Al-Madaen is also the name of the Sheik that was assasinated.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Top Shiite cleric's aide assassinated Al-Sistani's representative says the Jan. 30 election will go on.
By NANCY A. YOUSSEF Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, IRAQ – Assassins killed an aide to the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential religious leader, the cleric's office said Thursday. The killing was sure to further aggravate tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims as elections scheduled for Jan. 30 draw near.
Sheik Mahmoud al-Madaen, his son and four bodyguards were leaving a mosque late Wednesday night when they were ambushed in Salman Pak, a town southeast of Baghdad.
The sheik was Shiite; the town is predominantly Sunni. All six men were killed.
Shiites have endured several major assaults in the past month, and many suspect that Sunni insurgency groups opposed to the election are leading the attacks. In some cases, Sunni groups have taken responsibility for the violence.
For many, al-Sistani - who has insisted on holding the vote as scheduled despite calls for postponement because of the violent insurgency - has been the face of the elections.
Although he isn't a candidate, his picture appears on posters for the major Shiite party slate, the United Iraqi Alliance, and he has called voting in the elections a religious duty.
After al-Madaen was assassinated, Sistani's representatives said the elections must proceed.
"The election will go on, and it will not be affected by the assassinationof the sheik or by the explosions that happen here and there," an official in al-Sistani's office in Najaf said.
Earlier this month, a car bomber drove through a checkpoint and detonated his explosives near interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's headquarters, killing three people and injuring 12 others. Allawi is running on the Iraqi National Accord slate as a secular Shiite.
Last month, a car bomb struck the home of the leading United Iraqi Alliance candidate, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, killing nine Iraqis. Al-Hakim escaped harm.
Before that, twin car bombs exploded in the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala during Friday prayers, killing nearly 70 people.
Also Thursday, 10 assailants sprayed gunfire at a minibus picking up a Turkish businessman from a Baghdad hotel Thursday, killing six Iraqis and kidnapping the Turk, who reportedly ran a construction firm working with Americans.
In Fallujah, U.S. officials began handing out $200 per family to returning residents, two months after coalition forces attacked the city in an effort to rid it of insurgents.
The money was to go for reconstruction, but only a fraction of the city's 300,000 people have returned; many have said the city - along with their homes - was destroyed in the attack.
At the city's western entrance, hundreds lined up to collect their cash, which was being handed out by U.S. soldiers. Some thought the money would make for a good start for them; others said it wasn't enough.
Gurjia Faiad, 50, was among those waiting to collect. She said her husband had disappeared during the conflict and is presumed dead.
"I have eight orphan daughters, and my house is destroyed. This amount could help me for this month," she said.
Locals, the Association of Muslim Scholars, and a spokesman for Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr, Abdul Hadi Al-Darraji or all sides are saying this is false information or a huge exaggeration.
Al-Madaen is about 40 km (25 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
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.
MADAIN, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. military, swept into a town south of Baghdad at dawn Monday but found no hostages despite reports that Sunni militants had kidnapped as many as 100 Shiites there.
Residents and Sunni clerics said the reports had been grossly exaggerated by government officials bent on re-establishing control in the lawless region the U.S. military has called the "Triangle of Death" because it has become a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency.
Meanwhile, Iraq's most powerful Shiite bloc wants former leader Saddam Hussein put to death if he is convicted of war crimes by a special tribunal, and if the interim president won't sign the execution order, he should resign, an alliance spokesman told The Associated Press on Monday.
"We feel he is a criminal. He is the No. 1 criminal in the world. He is a murderer," said Ali al-Dabagh, a lawmaker from the Shiite clergy-led United Iraq Alliance. "He deserves a trial, and he should be subjected to the law and the court. Whatever the decision, everyone should follow it, even if the president says he cannot sign it."
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Monday that he likely would abstain from signing an execution order because of his opposition to the death penalty.
Talabani also told the BBC that the ongoing insurgency could be halted if Iraq used militias such as those consisting of Kurds and Shiite Muslims.
"In my opinion, Iraqi forces, the popular forces and government forces, are now ready to end the insurgency and end this terrorism," he told the BBC.
In Madain, an AP photographer joined hundreds of police who entered the town, deploying on rooftops and moving in vehicles and on foot. There was no resistance and no captives were found in the agricultural town of about 1,000 families, evenly divided between Shiites and Sunnis.
