Car bombs hit wedding party, mosque in Iraq
Twin attacks kill more than 21; al-Zarqawi claims new beheadings
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 3:00 p.m. ET Jan. 21, 2005
BAGHDAD - Two deadly car bombings killed more than 21 people in Iraq on Friday, in violence apparently aimed at derailing upcoming elections.
The first blast outside a Shiite mosque packed with worshippers celebrating a major Muslim holiday killed at least 14 people and wounded 40.
In a second suicide attack, a driver detonated an ambulance at a Shiite wedding south of the capital, killing at least seven and injuring 16, hospital officials said.
Also on Friday, a videotape posted on the Internet by the al-Qaida-linked insurgent group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi showed two other Iraqis who said they worked at a U.S. base having their heads cut off by militants.
Mosque attack on Islamic holiday
The car-bombing at the al-Taf mosque in southwestern Baghdad occurred just as Shiite worshippers were leaving services marking one of Islam?s most important holidays, Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice. The feast coincides with the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
It was the second car bombing at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad this week.
In Baghdad, an official at Yarmouk Hospital said 14 people died and 40 were injured in the mosque blast, which set several cars on fire ad scattered debris over the street. Dozens of weeping men and women frantically searched the hospital for news about loved ones feared caught up in the bombing.
A distraught man sat beside his dead 14-year-old son, covered with a sheet, and cried out, ?I had breakfast with him this morning. I told him, ?Let?s go to your grandfather,? but he insisted on going for prayers first.?
A woman dressed in a black cloak, or abaya, fainted as she identified the body of her son in the hospital?s morgue.
Wedding attack
In the second major suicide attack in one day, a bomber detonated a booby-trapped ambulance Friday at a wedding party being thrown by the Shiite Buamer tribe in a village near Youssifiyah, a tense area about 12 miles south of the capital.
The bride and groom were among the injured in the blast near the town of Youssifiyah.
Salah al-Ameri, a cousin of the groom, said the attacker drove the ambulance into the garden where the celebration was taking place and set off the blast.
The Buamer tribe has had tense relations with Sunni Muslim clans in the area, local residents say, and several of their members have been killed or kidnapped by Sunni insurgents.
Again, a grim video warning
The video apparently posted on line by al-Zarqawi's militant group, showed two men, who identified themselves as Ali Hussein Jassem Mohammad al-Zubaidi and Ahmad Alwan Hussein al-Mahmadawi, standing in front of a banner bearing the name of Al-Qaida Organization of Holy War in Iraq.
The tape, which was posted on an Islamist Web site, later showed militants severing the heads of the two hostages, who were blindfolded with their hands bound behind their backs.
A statement by the group which appeared on the video warned that this would be the fate of those who ?sold their religion and honor for the pleasures of life? and labeled them atheists and rejectionists ? what Sunni militants call Shiite Muslims.
One of the hostages said he worked for a Lebanese company at a U.S. base in the western city of Ramadi and the other man said he worked as a driver at the base.
?We were told that we would work for a Lebanese company, not a U.S. base,? one of the men said.
Zarqawi?s group has claimed most of the bloodiest suicide attacks and hostage beheadings as well as assassinations of Iraqi officials.
In a separate kidnapping case, in which eight Chinese nationals were abducted, militants threatening to the hostages said in a video tape they would treat them ?mercifully? if China, which opposed the U.S.-led war to overthrow Saddam Hussein, banned all Chinese nationals from entering Iraq.
China responded by appealing to ?friendship between the Chinese people and the Iraqi people? and pointed out it had already advised its nationals to leave Iraq.
The men, who came to Iraq in search of work, were abducted earlier this month. Their captors have threatened them with death unless Beijing explains what they were doing in Iraq.
Religious split defines election
Differences between Shiites and Sunnis over the forthcoming elections have widened the gap between the two religious communities, raising fears of even more civil turmoil in a nation racked by insurgency.
Iraqi Shiites strongly support the elections, believing they will propel them to a position of influence equal to their standing as the country?s majority group. They make up an estimated 60 percent of the Iraq?s 26 million people.
Militants among the Sunni Arab minority ? fearing Shiite domination ? have vowed to disrupt the vote, the first in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was ousted in April 2003. Some Sunni clerics and politicians have called for a boycott, saying violence in Sunni areas will keep people from the polls.
During Friday prayers at Baghdad?s Umm al-Quraa mosque, a prominent Sunni cleric repeated his call for delaying the elections until the country is more secure and the 170,000 American and other foreign soldiers have gone.
