Iraqis Stage Mass Demonstrations Against Al Qaeda
BAGHDAD (AP) - Villagers paraded empty coffins at mock funerals near Baghdad on Thursday, in protest of al-Qaida in Iraq attacks that killed as many as 45 people in a single village in recent months.
Hundreds of residents and Muslim sheiks from Dwelah, a Shiite enclave about 45 miles north of Baghdad, held a huge procession in the Bawya area south of the capital because they feared reprisals if they did so in their hometown.
Dust blew through crowded streets as men hoisted flag-draped coffins over their heads, chanting, “We remember the victims!”
Another rally snaked through thoroughfares in Baghdad’s mixed Karradah neighborhood, where Dwelah residents and their Shiite brethren from the capital demanded more protection from the Iraqi government.
“We are holding this symbolic funeral procession for our sons who were killed by Sunni extremists. It all happened because of the government’s ignorance and incompetent local security authorities,” said sheik Ghalib al-Furaiji.
“We call on the prime minister to intervene. Local authorities are concentrating only on Baqouba, and ignoring outlying villages,” he said.
Dwelah is one of several Shiite villages on the northern outskirts of Baqouba, the Diyala provincial capital that has seen some of the war’s harshest fighting.
Protesters on Thursday said Dwelah has come under constant attack by al-Qaida-linked militants, who once claimed Baqouba as the capital of an Islamic shadow government in Iraq.
Iraqi police said at least 13 people were killed Saturday when al-Qaida showered the enclave with mortar rounds and then stormed the streets, torching homes and forcing hundreds of families to flee.
“We denounce this hideous crime by the gangsters against our sons. Those terrorists do not fear God,” said sheik Qassim Hizam al-Bawi, leader of the al-Bawi tribe in Dwelah. “Forty-five of our sons have been killed in attacks like this,” he said.
The U.S. military could not confirm Saturday’s attack. Iraqi ground forces approached Dwelah but came under small arms fire, said Maj. Peggy Kageleiry, a spokeswoman for U.S. forces in northern Iraq.
Meanwhile, the American military issued a statement saying its troops killed three suspected insurgents and captured 19 Thursday in raids targeting al-Qaida in Iraq along the Tigris River valley. One of the operations took place near Dwelah, but was apparently unrelated to recent killings there.
Drive-by shootings killed at least two people, police said, describing separate attacks Thursday in Baghdad and Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of the capital.
One of the dead was a bus driver shuttling female college students to school during the morning rush hour in western Baghdad, police said. One of the girls was wounded.
In Muqdadiyah, suspects gunned down a volunteer guard, police said. Hundreds of mostly Sunni tribesmen have taken to the streets across Iraq in recent months, partnering with U.S. forces in an effort to oust militants from their towns.
Clashes raged early Thursday in southern Baghdad’s Saydiyah neighborhood, and three Iraqi soldiers were wounded there, police said.
The fighting began when Iraqi troops approached a house where militants were believed to be hiding. The suspects tossed hand grenades out from the windows, toward the soldiers outside. Gunfire erupted, and the militants fled the house after about 30 minutes, police said.
Police had no information about insurgent casualties, but said the men were believed to have escaped.
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allyqueeeda is not in Iraq, this is a civil war. Those people will never stop killing each other. We shouldn’t be over there but for that stupid texan and his oil buddies.
>> Just repeating the shit I still hear from fucked in the head d’rats
It is surprising this headline was from AP. I guess once the tide goes over your head you have to deal with it.
December 6th, 2007 at 4:54 amI bet this will never show up on any MSM outlet.
December 6th, 2007 at 4:59 amAnd we know that the only way the Iraqis can ever be in control of their own destiny is to take control of their destiny with demonstrations like this.
Tell AQ to get the hell out of the neighborhood, and then arm yourselves and run them out of the neighborhood.
And what’s this? Iraq to be in a good spot by 2009?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7227.html
Thought you guys would enjoy! Keep up the good work Pat!
December 6th, 2007 at 5:21 am“There is no Al Qaeda In Iraq”- As said from 2003 thru 2005 by Barbara Boxer, Democratic senator from California
December 6th, 2007 at 5:59 amI think its safe to say the Iraqis are on their way to owning their own country for once. i mean freedom (which they have,) no outside influence (AQ), no sectarian violence. I always knew we would win this war somehow because i dont believe the USA can lose. But i have to admit for a while i lost hope that the Iraqi population would claim their own country in this fashion. its amazing really
December 6th, 2007 at 6:35 amPoor old Harry Fucking Weed, things are just getting shitier and shitier for that little cocksucker.
December 6th, 2007 at 7:45 amboxer is such a loser she’s wrong on everything. Bush may come out on top on this one, but he’s really gone off the reservation with bailing out subprime mortgages, going to wreck the financial mkts.
December 6th, 2007 at 8:06 amhey jerkoff, go die with a rag on your head in bviet iraq
death to america
December 6th, 2007 at 7:01 pmAP put this out? Associated (with terrorists) Press?
Shit. Things really must be looking up.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:47 pmI had it sort of explained to me elsewhere. AQ in Iraq is fake AQ. The only real AQ are people who were members of AQ on 9/11. This is how the left gets to have its cake and eat it too. On the one hand, they get to complain that our invasion of Iraq caused the ranks of AQ to grow, while on the other hand they blast us for wasting resources on terrorists that “aren’t really AQ.”
December 8th, 2007 at 5:15 am