More than 130 killed in Baghdad's Sadr City
POSTED: 10:35 a.m. EST, November 23, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Six car bombs killed more than 130 people Thursday in Baghdad's Sadr City, according to Iraq's health minister. Police had conflicting numbers for those killed and wounded, but Health Minister Ali Shummari said the death toll is 133, with 201 wounded. Earlier, police said three car bombings and a mortar round firing occurred within a 30-minute period in Sadr City, a densely populated Shiite slum in northeastern Baghdad. The minister said a missile was fired in addition to the car blasts.
In a separate incident, police also said U.S. forces killed four people Thursday when they opened fire on a minibus in Sadr City. The U.S. military later said Iraqi troops fired at a vehicle that posed an "immediate threat" in Sadr City when they were looking for an insurgent who apparently knows the whereabouts of a U.S. soldier kidnapped last month. The action came during a raid, one of several in the area since Spc. Ahmed K. Altaie disappeared October 23 in Baghdad. The operation was designed "to capture a kidnapping and murder cell leader reported" to know about Altaie, the military said, adding the suspect also is thought to be "responsible for attacks against Iraqi civilians."
Iraqi troops carried out the raid with "coalition advisers" in Sadr City, a bastion of support for anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia. Four civilians also were wounded in the incident, which occurred on Fallah Street, a busy thoroughfare, the Baghdad police official said. The U.S. military said there were no Iraqi military or coalition casualties. Iraqi forces detained five suspected cell members, the military said. Also Thursday, at least 30 gunmen thought to be from a Sunni neighborhood attacked the Health Ministry, police said. Al-Sadr's movement controls the ministry, and U.S. military commanders suspect the al-Sadr group is at the center of sectarian fighting in the Iraqi capital over the past year. There were no immediate details about casualties at the ministry compound, which is in central Baghdad's Bab al-Mudham area.
At least three mortar rounds landed inside the compound, police said, and the gunmen tried to break into it and fought with ministry security guards. A Health Ministry official said the attackers came from the nearby Sunni neighborhood of Fadhel and that they also struck the Shiite Endowment, which manages Shiite institutions around the country. The violence comes one day after the release of a U.N. report that named October as the deadliest month for civilians since the war began in March 2003.
The report -- which underscored the ravages of Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence -- said 3,709 civilians were killed last month. For the two-month period of September and October, a total of 7,054 people died in violent deaths. October also proved a deadly month with U.S. troops, which lost 106 service members -- the fourth-highest monthly death toll for U.S. troops since the war's start. On Wednesday, three U.S. Marines died of "wounds sustained due to enemy action" in Anbar province, the volatile region west of the capital, a U.S. military statement released Thursday said. The American military death toll in Iraq is 2,872, including seven civilian contractors of the military. There have been 52 troop deaths during November. Also Wednesday, U.S.-led coalition forces killed a "terrorist and detained two suspected terrorists" during a raid in Balad targeting an associate of a senior al Qaeda in Iraq leader, the U.S. military said. Balad is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Baghdad in Salaheddin province.
Al-Sadr loyalists take over Iraqi television station - By Hannah Allam and Mohamed al Dulaimy McClatchy Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Followers of the militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took over state-run television Saturday to denounce the Iraqi government, label Sunnis "terrorists" and issue what appeared to many viewers as a call to arms. The two-hour broadcast from a community gathering in the heart of the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City included three members of al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc, who took questions from outraged residents demanding revenge for a series of car bombings that killed some 200 people Thursday. With Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki relegated to the sidelines, brazen Sunni-Shiite attacks continue unchecked despite a 24-hour curfew over Baghdad. Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia now controls wide swaths of the capital, his politicians are the backbone of the Cabinet, and his followers deeply entrenched in the Iraqi security forces. Sectarian violence has spun so rapidly out of control since the Sadr City blasts, however, that it's not clear whether even al-Sadr has the authority - or the will - to stop the cycle of bloodshed.
"This is live and, God willing, everyone will hear me: We are not interested in sidewalks, water services or anything else. We want safety," an unidentified Sadr City resident said as the televised crowd cheered. "We want the officials. They say there is no sectarian war. No, it is sectarian war, and that's the truth."
Militia leaders told supporters Saturday to prepare for a fresh wave of incursions into Sunni neighborhoods that would begin as soon as the curfew ends Monday, according to Sadr City residents. Several members of the Mahdi Army boasted they were distributing police uniforms throughout Shiite neighborhoods to allow greater freedom of movement. The government announced it would partially lift the curfew Sunday to allow for pedestrian traffic. In the Diyala province north of Baghdad, Sunni insurgents stormed into two Shiite homes, lined up 21 men and shot them to death in front of women and children, police there said. Later in the day, a Shiite television station showed footage of the victims' burials. And in the western province of Anbar, a suicide bombing at a checkpoint in Fallujah killed a U.S. serviceman and three Iraqi civilians, according to a U.S. military statement. Another American and nine Iraqis were injured. Also Saturday, Iraq's most prominent Sunni cleric made an appeal in Cairo, Egypt, for Arab nations to withdraw recognition of Iraq's Shiite-led government and said U.S.-led troops were complicit in Iraq's sectarian crisis. Hareth al-Dhari, leader of the militant Association of Muslim Scholars, declared Iraqi efforts toward a unity government "dead" and said the current violence is political rather than theological. "The occupying forces have been giving cover to the militias and criminal gangs," al-Dhari said. "The government has been seen setting the atmosphere for them with the curfews to aid them in catching the victims and carrying out their attacks."
Al-Maliki's administration acknowledged it was powerless to interrupt the pro-Sadr program on the official Iraqiya channel, during which Sadr City residents shouted, "There is no government! There is no state!" Several speakers described neighborhoods and well-known Sunni politicians as "terrorists" and threatened them with reprisal. "We'll obviously try to control them as much as we can, but when they (kill) more than 150 people in bombings, they have the right to speak," said Bassam al Husseini, one of Maliki's top advisers. "What are we going to do? We can't stop this. It's too hot right now." Sunni politicians vowed to file complaints against the channel for inciting sectarian violence. Ordinary Sunnis were shocked to hear their neighborhoods singled out for attack on the government's station. "I got four phone calls from friends telling me to change the channel to Iraqiya and see what's happening," said Mohamed Othman, 27, a Sunni resident of Ameriya, one of the districts mentioned in the program. "I think this is an official declaration of civil war against Sunnis. They're going to push us to join al-Qaida to protect ourselves." Al-Husseini, the government adviser, also affirmed that a meeting between al-Maliki and President Bush would continue as scheduled next week in neighboring Jordan, despite the threats of al-Sadr's allies to withdraw from the government if it occurs. The Cabinet met for more than an hour to hash out an agenda for the trip, he said. "The meeting will take place. That's the plan," al-Husseini said. "We need to straighten things up." Al-Husseini said the top two items of discussion would be a report from the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission that will make recommendations for U.S. policy in Iraq, and a timetable for a withdrawal of U.S.-led forces. "We want to talk about it," al-Husseini said, "to ask, `How long are they going to stick around?" McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Miret el Naggar in Cairo contributed to this report.