?How does the government call for holding elections at a time when it cannot protect places of worship in the country?? Sheikh Mahmoud al-Sumaidei said. ?It is important to have a country free from occupation forces before holding elections. Then the elections will become an Iraqi demand rather than a foreign demand and at that point we can choose our leaders.?
U.S. and Iraqi officials fear a wave of violence in the run-up to the election and have announced sweeping security measures, including closing the nation?s borders and restricting traffic, to protect the voters. American troops have stepped up security operations, arresting hundreds in recent weeks.
The war goes on...
In other fighting, a U.S. soldier from the 1st Infantry Division was killed Friday in an operation against members of an insurgent bomb-making cell in the town of Duluiyah just north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. One Iraqi was killed in the raid and another soldier was wounded.
An Italian soldier was killed Friday by a burst of gunfire while riding in a helicopter that was patrolling the southern Shiite city of Nasiriyah, Italy?s Defense Ministry said. The area has been deemed safe for elections.
In the northern city of Mosul, U.S. troops killed three insurgents who attacked a police vehicle, a military spokesman said. For a second day, insurgents shelled a hospital in the city where U.S. and Iraqi forces have taken up positions, residents said. There was no word on casualties.
West of the capital, about a dozen gunmen stormed a police station Friday in the Euphrates Valley town of Hit and blew it up, police said. No one was hurt in the attack, but the militants reportedly made off with police weapons and other gear.
Insurgents attacked four schools in northern Iraq that are to be used as polling stations later this month, injuring two people, police said. Three of the schools were hit by rockets and mortars, and police dismantled a bomb planted at a third.
U.S. soldiers in Baghdad seized mortar rounds, TNT and weapons in a raid on a dangerous street that was meant in part as a display of American dominance over the troubled sector, the military said. Four explosions were heard in the area Friday morning, but the military had no immediate information on the cause.
Near the central city of Samarra, saboteurs set an oil pipeline on fire, police said. The pipeline, 12 miles south of the city, links the northern Beiji refinery to Baghdad?s Dora refinery.
The pipeline was attacked in the past by insurgents who have taken aim at the oil industry to deprive the government of badly needed reconstruction money.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6847225/
Freedom Fighters???? Just a bunch of cowards who know they won't get their way so they gotta butcher others.
Twin attacks kill more than 21; al-Zarqawi claims new beheadings
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 3:00 p.m. ET Jan. 21, 2005
BAGHDAD - Two deadly car bombings killed more than 21 people in Iraq on Friday, in violence apparently aimed at derailing upcoming elections.
The first blast outside a Shiite mosque packed with worshippers celebrating a major Muslim holiday killed at least 14 people and wounded 40.
In a second suicide attack, a driver detonated an ambulance at a Shiite wedding south of the capital, killing at least seven and injuring 16, hospital officials said.
Also on Friday, a videotape posted on the Internet by the al-Qaida-linked insurgent group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi showed two other Iraqis who said they worked at a U.S. base having their heads cut off by militants.
Mosque attack on Islamic holiday
The car-bombing at the al-Taf mosque in southwestern Baghdad occurred just as Shiite worshippers were leaving services marking one of Islam?s most important holidays, Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice. The feast coincides with the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
It was the second car bombing at a Shiite mosque in Baghdad this week.
In Baghdad, an official at Yarmouk Hospital said 14 people died and 40 were injured in the mosque blast, which set several cars on fire ad scattered debris over the street. Dozens of weeping men and women frantically searched the hospital for news about loved ones feared caught up in the bombing.
A distraught man sat beside his dead 14-year-old son, covered with a sheet, and cried out, ?I had breakfast with him this morning. I told him, ?Let?s go to your grandfather,? but he insisted on going for prayers first.?
A woman dressed in a black cloak, or abaya, fainted as she identified the body of her son in the hospital?s morgue.
Wedding attack
In the second major suicide attack in one day, a bomber detonated a booby-trapped ambulance Friday at a wedding party being thrown by the Shiite Buamer tribe in a village near Youssifiyah, a tense area about 12 miles south of the capital.
The bride and groom were among the injured in the blast near the town of Youssifiyah.
Salah al-Ameri, a cousin of the groom, said the attacker drove the ambulance into the garden where the celebration was taking place and set off the blast.
The Buamer tribe has had tense relations with Sunni Muslim clans in the area, local residents say, and several of their members have been killed or kidnapped by Sunni insurgents.
