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Al Qaeda's Dirty Work in Iraq is peaking up - Allawi attacked, 50 Shias and Iraqi Troops killed
For days, Iraq was shaken by claims that Sunni Muslim militants had abducted as many as 100 Shiites from an area at the tip
of Iraq's "Triangle of Death."
Shiite leaders and government officials warned of a major sectarian conflict, only to see the reports evaporate when Iraqi
security forces swept through the area and found no hostages.
But on Wednesday Iraq's interim president said he had proof of the abductions: 50 bodies recovered from the Tigris River.
In Haditha, 140 miles northwest of
Baghdad, taxi drivers Rauf Salih and Ousama Halim said they heard gunshots and rushed to the stadium. There they found 19
bloodied bodies lined up against a wall, the two men and an Iraqi reporter said. All appeared to have been gunned down.
Residents said they believed the victims - all men in civilian clothes - were soldiers abducted by insurgents as they headed
home for a holiday. Another 50 bodies were fished out of the Tigris river. They are feared to be those Shias kidnapped in
the town of Al Madain (The Cities) four days back. Al Madain is populated by Shias, many of whom have mixed Persian and Arab
ancestry. Al Madain was originally the Sassnian capital of Ctesiphon (Teesfoon) which the Arabs overan during their
aggression of Zoroastrian Persia. Even today the Sunnis accuse the Shias of Iraq to be Persians.
(Photo credits : AK
Imgfarm) _____________________________
And northwest of Baghdad, witnesses said 19 bullet-riddled bodies were found slumped against a bloodstained wall in a soccer
stadium in Haditha.
The discoveries came as insurgents unleashed a string of attacks that killed at least nine Iraqis and wounded 21. They
included four suicide car bombs - one of which targeted interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's convoy - and a roadside
explosion in the capital, police said. Allawi escaped unharmed, his spokesman said.
Another blast sent smoke billowing over Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the Iraqi government and foreign
embassies. It was not clear what caused that explosion.
On Thursday morning, a roadside bomb exploded on the highway leading to Baghdad's airport, heavily damaging three SUVs
carrying civilians, police said.
Police Capt. Hamid Ali said two foreigners were killed and three others wounded in the burning vehicles, but officials in the
U.S. military and at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which were investigating the attack, could not immediately confirm that.
The country's most feared terror group, al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility for two of the Baghdad attacks in a series
of statements posted on a militant Web site. It was not possible to verify the claim.
The attacks by the Sunni Muslim-led insurgency came as Iraq's caretaker government met to choose a new Cabinet from the
country's complex mix of Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis. During Saddam Hussein's rule, Sunnis, who make up 15 to 20 percent of
Iraq's 26 million people, dominated.
In Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, taxi drivers Rauf Salih and Ousama Halim said they heard gunshots and rushed to
the stadium. There they found 19 bloodied bodies lined up against a wall, the two men and an Iraqi reporter said. All
appeared to have been gunned down.
Residents said they believed the victims - all men in civilian clothes - were soldiers abducted by insurgents as they headed
home for a holiday.
The reporter did not see any military identification documents on the bodies, and it was not possible to verify the claim. In
October, insurgents ambushed and killed about 50 unarmed Iraqi soldiers as they headed home from a U.S. military training
camp northeast of Baghdad.
The U.S. military said it could not confirm killings at the stadium. The only report American forces had received from
Haditha by late Wednesday was that insurgents ransacked a television and radio station in the area, the military said. The
Iraqi military also had no immediate information.
On Thursday, a bomb exploded on Baghdad's airport road, destroying at least two sports utility vehicles driving in a small
convoy, witnesses said.
The U.S. military said it was investigating a car bomb explosion in Baghdad, but it declined to identify the location where
it had occurred.
Insurgents often use roadside bombs and suicide car bombs to attack U.S. military convoys on the road, one of the most
dangerous in the capital.
Story Credits: AP News
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