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| Iraq's Talabani Says Bodies of Hostages Retrieved | |
| 2005-04-20 | |
| April 20 (Bloomberg) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said the bodies of more than 50 civilian hostages were recovered from the River Tigris today. The killings marked a broadening of the Sunni insurgency from attacks on security forces. ``They were killed and they threw the bodies in the Tigris,'' Talabani, 72, said today at a news conference aired by Qatar-based al-Jazeera television. ``We have the full names of those who were killed and of those criminals who committed those crimes.'' The dead, 57 Shiites abducted by Sunni gunmen from al- Maidan, which lies on the Tigris, 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Baghdad, included women and children, Agence France-Presse reported, citing an unidentified Iraqi police lieutenant-colonel based in Suwayrah. Insurgents have mainly targeted U.S. and Iraqi security forces since the March 2003 U.S-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni. Insurgents shot dead 19 members of the country's National Guard in the town of Haditha, northwest of the capital, Reuters reported today. In one of the largest mass executions carried out by Sunni insurgents, as many as 49 Iraqi Army recruits were found shot dead northeast of Baghdad on Oct. 24. The terrorist group led by al-Qaeda-linked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for those killings and many similar ones. To date, there have been few deliberate attacks on civilians, according to analysts including Stephan Wolff, professor of Middle East politics at the University of Bath and a consultant to the U.K. Foreign Office. ``The insurgency has moved in the direction of a civil war, not in terms of intensity but in terms of who is being affected,'' Wolff said in a telephone interview today from Bath, western England. ``If you look at how the targets have evolved, it's clear they're trying to target Iraqis more than they did before.'' Iraqi politicians and media said on April 15 that Sunni Muslim gunmen were holding up to 100 people captive in al-Maidan. Iraqi soldiers took the town on April 18 and found no hostages, Iraq's interim government said in an e-mailed statement at the time.
``Terrorists committed crimes there and it is not true that there were no hostages, there were,'' Talabani said. The victims were buried in a cemetery in Suwayrah, 40 kilometers west of Baghdad and close to where the bodies were recovered, after police had photographed the victims, AFP said. The killing of the civilians at al-Madain is a direct challenge to the new Shiite dominated government, Wolff said. ``Even with a more or less democratically elected government, the insurgency has not crumbled as some people had hoped it would.'' The United Iraqi Alliance, backed by top Shiite Cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, 75, won the most seats in Iraq's Jan. 30 vote for a 275-seat National Assembly. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, 58, a member of the Shiite Dawa party, which is part of the alliance, was named prime minister On April 7 and may reveal the names of his 31 cabinet members tomorrow, Talabani said today, according to AFP. Jaafari is trying to incorporate Sunnis, who largely boycotted the poll, into the government and the drafting of Iraq's permanent constitution in a bid to quash violence. His government may also extend an amnesty to rebels, to the same end. ``The Shiite population has shown remarkable restraint so far,'' University of Bath's Wolff said. ``The question is now how long they will that last and at what state will they no longer take it,'' | |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 How long can it continue before things start to get really ugly is exactly the question. Badman Z's statement yesterday seems to suggest his people intend to play the sunni sectarian victim of the shia govt. angle to the hilt. Considering recent events in Iran, it's shaping up to be a long and exceptionally hot summer. |
| Posted by: Tkat 2005-04-20 2:39:41 PM |
| #1 This hostage thing could be a blog all by itself. The story keeps changing, and getting wierder. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-04-20 2:25:53 PM |