Iraqi Guerriillas Blew Up The Domed Askariyah Shrine

by redjade Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:58

not good.

...and after.

by redjade Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:27

'(CBS/AP) A large explosion early Wednesday in Samarra heavily damaged the 101-year-old golden dome of one of Iraq's most famous Shiite religious shrines, sending protesters pouring into the streets. It was the third major attack against Shiite targets in as many days.'
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/24/iraq/main5418...shtml

———

'Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, declared an ``all-out war'' on Shiites in September 2005, and has dispatched Sunni insurgents to bomb Shiites and their mosques across Iraq.

Shiites represent 60 percent of Iraq's population, while Sunnis account for 15-20 percent. Shiites dominated the outgoing government and won 128 of the 275 seats in the Dec. 15 parliamentary election. The Bush administration has urged Shiite leaders to reach out to the minority Sunnis, who have complained of being excluded from the political process and voted in greater numbers in the Dec. 15 election than in the Jan. 2005 poll.'
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=ajv..._6sK4

———

• Two of the 12 revered Shi'ite Imams are buried in the shrine. Imam Ali al-Hadi, who died in 868 AD and his son, the 11th Imam Hasan al-Askari, who died in 874 A.D.

• Shi'ites believe the 12th Imam, Imam Mehdi, known as the hidden Imam, went into hiding from a cellar in the complex in 878 A.D. Shi'ites say he will return before the Day of Judgment to return justice to a world full of oppression.

• Iraqi commandos retook the Golden Mosque from insurgents during a U.S.-led offensive against Samarra in October 2004.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/OLI232323.htm

by ray Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:46

Terrible news -it can only lead to an increase in inter-iraqi violence. The headline may be misleading though : this wasn't neccesarily the work of guerillas .What would Iraq'sSunni insurgents have to gain from this? The incident should be seen in the context of the looming confrontation with Iran and Shia leader Al-Sadr's rejection of the new Iraqi sectarian constitution . It could very well be the work of US /British special forces seeking to turn the Iraqi resistance down the blind-alley of inter-communal warfare.

by MichaelY - iawm Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:51

Agree with you Ray. No sane militant, opposing the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the use of Shannon as a warport, can support such an action. The points you make should ring in the ears of those who will get again up again on their hobby horse and start attacking the resistance.

by redjade Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:55

Guerriilla:
'A member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy, as by surprise raids.'
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Guerrilla

———

'What would Iraq's Sunni insurgents have to gain from this?'

Ummm maybe instability of a new and Iran-backed/US-backed theocratic Shia government?

by redjade Wed Feb 22, 2006 13:06

MichaelY - iawm:
'No sane militant, opposing the invasion and occupation of Iraq'

Michael, this is a very simplistic understanding of whats happening in Iraq these days - there is more at play than just the US occupation - but who dominates: Shia or Sunni, Iran or Sunni Gulf States led by Saudi Arabia, Secular vs Sharia Law and so on. A daily read of http://JuanCole.com will give you a deeper perspective of what's up.

'attacking the resistance'

Oh please, the IAWM isn't back to this shallow position is it?

Which resistance?! or is it simply the enemy of my enemy is my friend?

by redjade Wed Feb 22, 2006 22:59

Juan Cole...
''75 Sunni mosques have been attacked, with two burned to the ground and 3 Sunni clergymen assassinated, with 6 Sunni Arabs dead altoghether in the violence.

[....]

Grand Ayatollah Sistani called for nonviolent street protests that he must know won't be nonviolent.

Iran is blaming Bush and the Israelis, which is ridiculous but already widely believed in Iraq and Iran.

The threat of terrorism and attacks on Americans just went way up.''

more at
http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/iran-blames-bush-sunni-....html

by ok Thu Feb 23, 2006 03:13

"Gunmen have killed at least 11 people after entering a prison in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, police have said.
They said all of the victims were believed to be Sunni militants, including several foreigners.

