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Curfew stops bloodshed in Iraq
Baghdad residents stayed off the streets on Friday as the government put the capital under a last-minute daytime curfew to try to stop sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias on the Muslim day of prayer. In a critical test for the Shia-led governments authority and its for its new, US-trained forces after two days of killings, police and Iraqi troops were out in force in Baghdad, turning back those few motorists unaware of the ban on traffic announced overnight. US forces kept a low profile. Reprisal attacks on minority Sunni mosques and more than 130 deaths following Wednesdays suspected Al Qaeda bombing of a Shia shrine have seen the United States and United Nations joining efforts to avert all-out civil war that could wreck US hopes of withdrawing troops and inflame the entire Middle East. Gunmen stormed a house and killed two Shia men and a woman in Latifiya, just outside Baghdad, at dawn on Friday despite the curfew. Two children were wounded in the attack. The streets of the capital were quiet at mid-morning but residents feared the violence could boil over. A spokesman for radical young Shia cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr said his followers planned to march to mosques in his Baghdad stronghold despite the curfew to worship at the weekly midday prayers. In Basra and other cities in the heavily Shia south of Iraq, where the curfew does not apply, weekend activities looked normal and religious leaders said they expected full mosques. Even if the curfew calms passions on the Muslim holy day, Iraqs government will still have to demonstrate it can control Shia militiamen who have been attacking Sunni targets and setting up their own checkpoints in defiance of the state. Sadr and other Shia leaders involved in government have called publicly for calm but their militia forces have been on the streets since the violence erupted on Wednesday. US President George W Bush called for calm and the UN envoy invited all parties to talks on a way out of the gravest crisis Iraq has faced since the US invasion three years ago. Sunni political leaders pulled out of negotiations on forming a government from groups elected in a ballot in December. Senior Iraqi officials said leading clerics including Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, were straining to rein in Shia militants but one said privately he feared even Sistani might be unable to control some gunmen. Posted by: Fred 2006-02-25 |
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