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Lion of Babylon -> RE: inside news from iraqi ministries (10/27/2007 9:12:57 AM)
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100%. Here is a case in point. LOB
BAGHDAD - A Sunni schoolteacher was hijacked as he drove to visit his sister in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad on Thursday. His body was found an hour later with three gunshots to his eyes. Iraqi police blamed Shiite gang members for the killing — a grim reminder that sectarian hatreds and crimes persist regardless of declining violence in the capital. Ahmed al-Janabi, a 45-year-old father of three, was stopped at a southwest Baghdad intersection by gunmen in two cars. They drove him away in his own car after inspecting his national ID and food ration card. His name doomed him: the al-Janabi tribe is mainly Sunni. Police found his body in the car in a nearby neighborhood, with the gunshot wounds to his eyes, according to an officer at the hospital where police delivered the body.
The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared becoming a target himself, said the attackers were Shiite militia members. Al-Janabi's sister was married to a Shiite man, police said. Northeast of the capital, women in black and other relatives gathered at another morgue to claim the bodies of eight men found dumped in the city of Baqouba. Two were Shiite brothers who had been abducted at a fake checkpoint near the city two days ago, police said. Such sectarian killings usually blamed on so-called death squads run by Shiite militias have been a daily occurrence in Iraq since a February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine north of Baghdad sparked a wave of retaliatory violence. The shrine attack was believed to have been the work of al-Qaida in Iraq — Sunni extremists.
The number of sectarian killings has fallen dramatically since a joint U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown began in Baghdad in February. Killings declined further beginning in August, when radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army militia fighters to cease attacks for up to six months. At least 284 bullet-riddled bodies bearing the hallmarks of attacks by sectarian death squads have been found nationwide this month — 135 in Baghdad. That compared with 507 bodies found last month and a peak this year of 1,079 in January — 944 of those in Baghdad. So far in October, Iraqis have been killed in war-related violence at an average of 30 a day. That's less than the nearly 34 a day in September, and far less than nearly 64 in August.
The AP tally is compiled from hospital, police and military officials, as well as accounts from reporters and photographers. Insurgent deaths are not included. Other counts differ and some have given higher civilian death tolls. Al-Janabi's death, itself unremarkable in the litany of violence that faces Iraqis on a daily basis, was the latest example of continuing attacks by Shiite militiamen the U.S. military claims are being armed and funded by Iran in defiance of al-Sadr's call. The teacher's death also reinforced the dangers of crossing the increasingly stark sectarian boundaries in the capital.
Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fought U.S. troops for much of 2004 across central and southern Iraq. After a cease-fire, al-Sadr joined the political process and his loyalists now have 30 of parliament's 275 seats. But his control over the Mahdi Army appears to have frayed. "Despite the improving security situation, there are still some militia groups that are trying to ignite sectarian strife and maintain the killing and the counter-killing between Shiite and Sunnis," said Salim Abdullah, a spokesman for the main Sunni political bloc, the Iraq Accordance Front. On Wednesday, al-Sadr again appealed to his followers to uphold the cease-fire and threatened to expel those who don't, according to a statement issued by his office in response to questions from supporters about whether the order to stand down still applied.
U.S. forces also appear to have escalated their campaign against what the military calls rogue militiamen, and clashes between Shiite groups are on the rise in parts of the mainly Shiite south. "Enemy parties are spreading this news (that the cease-fire ended) to tarnish the image of this heroic ideological army that has shown loyalty to its leadership by implementing the freeze," al-Sadr said in the statement, emphasizing that some did observe the cease-fire. "So, we appeal to everyone to obey the order in every respect or risk being expelled from this ... army in which there is no place for renegades."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq;_ylt...hys1FGB.lX6GMA
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