July 10, 2006
Sectarian Clashes
Baghdad Erupts in Mob Violence
By KIRK SEMPLE
BAGHDAD, July 9 — A mob of gunmen went on a brazen daytime rampage
through a predominantly Sunni Arab district of western Baghdad on
Sunday, pulling people from their cars and homes and killing them in
what officials and residents called a spasm of revenge by Shiite
militias for the bombing of a Shiite mosque on Saturday. Hours later,
two car bombs exploded beside a Shiite mosque in another Baghdad
neighborhood in a deadly act of what appeared to be retaliation.
While Baghdad has been ravaged by Sunni-Shiite bloodletting in recent
months, even by recent standards the violence here on Sunday was
frightening, delivered with impunity by gun-wielding vigilantes on the
street. In the culture of revenge that has seized Iraq, residents all
over the city braced for an escalation in the cycle of retributive
mayhem between the Shiites and Sunnis that has threatened to expand into
civil war.
The violence coincided with an announcement by American military
officials that they had formally accused four more American soldiers of
rape and murder, and a fifth soldier of "dereliction of duty" for
failing to report the crimes, in connection with the deaths of a teenage
Iraqi girl and three members of her family.
With movement in Baghdad difficult after a military cordon was
established to suppress the violence, facts were hard to ascertain. The
death toll from the shootings alone ranged from fewer than a dozen,
according to the American military, to more than 40 reported by some
news services. The bombing near the mosque later claimed at least 19
lives and left 59 wounded, officials said.
The military's announcement about the soldiers brought to six the number
implicated in the rape-murder, one more than previously disclosed. The
case has enraged Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and led to
apologies by the highest American military and civilian officials in
Iraq. A photograph of the girl's passport distributed by news agencies
on Sunday showed that she was 14.
Only seven weeks old, Mr. Maliki's government is facing increasingly
difficult obstacles. Worsening violence has undermined his intention to
disarm the country's sectarian militias. At the same time, the growing
furor over criminal accusations against American troops has tested Mr.
Maliki's divided loyalties to his American allies and to an Iraqi public
that has grown weary of the American presence.
The killings on Sunday in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Jihad
began in late morning, near the site of a car bomb explosion in front of
a Shiite mosque on Saturday, residents and officials said. Initial
reports said the bombing had killed three people, but the American
military said Sunday that at least 12 people, including 3 children, had
died in the blast, and at least 18 had been wounded.
According to some residents and Sunni Arab officials interviewed by
telephone, the gunmen, whom they accused of being members of a feared
Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army, set up checkpoints around the
neighborhood, indiscriminately pulled scores of Sunni Arabs from their
homes and cars and killed them on the street. Other bodies were found
with their hands bound behind their backs and gunshots in their heads,
residents said.
But as often happens in Iraq, accounts of the violence varied widely.
Residents and some Iraqi officials said in interviews that more than 35
people had been killed in the attacks. The Associated Press quoted Lt.
Maitham Abdul-Razzaq of the Iraqi police as saying that 41 bodies had
been taken to hospitals. And an official at Yarmouk Hospital, the main
medical center in western Baghdad, said in a telephone interview that at
least 23 bodies had been delivered from Jihad, and 10 people had arrived
wounded from the shootings.
But American and some Iraqi security officials said the casualty figures
were far lower. Lt. Col. Jonathan B. Withington, spokesman for the
Fourth Infantry Division, which oversees security around Baghdad, said
the Iraqi police had reported finding only 11 bodies. It was unclear
whether that toll included victims delivered to the morgue.
American and Iraqi security officials also said they could not confirm
the accounts of the seemingly arbitrary street killings, and Colonel
Withington said the Iraqi security forces were mobilized immediately
after reports of "sporadic gunfire" in Jihad. By early afternoon, Iraqi
and American forces had sealed off the neighborhood, officials said.
