Uh oh

[Jimmyeatworld]

If they thought people were ticked over cartoons...

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1647792

SAMARRA, Iraq Feb 22, 2006 (AP)— A large explosion Wednesday heavily damaged the 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.

Police believed some people may be buried under the debris after the 6:55 a.m. explosion at the Askariya mosque but there were no confirmed figures. The shrine contains the tombs of two revered Shiite imams, both descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

Tradition says the shrine, which draws Shiite pilgrims from throughout the Islamic world, is near the place where the last of the 12 Shiite imams, Mohammed al-Mahdi, disappeared. Al-Mahdi, known as the "hidden imam," was the son and grandson of the two imams buried in the Askariya shrine.

Shiites believe he is still alive and will return to restore justice to humanity. An attack at such an important religious shrine would constitute a grave assault on Shiite Islam at a time of rising sectarian tensions in Iraq.

A police officer who declined to give his name because he is not authorized to speak to media said armed men, with at least one wearing a uniform, broke inside the shrine before sunrise and seized the five policemen responsible for guarding the site.

The gunmen planted explosives and fled the area, the officer said.

Following the blast, U.S. and Iraqi forces surrounded the shrine and began searching houses in the area. The Sunni Endowments, a government organization that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines, also condemned the blast and said it was sending a delegation to Samarra to investigate what happened.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered near the shrine, waving Iraqi flags, Shiite religious banners and copies of the Muslim holy book, Quran. Shiite leaders in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood called for demonstrations against the blast.

"This criminal act aims at igniting civil strife," said Mahmoud al-Samarie, 28-year-old builder who was among the crowd in this city 60 miles north of Baghdad. "We demand an investigation so that the criminals who did this be punished. If the government fails to do so, then we will take arm and chase the people behind this attack."

 

[NATO AIR]

This is another horrible attack, but I do not believe the terrorists will succeed until they murder the Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He's been such a figure for peace and unity in Iraq, literally singlehandedly keeping the Shia from waging a murderous campaign against the Sunnis in response to these kinds of attacks from the mostly Sunni insurgency.

Let's hope he never meets this kind of fate.

 

[nosarcasm]

a murderous campaign is needed to submit the Sunnis.

Unfortunatly that has proven the only method to work throughout
history.

 

[ekrem]

picture:
http://www.yenisafak.com.tr/manset_sii_turbe.jpg

 

[trobinett]

This is another horrible attack, but I do not believe the terrorists will succeed until they murder the Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He's been such a figure for peace and unity in Iraq, literally singlehandedly keeping the Shia from waging a murderous campaign against the Sunnis in response to these kinds of attacks from the mostly Sunni insurgency.

Let's hope he never meets this kind of fate.

I second that assessment, and hold the same feelings.

 

[Annie]

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2006/02/holy-shia-shrine-bombed-in-samarra.html

Holy Shia shrine bombed in Samarra.
As if we didn't have enough problems already!

The quality of the target and the timing of the attack were chosen in a way that can possibly bring very serious consequences over the country.

The situation in Baghdad is so tense now, it wasn't like this in the early hours of the morning as it took a few hours for the news to spread but on my way back from clinic I saw pickup vehicles with loudspeakers roaming the streets calling on people to shut their stores in the name of the Hawza and join the protests after the noon prayer to condemn the attack on the holy shrine.

Ayatollah Sistani reacted quickly to the escalating anger by issuing a fatwa that forbids his followers from "Taking any action against Sunni sites" obviously to discourage his followers from carrying out retaliatory attacks on Sunni mosques.
Sistani has also demanded a 7 day mourning and to consider it a week off but the government so far has announced only a 3 day official mourning.
Muqtada cut his tour in Lebanon and is heading back to Baghdad, he called on his followers from Beirut to "have self-control and refrain from violence".

Right now there's heavy deployment for the police and other security forces with more frequent checkpoints that are stop-searching cars more often than they usually do.
Sporadic gunfire is heard in different spots in Baghdad but no one knows for sure if the firing meant clashes or mere angry shooting in the air.

From where I'm sitting now I can hear both Sunni and Shia mosques are condemning the attack through their loudspeakers.

I believe there are foreign terror groups behind this attack and I don't think local insurgent would do such a thing, simply because this particular shrine had been in Sunni territory for a thousand years and the residents of Samarra had always benefited from the movement of religious tourism and pilgrimage.

Things look scary here in Baghdad and I hope there won't be more updates to report as I can't see a positive thing coming out of this.

