Unimaginable horror in Baghdad– again!– today as a large truck-bomb and a series of other attacks kill at least 152 and wounds many hundreds more.
AP’s Slobodan Lekic writes there that,
- Al-Jazeera said Al-Qaida in Iraq linked the attacks to the recent killing of about 200 militants from the city of Tal Afar by U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Before dawn Wednesday, 17 men were killed by insurgents in the village of Taji north of Baghdad, which pushed the death toll in all violence in and around the capital to 169.
Wednesday’s worst bombing killed at least 88 people and wounded 227 in the heavily Shiite neighborhood of Kazimiyah where the day laborers had gathered shortly after dawn.
The carnage was the worst single day of bloodshed since March 2, 2004, when coordinated blasts … hit Shiite Muslim shrines in Karbala and in Baghdad, killing at least 181 and wounding 573.
The blasts coincided with Iraqi lawmakers announcing the country’s draft onstitution was in its final form and would be sent to the United Nations for printing and distribution ahead of an Oct. 15 national referendum. Sunni Muslims, who form up the core of the insurgency, have vowed to defeat the basic law.
As I have noted on JWN numerous times before, the internal violence in Iraq since the elections of last January has hit by far the hardest against the country’s Shiite community. This is another example of that. So far, the Shiite political leaderships have urged calm and worked strenuously to prevent any form of a response that would take the form of anti-Sunni pogroms… And indeed, some Shiite leaders like Moqtada Sadr have energetically continued to pursue a policy of “national” unity with the country’s Sunni population.
Most of the attacks against Shiite civilian targets– like today’s– seem to be the work of foreign militants, acting with who knows what form of shady outside backing. It would be great to think that the perpetration of bloody and horrific excesses like today’s might succeed in turning all Iraqi Sunnis against the foul machinations of their extremist co-religionists who have come into the country from elsewhere…
Mainly here, though, I just want to express deep, deep sadness and empathy for all those afflicted by the present violence.
Where oh where is the responsible governance and protection of civilian populations that under international law is the responsibility of the power running the military occupation of the country?
(I was going to take down the black banner on the blog today. Maybe now I’ll have to leave it up for a lot longer.)
Helena, how do you square your claim that “So far, the Shiite political leaderships have urged calm”, with the statement by Iraqi Defence Minister Sadoun al-Dulaimi that –
“We are warning those who have given shelter to terrorists that they must stop, kick them out or else we will cut off their hands, heads and tongues as we did in Tal Afar”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5270715,00.html
The report from which the quote is taken claims the Minister was speaking “figuratively”, but as evidence of state-backed (and other) death squads mounts, along with the blindfolded victims of execution, the ministers remarks are chilling and in no way equate with the urging of calm.
I quite agree that other political figures have urged calm – and I hope they are successful – but public threats to cut off peoples heads results in a somewhat mixed message, doesn’t it?
Ron, thanks for pointing out that inflammatory rhetoric, which I hadn’t seen. I know that many governmental actions have been escalatory… I guess I was trying to differentiate a bit between the govt’s policies and those of various (other) Shiite leaderships. All in all I have still been impressed by the restraint of the Shiite community in the face of this string of horrors… But the government, yes, has certainly acted in a way that has kept tensions high.
Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world and they are accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences. Their presence on the streets of New Orleans should be a cause for serious concern for the remaining residents of the city and raises alarming questions about why the government would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here. Some of the men now patrolling the streets of New Orleans returned from Iraq as recently as 2 weeks ago.
These are on loose in Baghdad and all Iraq, see them on your land how these killers works.
Its reach to point almost three years neither the American forces nor Iraqi tell us if they got any one involved in these acts, in fact there are talk in Iraq and ales that the US supports some killers thugs to do the job, one Iraqi police said that they caught one killer/Thugs handed to US forces they free him after that!
There is no Doute there is a game playing their by US forces.
Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans
By Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091005A.shtml
“Before dawn Wednesday, 17 men were killed by insurgents in the village of Taji north of Baghdad, which pushed the death toll in all violence in and around the capital to 169.”
Over on Today In Iraq, there was reports posted that the 17 men killed here worked for the US, or as they say, occupation forces.
Also, Sadr is alligned with some of the Sunni groups – and that’s because both groups are anti-occupation groups. The pro-US forces in the country of Iraq are the ones elected to power and they seem to be quite happy with the US bombing runs on Tal Afar, which seems to be targeting Sunni Turkmen. And there was recent Shi’a vs. Shi’a fighting.
I think we need to drop the idea of an Iraqi Sunni/Shi’a split, or civil war. I think it is way more complicated than that – and besides, the corporate media is the ones pushing the idea and they generally seem to get Iraq all wrong (along with a lot of other places, of course). That’s because they listen to the Pentagon and White House too much. It is clear the Cheney administration does not know what it is doing in any field (except stealing maybe?).
I fear IRAQ is headed to a Saudi Arabia-Jordon-Syria group vs Iranian group WAR, played out in Iraq with pro-US forces on the Iranian side and anti-occupation forces on the other side. And I think it is basically a fight for the same things that Bush & Cheney went after – control of the area and the resources (oil).
That’s because they listen to the Pentagon and White House too much. It is clear the Cheney administration does not know what it is doing in any field (except stealing maybe?).
They knew well Susan, they destroying Iraq as a state, it
Helena, you will note that when a car bomb explodes in a city street, the casualties are “civilians.” When a 500lb laser-guided bomb explodes in a city street, the casualties are “insurgents.”
John C
I like your note, good on you
“The British responded with gas attacks by the army in the south,
bombing by the fledgling RAF in both north and south. When Iraqi
tribes stood up for themselves, we unleashed the flying dogs of war to
“police” them. Terror bombing, night bombing, heavy bombers, delayed
action bombs (particularly lethal against children) were all developed
during raids on mud, stone and reed villages during Britain’s League
of Nations’ mandate.”
http://www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Iraq/041903_our
_last_occupation_gas.htm
Speaking of unimaginable horror, here’s a joke I just heard:
Q: What is George Bush’s opinion of Roe vs. Wade?
A: He doesn’t care how those people get out of New Orleans.
Mossad Attack upon the United States
More horror in Iraq today.
“It’s been obvious for the past 20 months that the administration’s lofty hopes were vastly overblown,” Kolbe said at a Sept. 7 hearing of his subcommittee.
“Reconstruction in Iraq has been slower; it’s been more painful, more complex, more fragmented, more inefficient than anyone in Washington or Baghdad could have imagined a couple of years ago,” he said.
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBS69LIMDE.html
Salah,
You are bordering lunacy with your latest conributions and links. In the US we call these tabloids at best and stay away from them.
By the way, the net effect of the Al Qaeda attacks on Iraq might eventually get the Iraquis to adopt your humble servant’s mantra of “you know who to thank”. Iraq may end up with a popular sympathy level for Bin Laden well below the 50% average of the rest of the Arab world.
David
David,
Israel general ‘avoids UK arrest’
Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza strip
The warrant relates to the bulldozing of more than 50 houses
The former head of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip has told how he dodged arrest on war crimes charges after receiving a tip-off at Heathrow.
I thnik we can include you with the group Major General Doron Almog …..David.
A glimmer of hope emerged yesterday on Capitol Hill that at least some lawmakers are thinking about how to end the war in Iraq. More than two dozen members of Congress
Let us consider these words penned by a gifted speechwriter:
“We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions – by abandoning every value except the will to power – they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies.”
The speaker, of course, was George W. Bush, on September 20, 2001. Irony is the spice of life, is it not?
By the way, the net effect of the Al Qaeda attacks on Iraq
David,
For the start your creation baby is Osama Bin Laden, he leaned and trained the magic from the master the
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