Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Militias execute dozens in Iraq

Gunmen roama neighborhood in Baghdad on Sunday, checking people's ID cards then shooting the Sunnis.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 10, 2006

BAGHDAD - Wissam Mohammad al-Ani was walking to a bus stop when three gunmen demanded his identification.

Believing they were Shiites, the Sunni produced a fake ID with a Shiite name. The gunmen took two young men standing nearby.

Those young men and a disputed number of other Sunnis were swept off the streets of west Baghdad's Jihad neighborhood in a rampage by masked Shiite gunmen Sunday that dramatically escalated sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital.

Police said 41 people were killed during the rampage, most believed to be Sunnis. A senior government official, Haidar Majid, said only nine people died in Jihad.

Hours later, two car bombs exploded in an apparent reprisal attack near a Shiite mosque in north Baghdad, killing 17 people and wounding 38, police said.

Regardless of the disputed figures, the brazen attack was almost certain to heighten Shiite-Sunni tensions and undermine public confidence in Iraq's new unity government. It also revived questions about the ability of the Iraqi police and army to curb sectarian violence in the capital.

Black-clad Shiite militiamen manned checkpoints on roads into most major Shiite neighborhoods to guard against revenge attacks, as scattered clashes occurred across the Iraqi capital.

Sunni leaders expressed outrage, and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, appealed for calm, warning that the nation stood "in front of a dangerous precipice."

Presidential security adviser Wafiq al-Samaraie told Al-Jazeera television that "we are at the gates of civil war" unless "exceptional measures" are taken.

The trouble started about 10 a.m. when several carloads of gunmen drove into Jihad, a once prosperous neighborhood of handsome villas owned by officials of Saddam Hussein's security services, police and witnesses said. The gunmen stopped cars, checked passengers' identification cards and shot dead those with Sunni names.

A Shiite shopkeeper said he saw heavily armed men pull four people out of a car, blindfold them and force them to stand to the side while they grabbed five others out of a minivan.

"After 10 minutes, the gunmen took the nine people to a place a few meters away from the market and opened fire on them," Saad Jawad al-Azzawi said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces sealed off the area, and residents said American troops using loudspeakers announced a two-day curfew. Black smoke from burning tires wafted through the streets.

Police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said 41 bodies had been collected and taken to hospitals. Some Sunni clerics put the death toll at more than 50.

"It was such a horrible day," said Abu Saif, a witness. "Gunmen running on the streets holding heavy machine guns, Interior Ministry commandos running around screaming, strange cars, strange people with guns and wearing weird civilian uniforms. It was scary."

Police and Shiite leaders speculated the rampage was retaliation for a Saturday night car bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed two people and wounded nine.

The spokesman for a Sunni clerical association, Mohammed Beshar al-Faydhi, blamed the Jihad attack on the Mahdi Army militia, led by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Faydhi told Al-Jazeera that he had documents to prove his allegation.

Sadr denied responsibility and called on both Shiites and Sunnis to "join hands for the sake of Iraq's independence and stability." He assured Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, leader of the largest Sunni Arab party, that he would punish any of his militiamen if they were involved.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has promised to disband Shiite militias and other armed groups, which are blamed for much of the sectarian violence.

Militias have flourished in large part because of the inability of the police, the Iraqi army and coalition forces to guarantee security. Many in the Shiite majority believe the militias are their only protection against Sunni extremists such as al-Qaida in Iraq, which are responsible for many car bombings and suicide attacks against Shiite civilians.

The violence is likely to complicate U.S. and Iraqi efforts to encourage disaffected Sunnis to abandon the Sunni-dominated insurgency and join mainstream politics so U.S. troops can begin to go home.

Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie, a Sunni, described the Jihad attack as "a real and ugly massacre," and blamed Iraqi security forces, which are widely believed to have been infiltrated by Shiite militias.

"There are officers who instead of being in charge should be questioned and referred to judicial authorities," Zubaie told Al-Jazeera TV.

The prime minister's office quickly distanced itself from Zubaie's comments, saying in a statement that they "do not represent the government's point of view."

Clashes also broke out between gunmen and Iraqi police in at least three neighborhoods across the capital, leaving at three Shiite militiamen dead, police and residents said.

In the western city of Ramadi, a car bomb exploded next to a U.S. convoy, wounding four American soldiers, the military said.

An American soldier died in a separate "non-combat related incident," the U.S. command said, without giving further details.

Information from the Chicago Tribune was used in this report.

[Last modified July 10, 2006, 05:24:39]