Update 4:30 pm

It seems that I have no choice but to point out a few important updates that I found from the local media as well as my personal observations:

-President Talabani promises to make rebuilding the shrine his personal responsibility and to donate the required money from his own.

-Head of the Sunni endowment sheikh Ahmed al-Samarra'I announces that he will allocate 2 billion dinars (~1.4 million $) for the rebuilding of the shrine from the treasury of the Sunni endowment.

-Huge demonstrations in many of Iraq's provinces including Samarra and Mosul where thousands of people condemned the attack.

-The top 4 Shia Ayatollahs hold a meeting at Sistani's home to discuss the situation.

-The Association of Muslim scholars and the Islamic Party condemn the "criminal act".

-Retaliatory attacks on reportedly 29 Sunni mosques and the Accord Front warns from the consequences of such violent reactions.

-Jafari in a press conference calls for national unity and the leaders of the UIA hold a meeting. A press release is expected to come soon.

-The Iraqi TV opened the phone lines to receive the reactions of the audience to the attack and hosts Sunni clerics and politicians in an attempt to relieve the tension.

-Baghdad is in undeclared emergency situation, shops closed and streets nearly empty.

-Tight security around the shrine of Abu Haneefa in Aazamiya district of Baghdad, this is considered the top shrine/mosque for Sunni Muslims in Iraq.

-Masked gunmen attack Shia protestors in at least one neighborhood in western Baghdad and armed clashes in Ghazaliya and Hay al-A'amil.

-People exchange phones calls with their relatives and friends to check on them and discourage them from leaving their homes.

Posted by Omar @ 13:50

 

[insein]

This guy sounds very intelligent and level headed. Good traits to have in a leader.

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

This guy sounds very intelligent and level headed. Good traits to have in a leader.

Yeah, it's impressive. I wonder is he's be interested in running for Mayor of New Orleans...

 

[Mariner]

Here's the view of a U.S. Navy professor. It gives a sense of the complexities of dealing with the Shi'ite/Sunni problem. Saddam played the groups off against each other. Now that's he's gone, we have to take on the problem of how these two groups get along.

The New York Times
February 23, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Sects and Violence

By VALI NASR
Monterey, Calif.

THE bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, is an ominous development for America, Iraq and the entire Middle East. Just when it looked as if Muslims across the region were putting aside their differences to unite in protest against the Danish cartoons, the attack showed that Islamic sectarianism remains the greatest challenge to peace. It also highlighted the poor job America has done in trying to balance the interests of Shiite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq.

The shrine is one of the Shiites' holiest sites; they believe that their messiah vanished from the site, to return only on Judgment Day. Thus its destruction is a direct attack on the Shiite faith. It also symbolized the depth of Sunni rage against Shiites for having come to power in the country since the American-led invasion. But perhaps most important, it should serve as a warning to the United States of the rising tide of Sunni extremism in the Middle East.

The postwar insurgency may have provided the arena for militants from across the Arab world to gather for jihad against America, but it is the centuries-old Sunni war on Shiism that is at the heart of the campaign of death. A full-out sectarian war would, of course, make it impossible to create a viable Iraq. Yet for too long Washington refused to acknowledge the centrality of Shiite-Sunni antagonism to Iraqi politics. Instead, the Bush administration insisted that the insurgency was largely the work of foreign meddlers and Baathist loyalists.

As the attacks continued over months and years, Washington was finally compelled to contend with sectarian realities; yet its response was to demand that Iraqis bury the hatchet and just get along. On Tuesday, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad publicly threatened the Shiite-dominated party that won the January parliamentary elections, saying that unless it formed national unity government that included Sunnis, it risked losing American financial assistance. He also insisted that politicians with ties to Shiite militias be banned from the Interior and Defense Ministries.

Among the Shiites, such threats carry an ominous tone; not only because they view their militias as the only force now protecting them from car bombs, but also because Shiites see the overt American push for a national unity government as nothing more than coddling the Sunnis and, worse yet, rewarding the insurgency.

Shiites also see American policy as unduly influenced by Sunni rulers in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, who have been aggressively lobbying Washington for a greater Sunni role in running Iraq. This has led many Shiites to talk of a "second betrayal" by the United States, a sequel to what occurred in 1991 when the Shiites rose up against Saddam Hussein only to be butchered as American forces refused to intervene.

The United States can no longer take Shiite support in Iraq for granted. The Samarra bombing led the paramount cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to say that if the state couldn't protect them, "the believers are able to do so with the might of God." The ayatollah, who has for three years urged restraint and calm after every car bomb and murder, seems to have reached the limits of his patience. So have his followers: his call for peaceful protest went unheeded yesterday as Shiites attacked Sunni mosques and killed a Sunni cleric.

