Posted on 09/25/2004 4:41:16 AM PDT by Straight Vermonter
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops stormed a mosque in the Iraqi capital Saturday to search for illegal weapons, the U.S. military said.
Religious officials said the raid left a trail of overturned furniture, scattered holy books and broken windows.
Capt. Tom Burrel of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division said no weapons were found during the raid on the Ibn Taymia Mosque in west Baghdad. He said U.S. forces searched the shrine's compound while guardsmen entered the mosque itself.
Sheik Mahdi al-Sumaidaei, the head of the Supreme Association for Guidance and Daawa, a conservative Sunni clerical organization that runs the mosque, denounced the operation as part of an effort to intimidate the group because it opposes the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
Al-Sumaidaei particularly condemned Iraqi security forces for working alongside the Americans.
"They have no respect toward a mosque," he told the Al-Jazeera television station. "We know that the government has betrayed its people many times."
He warned that if such raids continue, "a disaster will take place."
The association, made of up of Wahabis, or followers of an austere brand of Sunni Islam practiced mostly in Saudi Arabia, is suspected of having influence over militants waging a 17-month insurgency in Iraq to oust coalition forces and destabilize the U.S.-backed interim authorities.
They probably were looking for weapons because as they stormed in (according to AP) papers and files would likely have been blown away.
They appear to have gotten the message! ;-)
I hope they keep turning the screws on those muzlimbs.
Oh no...not scattered holy books in the holy mosque in the holy city....holy cow.
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