Roadside Bombs Kill Prominent Iraqis
BAGHDAD - Roadside bombs killed the top Shiite official in a volatile area south of Baghdad and an anti-al-Qaida Sunni sheik to the north Thursday as internal power struggles within both Islamic sects threaten to complicate U.S. efforts to stabilize the country.
Abbas Hassan Hamza, a political moderate and the top official in the Iskandariyah district, was killed by a bomb that struck his convoy while he was going to work, a police officer said. Four of his bodyguards also were killed and one was wounded, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution.
Hamza had defected two years ago to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party from the largest Shiite party, now known as the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.
Suspicion for the killing fell on Shiite extremists jockeying for power ahead of expected provincial elections.
Iskandariyah has a volatile mixed population that is about 60 percent Shiite and 40 percent Sunni. The Mahdi Army militia, loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, is active in the area, some 30 miles south of Baghdad. The Sadrists boycotted the previous provincial elections in January 2005, ceding most local leadership posts to Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and other rival groups.
Rising internal violence threatens to plunge the southern Shiite heartland into political turmoil. The tensions pose a dilemma for the U.S. military, which must decide whether to intervene in what essentially is a civil conflict even as critics step up calls to start withdrawing U.S. troops.
Meanwhile, Sheik Muawiya Naji Jbara, the Sunni head of the Salahuddin Tribal Awakening Council, died from head injuries he suffered after a roadside bomb exploded as his convoy traveled near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, said his brother, Marwan Jbara. He said two guards also were wounded.
The blast occurred as the prominent sheik was traveling to an area southwest of Samarra to support the anti-al-Qaida fighters there, a day after 16 members of the council were wounded during clashes with gunmen, according to his brother.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but al-Qaida-linked Sunni insurgents have been fighting back against initiatives promoted by the American military to turn Sunni sheiks against the terror network.
(AP)
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It’s believed to involve Iraq’s two most powerful Shi’ite militias, the Badr Organisation linked to SIIC and Shi’ite cleric Porky al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army
October 4th, 2007 at 4:09 pm“… as critics step up calls to start withdrawing U.S. troops.” Bull. That horse is hobbled. Petraeus has what he wants and needs, and will continue to use it brilliantly.
October 4th, 2007 at 8:06 pm