Sunni deaths inflame sectarian divisions
Associated PressPublished February 5, 2006
BAGHDAD - Sunni politicians warned of civil war Saturday after the bullet-riddled bodies of 14 Sunni Arab men were found in Baghdad - apparently the latest victims of sectarian death squads.
One person was killed and 12 injured when a mortar shell exploded near a Shiite mosque north of the capital.
Sunni leaders claimed the 14 men were seized last week by Shiite-led security forces. There was no confirmation from the Shiite-led Interior Ministry that government troops were responsible.
A top ministry official, Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, said the bodies were shot multiple times and dumped in the back of a truck in northern Baghdad late Friday. He denounced the killings as a "criminal" act and said "we have nothing so far" to indicate government forces were to blame.
Leaders of several major Sunni Arab political organizations insisted the Interior Ministry was responsible for the killings.
Khalaf al-Ilyan, head of the National Dialogue Council, said the men were arrested by Interior Ministry troops at a Sunni mosque in Baghdad and killed in an unknown location.
"The government is pushing hard toward a civil war," Ilyan told reporters.
Dr. Salman al-Jumaili, a senior member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, part of the largest Sunni bloc in the new parliament, threatened to carry through with a threat by his party's leader Wednesday to launch a "civil disobedience" campaign if attacks against Sunnis don't stop.
"There is an escalation in organized assassinations by parties belonging to government security forces," Jumaili said. "There is an organized and well-trained force at the Interior Ministry conducting this sectarian cleansing against us."
Shiites, an estimated 60 percent of Iraq's 27-million people, also have been the victims of sectarian killings and often have been targeted in suicide bombings. Long oppressed under Saddam Hussein, Shiites insist they must maintain control of the security forces.
Late Saturday, a mortar shell exploded a few yards from a Shiite shrine in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. One person was killed and 12 injured, including three children, police Capt. Layth Mohammed said.
Elsewhere, U.S. troops found a large weapons cache west of Fallujah, the 11th such discovery in 13 days, the military said Saturday.