as the biggest single threat to the
stability of Iraq and say they are awaiting the green light from Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki to launch an operation to clear Sadr City of
gunmen.
"Criminals should not take righteousness as a shield," Sadr said, warning
that if they continue to fight he will no longer seek to protect them. "I
ask them to do this because I love them, not because I need them."
Iraq's slaughter continued on Friday, when a bomb exploded in the office of
Colonel Salaam Maamuri, commander of a US-trained police rapid intervention
team in the mainly Shiite central city of Hilla, killing him and his
deputy.
Maamuri has survived several previous assassination attempts. His squad was
set up with US support to fight insurgents in an area just south of the
capital that has become notorious as the "Triangle of Death".
Meanwhile, a curfew was imposed in the northern city of Mosul after fierce
overnight clashes left eight insurgents and one police lieutenant dead,
police Colonel Abdel Karim al-Juburi said.
There was another massive security operation in the Shiite shrine city of
Najaf at the start of several days of ceremonies to mark the martyrdom of
the sect's first leader, the Imam Ali, who was killed in the year 661.
Violence is spiralling in Iraq, where overlapping sectarian, political and
ethnic conflicts combined with a rebellion against the US-backed government
and US-led forces claim more than 100 lives a day.
Against this background, British army chief of staff General Richard
Dannatt said in a newspaper interview Friday that Britain's 7,200 troops in
the south of the country were "exacerbating" the situation and should be
pulled out.
Dannatt said Britain should "get ourselves out sometime soon because our
presence exacerbates the security problems".
In other attacks Friday, three Shiite youths -- thought to be Sadr
supporters -- were gunned down by a cigarette stand in the ethnically
divided northern oil hub of Kirkuk, police Captain Imad Jassim Khudir told
AFP.
Kirkuk and its oil fields are claimed as part of Kurdistan by the leaders
of Iraq's Kurdish minority, but Saddam flooded the area with settlers in a
policy of forced Arabisation, leading to ethnic tension.
Last week, 14,000 Iraqi troops conducted a broad security operation in the
city with US support, but the violence continues. Gunmen also shot an
off-duty Iraqi soldier in front of his home Friday, police said.
And in the southern city of Amara, a Shiite militia stronghold, a police
corporal was shot dead inside his house, police said.