Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Iraq Forces Raid Village in Hostage Crisis

This is an interesting account I want to get back to later.

One clue may be found in the following excerpt.

The area around Madain is populated by a near-equal mix of Shiite and Sunni Muslims, but it also is home to several Sunni Arab tribes that follow the radical Wahhabi brand of Islam.


Updated 2:04 PM ET April 17, 2005

Iraqi security forces raided a town in central Iraq and freed some 15 Shiite families being held hostage on Sunday, an official said, after Sunni militants threatened to kill dozens of captives unless all Shiites left the area.

The government said it was trying to resolve the standoff peacefully, while Shiite lawmakers called for action to stop "terrorist groups from promoting sectarian violence."

Security forces, who had the town of Madain surrounded, began raiding sites Saturday in search of those abducted, said Qassim Dawoud, the minister in charge of national security.

Witnesses said road blocks were set up and no one was allowed to leave or enter the town of about 1,000 families some 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. But shops opened and the streets were calm.

Iraqi forces had freed about 15 Shiite families, said Haidar Khayon, an official at the Defense Ministry in Baghdad. He said five hostage-takers were captured in a skirmish with light gunfire, but no casualties were reported.



Sabah Khadum, an interior ministry adviser, said officials didn't know how many hostages were being held or whether it was a sectarian crisis or merely a tribal dispute. He said the interior and defense ministries hoped to resolve it peacefully.

"The military presence near the city is to control any developments and to protect innocent people," Khadum said in a telephone interview.

Iraq's most feared terror group, meanwhile, accused the Shiite-dominated government of making the whole thing up.

Elsewhere, three American soldiers were killed and seven service members wounded overnight when insurgents fired mortar rounds at a U.S. Marine base near Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, the military said Sunday. Residents said dozens of armed militants had tried to force their way into Camp Blue Diamond, but the U.S. military denied that.

The assault raised to 24 the number of people who died in Iraq on Saturday, including an American civilian who died in a car bomb attack in the capital. The U.S. Embassy said it believed the slain American was Marla Ruzicka of the Washington, D.C.-based human rights group Civic Worldwide, but it was still waiting for DNA results.

Insurgents also killed seven Iraqis in scattered violence around Iraq, including assassinations and drive-by shootings, police said.

The hostage crisis began Thursday when Sunni militants attacked a Shiite mosque with explosives. Haitham Husseini, a spokesman for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's largest Shiite group, said the mosque was badly damaged. The next day, Husseini said about 100 masked militants drove through Madain, capturing Shiites. Shiite leaders and government officials estimated 35 to 100 people were taken hostage.

A resident reached by telephone said the militants had returned early Saturday, shouting through loudspeakers that all Shiites must leave or the hostages would be killed. Later, residents said the town appeared calm and there was no sign of insurgents. Some said they had seen no evidence any hostages had been taken. The conflicting accounts could not be reconciled.

Other retaliatory kidnappings by Sunni and Shiite groups have occurred in the violent, ethnically mixed region, but the abductions appeared to be the first attempt by insurgents to forcibly evacuate a town along sectarian lines.

Dawoud told Iraqi legislators in Baghdad on Sunday that Iraqi soldiers, police and U.S. forces were sent to Madain on Saturday afternoon. "Our plan is by the end of this week we are going to launch a military operation in this area." The U.S. military said it had no information about a U.S. role in the deployment.

The area around Madain is populated by a near-equal mix of Shiite and Sunni Muslims, but it also is home to several Sunni Arab tribes that follow the radical Wahhabi brand of Islam. Some Iraqis blame growing Islamic extremism in the area on Saddam Hussein's policy of settling Sunnis in several towns just south of Baghdad after a 1991 Shiite uprising against the former regime.

Sunnis make up about 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million population, but were dominant under Saddam. Since U.S.-led forces drove him from power two years ago, the disempowered Sunnis are believed to form the backbone of the ongoing insurgency, fearing a loss of influence to majority Shiites.

On Sunday, the militant group Al-Qaida in Iraq posted a statement on an Islamic Web site known for its militant content, saying that the "enemies of God" had fabricated the story of the hostage crisis to justify a military attack on Madain aimed at Sunnis. It claimed Iraqi security forces have removed some Sunnis from their homes and taken them from the town. The statement could not be verified.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Iraq's new parliament met Sunday and agreed that a five-member committee, including Dawoud, will study the crisis and make recommendations. In a speech to the assembly, Dawoud said: "We have to acknowledge the truth that there is an attempt to draw the country into a sectarian war."

Shiite legislator Shirwan Al-Waili told parliament the kidnappers must be stopped.

"What is going on in Madain is targeting the unity of the Iraqi people. Some kidnapped families could be killed if all Shiites don't leave the village. We can't just denounce this. We must intervene," he said.

Legislator Jala Aldin al-Saghir, a senior Shiite cleric, said: "We have warned repeatedly that sectarian cleansing was going on in this area, but the security forces took no action."

Outgoing interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi condemned the kidnappers for carrying out "dirty atrocities" aimed at undermining Iraq's democratic reforms by whipping up sectarian hatred. In a statement, Allawi urged Shiites and Sunnis to ignore the extremists.

The Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, which controls 140 seats in Iraq's 275-member National Assembly, issued a statement saying it was "extremely worried" about the hostage crisis and urged the government to stop terrorist groups from promoting sectarian violence.

A new Cabinet had been expected to be announced in parliament Sunday. But Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite leader, said Saturday that he needed more time to discuss the allocation of portfolios, including how to bring in members of the Sunni minority, many of whom boycotted Iraq's Jan. 30 national elections or stayed home for fear of attacks at the polls.


Associated Press writers Jamie Tarabay, Qasim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report from Baghdad.

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=050417&cat=frontpage&st=frontpageap200504...