Posted on 11/20/2006 12:58:11 PM PST by NormsRevenge
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen shot and killed a television comedian Monday who was famous for mocking everyone from the Iraqi government to U.S. forces to Shiite militias to Sunni insurgents.
Walid Hassan's slaying came as the Iraqi death toll rose to more than 1,300 for the first 20 days of November — the highest for any month since The Associated Press began tracking the figure in April 2005.
In all, 22 Iraqis were killed Monday in a series of attacks in Baghdad, Ramadi and Baqouba, police said. The bodies of 26 Iraqis who had been kidnapped and tortured also were found on the streets of the capital, in Dujail to the north of Baghdad and in the Tigris River in southern Iraq.
The Iraqi death toll this month is already well above the 1,216 who died in all of October, which had been the deadliest month in Iraq since the AP began its count.
The actual totals are likely considerably higher because many deaths are not reported. Victims in those cases are quickly buried according to Muslim custom and never reach morgues or hospitals to be counted.
In addition to the victims of violence, countless Iraqis have had close calls with death. Among them were two government officials who escaped assassination attempts Monday.
Minister of State Mohammed Abbas Auraibi, a member of Iraq's Shiite majority, said a roadside bomb hit his convoy at about 9:30 a.m. as it was driving on a highway in eastern Baghdad. Two of his bodyguards were wounded.
Hakim al-Zamily, a Shiite deputy health minister, also escaped unhurt when gunmen opened fire on his convoy in downtown Baghdad at noon, killing two of his guards, the minister said.
On Sunday, suspected Sunni insurgents kidnapped another deputy health minister, Shiite Ammar al-Saffar, from his home in northern Baghdad. Officials said the gunmen wore police uniforms and arrived in seven vehicles to abduct al-Saffar, who was believed to be the most senior government official kidnapped in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.
Al-Saffar was seized nearly a week after dozens of suspected Shiite militia gunmen in police uniforms kidnapped scores of people from a Ministry of Higher Education office in Baghdad. That ministry is predominantly Sunni.
Monday's civilian victims included Hassan, an actor and comedian on Al-Sharqiyah TV who was shot while driving in western Baghdad. The motive for his slaying was unknown. Hassan had performed in a comedy series called "Caricature," which mocked coalition forces, insurgents, militias and Iraq's government.
Assailants also shot to death Fulayeh al-Ghurabi, a Shiite professor at Babil University in the province south of Baghdad, as he was driving home at midday, police said.
A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Saturday night and a U.S. Marine died during combat in Anbar province on Sunday, the military said, raising to at least 2,865 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war. This month in Iraq, 47 American service members have been killed or died.
Meanwhile, for the second day in a row coalition forces raided Baghdad's Sadr City Shiite stronghold, headquarters of a militia suspected of having carried out the mass kidnapping at the Ministry of Higher Education. Iraqi and U.S. forces suffered no casualties, no captives were reported found.
British and Iraqi forces also raided homes in southern Iraq and arrested four suspects in the kidnapping of four American security guards and their Austrian co-worker, an official said.
The raid took place in Zubair, a mostly Sunni-Arab enclave south of Basra, Capt. Tane Dunlop, the British military spokesman, told the AP. Most of Britain's 7,200 soldiers in Iraq are based in the city.
On Sunday, Iraqi police showed the media 200 suspected insurgents they had arrested the night before while raiding several areas north of Basra.
Both raids failed to find any of the hostages in southern Iraq, a mostly Shiite region.
Blaaa Blaaa Blaaa....
Thanks for your input.
More fallout from the Democratic win. Think of how many people are going to die because Democratic cowards now rule the roost.
Hell won't be hot enough.
Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World.
What of the scores of Iraqis murdered daily before the elections?
This dude was either crazy, or brave, or both.
I'm referring to the intensity. I noticed that it got continually ratcheted up and it was this facet of the Iraq war which contributed to the Dem's win. Now, the terrorists are determined to face down the Dems, who they see as cavilling idiots (not far wrong, IMHO). So they're murdering just as fast as they can.
Is this faulty reasoning?
This can't be good news for Borak.
Whoa. Tough crowd.
Rough crowd.
I guess the one about a Sunni, Shia and Kurd go into a topless bar and... didn't go over.
It has little to do with the ruling party. It has everything to do with the velvet glove (with no iron fist underneath) occupation. They need to start borrowing tactics from the Romans if they want to control this territory. But they won't.
I believe it is.
The civilian death toll has been on the rise all year, spiking in July and October. Crediting the November elections as the sole factor seems to ignore many other contributing causes (including mounting sectarian polarization, quasi-official backing of militias, and the expected result of an ongoing occupation).
Could the elections have had some effect? Perhaps. But I doubt that a Shia death squad's decision to murder an influential Sunni (or vice versa) is predicated on who the Speaker of the House is.
"Think of how many people are going to die because Democratic cowards now rule the roost. "
No, I think what you mean is: Think how many will die because Republicans are spineless.
During the years that Republicans controlled both houses and the White House, all I heard was how the evil Democrats stopped them from doing anything.
Now, the Democrats control 2 houses, but the White House is Republican, and now it's: The Democrats have complete control and are going to ruin everything!
Now, why can't the Republicans be equally as obstructionist? Spine-ectomy is all I can think of.
Morbid...but funny, especially if the stripper leaves her burka on.
You think wrongly if you think that is what I think. You can think for yourself, I am quite sure, and I am quite sure I can think and write for myself. What I wrote stands.
The ball has been passed, stupidly, to the worst possible option under the international circumstances (and the circumstances aren't too good intranationally either). That was done by the voting public, swayed by a toxic mainstream media (to which too many people still pay too much attention). Whether we have made objective progress in the war is something that historians are going to have to look back and figure out because the press made such an assessment impossible on the national level. I have read many such detailed and compelling analyses in the privatized media, but I care enough to actually look it up. Most people don't care and are simply tired of the discussion. One way to end it is to throw out those who are trying to successfully conclude it (but, according to the toxic media can't and should never have started trying to).
The situation is hopelessly tangled at the moment and won't sort out until a lot more people die. That's just the way people do things when the mass of them is consulted. Think of this as democracy run amok and I think the lesson will be far more instructive than to continue to whip the dead horse of alleged Republican spinelessness.
IOW, live in the now, Garth.
Maybe Whoopie Goldberg should explain again how terrible life is here in the US.
The rules of engagement should have been revised long ago. The biggest mistake has been to allow the militias to run rampant. It appears that has been allowed for political reasons...very bad move.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.