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The Shiites Hitting the Fan in Iraq...
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| Renegade |
First there was the destruction of the "Golden Mosque" in Samarra, one of the most significant mosques in Shia Islam:
| quote: | A group of men dressed like Iraqi police commandos set off explosives at the al Askariya "Golden Mosque" in Samarra on Wednesday morning, heavily damaging the Shiite holy site, Iraqi government officials and the U.S. military said.
Photographs from the scene showed little evidence of the golden dome that once towered above the mosque. Mounds of debris littered the area.
[...]
Foreign fighters were likely responsible, and the attack bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda in Iraq, Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said.
"They are really testing the patience of the Iraqi people," he said, calling on Muslims around the world to condemn "this act of terrorism."
Ten people -- all dressed as Iraqi police commandos -- have been arrested, al-Rubaie said. |
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/m...main/index.html
Here's the before and after:
The always benevolent Iranian president attempted to help us out by blaming the attack on someone else, naturally only to try to quell the possibility of sectarian violence you understand:
| quote: | TEHRAN, Iran -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the United States and Israel on Thursday for the destruction of a Shiite shrine's golden dome in Iraq, saying it was the work of "defeated Zionists and occupiers."
Speaking to a crowd of thousands on a tour of southwestern Iran, the president referred to the destruction of the Askariya mosque dome in Samarra on Wednesday, which the Iraqi government has blamed on insurgents.
"They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice," Ahmadinejad said, alluding to the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq.
"These passive activities are the acts of a group of defeated Zionists and occupiers who intended to hit our emotions," he said in a speech that was broadcast on state television. Addressing the United States, he added: "You have to know that such an act will not save you from the anger of Muslim nations." |
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationw...world-headlines
But despite the best efforts of our favourite Middle-Eastern dictator to direct Iraqi anger towards the west instead of towards each other, the reprisals were inevitable.
In Baghdad:
| quote: | BAGHDAD, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Iraqi police said on Thursday 47 people had been killed in the preceding 24 hours in Baghdad, since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine raised fears of sectarian civil war.
"We have found 47 bodies in different places," a police official told Reuters.
It was not clear if all of the deaths were related to Wednesday's bombing of the shrine in Samarra, which triggered revenge attacks on Arab Sunnis and their mosques.
Militiamen have been roaming tense Baghdad streets since the Samarra bombing. Police have stepped up security outside mosques.
Gunmen opened fire on a Sunni mosque in the town of Baquba north of Baghdad on Thursday, killing one person and wounding two, police said. |
In Baquba:
| quote: | | A bomb targeting an Iraqi army foot patrol killed 12 people and wounded 21 in the city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, on Thursday, an army source said. Four civilians and the colonel commanding the patrol as it walked through a busy city-centre market were among the dead. |
In Basra:
| quote: | | At least 25 people have been killed in Basra, 550 km (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said. Overnight 12 prisoners were removed from a prison in Basra and 11 killed, police and the British military said. Police said eight bodies included a Tunisian, a Saudi, a Turk, two Egyptians and three Iraqis. |
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/OLI334132.htm
Across the country in the past 48 hours:
| quote: | Gunmen have shot dead 130 people in two days of sectarian violence in Iraq after the bombing of a revered Shia shrine, prompting renewed political paralysis and warnings of civil war.
The spiraling violence threatens to derail negotiations on setting up a government of national unity, with the main Sunni political party declaring a boycott of talks with the Shia-led government over the reprisal attacks.
[...]
The surge in sectarian violence follows the bombing on Wednesday morning of a Shia shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and reprisals against Sunni mosques nationwide.
Eighty bullet-riddled corpses were brought to the Baghdad morgue between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, the deputy director of the morgue, Kais Mohammed, said. |
http://www.metimes.com/articles/nor...23-091931-7031r
| quote: | A major Sunni Arab political party suspended talks with Shiites and Kurds over a new government until the national leadership apologizes for attacks on Sunni mosques in reprisal for the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, officials said Thursday.
Representatives of major parties were to meet with President Jalal Talabani to discuss the aftermath of Wednesday's unprecedented wave of sectarian violence following the bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, whose golden dome was destroyed.