The attack in the largely Shia city comes amid a wave of anger among Iraq's Shias over a bomb attack on one of their holiest shrines in Samarra.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has appealed for calm, and urged Iraqis to work together to avert a civil war.

Police in Basra said the gunmen entered into the Mina prison, disarming the guards and seizing a group of suspected Sunni militants.

The bodies of the inmates were later found in the city, amid reports that they had been tortured before being shot.

There were angry scenes in Basra earlier on Wednesday

Among the victims were Egyptian and Saudi nationals, police said."

seems to me that maybe the people of iraq are finally fed up with terrorists and the daily bombing, shootings, and suffering of innocent civilians in the name of jihad. the next couple of days are going to be very interesting. the peole who did this are not guerallis but rather evil and sectarian scum

by Paul - . Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:59

Too often the simplistic explanations are excuses from those who mess up. If Al Sistani is moved to call for demonstrations who am I to argue with his local knowledge.

I often think that those who muddy the waters by blaming everything on Americam imperialism (which of course is wrong) are possibly ecommunicators or salafist. Muslims are not a homogenous mass and anyone who believes that is at least guilty of being disingenuous and worse maybe even lazy minded

It reminds me of how the IRA blamed the Brittish Army for the setting off the Eniskillan bomb.

by NOddy Big Ears Thu Feb 23, 2006 14:59

Sectarianism is an impulse which is aided and abetted by imperialists all over the world and at all stages of history

It is financed, and started and created because it is the only way they can break a popular resistence movement. The "other" side will then be duped by fear into supporting the occupiers agenda. Ambitious local elites like Sistani have an interest in it also because it empowers them.

The Nationalist resisters in Iraq will not bomb mosques because they gain nothing from doing it.

The Islamists ,being obsessed with religion will not do it either because I doubt they could get their units to do it (even if they wanted it ) .

So who did it ?

Well who gains is the answer.

The longstanding relationship the funding and the intelligence collusion between the Ulster loyalist paramilatary groups is a good example. Google Brian Nelson for a start.
( The first bombing of the recent troubles were at the Silent Valley Reservoir , carried out by the Loyalists Paramilatarys but spinned as an IRA action. )

And then the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. Every monkey knows that the british did this because the special powers legisalation was failing and may not have passed.

The bombings meant that the pressure was put on the members to pass the legslation to combat "terrorism" (only nationalist terror of course).

The Irish Special Branch found this out inside a few days and got the investigation stymied. If the truth had come out can you imagine the crisis for the Southern ruling class? They would have to admit that the british bombed Dublin.

This is called pschological operations and is a now as much a part of modern warfare as the bombs and bullets. these operations are often better at achieveing the objectives than the normal military operations, which in Ulster and Iraq are frustrated by the tactics of the opposition.

The guerrilla needs a secure base in the people to operate effectivlly, These mosque slaughters will go a huge way to damage this relationship.

Have my readers forgotton already the british soldiers who were captured in the Sth of IRaq by the Iraqi police. Did you see the way the western media reported that they had explosives in the car and then buried that inside hours?

Dressed up in Arab civvies.

Then the tank assault on the prison were they were held? Why did the bits not negotiate to get them back? Why the assualt? Work it out for yourself . They were SAS / Special ops caught napping , who killed 2 or 3 Iraqi cops, got pulled in and then there was a crisis because of what they knew.

MOTIVE is what guides us. WHO gains and WHO loses.

by redjade Thu Feb 23, 2006 17:45

Think outside the Box.
Think outside your own Box.
There are Boxes other than your own.
There are also Boxes within Boxes.
Don't let the would-be Masters of the World Box you in.

The Nationalist resisters in Iraq will not bomb mosques because they gain nothing from doing it.

enlighten me, please. Who are the 'Nationalists?' I assume you mean the Baathists? The Baathists (dead-enders, as Rummy once called them a long long time ago) have everything to gain from Sunni and Shia killing each other.

And then the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. [etc etc etc etc]

Interesting but examining other people's boxes as your own, isn't necessarily informative to the event that has occured.

