IRAQ: Sectarian violence escalates in Baghdad/ Iraqi President Jalal Talabani rejects U.S. report calling for major changes in U.S-Iraq policy

Record ID: 561099

  • Title: IRAQ: Sectarian violence escalates in Baghdad/ Iraqi President Jalal Talabani rejects U.S. report calling for major changes in U.S-Iraq policy
  • Date: 10th December 2006
  • Summary: (BN8) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (DECEMBER 10, 2006) (REUTERS) DOZENS OF SUNNI FAMILIES MARCHING IN SOUTHWESTERN BAGHDAD SAYING THEY WERE DRIVEN OUT OF THEIR HOMES BY SHI'ITE GUNMEN WOMEN AND CHILDREN LEADING PROTEST MEN WAVING AK-47 BURNT OUT HOMES IN AL-HURRIYA AL-THALTHA DISTRICT OF BAGHDAD VARIOUS HOMELESS SUNNI FAMILIES GATHERING AT RELIGIOUS SCHOOL IN BAGHDAD, WOMEN CRYING (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN SAYING: "Oh God, why all this? We call upon the government, we call upon the Islamic world to help us." BELONGINGS PILED UP ON TRAILER AT BACK OF TRACTOR WOMEN PROTESTING CHILDREN HUDDLING AGAINST THEIR MOTHER
  • Embargoed: 25th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: War / Fighting,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA66N6PSCQDNA00G1AM7U7JWQAS
  • Story Text: Gunmen killed nine members of two Shi'ite families in Baghdad on Sunday (December 10) a day after militias raided a mixed neighbourhood and forced dozens of Sunni families to flee in a serious escalation of sectarian violence.
    Officials and relatives of the victims said about 30 gunmen stormed a home in a mostly Sunni area in southwestern Baghdad and killed five brothers from one family after separating them from the women. A father and three sons from another family, all of them policemen, were also killed.
    Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf confirmed the attack in Jihad neighbourhood and said he was unaware of the victims' sectarian affiliation. A source at Yarmouk hospital said all victims were Shi'ites.
    The attack came a day after gangs of Shi'ite militiamen burned homes and killed at least two people in broad daylight in the religiously mixed Hurriya district in western Baghdad, officials and witnesses said.
    Dozens of Sunni families, including women and children, fled Hurriya on foot and in trucks at nightfall in one of the worst incidents of sectarian cleansing in the capital in weeks. Interior Ministry sources said three headless bodies were found.
    There were also reports of clashes on Sunday between Shi'ite militias and the Sunni Janabi tribe in the Amil area in southwestern Baghdad.
    Nearly two thousand supporters of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets of the southern town of Kut on Sunday (December 10). They were protesting a raid conducted by U.S forces on al-Sadr's office in Kut and the arrest of eight people on Saturday (December 9).
    "We warned our faithful brothers not to fall into the trap of the occupation forces and their agents. We do not want to be victims of their malicious scheming aimed at creating tensions inside this peaceful town," said one of the protesters.
    The reason of the raid was unknown.
    As sectarian warfare engulfed the capital, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani was critical of a U.S. bipartisan report outlining strategy alternatives to U.S. President George W. Bush's policies in Iraq. The report described the situation in Iraq as "grave and deteriorating".
    Talabani, an ethnic Kurd, called some of the proposals "dangerous" and an insult to Iraqi's sovereignty.
    "I think that the Baker-Hamilton (report) is not fair, is not just and it contains some very dangerous articles, which are undermining the sovereignty of Iraq and its constitution and it which is against the long struggle of the Iraqi people against dictatorship," Talabani told reporters.
    Bush, under pressure to change course in Iraq has distanced himself from some of the panel's recommendations, which paves the way for a U.S. troop withdrawal in early 2008. More than 2,900 U.S. troops have died since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed.
    Proposals include a more centralised control of Iraq's vast oil wealth and embedding thousands more U.S. advisers in Iraq's security forces to quicken their training.
    Dozens of Sunni families marched through a mixed area of Baghdad on Sunday (December 10), saying gunmen from a Shi'ite militia forced them from their homes the day before.
    Police and witnesses said Shi'ite militias stormed the religiously mixed Hurriya neighbourhood in western Baghdad on Saturday (December 9), killing two people and forcing dozens of Sunni families to flee. One of the displaced said 150 families had been targeted.
    The families gathered in a religious school of Ma'rouf al-Karkhi in western Baghdad, calling on the Iraqi government and Islamic world for help.
    The families claimed that members of Mehdi army, a Shi'ite militia loyal to the Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, ordered them to evacuate their houses in al-Hurriya al-Thaltha district. They added that the militia torched their homes after forcing them out.
    The displaced families marched through al-Adil neighbourhood of western Baghdad, carrying banners, in protest of the act of the militia. One banner read "We are killed and displaced with the blessing of al-Maliki government".
    Iraq has been in the grip of a cycle of killings and reprisals pitting majority Shi'ites against once-dominant Sunnis since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in February. U.S. officials warn sectarian violence threaten to tear Iraq apart.
    Close to half a million Iraqis have fled their homes as cities and even neighbourhoods are carved up along sectarian lines. Many fear divisions could pave the way for a civil war.
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