But two spokesmen for the Iraqi Accordance Front, the main Sunni Arab faction, said they would not attend and would freeze talks with Kurdish and Shiite parties pending an apology for reprisal attacks against more than 90 Sunni mosques throughout the country. |
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationw...world-headlines
So that's 130 dead and 90 mosques attacked in the past 48 hours. Could this possibly be the beginning of the civil war we've all been worried about? Even Bill O'Reilly's starting to have second thoughts about keeping troops there:
| quote: | | Bill O'Reilly suggested that the United States "hand over everything to the Iraqis as fast as humanly possible" because "[t]here are so many nuts in the country -- so many crazies -- that we can't control them." O'Reilly has previously called those advocating immediate withdrawal from Iraq "pinheads" and compared them to Hitler appeasers. |
http://mediamatters.org/items/200602220007
Anyway, I think we're up to speed now. What do we think? Imminent doom or just a minor blip on the glorious path towards freedom and democracy? |
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| Lepanto |
| Is this the begining of a civil war? In my opinion the civil war has been happening for a while now. But Ahmadinejad always makes me laugh in serious situation such as this. Maybe he should look for another careers such as stand up comedian? So, the term "animals" can't be applied to people who would do something like this? |
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| Moral Hazard |
| I say let 'em fight! This is a very very old rivalry that will only end with the erradication or subjecation of one sect at the hands of the other. Sometimes war is the only way to solve a dispute. |
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| George Smiley |
I'm intrigued...
Radical Muslims around the world protest and riot cos of some cartoon, yet one of the holiest shrines in Islam is destroyed (by radical Muslims) and the Sunnis around the world don't batter an eyelid?!?!
:conf: |
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| shaolin_Z |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
I'm intrigued...
Radical Muslims around the world protest and riot cos of some cartoon, yet one of the holiest shrines in Islam is destroyed (by radical Muslims) and the Sunnis around the world don't batter an eyelid?!?!
:conf: |
Probably because they don't believe they (extremist) were the sole perpetrators, and in most probability, not the orchestrators (from their perspective). |
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| Marc Summers |
I knew that there was going to be a civil war in Iraq (if you remember my topic about it, which I can't find, if you can, I will love you forever :) It was about the iraqi's not accepting westernization. I tried to search, but it never works for me.) But I NEVER expected such actions between two sects of the SAME religion.
I honestly fear for the iraqi's if a civil war breaks out. I hope everything turns out OK :( |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
I'm intrigued...
Radical Muslims around the world protest and riot cos of some cartoon, yet one of the holiest shrines in Islam is destroyed (by radical Muslims) and the Sunnis around the world don't batter an eyelid?!?!
:conf: |
Don't forget they contain the remains of Ali al-Hadi and his son Hassan al-Askari who were both direct descendants of Muhammad-bomb.
And this development was completely unexpected and unanticipated. I'm shocked. |
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| Marc Summers |
Such a beautiful building... :whip:
It's a shame to ruin something like that. |
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| Shamen DJ's |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
I say let 'em fight! This is a very very old rivalry that will only end with the erradication or subjecation of one sect at the hands of the other. Sometimes war is the only way to solve a dispute. |
I agree. I'm glad Canada is involved strictly in improving the situation in Afghanistan which is a worthy cause.
As for Iraq, was Bush really so stupid to not know what would happen.
As bad as Saddam was, he was the only thing preventing civil war, by suppressing any religious fanatics that competed with his regime. What will probably end up being a civil war could have prevented by starving the Saddam Hussein regime so that all Iraqis & even his own military become united against him. The U.N was right, and we should have listened them instead of insulting the rest of the world.
George Bush now has way too much blood on his hands to be "pimping Jesus".
If a full all out civil war develops in Iraq, we should support our troops by bringing them home, and treating them far better than the troops that returned from Vietnam. Their lives are more important than trying to prove the same point we were trying to prove in the never ending Vietnam.
As for our military, how can the U.S. expect to continue to have the best volunteer army in the world, when our draft dodging president disrespects them by sending them on a bunch of lies, to hell on earth in a war that was planned more by political suck ups than by military experts, making them pay for their own body armour, and refusing them psychological care when they come home. |
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| Shamen DJ's |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
I'm intrigued...
Radical Muslims around the world protest and riot cos of some cartoon, yet one of the holiest shrines in Islam is destroyed (by radical Muslims) and the Sunnis around the world don't batter an eyelid?!?!
:conf: |
Good point. I would hope the rest of the muslim world is repulsed by this violence. |
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| Shamen DJ's |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
I'm intrigued...
Radical Muslims around the world protest and riot cos of some cartoon, yet one of the holiest shrines in Islam is destroyed (by radical Muslims) and the Sunnis around the world don't batter an eyelid?!?!
:conf: |
I would hope that the rest of the Muslim world begins to turn on those who pervert their faith into a form of violence, death, & destruction. |
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| Shamen DJ's |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lepanto
Is this the begining of a civil war? In my opinion the civil war has been happening for a while now. But Ahmadinejad always makes me laugh in serious situation such as this. Maybe he should look for another careers such as stand up comedian? So, the term "animals" can't be applied to people who would do something like this? |
Ahmidinejad is an idiot. If he really cares about the Palestinians like he says he does, then he should give them foreign aid for things such as infrastructure development, instead of just jihad. It seems that the Palestinians are addicted to U.S. & Isreali foreign aid because other Arab countries only use the Palestinian - Isreali conflict to promote hatred against Western Countries, and then neglect the Palestinians themselves. |
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