This American desire to placate the Sunnis could also hurt our regional ambitions. The White House has reasonable concerns about ties between Iraqi Shiites and Iran; the stated intention is to wean away Iraqi Shiites from Iranian influence. This will not be easy to achieve in any circumstance, but will be impossible if Iraq's Shiites don't trust America's commitment to protecting their interests.

In the aftermath of Samarra bombing, the American policy of pushing the Shiites to compromise with Sunnis will only backfire. The United States may not feel ready to choose winners and losers in Iraq, but it will find it increasingly difficult and costly not to do so.

Vali Nasr is a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and the author of the forthcoming book "The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/opinion/23nasr.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print

* * *

Mariner

 

[trobinett]

I`m sure everyone, on this board anyway, realizes, that THIS is our worst nightmare.

Taking the US military on didn`t work for the terrorist, going after the civilian population wasn`t having the desired results. Now the terror groups are playing their ace card, religion.

The jury is still out on this tactic, but I`ll be honest, I`m concerned.

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

I`m sure everyone, on this board anyway, realizes, that THIS is our worst nightmare.

Taking the US military on didn`t work for the terrorist, going after the civilian population wasn`t having the desired results. Now the terror groups are playing their ace card, religion.

The jury is still out on this tactic, but I`ll be honest, I`m concerned.

Talabani has done a great job handling this thus far, in my opinion. Or course, it's still early to tell, and there is certainly reason for concern, but this could still blow up in the terrorists face, so to speak.

 

[theim]

It's OK! President Ahmadinejad already has the REAL culprits pinned! You'll never guess who it was!

 

[Annie]

It's OK! President Ahmadinejad already has the REAL culprits pinned! You'll never guess who it was!

It was US!!! Saw that yesterday!

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

It's OK! President Ahmadinejad already has the REAL culprits pinned! You'll never guess who it was!

I was expecting that to come up sooner or later. Expected it to come from somebody like Ted Rall though.

 

[USMCDevilDog]

Wait, they blamed the bombing on us?

 

[theim]

Wait, they blamed the bombing on us?

And the Jooooooos of course.

 

[Annie]

Interesting bit:

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5911

Many Sunnis see Iran behind Iraq shrine blast
Fri. 24 Feb 2006

Iran Focus

London, Feb. 24 – The London-based Arabic-language website Elaph carried a report suggesting that Iran’s notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security may have been behind Wednesday’s bombing of a holy Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra, which destroyed the golden dome of the Askariyain shrine, the resting place of two revered Shiite Imams.

On Friday, several prominent Sunni Muslim groups in Iraq pointed the finger at Iran for being involved in attacks on more than 150 Sunni mosques across Iraq in an attempt to flare sectarian divisions in the country.

The deputy governor of Saladin Province, where Samarra is situated, announced that the attackers were wearing Iraqi Interior Ministry uniforms. Iraq’s Interior Minister, a senior official in the Iran-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has been stripped of his authority after United States forces discovered that he was running secret torture chambers in collusion with Iran’s intelligence ministry.

The Iraqi National Accord party, headed by former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite, accused the pro-Iran Shiite coalition United Iraqi Alliance and the followers of the firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr of carrying out revenge attacks on Sunni mosques during which over 100 people were left dead.

The Iraqi Islamic Party had a similar position. The party’s secretary general Tareq al-Hashemi told the al-Arabia satellite channel on Thursday, “The Shiite coalition and the followers of Sadr as well as their foreign supporters are behind this aggression”.

Al-Hashemi announced that following the recent surge in anti-Sunni violence Sunni groups would refuse to meet and hold talks with leaders of the Shiite coalition over the composition of the future government of Iraq.

He criticised the stance of the present government and current Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari over the disruptions as “irresponsible” and accused them of “not acting responsibly to control the situation”.

In a separate interview on the popular satellite channel Al-Jazeera, the Iraqi Islamic Party chief said that some 700 “trouble-makers” along with police attacked the party’s office in the southern city of Basra. He accused the police of allowing the crowd to burn their office and declared them to be responsible for the attack.

 

[trobinett]

:shocked:

So when do we hear from Teddy "I`m so confused" Kennedy?

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

Interesting bit:

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5911

It wouldn't be surprising. Iran would have the most to gain from civil war in Iraq. Luckily, it's looking like most Iraqis realize what's going on and will choose to stick together and not give them what they want.