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| Iraq-Jordan |
| 25 dead in response to Zark's call to arms |
| 2005-09-17 |
| Insurgents staged a series of suicide bombings and ambushes on Friday that left at least 25 people dead across Iraq, including an attack on a crowd of Shiites leaving a mosque after weekly prayers. The strikes were the latest in a string of attacks on Shiites that began Wednesday, when 150 people were killed in at least a dozen bombings in Baghdad. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia claimed responsibility, and an audio recording posted on the Internet that purports to be from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist, declared a "full-scale war without mercy" on Shiites in Iraq. In Friday's attack on the worshipers, a car bomber blew himself up outside Al Rasol al Atham mosque in Tuz Khurmato, 130 miles north of Baghdad. Thirteen were killed and 28 injured, said Azad Khorshid, a local doctor. He said most were followers of Moktada al-Sadr, the rebel Shiite cleric. Shortly after, another bomber tried to blow himself up, but he was captured, according to Razkar Abdulah, a local police officer. Mr. Abdulah said the man identified himself to the police as a Saudi. In Baghdad, insurgents fired from a car at a group of Shiite day laborers at 7:30 a.m., killing 2 and injuring 12, an Interior Ministry official said. It was the second attack here this week on poor Iraqis who come from the south to earn as little as $4 a day in tea shops and on construction sites. On Wednesday, 114 were killed by a bomb after they were lured to a minivan with promises of work. Mr. Zarqawi's group has said that Wednesday's coordinated attacks were in retaliation for a large-scale military offensive last week in Tal Afar, a northern city that had been controlled by insurgents for months. The military said it had killed about 150 rebels during the offensive. At Friday Prayer, Shiite leaders across Iraq condemned the recent attacks, as well as Mr. Zarqawi's declaration of war. The office of Mr. Sadr, whose informal army fought American troops twice last year, issued a statement denouncing them. Sunni leaders had milder criticism. A group of Sunni Arab religious leaders, the Muslim Scholars Association, known for its opposition to the American occupation, said they opposed Mr. Zarqawi's declaration of war against Shiites, because Iraqi civilians were not responsible for "the sins" of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's government. Also in Baghdad, a Transportation Ministry official and a religious leader identified as Sheik Fadhal al-Lami were killed in separate drive-by shootings on Friday morning. In Haswa, just south of Baghdad, three police officers were killed when a car bomb exploded near their convoy shortly before 10 a.m. Another three officers were wounded. In Iskandariya, 37 miles south of Baghdad, men raided the house of a town official early on Friday, shooting dead the official, Amer al-Khafagi, and four of his bodyguards. Insurgents have said they consider any Iraqi cooperating with the American effort a traitor. An American marine was killed in what the Marines said was an "indirect fire explosion" in Ramadi, a city west of Baghdad in the Sunni Arab province of Anbar. The American military also said it had captured a senior leader in the Ansar al-Sunna terrorist group in the northern city of Mosul. And south of Haditha, a city along the Euphrates River valley in Anbar Province, the military said it had conducted airstrikes against a complex of 12 buildings, where troops had discovered a vehicle rigged with a suicide bomb. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |