The Muslim pilgrims' road to the holy city of Karbala was a highway of
bullets and bombs for Shiites on Friday. Drive-by shootings and roadside and bus
bombs killed or wounded 19 people, ratcheting up the sectarian tensions gripping
Iraq.
Iraqi Shiites offer Friday prayer
at the Imam Hussein holy shrine in Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south
of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, March 17, 2006. Tens of thousands of devout
Shiites are converging on Karbala for March 20, 2006, celebration of
Arbaeen, marking the end of the 40-day mourning period after the date of
the death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, killed in
Karbala in 680 A.D. In view of this, authorities have imposed a six-day
driving ban in the city, starting Thursday in a bid to protect pilgrims
from any attacks. [AP] |
Security
forces, including US armored reinforcements, girded for more bloodshed leading
up to Monday's Shiite holiday. And north of Baghdad, in the Sunni Triangle, a
two-day-old operation involving 1,500 US and Iraqi troops swept through an area
near Samarra in search of insurgents.
It was in Samarra that the insurgent bombing of a Shiite shrine last month
ignited days of violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. More than 500 people
died.
Authorities had feared new attacks as tens of thousands of Shiites, many
dressed in black and carrying religious banners, converge on Karbala, 50 miles
south of the capital, for Monday's 40th and final day of mourning for Imam
Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson.
The US military announced this week it was dispatching a fresh battalion of
the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, about 700 troops, to Iraq from its base
in Kuwait to provide extra security for Shiite holy cities and Baghdad during
this period.
Friday's bloodshed in Baghdad began as groups of faithful, many of them
parents with children in tow, trekked down city streets headed for the
southbound highway to Karbala.
At about 7:30 a.m., a BMW sedan driving alongside pilgrims in the western
district of Adil opened fire, killing three young men and wounding two other
people, police Lt. Thair Mahmoud said. Police later reported a second shooting,
also in western Baghdad, in which men riding in a car fired on pilgrims near Um
al-Tuboul Square, wounding three.
Then, about midday, a bomb left in a plastic bag of vegetables exploded on a
minibus, killing two passengers and wounding four in a Shiite district of
Baghdad, police reported. Later in the day, a roadside bomb went off as a crowd
of pilgrims passed in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, wounding five people.
Elsewhere, police in a Shiite area of east Baghdad late Thursday found the
bodies of four Sunni men who had been seized from a taxi by masked gunmen the
day before in western Baghdad. And police reported that six mortar rounds landed
on six houses Friday in a mixed Sunni-Shiite area of Khan Bani Saad, 10 miles
north of Baghdad, killing one person and wounding three.
In the western city of Ramadi, US forces again exchanged fire with attackers.
The clashes between US troops and insurgents began about 6:30 p.m. Friday around
the US base at the provincial government headquarters, according to a doctor at
Ramadi hospital, Dheya al-Duleimi. He had no immediate information on
casualties.
Iraqi troops killed one attacker in a firefight with insurgents in nearby
Fallujah, police Lt. Omer Ahmed reported.
In the big helicopter-borne operation north of Baghdad, only light resistance
was reported as some 1,500 troops from the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and
Iraq's 4th Division swept through a 100-square-mile area in search of insurgents
and weapons.
Lt. Col. Edward Loomis, 101st Airborne Division spokesman, said about 40
suspects were detained, 10 of whom were later released, and six weapons caches
were found.
The only casualty reported was a 101st Airborne soldier shot and killed
Thursday while manning an observation post in Samarra. At least 2,312 members of
the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003,
according to an Associated Press count.
"Operation Swarmer," described as the largest air assault operation in three
years, was focused on an area of Salahuddin province that was a stronghold of
Sunni support for Saddam Hussein's ousted regime.
Speaking by video conference with Pentagon reporters, the US
second-in-command here, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, stressed that the majority of
troops in the operation were Iraqi. He said the goal is to have Iraqi security
forces in control of 75 percent of Iraq by this summer.
The US command has sought to spotlight development of Iraqi military
potential. As Iraqi forces improve, American officials say, US forces in Iraq
can be reduced.
Iraqi political leaders, meanwhile, met in another round of talks to break
the Sunni-Shiite logjam over the makeup of a new government. They emerged after
two hours with no breakthroughs to report.
Minority factions are trying to prevent majority Shiites, the biggest bloc in
the new parliament, from dominating the major jobs — prime minister and defense
and interior ministers.
Representatives of the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs said that on Friday
they discussed formation of a National Security Council, a compromise proposal
for a joint body to oversee the defense and interior ministries.
More meetings are needed, they said. Tarek al-Hashimi, of the Sunni bloc's
Iraqi Accordance Front, said the country faced "a dangerous political dilemma."
His Kurdish counterpart, Barham Saleh, said the sectarian crisis runs "much
deeper" than the dispute over a Shiite effort to name acting Prime Minister
Ibrahim al-Jaafari as the future government chief.
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told The Associated Press on Friday that talks
were under way about when he would meet with Iranian officials to discuss the
Iraqi political situation. The talks should be held in Baghdad, Khalilzad said.
Iran's Shiite leadership has considerable influence among Iraq's Shiite
groups.