31 Shiite Terrorists Arrested As Crackdown Continues
BAGHDAD - Iraqi police arrested 31 Shiite militants and terrorists Saturday in early morning raids south of Baghdad.
Saturday marked a third day of U.S. and Iraqi operations in an area that includes several Shiite holy cities—raising tension with some Shiite tribesmen and fighters who have pledged to halt attacks. Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered a six-month cease-fire for his Mahdi Army militia, but some members have broken away and violated the pledge, which expires later this month.
U.S. and Iraqi forces say they are targeting rogue, criminal elements of his and other militias. But several Shiite imams, during Friday prayers, suggested Iraqi forces were taking advantage of the cease- fire to crack down on rival groups.
Al-Sadr has threatened not to extend his cease-fire unless the government purges rival Shiite militiamen he alleges have infiltrated the security forces and are targeting his followers.
Fifteen of Saturday’s arrests took place in Karbala, a Shiite holy city 50 miles south of Baghdad, where Shiite Islam’s two most revered saints are buried. Another 16 men were arrested in a Sadrist area of Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of the capital, police said.
Rahman Mshawi, spokesman for Karbala police, said four of the Karbala suspects are members of the Iraq-based People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, or Mujahedeen Khalq.
The group was founded in the late 1960s and fled to Iraq in the early after it fell out with the clerical regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. During Saddam Hussein’s rule, the movement used Iraq as a base for operations against Iran’s government.
Thousands of its members remain in Iraq, and both the U.S. and Iraq consider the Khalq a terrorist organization.
In addition to the Khalq members, Mshawi said five others detained Saturday belong to a Shiite cult group. He did not elaborate or give details about the group. The remaining six suspects were “wanted men,” Mshawi said.
Meanwhile, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani traveled Saturday to Najaf, another Shiite holy city south of Baghdad, to meeting with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most prominent cleric. It was unclear whether the meeting was scheduled in light of the recent Shiite arrests. Talabani was expected to hold a news conference later Saturday.
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“four of the Karbala suspects are members of the Iraq-based People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, or Mujahedeen Khalq”.
This organization is a cluster fuck of contradictions… I did some reading about them, these Islamic-Socialist have quite a strange history! They’re close ties in the Clinton administration could become an important factor in this election I would imagine?
They even got a website: http://www.english.mojahedin.org/pagesEn/index.aspx
February 9th, 2008 at 5:12 am