Have my readers forgotton already the british soldiers who were captured in the Sth of IRaq by the Iraqi police. [....] Dressed up in Arab civvies.

Nope, I haven't forgotten and it is an important lil tidbit in all this.

But UK Troops are nowhere close to Samarra. If you have evidence to back up your speculation, I'd like to see it.

The guerrilla needs a secure base in the people to operate effectivlly, These mosque slaughters will go a huge way to damage this relationship.

Which guerrillas? If Sunni and/or Baathist guerrillas want to create civil war to destabilise a Iran-Backed-US/K government, this is certainly one way of doing it. and its working.

MOTIVE is what guides us. WHO gains and WHO loses.

'There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'

Many motives, many gains, many losses.

The US/K has opened up a can of worms much much bigger than merely invasion and occupation - Bush has created a situation that has allowed centuries of friction along religious, sectarian, ethnic, and even gender lines to explode. He broke it - he owns it. But he may not be able to control it, nor even gain from it at this point. Oil exports from Iraq are about half of what they were during Saddam.

Iraq is not Northern Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Askariya_Mosque

always read Juan Cole: http://JuanCole.com

an explosion more offensive than a Danish cartoon

by Paul - . Thu Feb 23, 2006 18:11

Talking of motives.

After seeing Tarriq ali, wednesday week ago, a separate and possibly paranoid conspiracy occurs to me.

If Iran wanted to keep the US bogged down in Iraq and hence vulnerable to reprisals as a result of an attack by either the US or through one of their surrogates Israel, on some of their nuclear facilities, what better way to do it than by sucessfully instigating a war between the Shia and the Sunnis.

A sick motive to be sure.

Regards,

Paul

by Onion Bhaji Fri Feb 24, 2006 00:44

Interesting postulate - the Iranians as agents provocateur. This one would be a sudden departure from their usual style though. Hezbullah were their proxy in Lebanon, but nowhere else do they have a history of such interference (apart from aiding "terrorists" in the 1980s). A BBC World Service report in 1996 said there was strong evidence that Iran was behind the Lockerbie bombing of 1988 - don't know what happened to that Foreign Office position though.

Could never see any Iranian proxy blowing up a mosque, let alone a Shi'ite centrepiece.

I can't remember a mosque being attacked in Suni-Shi'ite disputes before - in any intra-Muslim conflict ever before. Can someone point to precedent.

Seems to me, a very British coup. Those of us who've studied their form know how they're past-masters at divide and conquer especially through stirring sectarian/religious hatred. The list of "terrorists" in FRU or MI5 pay grows longer.

An Iraqi Civil War draws out targets, and eliminates the enemies of the West.

US is famous for its proxy wars against people - full scale wars with advisers, artillery and no subtlty. US military leadership wouldn't have the cop to change strategy so quickly, nor would they have the bilingual personnel to infultrate and debrief.

by Dublinfidel Fri Feb 24, 2006 14:26

Redjade titled one of the photos \\\"an explosion more offensive than a Danish cartoon\\\"
The seething Arab street is nowhere to be seen when one of Islam\\\'s holiest sites is blown up, yet fury reigns when cartoons are published.
Perhaps Al-Queda in Iraq should publish some cartoons in it\\\'s bi-monthly Jihad Gazette.
Or blame the Danes for the explosion - Ahmadinthehead has claimed the US did it.
Gullible fools in the ME believe him - even more gullible fools on this site hope it is true.

by redjade Sat Feb 25, 2006 01:41

Juan Cole writes...
Sunni Arabs in Iraq blamed US troops for not protecting Sunni mosques and worshippers from violence. The US military ordered the US soldiers in Baghdad to stay in their barracks and not to circulate if it could be helped. [Later reports said some US patrols has been stepped up.] This situation underlines how useless the American ground forces are in Iraq. They can't stop the guerrilla war and may be making it worst. Last I knew, there were 10,000 US troops in Anbar Province with a population of 1.1 million.

[....]

