IRAQ: Sectarian bloodshed convulses Baghdad deepening civil war fears

Record ID: 354136

  • Title: IRAQ: Sectarian bloodshed convulses Baghdad deepening civil war fears
  • Date: 10th July 2006
  • Summary: (BN10) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (JULY 10, 2006) (REUTERS) PEOPLE CARRYING COFFIN OUTSIDE AL-KINDI HOSPITAL COFFIN BEING PLACED ON TOP OF VEHICLE
  • Embargoed: 25th July 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA12VMJ8GNYTI6KLDLVGS2WT89O
  • Story Text: Iraq's prime minister pleaded for Iraqis to "unite as brothers" on Monday (July 10) as a fresh spasm of violence gripped Baghdad, where 60 people were killed at the weekend in a dramatic escalation of sectarian bloodletting.
    Two bomb blasts in a Shi'ite neighbourhood killed 12 and wounded dozens, while militiamen, believed to be Shi'ite, fought gunbattles in a southern Sunni district, prompting authorities to impose a curfew ordering residents there off the streets.
    "Our destiny is to work together in brotherhood to defeat terrorism and insurgency," Maliki, a Shi'ite, told the Kurdish regional parliament in northern Iraq. "We have no choice but to defeat those who want to return us to the black days."
    A surge in violence in recent days between Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs has raised new fears of a slide to all-out civil war and damaged Maliki's efforts to encourage Sunnis to end their support for the Sunni-dominated insurgency.
    Two bombs blasted a Baghdad area that is a stronghold of Shi'ite militia fighters on Monday, a day after suspected Shi'ite gunmen stormed through a Sunni area and killed over 40.
    Twelve people were killed and 62 wounded, police said, in the car bomb blasts near a telephone exchange in the eastern Talbiya district. It is a bastion of the Mehdi Army militia of radical young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
    Shortly afterwards a bomb planted outside a restaurant near the central bank in downtown Baghdad's Rasheed Street, a busy commercial area, killed six and wounded 28, police said.
    Meanwhile in the town of Baquba, eleven people were wounded, including five policemen, when a bomb planted inside a car exploded near a police patrol, police said.
    Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, lies inside the so-called "Triangle of Death" and is a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite town that has seen heavy insurgent activity.
    In the northern city of Kirkuk, at least three people were killed and 15 others wounded by an explosion which targeted the headquarters of a Kurdish party, hospital sources said.
    However officials at the office said one Peshmerga member was killed and another one wounded in the blast.
    They said that a suicide truck packed with explosives exploded near the main gate of the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
    The Party is led by President Jalal al-Talabani.
    The escalating violence in Baghdad is of particular concern to the new Iraqi government. A security crackdown in the capital has done nothing to quell the convulsion of sectarian strife, and it raises new questions about the effectiveness of the police and Iraqi army, which the United States is slowly building to enable it to begin withdrawing its 127,000 troops.
    Moqtada al-Sadr's group rejected accusations by minority Sunni leaders and police that it was behind killings in the mainly Sunni Jihad district of west Baghdad on Sunday, when bands of gunmen set up roadblocks and hauled people with Sunni-sounding names from cars to shoot them. They also killed others in streets and homes.
    Those killings, the worst of their kind yet seen in the city, came after a car bomb attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Jihad on Saturday evening and were followed by a double car bombing at another Shi'ite mosque late on Sunday that killed 19.
    Maliki has vowed to disband militias, some tied to parties in his government, that are carving Baghdad into sectarian no-go areas. But he faces an uphill struggle as most, including the Mehdi Army, have powerful allies inside the ruling coalition.
    He has also promoted a national reconciliation plan to end the three-year-old insurgency and communal violence that surged after the bombing of a revered Shi'ite mosque on Feb. 22, but critics, including some Sunni leaders, say it is too vague.
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