Security forces in Iraq have arrested two men after finding two cars laden with bombs amid warnings from clerics that Saddam Hussein loyalists or Al Qaeda members will strike over the next two days, officals said Monday. The men were arrested after cars they were travelling in were found loaded with explosives, according to security spokesmen outside the Masjed al-Kufah mosque in the city of Kufah, some 180 kilometres south of Baghdad. "We found the seats (in one car stopped Sunday) were not well designed and had new covers. This raised our suspicion and we searched the seats and found them filled with bombs," a policemen who requested anonymity told AFP. "Yesterday we seized the same kind of car filled with bombs," he said, adding that that car was driven by two men from Yemen.
| "See? See? They ain't Soddies! Toldja so! Ain't no damn Soddies boomin' Iraq... |
The two men detained Monday were from the southern Iraqi city of Basra, he said. The remains of Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim, murdered in a huge car bomb in nearby Najaf Friday that killed at least 82 others, were due to arrive later Monday.
| All they found of the poor guy was one hand and his nose. Were they gonna blow that up, too? |
Inside the mosque, clerics were calling on loudspeakers for people to "open their eyes" because "Saddam Hussein's followers and Al Qaeda will try today or tomorrow to make large explosions" in Kufah. Hakim's remains are expected to be kept here until Tuesday at the Masjed al-Kufah mosque, considered the oldest outside Saudi Arabia. He was set to be buried in nearby Najaf, 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of the capital. Tens of thousands of mourners turned out in Baghdad on Sunday for the start of Hakim's three-day funeral procession. |