Reuters reports that ' The main Sunni religious group said 184 Sunni mosques had been damaged, some destroyed; 10 clerics had been killed and 15 abducted. The Muslim Clerics Association accused Shi'ite religious leaders of stoking the anger by calling for protests. '

http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/dozens-of-mosques-attac....html

———

Baghdad Burning writes...
All morning we’ve been hearing/watching both Shia and Sunni religious figures speak out against the explosions and emphasise that this is what is wanted by the enemies of Iraq- this is what they would like to achieve- divide and conquer. Extreme Shia are blaming extreme Sunnis and Iraq seems to be falling apart at the seams under foreign occupiers and local fanatics.

No one went to work today as the streets were mostly closed. The situation isn’t good at all. I don’t think I remember things being this tense- everyone is just watching and waiting quietly. There’s so much talk of civil war and yet, with the people I know- Sunnis and Shia alike- I can hardly believe it is a possibility. Educated, sophisticated Iraqis are horrified with the idea of turning against each other, and even not-so-educated Iraqis seem very aware that this is a small part of a bigger, more ominous plan…

Several mosques have been taken over by the Mahdi militia and the Badir people seem to be everywhere. Tomorrow no one is going to work or college or anywhere.

People are scared and watchful. We can only pray.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_riverbendb....html

———

Meanwhile, inside the Empire, a new shocking controversy erupts....

Army Charges 7 in Sex-For-Money Web Site

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- The Army has charged seven paratroopers from the celebrated 82nd Airborne Division with engaging in sex acts in video shown on a Web site, authorities said Friday.

Three of the soldiers face courts-martial on charges of sodomy, pandering and engaging in sex acts for money, according to a statement released Friday by the military.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/24/D8FVP5184.html

if it bleeds it leads

by redjade Sat Feb 25, 2006 13:49

Juan Cole links to the LA Times:
'...Iraqi police today found at least 29 bodies scattered in Baghdad. Each corpse was handcuffed and had single gunshots to the head, in the style often attributed to Shiite death squads believed attached to the Ministry of Interior.

Violent protests sparked by the destruction of an important Shiite holy site Wednesday have left nearly 200 people dead in the country's worst spasm of inter-communal violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion...

Two police officers were killed and two civilians injured in clashes and a vital oil pipeline set ablaze by saboteurs.'
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-022406...lines

———

Juan Cole links to the Washington Post:
'The number of Iraqi army battalions judged by their American trainers to be capable of fighting insurgents without U.S. help has fallen from one to none since September, Pentagon officials said yesterday. [....] The size of an Iraqi battalion varies according to its type, but it usually numbers several hundred.

In a new report to Congress assessing the Iraq situation, the Pentagon also asserted yesterday that the insurgency is losing strength, becoming less effective in its attacks, and failing to undermine the development of an Iraqi democracy.'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20....html

———

Juan Cole links to the Breakingnews.iol.ie:
'US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad may also have enflamed the situation when he warned on Monday that the US would not continue to support institutions run by sectarian groups with links to armed militias.

Sunnis accuse Shiite militiamen operating in the ranks of the Interior Ministry, which controls the police, of widespread abuses.'
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=173803786&p...x449z

———

Detroit's Metro Times interviews Juan Cole
'I think the American public generally doesn't make a big distinction between Muslims and Arabs, even though we know that Arabs are a minority of Muslims.'
http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=8917

JuanCole.com (his real name is Juan Cole)

by redjade Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:58

Juan Cole writes...
'''Washington Post reports that since last Wednesday rioters and militiamen have killed over 1300 Iraqis on a sectarian basis. They add,

' Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. ' ''

--

'Angry Iranians threw Molotov cocktails at the British embassy in Tehran on Sunday. Over 1,000 students maintained that Coalition forces in Iraq were responsible for the bombing last Wednesday of the Askariyah Shrine in Samarr'

--

''KarbalaNews.net reports that [Ar.] guerrillas blew up a Shiite shrine in Bashir, south of Tuz Khurmato. This Turkmen region near Kirkuk is largely Shiite. It was not clear how much damage was done to the shrine. The people of the region formed units to guard the shrines and places of worship from any further destruction.

