One Mosque Burned in Hurriya (versus 4 from MSM and 6 Sunni's were NOT burned to death)

Contrary to recent media reporting that four mosques were burned in Hurriya, an Iraqi Army patrol investigating the area found only one mosque had been burned in the neighborhood.

Soldiers from the 6th Iraqi Army Division conducted a patrol in Hurriya Friday afternoon in response to media reports that four mosques were being burned as retaliation for the VBIED attacks in Sadr City on Thursday.

The Soldiers set up a checkpoint near the Al Muhaimen mosque at approximately 2 p.m. and found the mosque intact with no evidence of any fire at the location.

While investigating the Al Meshaheda mosque, the patrol received small arms fire from unknown insurgents. The patrol returned fire, and the insurgents broke contact and fled the area. A subsequent check of the mosque found the mosque intact with no evidence of a fire.

At approximately 3:50 p.m., a local civilian reported to the patrol that armed insurgents had set the Al-Nidaa mosque on fire by throwing a gas container into the mosque. The patrol pursued the insurgents but lost contact with them.

The Soldiers called the fire department and set up a cordon around the mosque. Local fire trucks responded to the scene and extinguished the fire at approximately 4:00 p.m. The mosque sustained smoke and fire damage in the entry way but was not destroyed.

An alleged attack on a fourth mosque remains unconfirmed. The patrol was also unable to confirm media reports that six Sunni civilians were allegedly dragged out of Friday prayers and burned to death. Neither Baghdad police nor Coalition forces have reports of any such incident.

The story about the six Iraqis being burned to death has received worldwide press coverage. The cut-and-run factions in this country have used the story to illustrate their contention that the presence of Coalition forces in Iraq has driven the factions in the region into murderous frenzies. The lies spread in the AP and other MSM reports will likely have severe repercussions on the Coalition troops stationed in Iraq--not to mention revenge attacks by those who "think" some of their own were made to die agonizing deaths. There should be serious consequences for irresponsible press coverage--especially in wartime situations.

A resident of Hurriya, Imad al-Din al-Hashemi, said 14 people died in a mosque where he was praying at midday when it was attacked. He said he heard of 10 dead in another mosque.

"They attacked four mosques with rocket-propelled grenades and machinegun fire," said Hashemi, a university academic.

The interior ministry official said residents were appealing for firefighters and ambulances but the area was too dangerous for police to send reinforcements.

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=119376&version=1&template_id=57&parent_id=56

Four mosques and some houses were burnt in the small Sunni part of Hurriya area in northwest Baghdad, Deputy Prime Minister Salem Al Zubaie said on Friday.

Some 32 people were killed, police said, in attacks on the area by suspected Shiite militiamen, untroubled by a curfew enforced after 202 died in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City. A witness to Friday's attacks in Hurriya, university teacher Imad Al Deen Al Hashemi, said three women, three children and two men were badly burned but survived when gunmen threw petrol into their homes and set fire to the buildings.

http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Iraq/10085266.html

Armed men rampaged through a Sunni enclave in a mainly Shia district of Baghdad on Friday, killing up to 30 people and setting mosques and homes ablaze, police said.

Residents in the Sunni Arab neighbourhood of Hurriya district in northwestern Baghdad also spoke of two dozen or more dead, many of them worshippers.

The assailants attacked four Sunni mosques with rocket-propelled grenades, a security official said.

The onslaught was in apparent reprisal for Thursday's blasts that killed more than 200 people in Baghdad's Sadr City, a stronghold of Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.

Earlier in the day, three mortar rounds exploded near the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad, wounding a guard.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2D2842A6-15B4-4980-8D2C-857E56D910E3.htm

A series of car bombs killed more than 200 people in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City on Thursday and, in apparent retaliation, Shiite militiamen attacked Sunni mosques in Baghdad and Baquba on Friday. Four of the mosques were in the mixed Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriya, according to Iraqi officials.

But the United States military said on Saturday that Iraqi soldiers patrolling the Hurriya neighborhood found only one mosque that had been damaged during Friday’s violence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html?ref=world

Okay the following is from one of our enemy's propaganda sites. Could this be the six that was suppose to be burned to death in that unconfirmed report?

Names of six Iranian Revolutionary Guard agents killed in Baghdad’s "Madinat as-Sadr" car bombings on Thursday.

Names of six Iranian Revolutionary Guard agents killed in Baghdad "Madinat as-Sadr" car bombings on Thursday published.

In a dispatch posted at 1:42pm Makkah time Saturday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that on Saturday the Iranian embassy in Baghdad received the bodies of six Iranian members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who were secretly working in Iraq with the Shi'i sectarian militias and were killed in the car bombings of Jaysh al-Mahdi gunmen in the Madinat Saddam area on Thursday night. The Baghdad area of Madinat Saddam was nicknamed "Madinat as-Sadr" after the US occupation of Iraq in 2003.

The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the six bodies of the Iranian agents were received by Mujtabi Sari Nida, an employee of the Iranian embassy, from al-Kindi Hospital where they had been taken initially after the Resistance attack.

The Iranian regime claimed that the six Revolutionary Guards were present among the Jaysh al-Mahdi gunmen just as "ordinary citizens" on "pilgrimage" to the Shi'i al-Kazimiyah mosque.

The Iranian agents were killed in a part of Baghdad some 30km from the al-Kazimiyah mosque, the correspondent pointed out, noting that the area was, however, a stronghold for the Jaysh al-Mahdi and Badr Brigade Shi'i sectarian militias which receive support from Iran and the United States.

The following are the names of the six Iranian "Revolutionary Guards" killed in the Thursday car bomb attacks:

'Ali Shamkhani, killed by bleeding in the brain;
Baqir Dhu al-Qadr Rida, killed by severe wounds to the chest and back;
Muhammad Husayni, burned to death;
Ramadan Fayruzandah, died of a crushed skull and burns;
Qasim Taskhiri Rida Agha (passport NO. 01459872 from Karmanshahr, Iran) had his leg blown off and suffered a wound to the neck;
'Ali Farhad Salmani, died of a severe lateral cut on his chest and from having both legs blown off.

The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent reported an informed source as saying that 30 commanders of the Jaysh al-Mahdi militia were killed in the Thursday attacks, among them Husayn Fattumah, who carried the name of his mother because he was a marked man after abducting three Sunni girls from a Qur’an memorization school on Palestine Street.

The regional hegemonic regime in Iran is seeking to secure its hold in Iraq by using Shi'i sectarian leaders and organizations in order to try to step into the shoes of the American occupation authorities whose grip on the country has been weakened by three years of increasingly severe Resistance attacks. To forestall Iran’s attempt to replace America as colonial power in Iraq, the Iraqi Resistance continues its offensive against pro-Iranian as well as US and pro-US groups and facilities.

http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m28552

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