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Iraq edges closer to open civil warfare
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-15 06:59
Iraqi authorities discovered at least 87 corpses 錕斤拷 men
shot to death execution-style 錕斤拷 as Iraq edged closer to open civil warfare.
Twenty-nine of the bodies, dressed only in underwear, were dug out of a single
grave Tuesday in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.
The bloodshed appeared to be retaliation for a bomb and
mortar attack in the Sadr City slum that killed at least 58 people and wounded
more than 200 two days earlier.
![An Iraqi woman walks past the bodies of Iraqis killed during sectarian violence, at a hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 14, 2006. [AP]](xin_000303150709575136813.jpg)
An Iraqi woman
walks past the bodies of Iraqis killed during sectarian violence, at a
hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, March 14, 2006.
[AP] |
Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, meanwhile, told The Associated Press
security officials had foiled a plot that would have put hundreds of al-Qaida
men at critical guard posts around Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home
to the U.S. and other foreign embassies, as well as the Iraqi government.
A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were
recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several
ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, said the
official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the
information.
Police began unearthing bodies early Monday, although the discoveries were
not immediately reported. The gruesome finds continued throughout the day
Tuesday, police said, marking the second wave of sectarian retribution killings
since bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine last month.
In the mayhem after the golden dome atop the Askariya shrine in Samarra was
destroyed on Feb. 22, more than 500 people have been killed, many of them Sunni
Muslims and their clerics. Dozens of mosques were damaged or destroyed.
Underlining the unease in the capital, Interior Ministry officials announced
another driving ban, from 8 p.m. Wednesday to 4 p.m. Thursday to protect against
car and suicide bombs while the Iraqi parliament meets for the first session
since the Dec. 15 election.
After the driving ban was announced, the Cabinet said Thursday would be a
holiday in the capital, presumably because residents would not be able to get to
work. Restrictions on movement also had been put in place on the two weekends
after the Samarra bombing in an attempt to quell the violence.
The most gruesome find Tuesday 錕斤拷 the 29 bodies dressed
only in underwear 錕斤拷 was made after police, acting on a tip, discovered an
18-by-24-foot grave in an empty field in Kamaliyah, a mostly Shiite east Baghdad
suburb, Interior Ministry official Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said. He
estimated the victims were killed about three days ago 錕斤拷 before the Sadr City
attack Sunday evening.
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