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| Iraq |
| Suicide bombing kills 36 at Iraqi mosque |
| 2005-10-06 |
| A suicide bomber attacked a mosque packed with Shiite Muslim worshipers marking the first day of Ramadan on Wednesday evening, killing 36 people and wounding 95, Iraqi hospital officials and police said. The Ibn Nama Hilli Mosque in Hillah, south of Baghdad, was full of mourners who had gathered to remember a restaurant owner slain Monday by insurgents. There were conflicting reports about whether the bomber was in a car or on foot, but several witnesses said a man walked into the mosque carrying explosives around his chest and in a bag. The detonation shot fire through the mosque walls and sent bodies and limbs flying into the street, where flags had been hung to celebrate Ramadan, Islam's holiest month, during which observant believers fast from dawn to dusk. The wail of ambulances rang in the streets for more than an hour as medics tried to evacuate the wounded. Ahmed Tahir, a 30-year-old neighbor of the slain restaurant owner, said he had attended the ceremony, finished his prayers and walked out into the street, where he met a friend. As they stood chatting, the mosque exploded. "This is how the terrorists inaugurated this holy month of Ramadan," Tahir said. "But God will not keep silent after this. God's revenge will be severe." The blood bath came on a day when Iraqi politicians moved to quell sectarian tensions by reversing a controversial decision that would have made it harder for Iraq's draft constitution to be defeated in a national referendum Oct. 15. Wrangling over the constitution has driven a wedge between Iraq's Sunni Arabs, many of whom oppose the charter, and Shiites and Kurds, who had the largest role in writing the text and who are campaigning for its approval. Shiites and Kurds had pushed the election rule change through the transitional National Assembly on Sunday, angering Sunnis and drawing criticism from U.N. and U.S. officials. At United Nations headquarters Wednesday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan praised the assembly's decision to rescind the rule change. "It is very important that the Iraqi parliament reversed itself, because that decision was patently inappropriate, and we made that clear to them," he said. At the crux of the conflict was how many "no" votes would be needed to defeat the constitution. The country's interim charter stated that the document would take effect if more than half the voters nationwide approved it, unless two-thirds of voters in three or more provinces rejected it. But lawmakers decided Sunday that for the draft to be defeated, two-thirds of registered voters — rather than two-thirds of those who cast ballots — in three provinces must vote against it. Saleh Mutlak, chairman of the National Dialogue Council and a leading Sunni member of the constitutional committee, complained that the change "gave a bad signal to the Iraqis, saying that this National Assembly is ready to forge and impose the constitution by force." Several assembly members said Sunnis had threatened to boycott the referendum unless the vote was reversed. Shiites and Kurds, though, have feared that violence in advance of the referendum could keep voters away from the polls, skewing the vote in favor of a "no" that they say would not represent the will of Iraq's majority. Saad Jawad, an assembly member affiliated with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite political party, said the reversal "makes it possible for 1,000 people to defeat the constitution against the will of 10 million." But because his party is "keen that the U.N. takes part," he said, it decided to endorse the reversal at Wednesday's sparsely attended National Assembly session. Laith Kubba, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, said the move would lend credibility to the political process, even if it meant the constitution might fail. "It's more important that it has the reputation of being transparent," he said. Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish leader, said the U.N. pressure enabled legislators to change course without appearing as though they were bowing to American or Sunni demands. "They have a good excuse — to say that the U.N. doesn't accept this and thinks it's a violation," he said. U.S., U.N. and Iraqi officials have hoped the constitution would heal the nation's political and sectarian rifts. But the skirmish over voting rules was yet another controversy that could further alienate Sunni Arabs from the political process. Their participation is seen as vital to bringing down the Sunni-led insurgency and restoring stability to the country. Annan on Wednesday acknowledged the deep rifts among Iraqis. "We had hoped that this electoral process and the transition arrangements would pull the Iraqis together," he said. "It has not worked as we had hoped, but we still urge the parties to work together, and I believe the reversal by the parliament of the decision ... would help the process." This week, the U.N. began distributing ballots, voting boxes and more than 5 million copies of the constitution around Iraq. American commanders are warning that the coming days could be even more violent than usual, especially in the capital, which averages about 28 attacks a day. "The insurgents do not want the referendum to pass, do not want the Iraqi people to adopt a new constitution," Army Maj. Gen. William G. Webster, commander of U.S.-led troops in Baghdad, said in the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone on Wednesday. "We think they will try to take advantage of this referendum by intimidating voters not to vote, through threats and actual violence." Wednesday's mosque bombing in Hillah struck a predominantly Shiite town about 60 miles south of the capital. In Najaf, a bomb killed a child and injured four people shortly after midnight. Last Thursday, Balad, another Shiite town 50 miles north of Baghdad, suffered a string of bombings that left at least 100 people dead. Webster said that U.S. commanders were particularly worried about attacks in Baghdad, which he noted was home to about a quarter of Iraq's 26 million people. "We believe that the insurgents will try to make a surge in their attacks inside Baghdad because of its value in trying to convince the people that this government cannot protect them, and also in terms of trying to make the results of the election illegitimate," he said. West of the capital, American and Iraqi forces have launched a large offensive in the Euphrates River valley, seeking to control the unruly area near the Syrian border. Sunni Arabs and others say that continuing military operations in Al Anbar province, a stronghold of insurgents in western Iraq, will hurt voter turnout in that area. Though Ramadan, which began in Iraq on Tuesday for Sunnis and Wednesday for Shiites, is a month of fasting and spiritual introspection, the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq called on followers this week to step up attacks during the period. Calling for resistance against foreign occupiers, the group urged people to make Ramadan a "month of victory for Muslims and a month of defeat for the hypocrites and polytheists." Both President Bush in Washington and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad sent Ramadan greetings to Iraqis on Wednesday before the bombing. "During Ramadan, as always, our thoughts are with the Iraqi people and our common desire for peace," Khalilzad said in a statement. "I wish the people of Iraq a peaceful, secure and prosperous Ramadan." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #5 Any Korans get defaced? |
| Posted by: borgboy 2005-10-06 15:04 |
| #4 Insh'allan, baby. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2005-10-06 08:52 |
| #3 Y'know, pretty soon these sheep Shi'a are gonna figure a couple of things out: Nothing they can do about it, everything is as God wills. |
| Posted by: Steve 2005-10-06 08:09 |
| #2 Y'know, pretty soon these |
| Posted by: .com 2005-10-06 02:58 |
| #1 "It's beginning to look a lot like Ramadan . . ." |
| Posted by: ryuge 2005-10-06 02:53 |