Iraq deaths soar.. 130 mainly Sunni's die

[General Duke]

Deaths soar in Iraq shrine clashes

 

 

Thursday 23 February 2006, 19:39 Makka Time, 16:39 GMT

 

 

Officials have blamed al-Qaida for the Samarra bomb

 

 

 

Related:

Askariya: Leaders respond

Iraqi Sunnis boycott peace meeting

Dozens killed in Iraq sectarian violence

Deadly blasts rock Baghdad, Mosul

 

 

 

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More than 130 people are reported to have been killed in sectarian violence that has swept Iraq in the wake of a bomb attack on a major Shia shrine.

 

 

In the worst single incident, officials said 47 people, who had taken part in a joint Sunni and Shia demonstration in Baghdad against Wednesday's bombing, were hauled from their cars and shot dead.

 

Police said the attackers, who have not been identified, had set up a fake checkpoint on the outskirts of the capital.

 

The wave of violence was sparked by Wednesday's bloodless bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites, blamed by some officials on members of al-Qaida.

 

All police and army leave has been cancelled as the death toll continued to rise.

 

Police and military sources said the deaths, mostly of Sunnis, were concentrated in the country's two biggest cities, Baghdad and Basra, while dozens of Sunni mosques have been attacked and several set ablaze.

 

Among other incidents, 16 people including eight civialians were killed in a bomb aimed at an Iraqi army foot patrol in the religiously divided city of Baquba.

 

On Thursday morning, three journalists working for Al-Arabiya television were found shot dead after being attacked while filming the aftermath of the bombing in Samarra.

 

They included correspondent Atwar Bahjat, a former reporter for Aljazeera.

 

Political crisis

 

 

US soldiers inspect the blast site

in Baquba that killed 16 people

 

 

With tensions escalating, a crisis summit called by President Jalal Talabani was thrown into turmoil when the biggest Sunni political group, the Iraqi Accordance Front, boycotted the meeting in protest at what it called the government's failure to protect Sunni mosques.

 

"The government neglected to provide security for our sites," Iyad al-Samarrai, a front official said, announcing the boycott. "They did not condemn these acts of aggression."

 

Another Front official said it would suspend participation in US-sponsored talks to form a national unity coalition.

 

Accusing Shia leaders of fostering the violence, Tareq al-Hashemi said the Front would need an apology from the Shia-led government before it would consider rejoining talks on a national unity coalition.

 

Talabani had called Thursday's meeting at his residence to ease tensions which he had earlier warned could lead to a "devastating civil war".

 

"We are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq's unity"

 

Jalal Talabani,

Iraqi president

 

 

"We are facing a major conspiracy that is targeting Iraq's unity," Talabani said on Wednesday.

 

The meeting went ahead without the presence of Front members.

 

Meanwhile, the Association of Muslim Scholars, the leading Sunni religious body, accused Shia leaders of fuelling the violence.

 

The comments were a rare, if veiled, attack on Grand Ayat Allah Ali al-Sistani, a revered figure for the Shia, who has called for protests but also restraint.

 

Call for restraint

 

Washington, which wants stability in Iraq to help it extract

around 130,000 US troops, has also called for restraint,

reflecting international fears that Iraq may be slipping closer to an all-out sectarian war.

 

 

All police and army leave has

been cancelled

 

 

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, who is visiting the Middle East, echoed calls from President George Bush and the United Nations for Iraqis to pull together and not be pushed into sectarian strife by a bloodless but highly symbolic attack.

 

Some have blamed the attack on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader in Iraq.

 

"The only people that want a civil war in Iraq are the terrorists like Zarqawi," Rice said, addding that the Iraqi people "are working under extremely difficult circumstances to bridge sectarian differences."

 

The United Nations Security Council sounded a note of alarm in calling on Iraqis to rally behind a non-sectarian government.

 

"The members of the Security Council understand the anguish caused by the attacks, but urge the people of Iraq to defy its perpetrators by showing restraint and unity," it said.

[General Duke]

Curfew fails to halt Iraq killing

 

At least a dozen people were killed in Baquba

At least 36 people have been killed across Iraq as the authorities struggle to contain sectarian violence in which at least 165 have died this week.

The bodies of 14 Iraqi commandos were recovered in south Baghdad following a gun battle with Shia militiamen.

 

A car bomb in the shrine city of Karbala killed eight, as others died in attacks on a Shia family and a funeral.

 

A curfew has been extended in Baghdad to try to quell the violence, sparked by Wednesday's Samarra shrine bombing.

 

Iraq has been struggling to contain a wave of sectarian attacks since Wednesday.

 

In other developments:

 

 

At least a dozen members of a Shia family are gunned down in Baquba, north of Baghdad, officials say

 

The number of Iraqi battalions able to fight the insurgency with no US help falls from one to zero, the US military tells Congress - but the number able to fight with some US assistance rises substantially

 

The main Sunni political party says it might consider returning to talks on forming a new government, from which it withdrew earlier in the week.

Civil war fear

 

This week's violence - which has led to fears that Iraq may descend into civil war - was sparked by the bombing of one of the country's holiest Shia sites, the al-Askari shrine in the city of Samarra.

 

Nobody will profit from civil war... we have to work together

 

Defence Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi

 

 

Long path to sectarian split

Shrine blast: Have your say

 

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has vowed the government will rebuild the Shia shrine and Sunni holy sites attacked in revenge for the al-Askari bombing.

 

The Iraqi government has now extended until Monday morning a ban on cars in Baghdad.

 

The authorities had earlier renewed a curfew covering Baghdad and the provinces of Diyala, Babil and Salahuddine from Friday evening to 1600 (1300 GMT) on Saturday.

 

Prime Minister Jaafari announced a ban on demonstrations and a clampdown on the carrying of weapons in public.

 

Defence Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi called for Iraqis to unite against extremists, saying no one would benefit from civil war.

 

"We are ready to fill the streets with armoured vehicles," he told a news conference in Baghdad on Saturday.

 

Plea for calm

 

Despite measures taken by the authorities, violence broke out on Saturday at the funeral of Atwar Bahjat, a prominent Iraqi journalist.

 

 

Bahjat and her crew were attacked and killed while reporting

 

The funeral procession came under fire as it was approaching the cemetery, and then was bombed as it returned after the burial.

 

At least two people are reported to have died in the blast, and five more were injured, some seriously.

 

Ms Bahjat and two crew members from al-Arabiya TV were killed in the wake of the attack on the al-Askari shrine.

 

In Karbala, a predominantly Shia market city which is not under curfew, at least eight were killed and 30 injured in a car bombing.

 

US President George W Bush has urged restraint, saying: "This is a moment of choosing for the Iraqi people."

 

The BBC's Jon Brain in Baghdad says the centre of Baghdad has been calm, with the streets virtually empty for a second day and no newspapers published.

 

Shia and Sunni Muslim leaders in Iraq and abroad used Friday prayers to issue appeals for restraint and unity.