The same source says that [Ar.] Iraqi officers announced that 20 guerrillas attacked the shrine of Salman the Persian. They killed the guards and placed explosives at the tomb, then blew it up, destroying it.''

all sources and link can be found at http://JuanCole.com

by redjade Tue Feb 28, 2006 18:17

Toll in Iraq's Deadly Surge: 1,300
Grisly attacks and other sectarian violence unleashed by last week's bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine have killed more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives, according to Baghdad's main morgue. The toll was more than three times higher than the figure previously reported by the U.S. military and the news media.

Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20....html

by redjade Thu Mar 09, 2006 16:15

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace
March 7, 2006

SEC. RUMSFELD: [....] From what I've seen thus far, much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation, according to General Casey. The number of attacks on mosques, as he pointed out, had been exaggerated. The number of Iraqi deaths had been exaggerated. The behavior of the Iraqi security forces had been mischaracterized in some instances. And I guess that is to say nothing of the apparently inaccurate and harmful reports of U.S. military conduct in connection with a bus filled with passengers in Iraq.

Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side. It isn't as though there simply have been a series of random errors on both sides of issues. On the contrary, the steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq.

And then I notice today that there's been a public opinion poll reporting that the readers of these exaggerations believe Iraq is in a civil war -- a majority do, which I suppose is little wonder that the reports we've seen have had that effect on the American people.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to clear up exactly what you're saying here. Are you saying that this poll and that what you call the rush toward declaring civil war in Iraq, is that the result of intentional misreporting of the situation there?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I can't go into people's minds. All I'm doing is reporting on what we've seen. General Casey pointed out to this group here that he believes -- his data shows that the numbers of mosque attacks and the nature of the attacks and the severity of the attacks have been considerably exaggerated and that the number of civilian Iraqis that have been killed or wounded has been exaggerated.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2006/tr20060307-....html

by redjade Thu Mar 09, 2006 16:22

BAGHDAD, March 8 -- Days after the bombing of a Shiite shrine unleashed a wave of retaliatory killings of Sunnis, the leading Shiite party in Iraq's governing coalition directed the Health Ministry to stop tabulating execution-style shootings, according to a ministry official familiar with the recording of deaths.

The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because he feared for his safety, said a representative of the Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, ordered that government hospitals and morgues catalogue deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20....html

by redjade Thu Mar 09, 2006 16:42

Fox News: Iraq Civil War “Made Up By The Media?”
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/03/01/fox-media-civil-war/

Only on Fox:
"All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Be a Good Thing?"
http://mediamatters.org/items/200602240003

Halliburton Corp:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=HAL&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=

'War is the health...

of the state'

but today, the State is now privatised (Halliburton stock over 5yrs)

by redjade Tue Mar 14, 2006 15:17

Police in the past 24 hours have found the bodies of at least 85 people killed by execution-style shootings -- a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian reprisal slayings, officials said Tuesday.

The dead included at least 27 bodies stacked in a mass grave in an eastern Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.

The bloodshed -- the second wave of mass killings in Iraq since bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine last month -- followed weekend attacks in a teeming Shiite slum in which 58 people died and more than 200 were wounded.

Iraq's Interior Ministry announced a ban on driving in the capital to coincide with the first meeting of the new parliament Thursday.

New York Times (no sub required)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq.h...rland

by redjade Wed Mar 15, 2006 20:09

''An American described as a security contractor arrested by police in a northern Iraqi town was carrying weapons in his car, a provincial official said.

Abdullah Jebara, the Deputy Governor of Salahaddin province, told Reuters the man was arrested in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit on Monday. He was removed from the provincial government building by U.S. forces on Tuesday, Jebara said.

The Joint Coordination Center between the U.S. and Iraqi military in Tikrit said the man, whom it described as a security contractor working for a private company, possessed explosives which were found in his car. It said he was arrested on Tuesday.''

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