Several prominent Sunni Arab political and religious leaders criticized
the Iraqi and American security forces for their inability to control
the violence. In comments broadcast on Al Jazeera, Salam al-Zubaie, a
deputy prime minister and a Sunni, called the events in Jihad "a real
massacre," and suggested that the country's Shiite-led security forces
were to blame because they had been infiltrated by militiamen. The
government forces, he said, "coordinate with these filthy terror groups
who are roaming the streets."
Mr. Maliki's office, in a statement, tried to distance itself from Mr.
Zubaie's comments, saying "they do not represent the government's point
of view." Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, has vowed to crack down on militias
regardless of sectarian affiliation and to eradicate militia influence
from the government's security forces.
In recent days, American and Iraqi troops have conducted several
operations against the powerful Mahdi Army militia, which is loosely
under the control of the influential Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and
is regarded by Sunni Arab leaders as a main force behind many sectarian
reprisal killings. Iraqi and American forces captured two Mahdi Army
leaders on Friday and raided a suspected militia bastion on Saturday.
Some Jihad residents and Sunni Arab leaders accused the Mahdi Army of
committing the killings on Sunday, but officials in Mr. Sadr's
organization denied that. "The Mahdi Army takes care of the national
interest," Abdel Hadi al-Daraji, a spokesman for Mr. Sadr, told Al
Jazeera. Mr. Sadr joined other government leaders in publicly calling
for calm, and he requested an emergency session of Parliament to discuss
the crisis and "prevent a sea of blood," his office said in a statement.
President Jalal Talabani warned Iraqis against falling prey to "acts of
violence that some want to look sectarian."
Militias of all stripes appeared to be bracing for fallout from the
morning's attacks. Mahdi Army fighters interviewed by telephone said
they were preparing for a wider battle. Mahdi militiamen had set up
checkpoints in the city's predominantly Shiite neighborhoods and,
according to residents, were preparing for Sunni reprisals. A Mahdi Army
platoon commander who identified himself only as Sheik Faleh said, "If
anything happens, we will attack."
Later in the day, the deadly double-car bombing next to a Shiite mosque
in Kasra, a mixed neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad, also seemed
intended to stoke sectarian fury.
Seven people were killed and at least eight wounded in various insurgent
attacks around Kirkuk, including a bomb that exploded in a bus, killing
one civilian and wounding seven, the police said. In Samarra, gunmen
assassinated a top official in the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni
organization, and two of his guards, the police said, while in Karbala,
a police captain was killed.
The American command here said an American soldier was killed early on
Sunday in the greater Baghdad area in a "noncombat-related incident,"
but did not elaborate.
In the rape-murder case, the American military did not identify the five
newly accused soldiers, who remain on active duty in Iraq. The first to
be implicated was Steven D. Green, a recently discharged private first
class arrested June 30 in North Carolina on suspicion of participating
in the crimes on March 12.
A affidavit filed in the case against Mr. Green implicated five
soldiers: Mr. Green; three soldiers who accompanied him to the farmhouse
in the town of Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, where investigators
say the rape and murders took place; and another soldier who remained at
a checkpoint.
But the new accusations, made Saturday and disclosed Sunday, indicate
that another soldier was also inside the farmhouse at the time of the
crimes, according to a military official who requested anonymity because
he was not authorized to publicly discuss such details.
The soldier who has been accused of dereliction of duty is, according to
the military statement on Sunday, "not alleged to have been a direct
participant in the rape and killings," suggesting that it was the
soldier who was aware of the plan but stayed at the checkpoint.
The formal accusations against the five soldiers set in motion the
military's court-martial process. According to military officials, the
soldiers will now face an investigation under Article 32 of the Uniform
Code of Military Justice, a process similar to a grand jury hearing,
which will determine whether enough evidence exists to put the men on trial.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Khalid al-Ansary, Khalid
W. Hassan, Hosham Hussein, Mona Mahmoud, Qais Mizher, Sahar Nageeb, Omar
al-Neami and Iraqi employees of The New York Times in Baghdad, Kirkuk
and Tikrit.
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