Foreign Correspondence

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Sunnis Demand Shiites Leave Iraqi Town


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To head off this threat of a Shi'ite clergy-driven religious movement, the US has, according to Asia Times Online investigations, resolved to arm small militias backed by US troops and entrenched in the population to "nip the evil in the bud".

Asia Times Online has learned that in a highly clandestine operation, the US has procured Pakistan-manufactured weapons, including rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, ammunition, rockets and other light weaponry. Consignments have been loaded in bulk onto US military cargo aircraft at Chaklala airbase in the past few weeks. The aircraft arrived from and departed for Iraq.

The US-armed and supported militias in the south will comprise former members of the Ba'ath Party, which has already split into three factions, only one of which is pro-Saddam Hussein. They would be expected to receive assistance from pro-US interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National Accord.

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Sunnis Demand Shiites Leave Iraqi Town

Updated 5:15 PM ET April 16, 2005

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By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Masked Sunni militants attacked a mosque in central Iraq and threatened to kill dozens of Shiite hostages unless all Shiites left town, potentially enflaming sectarian divides, while at least 17 people were killed Saturday in separate attacks nationwide after a week of increased violence in Iraq.

Iraqi security forces were deployed to the central town of Madain to contain the situation, said Qassem Dawoud, Iraq's minister in charge of national security.

In southeastern Iraq, 11 detainees angry over their treatment by U.S. captors broke out of Camp Bucca, the military's largest detention center in the nation by climbing through a hole in the fence. Ten were recaptured, and authorities were searching for the remaining escapee, the U.S. military and Iraqi forces said.

Later Saturday, insurgents fired mortars at a U.S. Marine base near Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, the military said, but no casualties were immediately reported.



Residents said dozens of fighters armed with grenade launchers and other weapons were seen moving through the city after dark and loud explosions were heard as the fighters tried to force their way into Camp Blue Diamond.

Two U.S. soldiers also were reported killed in separate attacks. One soldier from the 42nd Military Police Brigade was wounded and died when his convoy was hit Saturday by an explosive device near Taji, north of Baghdad. Another died of injuries sustained when a coalition military base was attacked Friday near Tikrit.

As of Saturday, at least 1,550 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Sunni insurgents repeatedly have sparred with Iraq's security forces in Madain, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, and its outlying districts, populated by a near equal mix of Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

The latest crisis began Thursday when Sunni militants severely damaged a Shiite mosque in Madain with explosives, said Haitham Husseini, a spokesman for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's largest Shiite group.

On Friday, about 100 masked militants drove through town, grabbing Shiite youths and old men, he said. Estimates of the number captured ranged between 35 and 70, Husseini and central government officials said.

A resident reached by telephone said militants returned early Saturday, shouting through loudspeakers that all Shiites must leave or the hostages would be killed. Later, the town appeared calm and there was no sign of insurgents.

Dawoud told al-Arabia television that insurgents loyal to Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Iraq's most feared terrorist group, operated throughout the area and security forces were searching for those abducted.

Iraqi security forces were deployed around the town to contain the situation, a Defense Ministry official said.

Husseini accused the militants of trying to stir up religious strife, but he said Shiites would not retaliate.

However, Sheikh Abdul Hadi al-Darraji, an aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, told al-Jazeera satellite television he did not believe any abductions took place.

Sunnis are believed to comprise as much as 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people, but the minority was the country's dominant group under Saddam Hussein. Since coalition forces drove him out of power in 2003, the Sunnis are believed to be the backbone of the ongoing insurgency.

Many Sunnis boycotted Iraq's Jan. 30 elections for the National Assembly or stayed home for fear of attacks at the polls.

Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite leader, is now trying to put together a Cabinet that includes Sunnis, but talks have stalled over how to do this. The National Assembly was scheduled to meet Sunday, but al-Jaafari said a new government would only be announced later in the week.

"We insist on including all national forces in this government, but we don't expect to please all forces," he told the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.

In Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of the capital, a bomb exploded inside a restaurant often used by Iraqi police, killing nine people, most of them policemen, authorities said. Twelve people were hospitalized in the blast.

A suicide car bomber also attacked a convoy on the road to the airport in Baghdad, killing at least three civilians, including one Iraqi and two foreigners, and wounding three Iraqis and three foreigners, police said. The U.S. military confirmed it was a civilian convoy but had no further details.

Insurgents killed three members of Iraq's security forces in the northern city of Kirkuk, firing from speeding vehicles on soldiers and policemen, police said. A police officer also was shot and killed in the center of Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad.

The 11 detainees who escaped were among 6,000 prisoners at Camp Bucca, which holds nearly two-thirds of all those in Iraq. Police were holding 10 of them until they could be sent back to the facility.

One of the 10 said the group escaped by cutting through a wire fence.

"We decided to flee the prison because of the bad treatment and delay in investigations," 24-year-old Hussein Nima said.

Detention centers have been criticized for holding prisoners indefinitely.

Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill, a U.S. military spokesman, denied the allegations of mistreatment, saying the inmates get three meals a day, access to shower facilities, prayer rugs and a copy of the Quran.

"We provide them with every humane type of care," Rudisill said.

He declined to say why the 11 were being held.

The escape came two days after a melee among prisoners left one detainee dead and injured dozens of others, the U.S. military said. Nima said the fight was between U.S. soldiers and prisoners.
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