/ 18 September 2005

Car bomb kills 30 in another Iraq attack

A car bomb killed at least 30 and wounded 38 on Saturday on the outskirts of Baghdad in what appeared to be the latest attack on Iraq’s majority Shi’ite population, a security official said.

More than 200 Iraqi Shi’ites have been killed this week in attacks by Sunni extremists linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq’s frontman, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Both Sunni and Shi’ite religious leaders have warned the onslaught could trigger a sectarian war between the two communities.

Saturday’s attack occurred at about 7pm in Nahrawan, on the south-eastern outskirts of the capital, as police were concentrating their forces further to the west in a bid to protect Shi’ites on their way to a religious commemoration in the southern city of Karbala.

Hundreds of police commandos and Shi’ite militiamen were lining the main highway from the capital to Karbala to provide protection to tens of thousands of Shi’ite pilgrims, many of whom were making the 110km journey on foot.

Authorities ordered the tighter security ahead of Monday’s commemoration of the birth more than 1 000 years ago of the Shi’ites’ 12th and last imam, Mohammed al-Mehdi, and in the wake of Zarqawi’s threat of all-out war against Shi’ites who now control the government.

On Wednesday, a suicide car bomber killed 112 Shi’ite day labourers in an attack on a Baghdad square where they had gathered to wait for work.

On Friday, 11 Shi’ite worshippers were killed as they left the main weekly prayers in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, in the north of the country.

‘Total war’

In its internet statement on Wednesday, Zarqawi’s group said it was calling for ”total war” against Shi’ites in revenge for a massive assault by United States and Iraqi troops on Sunni insurgents in the northern town of Tal Afar.

But the threat appeared more likely designed to spark a massive Shi’ite backlash against Sunni Arabs, driving them into the arms of the anti-government insurgents.

Zarqawi’s threat has drawn condemnation from the main Sunni clerical body, the Committee of Muslim Scholars, which said it ”plays into the hands of the occupier who wants to split the country and spark a sectarian war”.

In other violence on Saturday, two Sudanese truck drivers ferrying supplies to US forces were killed in west Baghdad and 11 bodies — handcuffed, blindfolded and shot at close range — were found at various locations.

Earlier in the day, another car bomb targeted an Iraqi army patrol in Baquba, north of Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding 17, including three soldiers.

A Shi’ite cleric, Sheikh Mohammed Ali al-Khatab, was shot dead in a market in the predominantly Sunni town of Baiji, 200km north of Baghdad, local police said.

Leaders arrested

US forces, meanwhile, announced the arrest of two al-Qaeda leaders in the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

The US statement said coalition forces raided a suspected al-Qaeda hideout in Mosul on September 5.

Those captured were named as Taha Taha Ibrahim Yasin Becher, known as Abu Fatima and identified as al-Qaeda’s ”emir of Mosul”, and Hamed Saeed Ismael Mustafa, known as Abu Shahed, identified as the organisation’s ”west Mosul emir”.

Iraqi sources said a leader of the al-Qaeda-linked group Ansar al-Sunna was seized near the northern town of Tuz Khurmatu, the scene on Friday of a deadly attack on Shi’ite worshippers.

Iraqi and US forces captured Noman Mohammed, ”one of the most important Ansar as-Sunna leaders in northern Iraq”, Colonel Mohammed Fatah said.

Fatah said 700kg of explosives and mortar rounds were found at the site of the arrest.

Syria criticised

US officials have also stepped up their criticism of Syria for failing to do more to seal its borders to Arab volunteers seeking to infiltrate Iraq.

US commanders say they killed or captured a significant number of foreign fighters in Tal Afar who had turned the town into a staging post for volunteers who had slipped across the Syrian border to the west.

”Innocent people are getting blown up in Iraq because Syria is allowing its territory to be used by terrorists bent on sowing murder and mayhem in Iraq and they’re not going to succeed,” said US State Department spokesperson Adam Ereli.

Syria has strongly denied turning a blind eye to infiltrators and insists it is ready to cooperate with US and Iraqi government forces in tightening security at the border.

The Syrian embassy in Washington vowed on Thursday ”to do whatever it takes” to seal the border.

The Iraqi Parliament was, meanwhile, preparing to convene on Sunday to give its final seal of approval to a draft Constitution to be put to voters at a referendum next month. — Sapa-AFP