Again, a grim video warning
The video apparently posted on line by al-Zarqawi's militant group, showed two men, who identified themselves as Ali Hussein Jassem Mohammad al-Zubaidi and Ahmad Alwan Hussein al-Mahmadawi, standing in front of a banner bearing the name of Al-Qaida Organization of Holy War in Iraq.
The tape, which was posted on an Islamist Web site, later showed militants severing the heads of the two hostages, who were blindfolded with their hands bound behind their backs.
A statement by the group which appeared on the video warned that this would be the fate of those who ?sold their religion and honor for the pleasures of life? and labeled them atheists and rejectionists ? what Sunni militants call Shiite Muslims.
One of the hostages said he worked for a Lebanese company at a U.S. base in the western city of Ramadi and the other man said he worked as a driver at the base.
?We were told that we would work for a Lebanese company, not a U.S. base,? one of the men said.
Zarqawi?s group has claimed most of the bloodiest suicide attacks and hostage beheadings as well as assassinations of Iraqi officials.
In a separate kidnapping case, in which eight Chinese nationals were abducted, militants threatening to the hostages said in a video tape they would treat them ?mercifully? if China, which opposed the U.S.-led war to overthrow Saddam Hussein, banned all Chinese nationals from entering Iraq.
China responded by appealing to ?friendship between the Chinese people and the Iraqi people? and pointed out it had already advised its nationals to leave Iraq.
The men, who came to Iraq in search of work, were abducted earlier this month. Their captors have threatened them with death unless Beijing explains what they were doing in Iraq.
Religious split defines election
Differences between Shiites and Sunnis over the forthcoming elections have widened the gap between the two religious communities, raising fears of even more civil turmoil in a nation racked by insurgency.
Iraqi Shiites strongly support the elections, believing they will propel them to a position of influence equal to their standing as the country?s majority group. They make up an estimated 60 percent of the Iraq?s 26 million people.
Militants among the Sunni Arab minority ? fearing Shiite domination ? have vowed to disrupt the vote, the first in Iraq since Saddam Hussein was ousted in April 2003. Some Sunni clerics and politicians have called for a boycott, saying violence in Sunni areas will keep people from the polls.
During Friday prayers at Baghdad?s Umm al-Quraa mosque, a prominent Sunni cleric repeated his call for delaying the elections until the country is more secure and the 170,000 American and other foreign soldiers have gone.
?How does the government call for holding elections at a time when it cannot protect places of worship in the country?? Sheikh Mahmoud al-Sumaidei said. ?It is important to have a country free from occupation forces before holding elections. Then the elections will become an Iraqi demand rather than a foreign demand and at that point we can choose our leaders.?
U.S. and Iraqi officials fear a wave of violence in the run-up to the election and have announced sweeping security measures, including closing the nation?s borders and restricting traffic, to protect the voters. American troops have stepped up security operations, arresting hundreds in recent weeks.
The war goes on...
In other fighting, a U.S. soldier from the 1st Infantry Division was killed Friday in an operation against members of an insurgent bomb-making cell in the town of Duluiyah just north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. One Iraqi was killed in the raid and another soldier was wounded.
An Italian soldier was killed Friday by a burst of gunfire while riding in a helicopter that was patrolling the southern Shiite city of Nasiriyah, Italy?s Defense Ministry said. The area has been deemed safe for elections.
In the northern city of Mosul, U.S. troops killed three insurgents who attacked a police vehicle, a military spokesman said. For a second day, insurgents shelled a hospital in the city where U.S. and Iraqi forces have taken up positions, residents said. There was no word on casualties.
West of the capital, about a dozen gunmen stormed a police station Friday in the Euphrates Valley town of Hit and blew it up, police said. No one was hurt in the attack, but the militants reportedly made off with police weapons and other gear.
Insurgents attacked four schools in northern Iraq that are to be used as polling stations later this month, injuring two people, police said. Three of the schools were hit by rockets and mortars, and police dismantled a bomb planted at a third.
U.S. soldiers in Baghdad seized mortar rounds, TNT and weapons in a raid on a dangerous street that was meant in part as a display of American dominance over the troubled sector, the military said. Four explosions were heard in the area Friday morning, but the military had no immediate information on the cause.
Near the central city of Samarra, saboteurs set an oil pipeline on fire, police said. The pipeline, 12 miles south of the city, links the northern Beiji refinery to Baghdad?s Dora refinery.
The pipeline was attacked in the past by insurgents who have taken aim at the oil industry to deprive the government of badly needed reconstruction money.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6847225/
Freedom Fighters???? Just a bunch of cowards who know they won't get their way so they gotta butcher others.
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