National Security Minister Qassim Dawoud warned Parliament on Sunday of attempts to draw the country into sectarian war. Addressing legislators Monday, he pledged to "chase down terror everywhere."
He said Iraqi forces had discovered rooms full of mines, ammunition and car-bombmaking equipment in Madain. Six completed car bombs were found and were being defused, he said. A number of suspected insurgents also were detained.
A correspondent for Al-Arabiya television, embedded with Iraqi forces, reported that six Iraqi police and special forces brigades participated in the Madain operation.
Fewer than 200 American troops were providing air cover, medical evacuation services and a quick reaction force, which would only be sent in if needed, the U.S. military said. Streets were largely deserted.
Iraqi police and special forces searched farms and orchards. At one farm, they found stolen cars, bomb-making equipment and instructions on how to use weapons, the AP photographer said.
The confusion over what happened in Madain illustrated how quickly rumors spread in a country of deep ethnic and sectarian divides. Poor telephone communications and the difficulty of traveling between towns because of daily attacks on the roads make it difficult even for government officials to establish facts.
A Defense Ministry official, Haidar Khayon, said early Sunday that Iraqi forces raided the town, freed about 15 Shiite families and captured five hostage-takers in a skirmish with light gunfire. He said there were no casualties in what was described as a tense standoff in which Sunni militants threatened to kill their Shiite captives if all other Shiites did not leave town.
By the end of the day, however, Iraqi officials had produced no hostages and Iraqi military officials and police who provided information about the troubles could not be reached for further details.
Sheikh Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi, a spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, an organization of Sunni clerics, denied to Al-Jazeera television that hostages were taken.
The country's most-feared insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq, also denied there had been any hostage-taking in a statement Sunday on an Islamic Web site known for its militant content. The group, headed by the Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the incident was a fabrication by the "enemies of God" to justify a military attack on Madain aimed at Sunnis.
An Associated Press Television News cameraman toured the town Sunday morning and saw no signs of unrest. People were going about their business normally, shops were open and tea houses were full, he said. Residents contacted by telephone also said everything was normal.
On Thursday, Shiite leaders claimed Sunni militants had seriously damaged a town mosque in a bomb attack. The next day, the Shiites said, masked militants drove through town, capturing Shiite residents and threatening to kill them unless all Shiites left.
Shiite leaders and government officials initially estimated 35-100 people were taken hostage, but residents disputed that, with some saying they had seen no evidence any captives were taken.
Security forces began raiding sites Saturday in search of those abducted, Dawoud said.
On the issue of Saddam's fate, Talabani told the BBC that signing a death warrant would go against his beliefs as a human rights advocate and opponent of capital punishment.
He said he may abstain from having to sign any such document and leave the decision to his two deputies.
"I personally signed a call for ending execution throughout the world. And I'm respecting my signature," Talabani told the BBC.
Al-Dabagh, a member of the Shiite majority long oppressed under Saddam's rule, said Saddam's execution was not negotiable.
"This is something that cannot be discussed at all. If the court says he's a criminal, we will follow it," al-Dabagh said. "He (Talabani) is now the president, and he should follow the law. If he doesn't want to sign it, then he should resign the presidency."
Saddam and his top lieutenants will be tried before the Iraqi Special Tribunal established in late 2003. The tribunal has given no official dates for starting the trials, although national security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie said recently that Saddam could be tried by Dec. 31.
The death penalty was reintroduced in Iraq in August 2004 for crimes including murder, endangering national security and drug trafficking. But it is only meant to be a temporary measure in the effort to stamp out the country's insurgency.
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.
At least 33 people died over the weekend in insurgent violence, including four U.S. soldiers and a 28-year-old American aid worker identified as Marla Ruzicka, the founder of a group trying to determine the number of civilian casualties in Iraq.
On Monday, two Iraqi policemen were killed and six injured when a roadside bomb exploded as their two patrol vehicles drove through Basra in southern Iraq, police Capt. Alaa Hasan said.
Talabani told the BBC that Iraqi security forces could start replacing coalition troops soon if militias were used. The government has rejected offers by the Kurds to use tens of thousands of Peshmerga guerrillas and by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq to use its Badr brigade of fighters, the BBC reported.
"There is a kind of thinking inside the outgoing interim government that they must not use them," Talabani said. "We cannot wait for years and years of terrorist activity because we haven't enough government forces."
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